Luck played a huge role in how it played out for them. All the cards played out perfectly to the point that it feels like Satan himself had shuffled the deck beforehand.
Incompetence entered the case the moment the police walked through the door. It just got worse from there. The FBI claims that by first reading the ransom note that morning they knew it would end in homicide. I agree but....really? Then why are John and Patsy being handled with kid gloves all day? How about taking John aside and saying, "Mr. Ramsey, this note is not an authentic ransom note. We believe your daughter has already been murdered. We're going to need to speak with you and your wife separately right now, and Burke willl be taken down to the police station for his own protection.We are clearing the house now. Do you have anything to say before we proceed?"
This same thing should have been said to Patsy in a different room. This isolates them and paints both of them into a very small corner. If they refuse to allow Burke to go to BPD, its a huge red flag. If John and/or Patsy have a negative reaction to this statement and/or request an attorney, it's a huge red flag. The FBI/BPD would know they were involved and it would impact how they proceed from that moment forward. Instead, people leave the scene, people arrive, John goes missing throughout the day and Patsy sits down like she's on enough xanax to down an elephant.
None of the key personnel involved that day followed their own supposed instincts and I find many of their later statements(not just Arndt's) to be disingenuous. It's
covering. In hindsight they say this, they say that, but why weren't they saying it that day? Even an amateur should have realized how suspicuous it was that the Ramseys would not touch that ransom note. This note is violating the laws of physics by moving from place to place on the floor yet neither will actually place it on a table/counter. Why? The only reasoning is that both knew what the note said because one of them had written it. John turning himself into a contortionist to read a note he supposedly didn't know the details of when his six year old daughter is missing instead of doing the simple, logical thing and just pick it up with your hands and read it is enough reason to take him down to the station right then and there. Same with Patsy. She does cartwheels down the stairs like a gymnast to avoid stepping on pieces of paper that could have been scribblings for all she knew.....but she already knew what it was. Its why she wouldn't step on it.
The note did its job. The note is needed to accentuate the crime's parodoxical layers. To make matters worse(better for the killer), the note itself is a paradox. It also provides no method to the evening's madness.
She was too busy writing an over dramatic, unbelievable short story; there was no time to think sensibly. I personally think PR and JR forgot what was in the RN.
