Was Burke involved?

[Agatha_C]

Moms killing their children more common than you think
The news this month has been filled with stories of mothers who kill their children. There’s Lashanda Armstrong who killed herself and three of her four children by driving into the Hudson River. There’s Kristen LaBrie in Massachusetts who was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to ten years after withholding cancer medicine from her 9-year-old autistic son. In Houston, 21-year-old Angelica Huerta Clark has been arrested on a charge of murder after police say she killed her newborn daughter by leaving her in the trash shortly after Christmas.

According to some experts, mothers who kill their children are not as rare as we’d like to think. While exact numbers of children killed by their mothers is hard to pinpoint, some estimate it happens every few days in this country, at least 100 times a year. From the Associated Press:

http://blog.chron.com/momhouston/2011/04/moms-killing-their-children-more-common-than-you-think/

 

[Agatha_C]

“We’ve learned how to reduce auto fatalities among kids, through seatbelt use. We’ve learned how to stop kids from strangling on the strings of their hoodies. But with this phenomenon, we struggle,” says Jill Korbin, an anthropologist at Case Western Reserve University who has studied mothers who kill children. “The solution is not so readily apparent.”

How common is filicide, or killing one’s child, among mothers? Finding accurate records is nearly impossible, experts say. One problem is classification: The legal disposition of these cases varies enormously. Also, many cases doubtless go unreported or undetected, such as very young mothers who kill their newborns by smothering them or drowning them in a toilet after hiding the entire pregnancy.

“I’d say a mother kills a child in this country once every three days, and that’s a low estimate,” says Cheryl Meyer, co-author of “Mothers Who Kill Their Children.”

Several databases track such killings but do not separate mothers from fathers or stepfathers. At the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System reported an estimated 1,740 child fatalities — meaning when a child dies from an injury caused by abuse or neglect — in 2008.

http://blog.chron.com/momhouston/2011/04/moms-killing-their-children-more-common-than-you-think/

 

[Agatha_C]

According to a 2009 report from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, that year 27.3 percent of child deaths resulting from abuse were perpetrated by the mother, compared to only 14.8 percent of fathers. Mothers and fathers acting together accounted for 22.5 percent of child deaths. According to these same statistics only 2.3 percent of fatalities were committed by a parent’s male partner.

The reasons mothers kill their children vary. Some ignore or hide pregnancies, some abuse or neglect their children and some are victims of domestic violence and see the murder/suicide as an escape. Some, as in the case of Andrea Yates, suffer from extreme mental illness. Nearly all these women find themselves very isolated, according to the AP story.

 

[Agatha_C]

Mommy Dearest: Why Do Some Mothers Who Kill Their Children?

According to the American Anthropological Association, every year there are over 200 mothers who kill their children. Here is another statistic that is sure to blow your mind. Three out of five child homicides are filicides. That is absolutely appalling.

Women who are in jail have went as far as to confess that they shouldn't be trusted with their children. Other inmates find it hard to believe, as reported by Nancy Scheper-Hughes ( a medical anthropologist). Here, let me throw yet another crazy statistic; of the 49 women who are currently on death row, a whopping 11 of them are there for killing children.

I want to share with you some of these women and what they are in there for, exactly.

For killing her four year old son in 1989, Debra Jean Milke from Arizona, sits on death row.

From San Jacinto, California, at the age of 34, Dora Durenrostro murdered her four and nine year old daughters She also killed her eight year old son. This happened in 1994.

Twenty nine year old Patricia Blackmon killed her two-year old adopted daughter on May of 1999, in Dothan, Alabama.

http://voices.yahoo.com/mommy-dearest-why-some-mothers-kill-their-children-424189.html

 

[Agatha_C]

When Parents Kill
Why fathers do it. Why mothers do it.

Women do not, by and large, make terrific criminals. In the United States, women commit only two crimes as frequently as men. The first is shoplifting. The second is the murder of their own children. Andrea Yates, the Houston mother whose trial for the murders of three of her children ends today, and Marilyn Lemak, the Chicago nurse recently convicted of killing her three children, are not at all statistical anomalies. Somehow, women—who commit less than 13 percent of all violent crimes in the United States—commit about 50 percent of all parental murders.

The Numbers
Children under the age of 5 in the United States are more likely to be killed by their parents than anyone else. Contrary to popular mythology, they are rarely killed by a sex-crazed stranger. FBI crime statistics show that in 1999 parents were responsible for 57 percent of these murders, with family friends and acquaintances accounting for another 30 percent and other family members accounting for 8 percent. Crime statistics further reveal that of the children under 5 killed from 1976 to 1999, 30 percent were murdered by their mothers while 31 percent were killed by their fathers. And while the strangers, acquaintances, and other family members who kill children skew heavily toward males (as does the entire class of murderers), children are as likely to be murdered by their fathers as by their mothers.

The Murders
Perhaps more revealing than the differences in why they kill their offspring are the differences between how fathers and mothers do so. For one thing, parental murderers tend to be highly physical. According to a 1988 survey done by the U.S. Justice Department, while 61 percent of all murder defendants used a gun in 1988, only 20 percent of the parents who killed their children used one. Children were drowned and shaken, beaten, poisoned, stabbed, and suffocated. These methods betray a certain "craziness" in both genders—they betray an intense passion and a lack of planning. But a study by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children shows that fathers are far more violent. And mothers frequently dispose of the corpses in what researchers call a "womblike" fashion. Bodies are swaddled, submerged in water, or wrapped in plastic. Moreover, the NCMEC study showed that while the victims of maternal killings are almost always found either in or close to the home, fathers will, on average, dispose of the bodies hundreds of miles away. All these behaviors suggest that women associate these murders with themselves, their homes, and their bodies

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2002/03/when_parents_kill.2.html

I could give you more, but if I can find these in like 5 minutes, so can anyone that is really interested in knowing before they argue....

 

[DeeDee249]

Chrishope,

This is unknown. It is one thing to claim on the grounds of physical capacity or the laws of gravity and potential energy that Burke could not have caused JonBenet's head injury. Quite another to rule out molestation, since we do not know if all JonBenet's injuries were inflicted in the same time frame, or were coterminous?

It is us who see a causal link between JonBenet's injuries, when in fact they could be independent.

.

It's not a matter of "ruling out" anyone. BR is not, in my mind, ruled out. It's a question of likelihood. 9 year olds can molest, but they typically don't. If they were playing doctor, I'd expect -possibly- some digital penetration. I think the type of injuries suggest an adult.[/QUOTE]

There WAS digital penetration. The coroner reported this to the police present at the autopsy. This was said to Det, Arndt and Trujillo, who both witnessed the autopsy.

 

[Chrishope]

Oh boy Chris, I wish you hadnt gone there! Im not answering for anyone other then the children that are typically killed by their own parents. You need to do more research on that theory hun. Typically when a child is found murdered in their own home, it was a parent. I hate to be the bearer of that bad news and there are plenty of links for those that doubt it, just go to google...

No, I don't need to do more research, you need to learn the meaning of the word "typically". Typically parents don't kill their kids. IOWs, under usual circumstances, parents don't kill their kids. This case wasn't typical. But with respect to BR being the molester, I think I'll stick with the idea that 9 year olds are less likely -typically- to be molesters than adults.

I think it's likely the parents did kill -atypically- in this case.

 

[Chrishope]

It's not a matter of "ruling out" anyone. BR is not, in my mind, ruled out. It's a question of likelihood. 9 year olds can molest, but they typically don't. If they were playing doctor, I'd expect -possibly- some digital penetration. I think the type of injuries suggest an adult.

There WAS digital penetration. The coroner reported this to the police present at the autopsy. This was said to Det, Arndt and Trujillo, who both witnessed the autopsy.[/quote]

Right, so now the question is what size fingers made those injuries? Do you think BR is more likely than an adult?

 

[DeeDee249]

No, I don't need to do more research, you need to learn the meaning of the word "typically". Typically parents don't kill their kids. IOWs, under usual circumstances, parents don't kill their kids. This case wasn't typical. But with respect to BR being the molester, I think I'll stick with the idea that 9 year olds are less likely -typically- to be molesters than adults.

I think it's likely the parents did kill -atypically- in this case.

Most parents DO NOT kill their kids. BUT when kids are killed, it is typically a parent.

 

[DeeDee249]

There WAS digital penetration. The coroner reported this to the police present at the autopsy. This was said to Det, Arndt and Trujillo, who both witnessed the autopsy.

Right, so now the question is what size fingers made those injuries? Do you think BR is more likely than an adult?[/QUOTE]

That would be debatable, by experts with differing opinions I am sure. Many young boys of his age - nearly 10-can have almost adult size feet and hands. I have a nephew who wore a men's size 10 shoe when he was 9. And a girl of that age can easily wear a woman's size 5 or 6 shoe.
We have two different observations- the coroner told police present at the autopsy that he believed the penetration was digital- not by a penis. Yet, other experts testified that her vaginal opening was many times wider than it should be.

 

[UKGuy]

There WAS digital penetration. The coroner reported this to the police present at the autopsy. This was said to Det, Arndt and Trujillo, who both witnessed the autopsy.

Right, so now the question is what size fingers made those injuries? Do you think BR is more likely than an adult?[/QUOTE]

Chrishope,
Do the research, compare ring finger sizes with diameter of JonBenet's enlarged opening.

Likely is a synonym for probable and the probability that an R digitally penetrated JonBenet is 1 in 3 or 0.3. Probability theory is also a subjective discipline, so any conclusions are usually couched in jargon, e.g. confidence interval, normal distribution, etc.

Just to underline this point the financial models used by all the banks relies on a normal probability distribution in measuring risk when considering investment. Of course in real life what is more likely or less likely to happen does not follow the rules of probability theory. Just watch what happens when the the Greeks leave the Euro!



.

 

[Agatha_C]

No, I don't need to do more research, you need to learn the meaning of the word "typically". Typically parents don't kill their kids. IOWs, under usual circumstances, parents don't kill their kids. This case wasn't typical. But with respect to BR being the molester, I think I'll stick with the idea that 9 year olds are less likely -typically- to be molesters than adults.

I think it's likely the parents did kill -atypically- in this case.

Every 3 days a child in America is murdered by his/her parent/s. I call that typical in the form of its not unusual. Those are just the cases that are reported. 1 in 3 children is being abused in some form by their parents/family member, all of these children are one head bash away from being Jonbenet and that makes her murder far more typical then you seem to believe. It was the staging that was less than typical....

Its time we start to realize that it is typical in our society and do something to stop it...

I am not trying to be argumentative or antagonizing, I simply want to squash this way of thinking, so we can start looking for the signs in our own neighborhoods. Maybe, just maybe we might be able to stop it.

For whats its worth, I respect your opinion and value your input on this forum..

 

[Chrishope]

Most parents DO NOT kill their kids. BUT when kids are killed, it is typically a parent.

I agree.

 

[eileenhawkeye]

Here's an article about Burke from 1998. It's from a tabloid, though.

Band practice at the exclusive Lovett School in Atlanta came to a sudden halt recently when an 11-year-old trombone player threw a fit.

The youngster was Burke Ramsey.

Sadly the murder of his sister, JonBenét seems to have turned him into an angry and sometimes strange boy.

"Burke tossed his instrument to the floor with a thud and screamed that he hated the trombone and didn't want to play it anymore," said a source.

"All the kids in the band got real quiet and some of them were frightened.

"Burke kept screaming an practice was canceled while teachers quieted him down. Burke is now playing saxophone."

On another occasion, Burke was on an amusement park outing when he got freaked out by a girl who looked like JonBenét, said the source.

"He went white and turned away from her. He kept yelling he didn't want to go on a ride with HER!"

One of Burke's homeroom classmates told the source: "He talks to himself in the corner a lot. Everybody thinks he's talking to his sister."

 

[wonderllama]

Good grief.

 

[DeeDee249]

Good grief.

Ditto.

Guess his parents really DIDN'T talk about it with him, did they? If the family was truly innocent, they would have. It was their guilt that kept them silent. It was a "We can NEVER talk about this again" kind of thing. And those kind of secrets have a way of boiling over in some other way.

 

[wonderllama]

I think more to the point, kids want answers.

I know my 6 year old wants to know about everything and why stuff is the way it is and what happens when, how and where.

Kids are curious.

Now if someone dies from cancer or natural causes, I'd expect for a religious family such as the Ramsey's it is easy for them to explain it away by saying "God needed Mummy/Mommy" or something. "Grandpa is with Jesus now"...these are all answers that would satisfy a child's concern as to why someone died or got sick etc.

It doesn't however explain a death like JonBenet's.

"Jesus killed your sister" just ain't going to cut it, and for the parents to seemingly be at ease with the death, or at least John is at ease with her death now, despite no reason or culprit ever being offered up would be terrible for a child Burke's age.

 

[UKGuy]

Ditto.

Guess his parents really DIDN'T talk about it with him, did they? If the family was truly innocent, they would have. It was their guilt that kept them silent. It was a "We can NEVER talk about this again" kind of thing. And those kind of secrets have a way of boiling over in some other way.

DeeDee249,
We know Burke knows what happened, he knows his parents lied through their teeth, since he was talking during the 911 call. Next minute he is sound asleep in bed.

They probably all agreed not to talk about the subject of JonBenet, that child, again.

I wonder if any of his friends have asked him about the case, possibly after reading a book or some online forum, the evidence against the R's is pretty self evident?



.

 

[eileenhawkeye]

Here's a video of Burke flying a plane.[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wXZaqbI"]rc_plane_2.avi - YouTube[/ame]

WARNING: YOU WILL GET DIZZY

You can even hear his speaking voice starting at 4:05.

 

[DeeDee249]

DeeDee249,
We know Burke knows what happened, he knows his parents lied through their teeth, since he was talking during the 911 call. Next minute he is sound asleep in bed.

They probably all agreed not to talk about the subject of JonBenet, that child, again.

I wonder if any of his friends have asked him about the case, possibly after reading a book or some online forum, the evidence against the R's is pretty self evident?

.

From what I have read, BR never liked to talk about his sister, and avoided people who seemed to be interested in him because of the notoriety of her death. I don't know what he would have discussed with his closest friends or family, but my sense of it is that none of them talked about it. It was understood that they had to be careful to never reveal what happened that night. I think they knew they had gotten away with it, and if it was going to STAY that way, they shouldn't talk about it.