The Best Untainted Evidence-The Ransom Letter

[LI_Mom]

I personally thought JB was far prettier as her natural self, a brunette when she didn't look all made up and had a natural smile of a happy child.

I agree.

The 'glamour' type shots really bothered me. Ewwwwww.

The pics when she looks like a carefree little girl are quite adorable.


But in some pictures, she's just a very average looking little kid... nothing special.

Something like that COULD shake Patsy to her core if she thinks JB will grow out of her cuteness soon.

 

[azwriter]

I know...I posted on this a long time ago. That has always bothered me too. Fleet yells..."We found her! Call an ambulance". And she just sits her fanny there on the couch....not even budging. If that had of been me...(GOD FORBID) I would have thought..."he said call an ambulance, she must be hurt..I need to go to her, she needs me!!!!" And then I would proceed to knock everybody and everything out of my way to get to her. NO..Patsy KNEW...SHE KNEW....that JB was dead.

And, Ames, doesn't it appear strange that John wasn't around comforting his wife. Seemed like John was a busy person but didn't pay much attention to reassuring his wife about their missing daughter. Instead Patsy was holed up in a room surrounded by her friends.
I think, my spouse and I would be clinging to each other in the same situation.
JMO

 

[Grainne Dhu]

That's something I've not heard before. Could you give an example or two?

The first thing that made me think of it were the words "and hence." Both of my Mexican correspondents have used that phrase; in Spanish, it is "y por lo tanto." It's grammatic and idiomatic in Spanish; a Spanish speaker would not leave out the word "and" since it is part of the idiom (I think! it's a long time since I spoke Spanish regularly).

Then there was the sentence at the beginning: "We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction." That has the sort of rhythm and flow that Spanish has. Spanish is a very ornate and flowing language compared to English. In Spanish, I think it would be "Somos un grupo de individuos que representen una pequeña facción extranjera." (my Spanish is not great, so this may not be accurate)

The very next sentence has a spelling error in it: "We respect your bussiness but not the country that it serves." That stood out because the rules about single "s" and double "ss" are often unclear to Spanish speakers. I can't recall off-hand any words with double "ss" in Spanish in the same way there are in English.

In English, I think the sentence would be more like "we respect your business but not the country that you serve." While you can say that a business serves a country, it's not quite right. In Spanish, though, "the country it serves" is grammatically and (I think) idiomatically correct. Unlike English, Spanish does have a third person gender-neutral pronoun.

Then comes this sentence: "Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank." It's awkward in English, that's not how an idiomatic English speaker phrases an idea like that. An idiomatic English speaker would say something like "be sure to take a large enough briefcase to the bank." The word choice, the order of the words, it's correct but not usual.

In Spanish, though, it goes "Asegúrese que usted trae un tamaño adecuado attache al banco." Again, keep in mind my Spanish is old, rusty and quite lousy--but I think this is it. It goes directly into English as "Make sure that you bring an adequately sized attache to the bank." Sound familiar? And, unless I'm really way off on my translation, that's the way an idiomatic Spanish speaker would choose to address someone formally.

This sentence: "If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a earlier delivery (the word delivery is crossed out) pickup of your daughter." An idiomatic English speaker would understand that the word delivery works in both places: someone (John?) would deliver the money, the kidnappers would deliver JonBenet. I think an idiomatic English speaker would deliberately use the word "deliver" twice to emphasise the symmetry of the two actions: money for daughter.

The word delivery would not work for delivering JonBenet in Spanish, though. I think the implications attached to the word delivery are wrong for Spanish. I'm not sure, though; it has been too long since I last spoke much Spanish.

I think there are other examples but I'm hitting the wall on idiomatic (rather than merely grammatically correct) Spanish. And my old dictionary is getting more of a work out than it's had in over 40 years, so it may not be up to date at all. Just like English, idiomatic Spanish changes over time, new words are added, other words become old fashioned and rarely used, etc.

If there is something to my idea, then I see two possibilities: a) someone who thinks in Spanish and is fluent but not idiomatic in English wrote the note; or b) someone who has a lot of contact with a person or persons who think in Spanish and are fluent but not idiomatic in English was imitating their manner of writing/speech.

My Spanish is not good enough to be considered in any way reliable. I've lost most of the vocabulary and I'm no long idiomatic. I doubt this is worth enough for anyone to spend money to pursue it but if someone knows a Spanish speaker who has good but not perfect English, it might be worth it to do a little testing. Actually, two Spanish speakers. Have one translate the note into idiomatic Spanish, then the other translate back into English and see what you get.

I want to emphasise again, I am not a linguist and not even a fluent or idiomatic Spanish speaker. An expert might not agree with any of this at all.

Now my own English is all mixed up! My Spanish is trying to come back and it's getting the language centers of my brain all confused.

 

[txsvicki]

Very interesting. I don't speak Spanish and never learned it after taking four required college courses, but something about the note does seem odd. What about someone who was taking Spanish in a class? I remember thinking that some of BTK's notes seemed as if someone was wording phrases the way Spanish translates into English, and that it was someone taking classes.

 

[LI_Mom]

IMO, the tone of the writing leans to the formal. Sounds like someone with a good vocabulary.... who is educated & speaks well.

The use of slang 'fat cat, 'grow a brain' is about as informal as this person gets.... this person sounds like someone who is accustomed to looking down on others.

 

[Solace]

IMO, the tone of the writing leans to the formal. Sounds like someone with a good vocabulary.... who is educated & speaks well.

The use of slang 'fat cat, 'grow a brain' is about as informal as this person gets.... this person sounds like someone who is accustomed to looking down on others.

I can see Patsy using that expression; lets remember how she reacted to Haney when he said their was prior abuse. Although, I don't blame her I would have too. Point is she is street savvy also.

 

[LI_Mom]

I can see Patsy using that expression; lets remember how she reacted to Haney when he said their was prior abuse. Although, I don't blame her I would have too. Point is she is street savvy also.

Oh, I can DEFINITELY see her using expressions like that also.

This sounds like someone who is well bred & class conscience.... separating the regular folks from the "fat cats."

Street savvy...... oh yeah.... I always felt she was a LOT coarser underneath that image she worked hard to create for herself. We saw this clearly in her book.... the southern belle most came alive when describing negative things.

When people are THAT concerned with showing a perfect package... I'm sure there is a lot of internal conflict going on constantly because little things can upset the balance.

I don't know whether she killed JB but I sure wouldn't discount the possibility that she could snap & do it OR at least take part in the staging.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

Very interesting. I don't speak Spanish and never learned it after taking four required college courses, but something about the note does seem odd. What about someone who was taking Spanish in a class? I remember thinking that some of BTK's notes seemed as if someone was wording phrases the way Spanish translates into English, and that it was someone taking classes.

I took four years of Spanish way back when in high school and then lived in Argentina for over four years. I had fairly good formal Spanish from the high school courses but I learned idiomatic Spanish from living in Argentina.

As I discovered yesterday, reviving my Spanish started to mess with my English grammar, so yes, I think someone taking a class might well encounter the same difficulties. All of a sudden, I wasn't just using English any more, I was thinking about noun, adverb and verb placement. It was like concentrating on my feet when walking down a staircase! I could barely do it, even though I'm a native English speaker.

I could well be wrong. I'm certainly no expert. But there is something about that note that makes me think of someone who is no longer thinking 100% in English composing it.

 

[Solace]

Oh, I can DEFINITELY see her using expressions like that also.

This sounds like someone who is well bred & class conscience.... separating the regular folks from the "fat cats."

Street savvy...... oh yeah.... I always felt she was a LOT coarser underneath that image she worked hard to create for herself. We saw this clearly in her book.... the southern belle most came alive when describing negative things.

When people are THAT concerned with showing a perfect package... I'm sure there is a lot of internal conflict going on constantly because little things can upset the balance.

I don't know whether she killed JB but I sure wouldn't discount the possibility that she could snap & do it OR at least take part in the staging.

yes, you can tell she can get down and dirty if she has to or if she finds it humorous. I bet she could be raukous at a party.

 

[angelwngs]

snip~

I could well be wrong. I'm certainly no expert. But there is something about that note that makes me think of someone who is no longer thinking 100% in English composing it.

There is something about that letter than makes me think of someone who is thinking with 100% INsanity composing it.

 

[Solace]

snip~

There is something about that letter than makes me think of someone who is thinking with 100% INsanity composing it.

Do you know how insane it must have been. I have tried to put myself in their position and 100 xanax would not be enough. Angel, it is horrific enough that your daughter is lying there comotose, but then you carry her to the basement and defile her and then write a ransom note. Could you even make it down the stairs to the basement with her? I bet Berke heard noises and loud ones too.

If they did nothing, why is Berke lying about JonBenet walking in the house, why is John lying about taking her jacket off in the bedroom and it being found in the car. Why does Patsy say she was asleep when she got home but yet in the beginning says she walked in. They all had the same story that she walked in the house and then they all had the same story that she did not. So Berke is lying and he is doing it at the behest of his parents. Nice.

The fingerprints on the bowl left by Patsy could have been there from a prior dishwashing that did not do the job, but it is more likely that Patsy handled the bowl that night. ARe Berke's fingerprints on the bowl also? Jon Benet came by and grabbed some with her fingers. She never used the spoon - we don't have her prints, yes?

 

[LI_Mom]

I'm not SURE if Burke's prints were found or it's one of the incorrect rumors that took wing.

You can go nuts trying to sort out fact from fiction in this case. lol


I wish acandyrose had a search function at that site.

 

[Solace]

I'm not SURE if Burke's prints were found or it's one of the incorrect rumors that took wing.

You can go nuts trying to sort out fact from fiction in this case. lol


I wish acandyrose had a search function at that site.

She has lots of information, but it is very difficult to find anything.

 

[LI_Mom]

She has lots of information, but it is very difficult to find anything.

You said it. But a search function would solve that problem.

Is she still around, do you know?


There are a lot of bad links now & I noticed some pages said 'under construction.'

 

[Solace]

You said it. But a search function would solve that problem.

Is she still around, do you know?


There are a lot of bad links now & I noticed some pages said 'under construction.'

I don't know. It is a frustrating site.

 

[LI_Mom]

I don't know. It is a frustrating site.

Ok, thanks.

I only asked since you've been following this case for so long & thought you might have heard something.

 

[Solace]

Ok, thanks.

I only asked since you've been following this case for so long & thought you might have heard something.

I wish I had the answer for you LI Mom.

 

[LinasK]

The first thing that made me think of it were the words "and hence." Both of my Mexican correspondents have used that phrase; in Spanish, it is "y por lo tanto." It's grammatic and idiomatic in Spanish; a Spanish speaker would not leave out the word "and" since it is part of the idiom (I think! it's a long time since I spoke Spanish regularly).

Okay, I'm somebody who will admit to using the word hence in English, that may make me wierd, but that alone does not convince me the writer of the note was Hispanic, sorry!

 

[LI_Mom]

Okay, I'm somebody who will admit to using the word hence in English, that may make me wierd, but that alone does not convince me the writer of the note was Hispanic, sorry!

I'm right there with you then. lol


But I think the theory was very fascinating & that's the way investigators are forced to work to solve cases... think outside the box.

 

[angelwngs]

Do you know how insane it must have been. I have tried to put myself in their position and 100 xanax would not be enough. Angel, it is horrific enough that your daughter is lying there comotose, but then you carry her to the basement and defile her and then write a ransom note. Could you even make it down the stairs to the basement with her? I bet Berke heard noises and loud ones too.

If they did nothing, why is Berke lying about JonBenet walking in the house, why is John lying about taking her jacket off in the bedroom and it being found in the car. Why does Patsy say she was asleep when she got home but yet in the beginning says she walked in. They all had the same story that she walked in the house and then they all had the same story that she did not. So Berke is lying and he is doing it at the behest of his parents. Nice

The fingerprints on the bowl left by Patsy could have been there from a prior dishwashing that did not do the job, but it is more likely that Patsy handled the bowl that night. ARe Berke's fingerprints on the bowl also? Jon Benet came by and grabbed some with her fingers. She never used the spoon - we don't have her prints, yes?[/quote]

The most difficult thought process to follow for a normal, sane human is to attempt to think as a Psychopath...

Yep, to my knowledge only Patsy's and Burke's fingerprints are on the bowl. If I remember correctly at one point she ever denied having ever seen the bowl, much less having pineapple in the home.