The Court of Public Opinion

[reintarnation]

(snipped for brevity)
What a very thought-provoking and insightful (not to be confused with inciteful) post, reintarnation. You objectively covered several possible reasons for why the Ramseys might have denied the obvious sexual abuse that did happen. Kudos.

Thanks, otg! Every angle is important.

 

[Tadpole12]

https://krackedkillers.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/sibling-sexual-abuse-a-sordid-secret/


"Parents as Enablers
Parents who give one sibling too much responsibility for the other may be setting the foundation for sibling sexual abuse. They may be avoiding their own responsibility as parents due to a lack of interest in raising their own children or because they have other priorities, such as work or socializing. These parents also fail to pay attention to the amount of trust they place in one sibling over the other.
Parents as Abusers by Proxy
Parents who are dysfunctional may force their children to witness sexual acts between each other. Sometimes there is an abusive spouse who beats and rapes his/her spouse. In addition to this sexual abuse of children by proxy, the parents victimize the weaker sibling feel even more when they allow the abuser to continue to take responsibility over the victim. Parents often refuse to believe the victim when she or he exposes the abuse. They want to have a “normal” family and enter into denial, abusing the victim even more. Sometimes parents themselves have been victims of sexual abuse and by denying that incest is repeating itself in their own families, they can deny that it ever happened to them as children.
Some parents believe the abuse has been happening but they accuse the victim of instigating it. They may call the victim “slutty” or “dirty”. Ergo, parents and the offending sibling keep the incest a secret, causing even more betrayal for the victim. Some parents tell themselves that sexual abuse is a phase and the offender will “grow out of it.” This doesn’t happen. Incest isn’t a phase and siblings are able to abuse victims for years because of the availability of the victim."

 

[DrollForeignFaction]

I see what you're saying, reintarnation. All of those are viable reasons why the Ramseys would deny it, with straight up denial probably factoring into any scenario. The Ramseys have always struck me as people living deep in denial. Or to use a term John Ramsey is fond of, they "compartmentalize."
I tend to lean more toward the molestation angle (by whom I'm not sure) than the punishment/"corporal cleansing" (as Thomas termed it) explanation, but I definitely think it's a possibility. And that paint brush crap was pure staging not done for sexual gratification.

You say, "The elements of staging point toward a sexually-motivated attack, and if the motivation for her murder was in any way related to a sexual assault or molestation, then what's the point of staging the scene that way, too?"
But would the stager have any other choice? Regardless of the source, the trauma was already there, and injuries of that nature lead most people to one conclusion. You can't erase the vaginal injuries via staging, and you can't leave them alone hoping no one will notice because either way they point to abuse. You can, however, try to incorporate the pre-existing injuries with a fresh assault to obscure the fact that they've been there before that night. Basically, my question is what could those injuries be staged to look like other than sexual assault?

"Isn't the point of staging to divert attention from the real perpetrator and motive?"
But who's to say the murder perp's motive was sexual, or that they were the abuser? The sexual assault staging could easily have diverted attention from the real perp (mother) and the real motive (toilet rage) while also conveniently pointing away from old abuse by a family member by shifting blame to a recent pedophile intruder.

"I see lots of motivations for JR and PR denying the sexual abuse that don't imply they were responsible for or aware of it, even though being more accepting of the possibility might have lent more credence to the various accusations they made against their "friends.""
My brain is still stuck on the idea that regardless of who was the abuser/what their motive was and who the murderer/what their motive was, the assault was staged out of necessity because the stager had knowledge of prior abuse that needed to be accounted for. But I guess it's not necessarily true. Out of curiosity, do you lean more toward the stager knowing about the abuse and covering it up, or the abuse being coincidental to the staged sexual assault?
What really confuses me about the staged sexual assault is, why clean her up if the whole purpose is for her to appear sexually assaulted? The best I can come up with is in the end they found the image too disturbing and couldn't leave her like that. But it still doesn't quite fit for me.

 

[BBB167893]

I see what you're saying, reintarnation. All of those are viable reasons why the Ramseys would deny it, with straight up denial probably factoring into any scenario. The Ramseys have always struck me as people living deep in denial. Or to use a term John Ramsey is fond of, they "compartmentalize."
I tend to lean more toward the molestation angle (by whom I'm not sure) than the punishment/"corporal cleansing" (as Thomas termed it) explanation, but I definitely think it's a possibility. And that paint brush crap was pure staging not done for sexual gratification.

You say, "The elements of staging point toward a sexually-motivated attack, and if the motivation for her murder was in any way related to a sexual assault or molestation, then what's the point of staging the scene that way, too?"
But would the stager have any other choice? Regardless of the source, the trauma was already there, and injuries of that nature lead most people to one conclusion. You can't erase the vaginal injuries via staging, and you can't leave them alone hoping no one will notice because either way they point to abuse. You can, however, try to incorporate the pre-existing injuries with a fresh assault to obscure the fact that they've been there before that night. Basically, my question is what could those injuries be staged to look like other than sexual assault?

"Isn't the point of staging to divert attention from the real perpetrator and motive?"
But who's to say the murder perp's motive was sexual, or that they were the abuser? The sexual assault staging could easily have diverted attention from the real perp (mother) and the real motive (toilet rage) while also conveniently pointing away from old abuse by a family member by shifting blame to a recent pedophile intruder.

"I see lots of motivations for JR and PR denying the sexual abuse that don't imply they were responsible for or aware of it, even though being more accepting of the possibility might have lent more credence to the various accusations they made against their "friends.""
My brain is still stuck on the idea that regardless of who was the abuser/what their motive was and who the murderer/what their motive was, the assault was staged out of necessity because the stager had knowledge of prior abuse that needed to be accounted for. But I guess it's not necessarily true. Out of curiosity, do you lean more toward the stager knowing about the abuse and covering it up, or the abuse being coincidental to the staged sexual assault?
What really confuses me about the staged sexual assault is, why clean her up if the whole purpose is for her to appear sexually assaulted? The best I can come up with is in the end they found the image too disturbing and couldn't leave her like that. But it still doesn't quite fit for me.

Maybe it doesn't quite fit, but to me, there's nothing else for sale.