Was Burke involved?

[blefuscu]

I think the ligature was meant to make the head injury of lesser importance, to point to an intruder, to ensure that the victim never spoke of the incident, and possibly as a mercy killing. given all the odd and contradictory circumstances, a head injury alone would cause an investigation into a suspected domestic incident: an unattended fall, or something done by an angry parent/sibling. nothing says SFF like a “professional, intricate, and specialized” ligature. a fatal/near-fatal head injury would be of no consequence to a kidnapper other than "oops, there goes the ransom money" whereas to the guilty parties it was something that required further action. of course, that is based on my belief that the head bash came first

Thanks for that.

Even so, a death in the family, or a kidnapping is going to cause much more of an investigation into the family than a head injury. Just doesn't seem logical that despite knowing how bad the head wound actually was they would kill her rather than get her help.

 

[ATasteOfHoney]

Something that occurred to me, while I was on the bus home from university today.

If Burke had hit JonBenet on the head rendering her unconscious why would PR and JR not just take her to the hospital? They can't see she's got a scull fracture and a bleed to her brain, but it would be normal parental practice to get your injured child to hospital. Why then wait for a long while to do anything at all? The evidence shows she was alive quite a while after the head injury through the amount of blood, and obviously she was alive whilst being sexually assaulted as she bled again.

If Burke had "hurt" JonBenet sexually, and she struggled and he hit her leaving her unconscious then he's going to run and get his parents. I can't believe any 9 year old wouldn't panic immediately and not go and get mom or dad. And why would he sit there for a considerable period of time, then think to make a garrotte and strangle her?

So then why no move to the hospital? Even if they thought, we need to clean up her up down below, they could have done that and then called 911.

If she hadn't been sexually assaulted by Burke but merely hit on the head leaving her unconscious, why would a parent then sexually assault her and then strangle her? Burke doing it makes no sense.

Just because he may have been heard on the 911 call doesn't automatically make him involved.

Simple: JBR had been a victim of chronic sexual abuse per the autopsy and the fact that she had to be treated for UTI's ad nauseum.
The big, dark, deep secret would come out.
And that was epic for PR----keep up appearances and illusions at all costs.
She was good at it.
It was her driving force.
moo

 

[questfortrue]

Thanks for that.

Even so, a death in the family, or a kidnapping is going to cause much more of an investigation into the family than a head injury. Just doesn't seem logical that despite knowing how bad the head wound actually was they would kill her rather than get her help.

The question about why not getting her help has been asked many times over the years. Simplistically, I've only been able to come up with 3 reasons:

1) She was already deceased when the R’s found her. Or they believed her to be deceased. And they felt the only way they could rescue BR from social service mandates and rescue their lives (reputations) was to stage. This rests upon the idea that BR himself didn’t know he had harmed her so seriously, so she was just left to die. Hard to believe, but possible.
2) They couldn’t take her to the hospital if a male R were responsible for the molestation. Incest is a powerful secret.
3) PDI all the way.

moo

 

[Venom]

If they found her unconscious and took her to the hospital, then they'd have to explain what happened to her at the hospital. And risk the molestation being found. They'd have a lot of explaining to do, embarrassment, and risk losing their social standing.
I think the head bash and strangulation had to occur close to each other. If she was hit first and could have been unconscious for an hour or longer and then strangled, then wouldn't the body not be in full rigor when found?

 

[ATasteOfHoney]

Also, PW tried to tell PR something significant at the memorial. PR refused to listen.

That's interesting......any more about that?

 

[Linda7NJ]

Something that occurred to me, while I was on the bus home from university today.

If Burke had hit JonBenet on the head rendering her unconscious why would PR and JR not just take her to the hospital? They can't see she's got a scull fracture and a bleed to her brain, but it would be normal parental practice to get your injured child to hospital. Why then wait for a long while to do anything at all? The evidence shows she was alive quite a while after the head injury through the amount of blood, and obviously she was alive whilst being sexually assaulted as she bled again.

If Burke had "hurt" JonBenet sexually, and she struggled and he hit her leaving her unconscious then he's going to run and get his parents. I can't believe any 9 year old wouldn't panic immediately and not go and get mom or dad. And why would he sit there for a considerable period of time, then think to make a garrotte and strangle her?

So then why no move to the hospital? Even if they thought, we need to clean up her up down below, they could have done that and then called 911.

If she hadn't been sexually assaulted by Burke but merely hit on the head leaving her unconscious, why would a parent then sexually assault her and then strangle her? Burke doing it makes no sense.

Just because he may have been heard on the 911 call doesn't automatically make him involved.

By all accounts Burke was one cool cucumber.


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[questfortrue]

That's interesting......any more about that?

It's from acr website, interview June 1998 Tom Haney, PR and Trip DeMuth present with R attorney PB and investigator EA.

Excerpt:
PR: And -- and I just remember hearing

2 something that John Fernie was going to detain

3 Fleet because he was in no condition to be put

4 on that plane.

5 TOM HANEY: No condition due to?

6 PATSY RAMSEY: He was -- and like I

7 say, I am kind of like just catching, you know,

8 wafts of these conversations. But that was my

9 first recollection. I picked up on something

10 that Fleet was not acting right. And they were

11 going to keep him from going on the private

12 plane back to Atlanta.

13 So anyway, I didn't want to think

14 too much about it, and then when we were in

15 Atlanta, I just sort of remember Priscilla

16 standing in my mother's living room, family

17 room, you know, just kind of like this and

18 saying, "well, I know what's going on" and she

19 said, "if you would give me a few minutes of

20 your time, I could let you in on some things."

21 And I turned to her and I said,

22 "Priscilla, how can you know so much?" And I

23 said, "I am the mother of this child. And I

24 know nothing."

25 TOM HANEY: What was she referring

0076

1 to?

2 PATSY RAMSEY: I don't have a clue.

3 I really, I mean, you know, so many times I wish

4 I would have taken her up on it to see what the

5 hell she was talking about. There was just her

6 -- you know, it was just this kind of, I know

7 what's going on here and you don't. And if you

8 give me a few minutes of your time, I could clue

9 you in.

10 TOM HANEY: But she didn't give you

11 a clue or--

12 PATSY RAMSEY: Didn't say, didn't

13 say. So that was like the second little thing.

Have often thought that since JB spent so much time with her friend DW, and PW and FW were around JB alot, they noticed something, or were suspicious about something. Perhaps PW wanted to give her friend PR an idea of what they had noted about JB or had figured out something about what was going on in the R home. Either PR's ego got in the way of receiving informtion or PR did not want to hear certain information spoken. moo

 

[Linda7NJ]

Wow you two are amazing! Thank you both!


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[Venom]

If one of my friends said that to me (referring to post #1167) I'd have to ask what she meant by it. JMO, but then again, I'm an I need to know type of person.

 

[Let_Forever_Be]

I've been increasingly feeling that Burke was more involved in all of this that previously imagined.

I'm still not sure of an exact theory regarding him but certain things spike my curiosity such as:
- the fact he was on the police call tape thus awake.
-his lack of concern for his sister as demonstrated in the interviews he gave.
- his dna being on the blanket used to wrap her.
- his prints being on the pineapple bowl.

It's just a hunch.

But then I struggle to reconcile him with aspects of the injuries such as the sexual abuse and head injury. He could have done those things though. And if Patsy's fibres were entwined within the garrote that puts her at the crime scene and involved in it. Why would she and how could she do that?

I think an adult wrote the ransom note and not Burke. But the whole sexual nature of the case does make me question him. Kids CAN do that stuff as sick as that sounds. But then, was he the one molesting JonBenet? And on the night she died, was that him doing it? If so, did he do it before the head injury? If so, why did this occur? Why did JonBenet get hit? If the head injury came first why did Burke then sexually assault her afterwards?

 

[Venom]

IIRC, the blanket used to wrap her was in the washing machine in the basement. The housekeeper LPH said that it was there, so BR's dna on the blanket would have to have been recent, after it was washed?

 

[otg]

otg, do you think one person or more than one person participated in the acts that killed JonBenet? I promise not to ask for names.

One. (You don’t have to ask for a name -- you know who I suspect.)

 

[otg]

OTG,
BBM, Are you referring to when JR "found" her body at 1:05 pm the next day? Or sometime sooner?

I think her dead body was discovered by JR and Patsy just after she died, and that they stayed up all night altering the evidence and covering it up.

IIRC, Mortal Evidence by Cyril Wecht includes a long chapter on the forensics and other evidence of the JB case. Wecht still, after 7 years (2003) sticks by his guns that she was strangled first - not a vicious strangling, but one which pressed upon the vagus nerve. For those uninformed like me, Wecht said that if the signals from the vagus nerve are interrupted, cardiac and respiratory reponses could slow down, become irregular, and eventually cease - a proceses known as "electrical death." ("Special cells in the heart transmit neurological mesage very quickly. . . and if something interrupts those mesages, a chain of events begins that can lead to death.") He goes on to say her unconsciousness would be inexplicable to her molester. wecht's theory was that the head blow was to create a brutal reason for her death.

I have a lot of respect for Wecht, and I think he got most of what happened correct. But I think his interpretation of the evidence ("that the head blow was to create a brutal reason for her death") was wrong. Were that the reason for it, it should have been evident on sight instead of something that wasn't even known until the autopsy was done.

 

[otg]

The BR theory is a good one and it makes some sense, but I'm still not buying it. Not unless he did everything except write the note and the undoing. But if he did it all, how did PR's fibers get all over everything?

No, I don't think he did anything to cover it up. That was all the parents.

It sounds good, because he was just a kid and the only thing his parents would be guilty of is trying to protect him, but IMO, there's not much evidence to support this theory.

But being "guilty of trying to protect him" is where their crimes were committed: Destruction of evidence of a crime, altering evidence, abuse of a corpse, lying to authorities, allowing a situation to occur that put her in danger... It all sounds a lot to me like child abuse leading to death.

That's not saying there isn't evidence pointing to BR that we don't know about.

There is evidence we don't know about.

But if there is, would LE have gone after the Rs like they did?

Yes, if they were the only ones who could be charged with a crime.

Would they have wasted the time and money going after Karr? moo

All I can say to that is that I think (and it's just my personal opinion -- which I am entitled to) Mary Keenan Lacy is an idiot!

-------------------------------------------------------
​

BTW, want to see something creepy I ran across a few days ago? Maybe others have seen it, but it was new to me (otg shivers and uke:

 

[otg]

It's from acr website, interview June 1998 Tom Haney, PR and Trip DeMuth present with R attorney PB and investigator EA.

(snipped by otg)

Have often thought that since JB spent so much time with her friend DW, and PW and FW were around JB alot, they noticed something, or were suspicious about something. Perhaps PW wanted to give her friend PR an idea of what they had noted about JB or had figured out something about what was going on in the R home. Either PR's ego got in the way of receiving informtion or PR did not want to hear certain information spoken. moo

This was also after FW and PW had had a chance to talk to their son and maybe find out something that had been a secret amongst the kids for a while. I think Patsy didn't want to hear spoken what she suspected had been going on.

Also consider her reaction in one of her interviews when she was told flat out that JonBenet had been molested on occasions prior to that Christmas night. I truly believe her reaction then was genuine -- no denial, no excuses, just shock at the confrontation with reality of what she didn't want to believe. I think it was a genuine reaction.

 

[otg]

I've been increasingly feeling that Burke was more involved in all of this that previously imagined.

I'm still not sure of an exact theory regarding him but certain things spike my curiosity such as:
- the fact he was on the police call tape thus awake.
-his lack of concern for his sister as demonstrated in the interviews he gave.
- his dna being on the blanket used to wrap her.
- his prints being on the pineapple bowl.

It's just a hunch.

But then I struggle to reconcile him with aspects of the injuries such as the sexual abuse and head injury. He could have done those things though. And if Patsy's fibres were entwined within the garrote that puts her at the crime scene and involved in it. Why would she and how could she do that?

I think an adult wrote the ransom note and not Burke. But the whole sexual nature of the case does make me question him. Kids CAN do that stuff as sick as that sounds. But then, was he the one molesting JonBenet? And on the night she died, was that him doing it? If so, did he do it before the head injury? If so, why did this occur? Why did JonBenet get hit? If the head injury came first why did Burke then sexually assault her afterwards?

When this realization becomes apparent, all else makes sense: the actual evidence, the behavior of the parents, the behavior of the people close to them, the things left unsaid by investigators who may have figured it out, the actions of lawyers and the gutless (or you can substitue a "n" for the "g" in that word) DA, and maybe even a sympathetic Lou Smit.

 

[BOESP]

IIRC, the blanket used to wrap her was in the washing machine in the basement. The housekeeper LPH said that it was there, so BR's dna on the blanket would have to have been recent, after it was washed?

This question isn't directed at you Venom (although you can answer if you like :blushing. I've missed the boat on Burke's DNA and the blanket. I've either never read or else forgot how it was determined that Burke's DNA was on the white blanket. Is it in a report or something? Was it Touch DNA or DNA from bodily fluids or skin cells?

 

[madeleine]

When this realization becomes apparent, all else makes sense: the actual evidence, the behavior of the parents, the behavior of the people close to them, the things left unsaid by investigators who may have figured it out, the actions of lawyers and the gutless (or you can substitue a "n" for the "g" in that word) DA, and maybe even a sympathetic Lou Smit.

if BDI I don't get why so many people in the DA office (and not only) put their careers on the line for it.this is something that doesn't make sense to me.if it was an accident,a kids game that went wrong,etc why the HUGE cover-up?this to me points away from BDI and points to something more serious(or shall I call it ...sick).:moo:

 

[BOESP]

This was also after FW and PW had had a chance to talk to their son and maybe find out something that had been a secret amongst the kids for a while. I think Patsy didn't want to hear spoken whatshe suspected had been going on.

Also consider her reaction in one of her interviews when she was told flat out that JonBenet had been molested on occasions prior to that Christmas night. I truly believe her reaction then was genuine -- no denial, no excuses, just shock at the confrontation with reality of what she didn't want to believe. I think it was a genuine reaction.

BBM. I agree but otg I see different reasoning. Maybe Patsy didn't see "corporal cleansing" as sexual abuse or even abuse. Maybe she was shocked to hear that an outsider would consider it sexual abuse when she saw it as getting her baby clean (my words), much like the "pageant scrub." Whether either or both of us are correct in our thinking, I still believe Patsy did it but maybe to cover up events that occurred between JonBenet and her brother.

 

[BOESP]

When this realization becomes apparent, all else makes sense: the actual evidence, the behavior of the parents, the behavior of the people close to them, the things left unsaid by investigators who may have figured it out, the actions of lawyers and the gutless (or you can substitue a "n" for the "g" in that word) DA, and maybe even a sympathetic Lou Smit.

So, otg, let's say you are right (hey, I'm flexible). Do you think all the time and money spent investigating this case and the Karr farce come under the umbrella of helping the Ramseys stage the entire event?

Surely ... surely ... Boulder is not so corrupt as to spend taxpayer money, investigation time, and DA office time on a scam for 17 years and why in the world didn't the Ramseys keep their arrogant mouths shut and slowly sink into the sunset. Why would you want to keep your daughter's death in the forefront if your son was the guilty party? Why would John Ramsey write yet another book and keep the interest going if he wanted to protect his son?

The body language and style exhibited between John and Patsy Ramsey on every interview and video that I've seen suggest they barely tolerated each other. Why would that be? I could be wrong ... but I don't think so. :seeya: