Knowing all you know today about this case who do you think really killed JonBenet?

[LinasK]

Well, I think it's entirely possible the parents never put anyone to bed, get ready for bed perhaps, but not tucked kissed and lights out sorta thing. I doubt JR ever read anyone a bed time story and well Patsy sure was lazy... About almost everything.

The parents went to bed. The kids had a late night snack, when Burke headed downstairs to snoop at those presents. Maybe he originally didn't want her down there with him, and she followed anyway, little siblings tend to do that.

Maybe she threatened to tell about the snooping? He hits her with the flashlight. She falls down and is unresponsive. Her bladder empties. He thinks she's playing around so he pokes her hard with the track or whatever. She doesn't move. Hmmm he's curious wants to take the sexual abuse to another level and takes off her clothes and starts poking around and violates her with the paintbrush. There is bleeding. He's afraid someone will see it so he cleans her up. He gets to thinking that he's gonna be in huge trouble when she wakes up and tells. Panic sets in. Gets his pocket knife and rope. He tries to strangle her with the rope, he's not strong enough, he uses the handle for leverage.

He goes upstairs and sits in the hallway, getting up the courage to tell his mom that jonbenet is missing, not in her room. He points Patsy in the direction of the basement saying he heard a noise.

Patsy finds Jonbenet, Sends Burke to his room, writes the note, redressed her, covered her. Wakes John ...yelling, lots of it. Then Patsy called 911...Burke comes downstairs & says, "what did you find?"





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Except if Burke's the one to wipe her down, how does that explain the fibers from John's shirt in her panties???

 

[txsvicki]

And the blood stain on the panties did not have a similar corresponding stain on the body next to the panties. So, she must have had panties on and bled then removed and wipi g done with panties then put back in place. I'm really wondering if jonbenet was weari ng the panties and barbie gown that night or if they may have been from an i njury 3 days before along with the white blanket. Can coroners tell if the blood was a few days old?

 

[Intriguing]

The fibres from John's shirt inside her panties could theoretically have been introduced during a final preparation of the body that he was in charge of. I find it interesting than when he was questioned about this he was immediate and adament that there couldn't be any because in his mind he hadn't been inside the panties. I reckon there are certain points where the Ramseys tell the exact truth during their interviews, specifically when they answer quickly, and their truth sounds suspicious because they were both ignorant of certain aspects of Burke's activities that night.

The flashlight is the fascinating element which has been given the most thorough treatment and wipe down and placed in the kitchen. It's curious that many commentators criticise the police for contaminating the crime scene yet for all the hustle and bustle, that torch remained clean as a whistle.

 

[Linda7NJ]

Thank you for posting your theory, but naturally I have questions -

In amongst all of this, is JBR alive or deceased?

If she is deceased, why the garrote? How would this protect Burke?

If she is not deceased, why the garrote? How would this protect Burke?

If they wanted to protect Burke, why not remove JBR, put her outside, wait for hypothermia to finish the job? This way they need not call 911 at all, until the following morning...and no garrote would be needed?

Why leave her in the basement where Burke played, if they wanted to cover for him?

Where does the large underwear come in to play, what "protect Burke" reasoning is behind that?

Why deny JBR ate pineapple? How does this protect Burke?

It boils down to this - it is completely contrary behaviour to murder one child, to protect another, who at that stage was merely injured and possibly saveable.

If it was to save their reputation, a living JBR is much much easier to explain than a dead one. All medical records of the living are confidential. JBR could be booked into hospital, be treated and released, with no one PUBLICLY any wiser.

The charges against Burke would be bargained down by a fancy lawyer to a few weeks in a psych institution (also confidential).

A living JBR = no repercussions on reputation, an unfortunate accident, a couple of hospital stays, case closed.

A deceased JBR = full scale police investigation, media attention, forensics, explanations, questioning etc etc.

:moo:

Burke had finished her off.

I'm not married to this theory, I can create a decent senario for each Ramsey, alone and in pairs, threesome etc...





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[midwest mama]

Except if Burke's the one to wipe her down, how does that explain the fibers from John's shirt in her panties???

If JR put his shirt down the laundry chute, Burke could have found it in the basement laundry area and grabbed it to wipe down JB, thinking because it was dark it would also help mask the blood. That shirt fabric would have appeared absorbent also. :moo:

 

[midwest mama]

And the blood stain on the panties did not have a similar corresponding stain on the body next to the panties. So, she must have had panties on and bled then removed and wipi g done with panties then put back in place. I'm really wondering if jonbenet was weari ng the panties and barbie gown that night or if they may have been from an i njury 3 days before along with the white blanket. Can coroners tell if the blood was a few days old?

The blood stain in the size 12's could have been due to fluid releasing out of the vagina after the fact, after JB was cleaned up.

All info about what JB was wearing when she was put to bed was strictly from the statements of the parents. Of course they could have lied (cough, cough) about that, and actually dressed her in the pink nightgown, if JB was awake enough to whine about wanting to wear that to bed. A tired kid, a tired mom OR dad, and she would have been wearing the nightgown, IMO.

JB could have been without undies or with undies worn to the Whites, for that matter when she went to bed. If JB awakened on her own to use the toilet being either wet or dry, and had on undies that she wanted to change out of for one reason or another (kids don't need more than a tinge of urine in the undie sometimes before they want to change them out), she might have put on the size 12's herself, being sleepy and not able to find any other size 6's she liked. Patsy said there were fresh size 12's in her drawer. Size 6's found were all stained, and a little girl might prefer fresh size 12's to stained size 6's.

Add Burke to the scenario at this time - you pick the reason - and you have two sibs, one dressed in a pink nightgown wearing size 12 bloomies, headed downstairs for a snack and on a mission to find gifts that JB thought Santa said he would bring on a special visit after Christmas, and Burke hoping he'd find "the expensive ones" he didn't get for Christmas, but might get for his birthday. :moo:

 

[txsvicki]

The blood stain in the panty could also indicate that one person did the whole thing: bash, jab, and strangulation . Then the stager/s found the body and did a visual inspection finding the injury with the resulting wipe down and staging.

 

[txsvicki]

Could a kid concoct a kidnap plan and the parents continued it? There does seem to be staging from the bedroom down to the basement window. The scenario created of jonbenet being taken from bed with the blanket getting garland in her hair along the path. The flashlight left in kitchen (murder weapon) and finally the suitcase under the window. Some of the kidnap elements seem childish and some more advanced.

 

[SapphireSteel]

JBR dead by the time Patsy finds her.
Burke made the garotte with his penknife, the paintbrush he'd just abused JBR with and cord.
Why not remove JBR? Patsy was so horrified she couldn't move or touch JBR and John wouldn't have wanted too much more contact either. possibly they didn't discover the body until very late - perhaps three or four in the morning.
Left her in the basement because not enough time to move her and they had the sense to not touch her any further. The way John peculiarly ascended the stairs with her body held out from his, as Arndt describes, might have been an attempt to keep his fingerprints away from the previously wiped down corpse.
Large underwear - Burke performed some rudimentary clean-up, including redressing her with underwear he'd found in one of the presents he'd opened.
Pineapple - neither parent knew Burke had fed her pineapple. This happened when the kids snuck downstairs after lights out and before they went down to the basement.

I just cannot see Jonbenet willingly followed her brother into a manky dark hole for more abuse. As a former victim of sibling abuse myself, I am of the opinion wild horses could not have dragged her in there with him.

The old vaginal trauma tells me that the abuse had been painful. The moment her brother first hurt her, she lost all trust in him and she would not go voluntarily with him, ever again...all my opinion only of course.

By all accounts they had plenty of time and nice warm beds to fool around in, why go down to a cold dark basement, presents or no presents? They had already had their fill that day, and were expecting more from family and friends the next. They had been dragged around town half the day and up late. I believe they would have conked out...they were kids! I have no doubt Christmas was a big, big deal in that house.

It was a fact that everyone was tired, so what caused PR or JR to discover their kids were missing at that ungodly hour in the first place? Did one of them regularly prowl the house checking on their kids in the early hours of the morning? If one of them did, perhaps that's when Jonbenet suffered her earlier abuse...which also tends to also argue against Burke's motives and involvement?

:dunno:

All this is my opinion only of course.

 

[Kimster]

Knock off the bickering in here. Discuss the case and not each other.

 

[DeeDee249]

Thank you for posting your theory, but naturally I have questions -

In amongst all of this, is JBR alive or deceased?

If she is deceased, why the garrote? How would this protect Burke?

If she is not deceased, why the garrote? How would this protect Burke?

If they wanted to protect Burke, why not remove JBR, put her outside, wait for hypothermia to finish the job? This way they need not call 911 at all, until the following morning...and no garrote would be needed?

Why leave her in the basement where Burke played, if they wanted to cover for him?

Where does the large underwear come in to play, what "protect Burke" reasoning is behind that?

Why deny JBR ate pineapple? How does this protect Burke?

It boils down to this - it is completely contrary behaviour to murder one child, to protect another, who at that stage was merely injured and possibly saveable.

If it was to save their reputation, a living JBR is much much easier to explain than a dead one. All medical records of the living are confidential. JBR could be booked into hospital, be treated and released, with no one PUBLICLY any wiser.

The charges against Burke would be bargained down by a fancy lawyer to a few weeks in a psych institution (also confidential).

A living JBR = no repercussions on reputation, an unfortunate accident, a couple of hospital stays, case closed.

A deceased JBR = full scale police investigation, media attention, forensics, explanations, questioning etc etc.

:moo:

I can try to answer some of them.

She is alive BOTH when she is strangled and when she is bashed. The petechiae occur only while alive. The petechiae in her eyelids is a standard finding in strangulation deaths. Because of the urine stains on the front of her clothing, as well as the bruise on the back of her right shoulder, as well as there being green paint flakes on her chin that match those found on the basement carpet near the paint tote, I see the cord being knotted at the back of her neck while she lay on her stomach on the carpet near the paint tote in the basement. The urine release there tells me she she died right there. The head bash may have happened elsewhere, as did the sexual assault.

Many have tried to understand why the garrote was needed at all. We will never know. If it was a sex game, and she screamed and was bashed during it, that does explain both. Otherwise it had to be staging. Remember that the head bash left no VISIBLE signs- no bleeding, no scalp gash, no facial swelling. In fact, those present at the autopsy (including the coroner) were allegedly shocked when the coroner pulled back her scalp and saw the hole and large crack in her skull. So they had a comatose/dying child with NO indication of how she got that way.
Say what you will about the parents- I simply cannot see them putting their daughter outside for ANY reason. As far as letting the cold "finish her off"- I cannot see them leaving her to freeze outside. I can't see them planning to dump her out side for ANY reason, whether they planned to get her later or not. That is why the way she WAS found has "parental involvement" all over it. An intruder would have left her in plain sight, a shocking "gift" to JR under the Christmas tree or something equally as repulsive. Thanks to Arndt, she ended up there anyway. As far as calling 911, they DID wait till the next morning.

If her underwear became too bloodied, it would have needed replacing. The FACT that the coroner found that her thighs and pubic area had been wiped indicate this may have happened. They were trying to HIDE the sexual assault and previous abuse- an intruder would not have bothered to wipe her- the blood only adding to the thrill. Nor would they have needed to change her panties or known where the size 12s were.

BR didn't play in the wineceller, and JR said the little wood latch at the top of the door (that prevented the first cop on the scene from opening the door, thereby compromising the crime scene forever) was put there to keep the kids out. That was not a room for play- filthy mold on the floor, and only paint cans and window screens, etc. The train room was where he played.
I feel they intended to hide her in there until police left and then they'd figure out what to do. When it became obvious that police were NOT going to just leave them alone in the house, JR had to "find her". They made sure they got BR out of the house in case someone else did first. They always planned to remove BR from the house that day. This way, he couldn't be observed, questioned, or present when JB was found.

The "large" panties don't protect anyone. That wasn't their necessity. They were needed to replace panties she already had on- nothing more. They were worn UNDER her longjohns, and were never worn while she was alive and like the skull fracture, the size of the panties were only discovered when she was undressed on the autopsy table. The parents never imagined they would become an issue or noted as unusual because under her longjohns, they WEREN'T unusual. So the SIZE of them had nothing to do with protecting BR per se, but to have her found without panties might signal a sexual assault.

Denying the pineapple was important because they had already told LE that JB was asleep when she got home, they carried her to bed, and they never saw her awake or alive again. Admitting she ate the pineapple means admitting they lied about her being awake. Simple as that. By the way, it was BR himself who told LE his sister was AWAKE and walked into the house that night.
Like the too-big panties, the parents NEVER thought pineapple would be found in her digestive tract. So when it was, they HAD to deny it, and they also tried to deny even owning the bowl, spoon, an box of tissues near it! It also follows that they could not even say that BR MIGHT have had pineapple with his sister unbeknownst to them. THEN- police would definitely want to talk to BR more extensively. And suspicious would be raised about what ELSE he and his sister had done that night. It also brings it all too close to the time of death. If he was awake eating pineapple with her at that time of night, the intruder would be walking around with him awake and about himself.

JB was never salvageable. By EVERY forensic specialist's account, including the coroner, she'd have died of that alone. She would have instantly collapsed unconscious, probably having seizures (mucus and vomit on the cheek, evidence of tan mucus in the nose) and maybe comatose, certainly in shock. Shock lowers the body temp and suppresses breathing- she may have appeared dead to them. So to them it was a fatal event that needed covering up, regardless of which R was responsible.

You cannot seriously think that NO tests would have been done on her if brought to a hospital? A simple X-ray would have shown the skull fracture. This was a catastrophic injury. She'd have been in a COMA in the hospital, and her death from that bash was INEVITABLE. She would NOT have been "treated and released". Having been examined, the parents would have been arrested as soon as the bruise on the labia was seen, and then they WOULD have done a pelvic exam with speculum and seen the eroded hymen and blood and internal bruises. She would not have survived. And in EVERY State, ALL dead children are autopsied.
Bottom line- there was never going to be a LIVE JB. She was going to die. That night. Whether they took her to a hospital or not.

Apparently medical records of the deceased are confidential too, even if they are needed to solve the murder, IF you know the right people or have enough money.
By the way, NO medical records are confidential if a warrant is issued for them. This happens all the time in REAL DA offices.

There would be no charges against BR anyway, no need for a plea bargain. I am even thinking that psychological help would not be court ordered if it in any way might have implicated him in the crime.

 

[otg]

I can try to answer some of them.
(snipped -- Read it yourself.)

:goodpost:
Bravo, DD. Excellent.
​

.

 

[dodie20]

I can try to answer some of them.

She is alive BOTH when she is strangled and when she is bashed. The petechiae occur only while alive. The petechiae in her eyelids is a standard finding in strangulation deaths. Because of the urine stains on the front of her clothing, as well as the bruise on the back of her right shoulder, as well as there being green paint flakes on her chin that match those found on the basement carpet near the paint tote, I see the cord being knotted at the back of her neck while she lay on her stomach on the carpet near the paint tote in the basement. The urine release there tells me she she died right there. The head bash may have happened elsewhere, as did the sexual assault.

Many have tried to understand why the garrote was needed at all. We will never know. If it was a sex game, and she screamed and was bashed during it, that does explain both. Otherwise it had to be staging. Remember that the head bash left no VISIBLE signs- no bleeding, no scalp gash, no facial swelling. In fact, those present at the autopsy (including the coroner) were allegedly shocked when the coroner pulled back her scalp and saw the hole and large crack in her skull. So they had a comatose/dying child with NO indication of how she got that way.
Say what you will about the parents- I simply cannot see them putting their daughter outside for ANY reason. As far as letting the cold "finish her off"- I cannot see them leaving her to freeze outside. I can't see them planning to dump her out side for ANY reason, whether they planned to get her later or not. That is why the way she WAS found has "parental involvement" all over it. An intruder would have left her in plain sight, a shocking "gift" to JR under the Christmas tree or something equally as repulsive. Thanks to Arndt, she ended up there anyway. As far as calling 911, they DID wait till the next morning.

If her underwear became too bloodied, it would have needed replacing. The FACT that the coroner found that her thighs and pubic area had been wiped indicate this may have happened. They were trying to HIDE the sexual assault and previous abuse- an intruder would not have bothered to wipe her- the blood only adding to the thrill. Nor would they have needed to change her panties or known where the size 12s were.

BR didn't play in the wineceller, and JR said the little wood latch at the top of the door (that prevented the first cop on the scene from opening the door, thereby compromising the crime scene forever) was put there to keep the kids out. That was not a room for play- filthy mold on the floor, and only paint cans and window screens, etc. The train room was where he played.
I feel they intended to hide her in there until police left and then they'd figure out what to do. When it became obvious that police were NOT going to just leave them alone in the house, JR had to "find her". They made sure they got BR out of the house in case someone else did first. They always planned to remove BR from the house that day. This way, he couldn't be observed, questioned, or present when JB was found.

The "large" panties don't protect anyone. That wasn't their necessity. They were needed to replace panties she already had on- nothing more. They were worn UNDER her longjohns, and were never worn while she was alive and like the skull fracture, the size of the panties were only discovered when she was undressed on the autopsy table. The parents never imagined they would become an issue or noted as unusual because under her longjohns, they WEREN'T unusual. So the SIZE of them had nothing to do with protecting BR per se, but to have her found without panties might signal a sexual assault.

Denying the pineapple was important because they had already told LE that JB was asleep when she got home, they carried her to bed, and they never saw her awake or alive again. Admitting she ate the pineapple means admitting they lied about her being awake. Simple as that. By the way, it was BR himself who told LE his sister was AWAKE and walked into the house that night.
Like the too-big panties, the parents NEVER thought pineapple would be found in her digestive tract. So when it was, they HAD to deny it, and they also tried to deny even owning the bowl, spoon, an box of tissues near it! It also follows that they could not even say that BR MIGHT have had pineapple with his sister unbeknownst to them. THEN- police would definitely want to talk to BR more extensively. And suspicious would be raised about what ELSE he and his sister had done that night. It also brings it all too close to the time of death. If he was awake eating pineapple with her at that time of night, the intruder would be walking around with him awake and about himself.

JB was never salvageable. By EVERY forensic specialist's account, including the coroner, she'd have died of that alone. She would have instantly collapsed unconscious, probably having seizures (mucus and vomit on the cheek, evidence of tan mucus in the nose) and maybe comatose, certainly in shock. Shock lowers the body temp and suppresses breathing- she may have appeared dead to them. So to them it was a fatal event that needed covering up, regardless of which R was responsible.

You cannot seriously think that NO tests would have been done on her if brought to a hospital? A simple X-ray would have shown the skull fracture. This was a catastrophic injury. She'd have been in a COMA in the hospital, and her death from that bash was INEVITABLE. She would NOT have been "treated and released". Having been examined, the parents would have been arrested as soon as the bruise on the labia was seen, and then they WOULD have done a pelvic exam with speculum and seen the eroded hymen and blood and internal bruises. She would not have survived. And in EVERY State, ALL dead children are autopsied.
Bottom line- there was never going to be a LIVE JB. She was going to die. That night. Whether they took her to a hospital or not.

Apparently medical records of the deceased are confidential too, even if they are needed to solve the murder, IF you know the right people or have enough money.
By the way, NO medical records are confidential if a warrant is issued for them. This happens all the time in REAL DA offices.

There would be no charges against BR anyway, no need for a plea bargain. I am even thinking that psychological help would not be court ordered if it in any way might have implicated him in the crime.

I was wondering something about the head bash. Would whoever hit her, have heard the skull crack?

 

[midwest mama]

:goodpost:
Bravo, DD. Excellent.
​

.

Ditto, DD -- :yourock:

 

[SapphireSteel]

I can try to answer some of them.

She is alive BOTH when she is strangled and when she is bashed. The petechiae occur only while alive. The petechiae in her eyelids is a standard finding in strangulation deaths. Because of the urine stains on the front of her clothing, as well as the bruise on the back of her right shoulder, as well as there being green paint flakes on her chin that match those found on the basement carpet near the paint tote, I see the cord being knotted at the back of her neck while she lay on her stomach on the carpet near the paint tote in the basement. The urine release there tells me she she died right there. The head bash may have happened elsewhere, as did the sexual assault.

Many have tried to understand why the garrote was needed at all. We will never know. If it was a sex game, and she screamed and was bashed during it, that does explain both. Otherwise it had to be staging. Remember that the head bash left no VISIBLE signs- no bleeding, no scalp gash, no facial swelling. In fact, those present at the autopsy (including the coroner) were allegedly shocked when the coroner pulled back her scalp and saw the hole and large crack in her skull. So they had a comatose/dying child with NO indication of how she got that way.
Say what you will about the parents- I simply cannot see them putting their daughter outside for ANY reason. As far as letting the cold "finish her off"- I cannot see them leaving her to freeze outside. I can't see them planning to dump her out side for ANY reason, whether they planned to get her later or not. That is why the way she WAS found has "parental involvement" all over it. An intruder would have left her in plain sight, a shocking "gift" to JR under the Christmas tree or something equally as repulsive. Thanks to Arndt, she ended up there anyway. As far as calling 911, they DID wait till the next morning.

If her underwear became too bloodied, it would have needed replacing. The FACT that the coroner found that her thighs and pubic area had been wiped indicate this may have happened. They were trying to HIDE the sexual assault and previous abuse- an intruder would not have bothered to wipe her- the blood only adding to the thrill. Nor would they have needed to change her panties or known where the size 12s were.

BR didn't play in the wineceller, and JR said the little wood latch at the top of the door (that prevented the first cop on the scene from opening the door, thereby compromising the crime scene forever) was put there to keep the kids out. That was not a room for play- filthy mold on the floor, and only paint cans and window screens, etc. The train room was where he played.
I feel they intended to hide her in there until police left and then they'd figure out what to do. When it became obvious that police were NOT going to just leave them alone in the house, JR had to "find her". They made sure they got BR out of the house in case someone else did first. They always planned to remove BR from the house that day. This way, he couldn't be observed, questioned, or present when JB was found.

The "large" panties don't protect anyone. That wasn't their necessity. They were needed to replace panties she already had on- nothing more. They were worn UNDER her longjohns, and were never worn while she was alive and like the skull fracture, the size of the panties were only discovered when she was undressed on the autopsy table. The parents never imagined they would become an issue or noted as unusual because under her longjohns, they WEREN'T unusual. So the SIZE of them had nothing to do with protecting BR per se, but to have her found without panties might signal a sexual assault.

Denying the pineapple was important because they had already told LE that JB was asleep when she got home, they carried her to bed, and they never saw her awake or alive again. Admitting she ate the pineapple means admitting they lied about her being awake. Simple as that. By the way, it was BR himself who told LE his sister was AWAKE and walked into the house that night.
Like the too-big panties, the parents NEVER thought pineapple would be found in her digestive tract. So when it was, they HAD to deny it, and they also tried to deny even owning the bowl, spoon, an box of tissues near it! It also follows that they could not even say that BR MIGHT have had pineapple with his sister unbeknownst to them. THEN- police would definitely want to talk to BR more extensively. And suspicious would be raised about what ELSE he and his sister had done that night. It also brings it all too close to the time of death. If he was awake eating pineapple with her at that time of night, the intruder would be walking around with him awake and about himself.

JB was never salvageable. By EVERY forensic specialist's account, including the coroner, she'd have died of that alone. She would have instantly collapsed unconscious, probably having seizures (mucus and vomit on the cheek, evidence of tan mucus in the nose) and maybe comatose, certainly in shock. Shock lowers the body temp and suppresses breathing- she may have appeared dead to them. So to them it was a fatal event that needed covering up, regardless of which R was responsible.

You cannot seriously think that NO tests would have been done on her if brought to a hospital? A simple X-ray would have shown the skull fracture. This was a catastrophic injury. She'd have been in a COMA in the hospital, and her death from that bash was INEVITABLE. She would NOT have been "treated and released". Having been examined, the parents would have been arrested as soon as the bruise on the labia was seen, and then they WOULD have done a pelvic exam with speculum and seen the eroded hymen and blood and internal bruises. She would not have survived. And in EVERY State, ALL dead children are autopsied.
Bottom line- there was never going to be a LIVE JB. She was going to die. That night. Whether they took her to a hospital or not.

Apparently medical records of the deceased are confidential too, even if they are needed to solve the murder, IF you know the right people or have enough money.
By the way, NO medical records are confidential if a warrant is issued for them. This happens all the time in REAL DA offices.

There would be no charges against BR anyway, no need for a plea bargain. I am even thinking that psychological help would not be court ordered if it in any way might have implicated him in the crime.

I was so enjoying reading your response until I hit that little bit of snark.

 

[DeeDee249]

I was so enjoying reading your response until I hit that little bit of snark.

Sorry- I wasn't aware that I was being snarky (though I know I can be). I hope I did answer some of your questions anyway. Hey, sometimes a bit of snarkiness makes it less somber here. The highlighted sentence is not sarcastic in my mind. I just can't imagine any scenario where she is brought alive to a hospital with THAT head crack and survives to go home, no questions asked. When kids are brought in to the emergency room, in MY experience, they explore EVERY possibility, even when the cause is known (like a fall from playground equipment). They never take the parents' word for what happened (although the parallel universe of Boulder may have been an exception) and they always run tests. In this case, she'd have been unconscious, possibly comatose. There is no way they would have not discovered that head bash, and the blood and bruising in and on the vagina.
That wasn't being snarky- just realistic. Sorry if you took it that way.

 

[DeeDee249]

I was wondering something about the head bash. Would whoever hit her, have heard the skull crack?

It depends. If you try to imagine a moment like that- the incredible adrenaline rush and manic stress of the moment. While the bash WOULD have made a noise, the person hitting her may or may not have heard it.

 

[txsvicki]

I think it was very loud and they all heard it. Maybe even jonbenet becore going unconscious. I broke the smaller bone in my ankle and heard it loudly break while falling.

I'm going by kolar's theory of it happening in the kitchen since there was only time to eat a small piece of pineapple and burke says he could hear kitchen noise upstsirs.

 

[midwest mama]

I have arrived at this basic opinion of who really killed JB:

- Burke initiated when he and JB got caught up in their "game".
- Patsy and John got involved during the time delay between the head bash and the final strangulation - both of them involved in a cover-up of Burke's actions.
- John tightened the ligature causing the death by strangulation
- John developed the basic concept of the ransom note, probably collaborated with Patsy in it's content, and Patsy did the writing.

Here is a picture that helps me to understand the JR/PR dynamic. If a picture "says a thousand words", this one tells me that Patsy would have adored a man to hell and back who was pretty darn confident that he had exactly what he expected and deserved in a wife:


:moo: All the above, MY OPINION ONLY! :moo:

 

[Bonnette]

If a picture "says a thousand words", this one tells me that Patsy would have adored a man to hell and back who was pretty darn confident that he had exactly what he expected and deserved in a wife:

Yes, with the proviso that Patsy was all about appearances - and she was a rather stereotypical southern belle, modeled on a romantic ideal. I think John was a cold, remote fish and that part of what drove Patsy's role in the relationship was desperate loneliness and longing for genuine rapport. I've never seen a photo of the two that doesn't accord with your observation about John in the relationship - complacent, even bored. My sense is that Patsy strove to put a gloss on the disappointments in her life, and in her marriage conjured a Great Romance that wasn't really there. MOO!

We all have our theories about what happened, of course, and who knows what John did or did not do that night. But one of the many things that struck me in Kolar's book was John's response to JBR's death, contrasted with how he reacted to his first daughter's demise. He was inconsolable when the latter was killed in an accident, weeping copiously and depressed for a long while afterward. JBR's death? He appeared to be a complete cipher, remote and detached, making plans to leave the scene, calling lawyers, etc. Clearly, something was different in his perception of - and approach to - these two deaths.