Poll: If an R confessed, would you accept it?

[joeskidbeck]

For this intruder to have been in the Ramsey home for hours and not to have left any evidence behind (other than the dna supposedly left on the longjohns), he would have had to have lots of practice. To me, this rules out Amy's rapist as he got caught by the only other person in the home. The R home had three other people and not one of them heard anything???

 

[BBB167893]

Maybe not, but there is proof of criminally placed DNA. Enough proof to run in the news, generate exhoneration letters, etc., etc. Lets face it nobody's blowing the RDI horn anymore.

Fortunately, HOTYH, YOU are not tasked with telling ME how things are either!

Proof simply means having sufficient evidence to produce a belief.

I'll hold you to that!

• Blood was produced during a known criminal sexual assault on JBR.
• Mixed with that blood was DNA from an unknown male.
• Longjohns were replaced following the assault.
• DNA from the same male is found in two places on these longjohns.

This does not cause you to believe the DNA was deposited criminally?

Not with everything ELSE in play, it doesn't. That's part and parcel to why I started this thread in the first place. It goes back to that "holistic approach" I keep hammering.

What instead does it cause you to believe?

At present, among other things, that the Rs were DAMN lucky.

If it doesn't prove it in your mind, does it at least indicate something? If so, what?

In truth, it COULD indicate what you say. But it could indicate other things as well.

 

[BBB167893]

THEY WEREN'T HIRED TO FIND THE KILLER.

And it's not ME saying it,it's JR's own deposition fgs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you know what DEFENCE lawyers and their investigators are usually hired for?????To create reasonable doubt.....

This is what the comparison to the AMy case is ALL about.What's so hard to get?

I'm wondering that myself.

 

[madeleine]

For this intruder to have been in the Ramsey home for hours and not to have left any evidence behind (other than the dna supposedly left on the longjohns), he would have had to have lots of practice. To me, this rules out Amy's rapist as he got caught by the only other person in the home. The R home had three other people and not one of them heard anything???

Yep they were sleeping,how convenient.
I wonder how they explain the lights on in the butler's kitchen around midnight????

It's not like some strange intruder turned it on risking being seen by neighbours and family members or anyone else outside...geez.....

 

[redeemed]

Yep they were sleeping,how convenient.
I wonder how they explain the lights on in the butler's kitchen around midnight????

It's not like some strange intruder turned it on risking being seen by neighbours and family members or anyone else outside...geez.....

Maddy-ofcourse...the intruder needed to turn the lights on to ensure that he took all the tape, cord etc AND wipe off his fingerprints from almost everything...Not forgetting that he needed some light on as well to be able to write the RN... DUH!!!!!
:Banane23::Banane23:

 

[joeskidbeck]

Maddy-ofcourse...the intruder needed to turn the lights on to ensure that he took all the tape, cord etc AND wipe off his fingerprints from almost everything...Not forgetting that he needed some light on as well to be able to write the RN... DUH!!!!!
:Banane23::Banane23:

If this intruder decided to write a "how to" book, the world would be in a whole lotta trouble!

 

[joeskidbeck]

If this intruder decided to write a "how to" book, the world would be in a whole lotta trouble!

Wait a minute - maybe they already did!

 

[madeleine]

Or maybe the lights on have something to do with some people having pineapple?

 

[Sophie]

Roy, if it were an intruder (person other than a Ramsey, I mean), then I think that person is incredibly obvious and has slipped under the radar incredibly well. Can't name him/her/them for obvious reasons but I am amazed that they were never a major IDI discussion point.

That said, I wouldn't over-rule Ramsey knowledge if it were them.

This has become a bit of an obsession of mine this week but, again, why is the R+IDI scenario so rarely discussed?

 

[Sophie]

Maddy-ofcourse...the intruder needed to turn the lights on to ensure that he took all the tape, cord etc AND wipe off his fingerprints from almost everything...Not forgetting that he needed some light on as well to be able to write the RN... DUH!!!!!
:Banane23::Banane23:

ITA.


IDIs often suggest that the intruder accessed the Ramseys' home while the latter were at the party and used the time to familiarise themselves with the lay-out etc and possibly even write the ransom note. What they are asking is that we say 'OK fine, we'll accept that they could do this without being seen* by a neighbour and that they hid themselves well enough that the Ramseys had no idea that the house had been broken into. I'll even ignore the noise that simply had to be made in killing JBR and assume that a hyped up Patsy, melatonin-calmed John and child Burke all slept through this. I will even accept that the intruder could have accessed the house and left it without being seen or without disturbing next door's dogs and without leaving any definite trace of themselves; I'll accept that an intruder gained enough trust from JBR to feed her pineapple and wait long enough for it to be at the stage of digestion that it was at; I'll accept that JBR made no noise or chatterings while being fed; I'll accept that, having gained her trust, the intruder felt it necessary to tie her hands (albeit not tightly enough to subdue our cat) and put duct tape on her mouth (albeit without the child leaving lip prints on the tape or, I believe, any saliva so some might conclude that she was already dead when it was applied) and for some reason use a stun gun on her; I'll accept that they could have molested her, bashed her head in, asphixiated her for good measure; I'll accept that they redressed her carefully, possibly to the extent of finding fresh knickers in a wrapped parcel in the basement; I'll accept that they then went upstairs and placed a ransom note on the stairs; I'll accept that they left the home and were never heard of again. I will over-look the Ramsey fibres etc at the scene and that John found the body innocently. I will not question that the DNA at the scene belonged to the killer.

I will accept that the Ramsey failure to co-operate with police and their lawyering up was just what people in their position would do. I will accept that they have totally forgiven the killer.

I will, in other words, accept the RST version of events.

What we are asking them to do is to accept that the Ramseys have not, by any reasonable standard, been eliminated as suspects. We aren't even asking them to abandon their IDI stance. Just admit that the case for an intruder and that the case for an intruder with Ramsey knowledge have not been proven.



And we are the unreasonable ones.....:waitasec:



BTW, how dark would it be between 5 and 9 in Colorado in December?

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

ITA.


IDIs often suggest that the intruder accessed the Ramseys' home while the latter were at the party and used the time to familiarise themselves with the lay-out etc and possibly even write the ransom note. What they are asking is that we say 'OK fine, we'll accept that they could do this without being seen* by a neighbour and that they hid themselves well enough that the Ramseys had no idea that the house had been broken into. I'll even ignore the noise that simply had to be made (garrote would preclude noise) in killing JBR and assume that a hyped up Patsy, melatonin-calmed John and child Burke all slept through this. I will even accept that the intruder could have accessed the house and left it without being seen (wha? is nighttime burglary extinct?) or without disturbing next door's dogs and without leaving any definite trace of themselves (in that case, the R's left no definite trace of themselves either); I'll accept that an intruder gained enough trust from JBR to feed her pineapple (I can think of three pineapple eating scenarios) and wait long enough for it to be at the stage of digestion that it was at; I'll accept that JBR made no noise or chatterings while being fed (audible from three floors up); I'll accept that, having gained her trust, the intruder felt it necessary to tie her hands (albeit not tightly enough to subdue our cat) (you don't know what the purpose was for the 2nd ligature. When or how it was used. It had three loops). and put duct tape on her mouth (albeit without the child leaving lip prints on the tape or, I believe, any saliva so some might conclude that she was already dead when it was applied) and for some reason use a stun gun on her; I'll accept that they could have molested her, bashed her head in, asphixiated her for good measure; I'll accept that they redressed her carefully, possibly to the extent of finding fresh knickers in a wrapped parcel in the basement; I'll accept that they then went upstairs and placed a ransom note on the stairs;(I figured they placed the RN before going to the basement, as a tripwire) I'll accept that they left the home and were never heard of again. (didn't you mean 'not heard from yet'? never is a long time and we haven't made it to never yet) I will over-look the Ramsey fibres etc at the scene (Oh boy what a relief! Parental fibers can be expected to be all over that house and all over JBR. Its only natural). and that John found the body innocently. I will not question that the DNA at the scene belonged to the killer.

I will accept that the Ramsey failure to co-operate with police and their lawyering up was just what people in their position would do. (I would've cooperated even less. I would NEVER have written the ransom note word for word because I would've already seen the ransom note. It was a wildly biased and invalid experiment). I will accept that they have totally forgiven the killer. Would someone normally show vengence and anger against a killer who is on the loose?

I will, in other words, accept the RST version of events.

What we are asking them to do is to accept that the Ramseys have not, by any reasonable standard, been eliminated as suspects. We aren't even asking them to abandon their IDI stance. Just admit that the case for an intruder and that the case for an intruder with Ramsey knowledge have not been proven.



And we are the unreasonable ones.....:waitasec:



BTW, how dark would it be between 5 and 9 in Colorado in December?

I think twilight starts early and lasts for a long time.

I like your post but there's a lot of assumptions, fallacies, and perceived rules that probably can't be applied to what really happened.

This is really only YOUR view of RST version of events.

 

[anne11]

I voted yes, too many things point towards it being a member of the family.

 

[BBB167893]

(Oh boy what a relief! Parental fibers can be expected to be all over that house and all over JBR. Its only natural).

It's not the fibers themselves, HOTYH; it's where they were and the lack of any good explanation. PR's attempt was particularly self-incriminating. I hope she asked her lawyer for her money back if she gave him any.

(I would've cooperated even less. I would NEVER have written the ransom note word for word because I would've already seen the ransom note. It was a wildly biased and invalid experiment).

You're REALLY reaching, brother.

Would someone normally show vengence and anger against a killer who is on the loose?

You damn betcha, man! If it was ME, that scum better hope the cops find him before I do!

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

It's not the fibers themselves, HOTYH; it's where they were and the lack of any good explanation. PR's attempt was particularly self-incriminating. I hope she asked her lawyer for her money back if she gave him any.



You're REALLY reaching, brother.



You damn betcha, man! If it was ME, that scum better hope the cops find him before I do!

With THAT attitude, you sound just like the R's calling 911 even though the RN threatened death!

Your description of the fibers also sounds EXACTLY like ML and the DNA! 'its not the DNA itself, its where it was found...'

 

[Sophie]

HOTYH,

1. It wasn't a garrote. It was a ligature. Not that either would prevent the noise made by someone getting their head whacked that hard. Have you ever heard the noise made by someone getting a really good whack on the head? It isn't quiet.

2. No, night-time burglary isn't extinct but a) IDI would have us believe it was afternoon or early evening when the intruder came in rather than in the middle of the night anyway; b) swiping TVs in the dead of night and under the cover of darkness is a long distance from the catalogue of events that took place in the Ramsey home that night; c) next door had dogs which we know from published reports were apt to bark at the drop of a hat.

3. The Ramseys left their fibres in criminally indicative places.

4. I can think of about 20 pineapple eaing scenarios but pineapple is a funny old food in that its process through the digestive system is fairly easy to predict (on account of the enzymes it contains: the same enzyme that occasionally allows charlatans to sell pineapple products as a miracle diet) so there is no sensible reason to think that she did anything other than eat if after she came home. There are all sorts of innocent explanations for this but the Ramseys themselves eliminated these explanations with their own version of events when they got home. See, HOTYH, this is something that even Lou Smit admits to worrying about.

5. Very probably audible from three floors up - this was the dead of the quietest night of the year. However, a perp couldn't know how noise would travel or that no one would get up in the night so it's a stretch to imagine them sitting there, calm as you like, watching her eat and probably chat with them.

6. I personally find Delmar's analysis of the hand ties persuading but, in any event, we know that the other knot wasn't used on JBR since there was no autopsy evidence of this and, in fact, IIRC, the wrists showed no sign in autopsy of having been tied at all or of having been struggled against. If JBR was dead or unconscious, explaining this, then you are back to asking why anyone would bother with the ties other than for appearances.

7. You know the fibres I'm talking about HOTYH.

8. If the RN was used as a tripwire, you are back to the perp knowing that Patsy used those stairs. I think we'll leave the possibility of her skipping over the note and the other issues with the note being found for another occasion.

9. If you would have lawyered up and co-operated even less than the Ramseys then I think I can safely say that I am surprised.

10. We aren't talking vengeance. We are talking forgiving someone who murdered your child. I think someone would normally show vengeance against a killer on the loose. Just read the facts of any crime on any of the other forums on Websleuths. However, sending your ten year-old to school without police protection mere days after someone had killed one child and professed their dislike of you and their comfort with killing suggests that, whatever their reasons for not seeking vengeance (or justice), fear for their own or Burke's physical safety wasn't among them.

PS. Edited cos I called HOTYH, 'HOTTY' in first draft

 

[Sophie]

With THAT attitude, you sound just like the R's calling 911 even though the RN threatened death!

Your description of the fibers also sounds EXACTLY like ML and the DNA! 'its not the DNA itself, its where it was found...'

Which you might have been better off not pointing out, if I may say so: does your argument no good at all.

 

[Sophie]

PS. Thank you for info on darkness. I'll admit that I pictured it dark from about 3.30 in the afternoon. Living in tundra time where it gets dark at that sort of time after the clocks go back (tonight, in fact ), I always assume (or perversely, perhaps, hope) that everyone else suffers likewise.

It being twilighty sort of makes it less likely (to me at least) that the perp entered the house before the Ramseys came home....

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

Talk about innocent transfer. If there was innocent transfer of anything, it was fibers from parent to child, esp. fibers from clothing they wore that day. JBR can move those fibers around. They're in her hair, on her clothing, in her bed. Besides, fibers aren't DNA. Fibers can only be 'consistent with' other fibers. Plus, as I speculated before, an intruder could've easily donned PR's jacket and moved around the house.

The DNA has RDI on the run, because LE isn't talking about any other DNA except unknown male DNA. They're writing exhoneration letters over it. No PR or JR or BR DNA is referenced. SD claims unwanted DNA is automatically jettisoned from a test, and I think thats just preposterous.

Maybe you could stop and think about the cord fiber in JBR's bed, and how the bedroom was never really set up or presented as a 'staged crime scene' by RDI theorists until after the cord fiber was reported. For IDI, this indicates the ligatures were used on JBR first, and were used as a quiet and control weapon at that point.

 

[Sophie]

HOTYH, I have the deepest respect for you but the idea of an intruder donning Patsy's clothing and wandering around the house is too much....

Do we even know where Patsy left the clothing in question? Certainly, some of her clothing she admitted in interview to have strewn over the bath in her master bedroom bathroom. This being the case, it's hard to imagine the intruder creeping into that part of the house,too. For what purpose would they do this?

I don't know that you can account for the clothing fibres being in those places innocently. In any event, why do you think Patsy sent an unworn item that was too small for her rather than the actual item she'd worn that day when she eventually got round to sending the clothes at all? You are right about fibres being described as consistent rather than as a definite match.
When the fibres are consistent with more than one item, though, you are entitled to draw inferences - albeit ones that would only be part of a whole range of evidence considered.


Plenty of RDI believe the attack started in the bedroom. It would fit in rather well with JBR actually being awake when she got home and having a bed-time snack and the attack occurring as a result of slightly later events. As you point out, though, you can only describe fibres as being consistent with one another so presumably you aren't saying that the cord fibres are necessarily from the ligatures used on JBR. In fact, we learn that the cord in question was as common as muck and as cheap as chips in Boulder (eg. Patsy's paintings were hung by the same sort) so consistency with that isn't quite as convincing as consistency with, say, a shirt made in Israel or a high end jacket.

As for the hand ties having been used as a control and 'quiet' device first, there are two problems with this:

1. Absolutely no evidence that she had been used like this. Where on her body is there any evidence of cord burns or of any struggling against restraints? And if she was unconscious while being restrained, why restrain her at all. We'll leave the issue of someone leaving her unrestrained while allowing her to eat pineapple but bothering to restrain her later for another debate.

2. Secondly, if quiet is your concern, I am not sure that you would whack them over the head. A skull being fractured makes a noise.


If we can move to your general theory, though: I believe you think there were several intruders (in keeping with a prima facie interpretation of the ransom note). Do you seriously think that more than one person could be moving around the house without disturbing anyone or without one of them leaving any conclusive physical evidence despite the length of time they spent in the house?

More generally, IDI will suggest that the RN was intended to give the perp(s) some lead time to get out of town or get out of the country since no one would be looking for a body or a murderer at that early stage. In all honesty - and there are many aspects of the IDI position with which I can identify - this strikes me as absurd. They could have given themselves a good hour or two lead time by writing a short RN, not redressing the body, and not taking the time to feed her pineapple and wait for it to be semi-digested before killing her.

They will also suggest that the perp wanted to pin this on the Ramseys. Frankly, just leaving her murdered in her bed would have been a better way to guarantee this. Which brings you back to the people who would most benefit from the over-elaboration: the Ramseys.

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

Two combat-trained adult intruders armed with ligatures, tape, and stungun would have no problem moving JBR against her will to the basement without disturbing others sleeping one floor up. There is evidence that this took place. Fiber consistent with the ligature was found in her bed. JBR was found with a deep furrow around her neck from the ligature. There is positive evidence that this ligature was applied while she was alive. This is known crime scene evidence that stands in direct opposition to the whole RDI staging theory. The extra loops in the 2nd ligature are unexplained by RDI. The multi-looped 2nd ligature could've been a redundant system that was not required, and thus no marks were found of resistance against them.

A pair of uniform marks were found on JBR that are unexplained by RDI. The DNA of an unknown male found in multple places on clothing JBR was wearing is unexplained by RDI.

Intruders in the house would need to contend with the possibility of a parent wandering around looking for JBR missing from her bed. The placement of the ransom note on the rear stairway, and the length of the note, are evidence of this. The ransom note on the rear stairs could've been part of a tripwire system that would alert a single intruder in the kitchen who was busy watching the front stairs.