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laude degree in journalism and a minor in advertising which certainly qualified her as being able to write the ransom note, she also had many uniquely identifiable elements in her writing. Dr. James Pennebaker: It comes across that there was about a 74% chance that it was penned by a woman, but if you look at the actual content words themselves it’s about a 60% chance that it was a male, almost as though there was a male who was saying, “we’ve got to say this,” and the woman is kind of translating that onto the page. Could John Ramsey have dictated the note while Patsy transcribed, or could it have been another man and woman entirely?
- Aphrodite Jones consulted with Dr. James Pennebaker who concluded that it was likely that that the ransom note was a collaborative effort involving a man and a woman.
Later in the documentary:
Dr. James Pennebaker: If this was done by a parent, you would think that they would be under massive, massive stress. And when people under massive stress, they make certain kinds of errors, you’ll see spelling errors, you’ll see more mark-outs.
Aphrodite Jones: So you’re not telling me that it’s one of the Ramseys?
Dr. James Pennebaker: It doesn’t make sense, no.
The ransom note is certainly not without corrections or misspelled words.
In the first paragraph of the first page of the ransom note it appears that the word “don’t” may have been marked-out (the letters "d" and possibly "o" are visible.) The intention may have been to write "We don't respect your business" but was changed it to "We respect your business."
In the same paragraph there are also two spelling mistakes involving the words "business" and "possessions."
In first paragraph of the second page there is a mark-out of the word delivery which is replaced by “pick-up.”
A few lines later, the word “not” was inserted by means of an editing symbol, an upside down caret, between the words “do” and “particularly” in the sentence, “The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them.”
Michelle Dresbold noted that the ransom note followed a predictable path:
I find that when a person writes a letter he or she concentrates the most in the first few sentences. After a few paragraphs, however, the hand (and the brain relax and a more natural language and script emerge.
The writer of the ransom note starts off trying to give us the impression that he or she is uneducated by misspelling the words “business” and “possession.” However by the second paragraph the writer is using sophisticated words such as “attaché” and “monitor.” And there are no more misspellings.
Sex, Lies, and Handwriting, Michelle Dresbold
I have little doubt that Pennebaker was kept in the dark with respect to many case facts surrounding the ransom note.
Did Pennebaker consider, for example, that Patsy may have written one or more practice notes? This would significantly diminish mark-outs and misspellings in the final draft.
Chet Ubowski at the CBI had pulled startling information from the tablet belonging to Patsy Ramsey. By comparing tear patterns, Ubowski had determined that the first twelve pages were missing and the next four—pages 13 through 16—-contained doodles and lists and some miscellaneous writing.
But the next group of pages, 17 through 25, were also missing from the tablet. The following page, 26, was the practice ransom (Mr. and Mrs. I), and that page showed evidence of ink bleed-through from the missing page 25.
Comparisons of the ragged tops of the ransom note pages with the remnants left in the tablet proved that it had come from pages 27, 28, and 29.
To me, being able to prove that the ransom note came from her tablet was an incredible piece of evidence.
Furthermore, the ink bleedthrough discovered on page 26 indicated that perhaps still another practice note could have been written on page 25 and been discarded. Two possible practice notes and one real one covering three pages led me to believe that the killer had spent more time in the house composing the ransom note than we originally thought.
But even more significant, it seemed clear that whoever wrote it was unafraid of being caught in the house. We never found the missing pages.
Then Eller and Koby were told that Ubowski had moved from examining the tablet to looking at the ransom note itself, comparing its writing with known samples the detectives had gathered from various sources.
What the CBI examiner told them, very privately, was astounding: Twenty-four of the alphabet’s twenty-six letters looked as if they had been written by Patsy.
When taken together, the tablet, the Sharpie pen, and the writing formed a powerful base of evidence. And that evidence pointed directly at Patsy Ramsey.
JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 81
Did Pennebaker consider that Patsy was the only suspect who altered her usual writing preferences when supplying writing samples to the police?
While I steered Don Paugh into a conversation about taxes, Gosage sought some unrehearsed writings by Patsy and struck gold. “If Patsy didn’t write the [ransom] note, why not offer some handwriting to prove it?” he asked Nedra. She defiantly thrust a piece of paper at him and declared, “Patsy wrote that just this morning.”
As we drove away, Ron examined the list of addresses and telephone numbers Patsy had written. It included the name of her friend Barbara Fernie with an important, telltale correction.
In the 376-word ransom note, the small letter “a” was printed in manuscript style 109 times and written in cursive lowercase style only 5 times. The entry on Fernie contained just such a printed manuscript “a” as the second letter of the word Barbara, but it had been boldly written over with a black felt-tip pen and made into the cursive-style “a.”
We had noticed earlier that in pre-homicide writings, Patsy consistently used the manuscript “a,” but post-homicide, it disappeared from her samples of writing. This was a major find, for it looked as if she was consciously changing her lettering. She had more handwriting styles than a class of sixth graders and was seemingly able to change as easily as turning on and off different computer fonts.
I thought about how big a mistake it had been to provide the defense lawyers with a copy of the note. A suspect could study it prior to giving writing samples and consciously avoid certain characteristics, such as the style of writing the first letter of the alphabet.
JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 173
In the afternoon session, Foster explained why the “foreign terrorists” claim was “transparently inauthentic” and that the $118,000 ransom demand could have had its genesis from three points: the Ramsey home computer held the net liabilities figure of $1,118,000; Patsy Ramsey referred to Psalm 118 in some of her writings; and she had access to the pay stub containing that almost precise bonus figure. A stranger would not have had such inside information.
He pointed out how the odd usage “and hence” appeared both in the ransom note and in her 1997 Christmas letter.
The professor examined the construction of the letter “a” in the ransom note and in Patsy’s handwriting and noted how her writing changed abruptly after the death of JonBenét.
In the decade prior to the homicide, Patsy freely inter-changed the manuscript “a” and the cursive “a.” But in the months prior to December 1996, she exhibited a marked preference for the manuscript “a.” The ransom note contained such a manuscript “a” 109 times and the cursive version only 5 times. But after the Ramseys were given a copy of the ransom note, Foster found only a single manuscript “a” in her writing, while the cursive “a” now appeared 1,404 times!
That lone exception was in the sample that her mother had unexpectedly handed to Detective Gosage in Atlanta.
Not only did certain letters change, but her entire writing style seemed to have been transformed after the homicide. There were new ways of indenting, spelling, and writing out long numbers that contrasted with her earlier examples, and she was the only suspect who altered her usual preferences when supplying writing samples to the police.
Foster used an overhead projector to describe Patsy Ramsey’s habit of creating acronyms and acrostics, which she did with astonishing frequency.
JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, pages 314 - 315
Did Pennebaker consider the astonishing similarities between Patsy’s handwriting exemplars and the ransom note?
We were called upon to examine the ransom note that was left at the crime scene. The other handwriting expert was in Maryland. Both of us were kept separate so our opinions would be independent. In my opinion, I found that it was highly probable that Patsy was the person who wrote the note. I found over 243 similarities between her handwriting and the ransom note. The other handwriting expert said that he was 100 positive that Patsy wrote the note.
- Cina Wong
http://www.cinawongforgeryexpert.com/mediaroom_insidebusiness.asp
Joining us now from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Michelle Dresbold, the author of the new book, "Sex, Lies, and Handwriting: A Top Expert Reveals the Secrets Hidden in Your Handwriting".
…
Bill O’Reilly: All right. Patsy Ramsey, the late Patsy Ramsey. Now, this is the ransom note that we looked at? What?
Michelle Dresbold: Right, and Patsy, in the book what I did was I actually profiled the person who wrote the ransom note. And then what I did was I gave the reader Patsy Ramsey's handwriting, and step by step I compared it to Patsy Ramsey's writing. And what I, letting the reader do is be the jury and actually see in black and white the comparisons between Patsy Ramsey's handwriting and the handwriting on ransom note.
Bill O’Reilly: They're almost identical.
Michelle Dresbold: They're almost identical. And you can go through letter for letter, word for word and you'll see unusual connections. Pressure at certain parts. And if you look at the word "sense"
Bill O’Reilly: So you're convinced that Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note?
Michelle Dresbold: The chances that Patsy Ramsey did not write the ransom note are about 2 percent. So it's an extremely high, it's an extremely high...
Bill O’Reilly: That means she had something to do with her daughter's death, if that's true.
The O'Reilly Report, Fox News, December 21, 2006
During her deposition, Patsy was questioned about the letter comparison charts.
She didn’t see the similarities, I wonder why?
Q. (By Mr. Hoffman) Mrs. Ramsey, what I am showing you is a series of letters. I am not identifying their source. I am just simply showing you a series of letters. I would like you to look at them carefully. Again, this is Plaintiff's Exhibit 10 for identification. Can you, without knowing the source or where these letters are from, identify any of them?
A. No, sir.
Q. Now, I would like you to also look at the letters and ask me if you see any similarities in the way in which these letters are written. And we will just start from the bottom. Looking at the B.
A. Ask you if I see any similarities?
Q. No. I am going to ask you to comment on whether you see any similarities in the handwriting.
MR. WOOD: Let me just ask you, Darnay, Patsy Ramsey is not a questioned document examiner.
MR. HOFFMAN: I just want her personal observation.
…
Q. (By Mr. Hoffman) Mrs. Ramsey, I am going to show you a document that has been marked Plaintiff's Exhibit 10 for identification. And I would like you to look at the document. Please look at it carefully. What you -- this document, for the record, contains eight letters that are side by side vertically on the page. The letter D, what looks like the letter S, what looks like letters R and O, what looks like an N, what looks like an O, what looks like an exclamation point, what looks like a G, and what looks like a B. I am going to ask you, Mrs. Ramsey, if you can identify any of these letters as being your handwriting.
A. No, sir.
Deposition of Patsy Ramsey, Wolf v Ramsey
Did Pennebaker consider that aside from the fact that Patsy graduated from the University of West Virginia with a magna
Throughout the month, I furnished Foster with a wide range of material from a number of suspects so we would not be accused of stacking the deck. One of the first things he picked up on was Patsy’s habit of using acronyms and acrostics in her communications. She often signed off with her initials, PAPR, and used such phrases as “To BVFMFA from PPRBSJ,” which meant, ‘To Barbara V. Fernie, Master of Fine Arts, from Patricia Paugh Ramsey, Bachelor of Science in Journalism.” That, I thought, might somehow link to the mysterious SBTC acronym on the ransom note.
JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 292
The documents he studied from Patsy Ramsey, in his opinion, formed “a precise and unequivocal match” with the ransom note. He read a list of “unique matches” with the note that included such things as her penchant for inventing private acronyms, spelling habits, indentation, alliterative phrasing, metaphors, grammar, vocabulary, frequent use of exclamation points, and even the format of her handwriting on the page.
JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 314
On and on Foster probed, racing through numerous compelling points that left little doubt the ransom note came from Patsy’s hand. The Vassar scholar explained that as people change over time, they incorporate some of what they read and experience into their language. “The Ramsey library contains many books that were sources for Patsy Ramsey’s nine-teen ninety-five and ninety-six writings, many of which also contain startling verbal or other detailed parallels with the Ramsey homicide and attendant staging, including language that appears in the ransom note,” he said.
JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 316
The ransom note would become public only in September 1997. Karen Howard, an employee of Access Graphics, said that she was struck by the words “you are not the only fat cat around.” Howard remembered that Patsy’s father, Don Paugh, used the word cats all the time; for example, “Those cats down in marketing.”
Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Lawrence Schiller, page 294
JOHN RAMSEY: Well, grow a brain, fat cats. We'd heard those before.
MIKE KANE: Were you ever able to –
JOHN RAMSEY: Well, we had some names we came up with. We passed on (INAUDIBLE) our friends in Atlanta, "Atlanta fat cats" later in that week.
MIKE KANE: When was that specifically?
JOHN RAMSEY: That was when she was back; when we were back for the funeral.
MIKE KANE: (INAUDIBLE) friends saying that about?
JOHN RAMSEY: Well, when we went back, Ron Westmoreland had like a little reception after the funeral, and some of my friends were there, and he has a beautiful home in Atlanta. He makes a lot of money. It's not a stretch for him to have it. It's very nice. My friends were around me, consoling me and trying to give me advice. And to be a part of that group it's the Atlanta fat cats.
John Ramsey, 1998 interview
It was his voice in the ransom note and her hands. I can see it in my mind. She’s sitting there. We need paper, we need a note. He’s dictating and she’s doing. Like he’s almost snapping his fingers. She grabbed her notepad and her felt-tip pen. That is not her language. But the essence of her is there, like the percentages: “99% chance” and “100% chance.” That is how she talked because of her cancer or how you talk when you are around someone with cancer. And the phrase “that good southern common sense of yours.” John wasn’t from the South, but Patsy and Nedra always teased him about being from the South.
—Linda Wilcox
Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Lawrence Schiller, page 630
When all the facts are considered, the conclusion is inescapable.
As Henry Lee said, the ransom note is "this incredibly damaging piece of evidence implicating Patsy Ramsey"
Cracking More Cases by, Henry C. Lee., page 209
Q. What is your degree of certainty yourself as you sit here today that Patsy Ramsey wrote the note?
A. I am absolutely certain that she wrote the note.
Q. Is that 60 percent certain?
A. No, that's 100 percent certain.
Deposition of Gideon Epstein, May 17, 2002
"Many forensic document examiners have given their opinions as to who wrote the note. But the only one to testify before a grand jury in the case was Chet Ubowski, forensic document examiner for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Out of 100 people he analyzed for the Boulder Police Department, he found only one person whom he thought may have authored the document, Patsy Ramsey. Investigative sources tell Fox News that the disguised letters and bleeding ink from the felt tipped pen used to write the note kept him from 100 percent ID of Mrs. Ramsey."
Fox News, Carol McKinley
