Why doesn't anyone think it could've been John.

[Justice101]

Patsy definitely wrote the ransom letters. So she was involved and probably did all of the acts without his knowledge.

 

[gumshoe1]

Folks, for those saying PDI - for bedwetting

That only explains the blow to the head - and then the garrote and strangulation to cover it up,
IT DOES NOT EXPLAIN away the genital trauma from paintbrush.

I can't believe she would do that as part of staging. Just no. This in no way can be just PDI on that basis?

Perhaps John was molesting JBR. John could have done the genital trauma with the paintbrush to JBR's dead body to explain away the genital trauma so that John was not revealed to be a child molester.

 

[scottishgal]

IDI was not investigated enough ?

Very unlikely I agree, but not impossible that someone say who used to work for them as a gardener or cleaner who knew the layout of the house and where they kept things and hated them for some reason - came in through the window and originally intended ransoming - but then perhaps JB woke up and struggled and hence the killing was a spontaneous reaction with motive being some personal jealousy against JR+PR

It isnt wholly impossible ? It has achieved not just doing away their daughter but tarring their names forever?

 

[Lebowski]

Folks, for those saying PDI - for bedwetting

That only explains the blow to the head - and then the garrote and strangulation to cover it up,
IT DOES NOT EXPLAIN away the genital trauma from paintbrush.

I can't believe she would do that as part of staging. Just no. This in no way can be just PDI on that basis?

it does seem crazy that a parent would do that to the body of their daughter. difficulty imagining the perversion and brutality of all of it coming from a parent is one of a handful of things that keeps me from being 100% RDI. (i'm more like 80-90%)

BUT:
1) there were other elements of staging present (it seems beyond dispute that at least the duct tape and "ligature" were pure theater), so it would be consistent with that for additional items to also be staged. if it's a fact that the perp(s) staged some of it, the odds other elements were also staged goes up. ... if one believes the ransom note is staging, i do think it shows a chaotic mental state, such as what might be necessary for a parent to think to stage an SA of their daughter like that.

2) most/all other theories run into bigger problems, in many people's opinions. ...... this is a general problem with the JBR case. it seems highly likely RDI. but which R(s) did what, specifically when, where, why, and how, is hard to judge, with every specific theory either running into improbabilities or relying on ambiguous evidence.

After the netflix program , I was firmly of IDI

JR comes across as very sincere and honest,

But then after all the narc posts on here about JR, I am back to I dont know, certainly makes for a fascinatingly tragic haunting case

it seems to be a widely held view that J is a talented liar (and P was a shitty one). if you believe that, then him coming across as sincere gets less weight. ... also, IMO, it seems likely J did in fact lie about some things, including whether he had found the basement window open in the morning and whether JBR was already asleep when they got home.

none of this would necessarily mean he killed his daugher, or molested her, or was involved in staging, but IMO it is a good bet he is at least being deceptive for some reason.

AFAICT (and this is more my specific thinking, not as widely agreed), J doesn't seem tell any lies in the morning, and indeed he says and does several things that are both bad for the ramseys and bad for the IDI theory they later embraced and which the ransom note writer was pushing. THAT makes me think he was being honest, possibly out of the loop, and possibly not even guilty of anything at least until late morning. some time later in the day, he starts both lying IMO and hedging away early, definite statements he made that undermined IDI. and he has continued that to this day.

Hypothetically if it had been BDI, I assume at this point, there are no legal repercussions for what he may have done as a 9 year old, even if they did admit it was him with the blow to the head in emotional anger not intending to kill?

At this point if JR still covering BDI, its purely to allow him to have a normal social life etc not legal repercussions?

you might also imagine J was avoiding charges to himself, like the grand jury's recommended ones (allowing a child to be abused, or something like that), but IIRC those have expired now.

AIUI, you're right that BR is not in any legal jeopardy. he could straight up confess on national television to murdering his sister, and provide video documentation of the act, and he would not be charged with anything, because he was 9yo at the time. this is one of the major problems with BDI theories. why commit crimes to cover up for a child who wouldn't go to jail anyway?

but yes, you could imagine the goal here is just to try to let BR have a normal life without that knowledge following him everywhere. and/or to try to preserve family honor or something like that.

another possibility i've entertained is that (assuming BDI), one or both parents didn't realize BR wasn't in legal jeopardy when they began staging, and, by the time they realized it, they had literal blood on their hands and were at risk of not only getting charged for the coverup, but being wrongly suspected of the murder itself. thus they had to stick with their narrative from that point on.

IDI was not investigated enough ?

Very unlikely I agree, but not impossible that someone say who used to work for them as a gardener or cleaner who knew the layout of the house and where they kept things and hated them for some reason - came in through the window and originally intended ransoming - but then perhaps JB woke up and struggled and hence the killing was a spontaneous reaction with motive being some personal jealousy against JR+PR

It isnt wholly impossible ? It has achieved not just doing away their daughter but tarring their names forever?

we don't know everything the police did and didn't investigate, because much/most of it has not been made public. but it seems clear that, contrary to R characterizations, they investigated IDI pretty thoroughly. IIRC, the list of PoI's and/or people they interviewed was in the 100s or 1000s.

they took a particularly close look at people known to the R's, and don't seem to have found any of them suspicious. this is important, because several pieces of evidence tell us that, if IDI, it was almost certainly someone they knew. whoever wrote the ransom note knew the amount of J's christmas bonus from the previous year. given the evidence, it's hard to account for an intruder getting in and out without leaving evidence or signs of forced entry, but one of the possibilities is if someone had / stole / copied a key. (however, we basically know the police took a hard look at anyone likely to have a key or to be in a position to steal or copy one.)

i am not closed-minded to IDI, but like i say, i put it at 10-20% odds.

no one came in that window. there was an undisturbed cobweb connecting the grating covering the window to debris below. there would have been fresh snow on the grass in front of it, and multiple early responding officers checked for footprints in snow around the house and didn't see any. (AFAICT, the snow didn't stick on pavement, so lack of footprints means that's how an intruder would have had to leave. but on soft surfaces it was reasonably complete and continuous at 6-8 AM, so lack of footprints rules out intruder exit over those surfaces) ... no one came in any other windows either. if there was an intruder, they came and went through a door. but both JR and officer french who showed up at 6 am checked the doors and reported they were all locked. and there were no signs of forced entry. IMO the least unlikely possibility is the perp found an unlocked door for entry, and randomly chose to lock it on the way out. copied/stolen key is also possible, though IMO not likely. ... but the intruder also managed not to leave any mud or wet footprints despite having walked on a wet ground outside, which makes this more far-fetched.

also, the ransom note is clearly to some extent (most people, including the FBI, think it's a complete fabrication), and was written by someone who knew insider stuff about the R's. ... J and P had no reaction, possibly not even awareness, when the kidnappers failed to call by the end of the window when they said they would. ... in the afternoon, shortly after JBR's body was found, an officer overheard J on the phone trying to make arrangements to have a flight out of town later that day. ... at least some of what was done to JBR was staged in a way that pointed to an intruder. if the big red arrow pointing outside the house is fake, i think that points inside the house. .... the purported intruder's motives and actions are nonsensical: break into the house, SA the girl, kill her two ways, leave a ransom note, and then leave the body?? you might be thinking he was just completely crazy, but he was apparently rational enough to carefully avoid leaving any evidence of himself with the possible exception of DNA on her clothes (which could have gotten there at any earlier time and is not known to be related to the crime).

then there's the fact that the "intruder" apparently spent a long time in the house: at least a half hour to write the ransom note on PR's notepad and nicely put it away afterward. more likely 45m - 2 hours, because that's the estimated interval between the head blow and the strangulation. that is an eternity for a home invasion murder. perps almost always get out as fast as possible, especially if there are still living people in the house. and IIRC the perp visited all four floors of the house, which, especially combined with the long dwell time, shows incredibly little fear of getting caught. ... and they did this without anyone hearing a sound? ... then there's statistics. when a child is murdered, 11/12 times it's by a caregiver or family member.

lastly, there's opportunity and ockham's razor: 3 other people are known to have been in the house that night, and they are all R's. we get to assume their presence for free. it's an established, undisputed fact. the presence of any intruder is an assertion that has to be proven by evidence. that has never happened in 30 years, and indeed appears unlikely.

 

[connie9030]

Patsy and John are the ones who are truly linked, in my mind, to the death of JBR. Fibers from both adults found on her and the tape across her mouth. Her body placed and "found" by John in an almost invisible room. So many things point to the parents and nowhere else. I've never believe Burke was the one who killed her. I have a grandson near the same age, and it just doesn't fit. I've always thought that the finger pointed at the most obvious and most simple answer. Who never went to bed and wore the same clothes for two days plus who left fibers all over the body of a deceased child?

Sometimes I get up in the morning and put the same clothes on from the previous day while I make coffee and let the dogs out. Do we know she slept in her clothes?

 

[Lebowski]

Sometimes I get up in the morning and put the same clothes on from the previous day while I make coffee and let the dogs out. Do we know she slept in her clothes?

i don't see any reason to think she slept in her clothes. PR claims she put yesterday's clothes back on. many people think she never went to sleep. in neither case did she sleep in her clothes. if she had, why would she claim to have taken them off and put them back on?

what do we know about what happened with her clothes? nothing really, we can only guess. PR claimed she sometimes put yesterday's outfit back on. people who knew her cast doubt on that, said she was very vain and would never. but it's possible. on the other hand, it's exactly what you'd expect if the person had been up all night murdering and/or staging a crime scene, and ran out of time or energy to change before calling 9/11. the police the next day didn't think PR had slept the night before.

 

[Lebowski]

one thing i should acknowledge about PR having the same clothes on as the night before... it's been fairly argued that this is evidence against her involvement. after all, if she's been covered in obvious evidence from a murder, or worried about having forensic evidence all over herself, you'd think she would have changed, showered, and washed or disposed of the original clothes.

now, i believe it's true that she (and JR) didn't hand over their clothes for months, giving ample opportunity to clean them. but the R's couldn't have been sure on 12/26 that they would be able to stall for that long. one would think if she had murdering and/or staging all night, she wouldn't have wanted to still be in that outfit when the police showed up. this could be answered by possibilities like her being tired, and not used to murdering, and forgetting about the possibility of forensics on her clothes ...or running out of time, because JR wasn't involved and his waking up forced her to call 9/11 before she was ready. but it still lowers my odds somewhat of her directly being involved in the murder or body staging.

still, it's not a problem at all for her writing the ransom note, which most people think she did.

 

[scottishgal]

it does seem crazy that a parent would do that to the body of their daughter. difficulty imagining the perversion and brutality of all of it coming from a parent is one of a handful of things that keeps me from being 100% RDI. (i'm more like 80-90%)

BUT:
1) there were other elements of staging present (it seems beyond dispute that at least the duct tape and "ligature" were pure theater), so it would be consistent with that for additional items to also be staged. if it's a fact that the perp(s) staged some of it, the odds other elements were also staged goes up. ... if one believes the ransom note is staging, i do think it shows a chaotic mental state, such as what might be necessary for a parent to think to stage an SA of their daughter like that.

2) most/all other theories run into bigger problems, in many people's opinions. ...... this is a general problem with the JBR case. it seems highly likely RDI. but which R(s) did what, specifically when, where, why, and how, is hard to judge, with every specific theory either running into improbabilities or relying on ambiguous evidence.

it seems to be a widely held view that J is a talented liar (and P was a shitty one). if you believe that, then him coming across as sincere gets less weight. ... also, IMO, it seems likely J did in fact lie about some things, including whether he had found the basement window open in the morning and whether JBR was already asleep when they got home.

none of this would necessarily mean he killed his daugher, or molested her, or was involved in staging, but IMO it is a good bet he is at least being deceptive for some reason.

AFAICT (and this is more my specific thinking, not as widely agreed), J doesn't seem tell any lies in the morning, and indeed he says and does several things that are both bad for the ramseys and bad for the IDI theory they later embraced and which the ransom note writer was pushing. THAT makes me think he was being honest, possibly out of the loop, and possibly not even guilty of anything at least until late morning. some time later in the day, he starts both lying IMO and hedging away early, definite statements he made that undermined IDI. and he has continued that to this day.


you might also imagine J was avoiding charges to himself, like the grand jury's recommended ones (allowing a child to be abused, or something like that), but IIRC those have expired now.

AIUI, you're right that BR is not in any legal jeopardy. he could straight up confess on national television to murdering his sister, and provide video documentation of the act, and he would not be charged with anything, because he was 9yo at the time. this is one of the major problems with BDI theories. why commit crimes to cover up for a child who wouldn't go to jail anyway?

but yes, you could imagine the goal here is just to try to let BR have a normal life without that knowledge following him everywhere. and/or to try to preserve family honor or something like that.

another possibility i've entertained is that (assuming BDI), one or both parents didn't realize BR wasn't in legal jeopardy when they began staging, and, by the time they realized it, they had literal blood on their hands and were at risk of not only getting charged for the coverup, but being wrongly suspected of the murder itself. thus they had to stick with their narrative from that point on.

we don't know everything the police did and didn't investigate, because much/most of it has not been made public. but it seems clear that, contrary to R characterizations, they investigated IDI pretty thoroughly. IIRC, the list of PoI's and/or people they interviewed was in the 100s or 1000s.

they took a particularly close look at people known to the R's, and don't seem to have found any of them suspicious. this is important, because several pieces of evidence tell us that, if IDI, it was almost certainly someone they knew. whoever wrote the ransom note knew the amount of J's christmas bonus from the previous year. given the evidence, it's hard to account for an intruder getting in and out without leaving evidence or signs of forced entry, but one of the possibilities is if someone had / stole / copied a key. (however, we basically know the police took a hard look at anyone likely to have a key or to be in a position to steal or copy one.)

i am not closed-minded to IDI, but like i say, i put it at 10-20% odds.

no one came in that window. there was an undisturbed cobweb connecting the grating covering the window to debris below. there would have been fresh snow on the grass in front of it, and multiple early responding officers checked for footprints in snow around the house and didn't see any. (AFAICT, the snow didn't stick on pavement, so lack of footprints means that's how an intruder would have had to leave. but on soft surfaces it was reasonably complete and continuous at 6-8 AM, so lack of footprints rules out intruder exit over those surfaces) ... no one came in any other windows either. if there was an intruder, they came and went through a door. but both JR and officer french who showed up at 6 am checked the doors and reported they were all locked. and there were no signs of forced entry. IMO the least unlikely possibility is the perp found an unlocked door for entry, and randomly chose to lock it on the way out. copied/stolen key is also possible, though IMO not likely. ... but the intruder also managed not to leave any mud or wet footprints despite having walked on a wet ground outside, which makes this more far-fetched.

also, the ransom note is clearly to some extent (most people, including the FBI, think it's a complete fabrication), and was written by someone who knew insider stuff about the R's. ... J and P had no reaction, possibly not even awareness, when the kidnappers failed to call by the end of the window when they said they would. ... in the afternoon, shortly after JBR's body was found, an officer overheard J on the phone trying to make arrangements to have a flight out of town later that day. ... at least some of what was done to JBR was staged in a way that pointed to an intruder. if the big red arrow pointing outside the house is fake, i think that points inside the house. .... the purported intruder's motives and actions are nonsensical: break into the house, SA the girl, kill her two ways, leave a ransom note, and then leave the body?? you might be thinking he was just completely crazy, but he was apparently rational enough to carefully avoid leaving any evidence of himself with the possible exception of DNA on her clothes (which could have gotten there at any earlier time and is not known to be related to the crime).

then there's the fact that the "intruder" apparently spent a long time in the house: at least a half hour to write the ransom note on PR's notepad and nicely put it away afterward. more likely 45m - 2 hours, because that's the estimated interval between the head blow and the strangulation. that is an eternity for a home invasion murder. perps almost always get out as fast as possible, especially if there are still living people in the house. and IIRC the perp visited all four floors of the house, which, especially combined with the long dwell time, shows incredibly little fear of getting caught. ... and they did this without anyone hearing a sound? ... then there's statistics. when a child is murdered, 11/12 times it's by a caregiver or family member.

lastly, there's opportunity and ockham's razor: 3 other people are known to have been in the house that night, and they are all R's. we get to assume their presence for free. it's an established, undisputed fact. the presence of any intruder is an assertion that has to be proven by evidence. that has never happened in 30 years, and indeed appears unlikely.

Your points against IDI are very persuasive and convincing ! I officially have no idea what to think now

I don't want it to be any of the three Rs I think - but that counts for nothing.

The amount of Narc energy that would be needed to inexhaustibly continue the cover up for decades , continue searching for the intruder, going to Comic Con couple of years ago, the netflix docu -
I can't imagine anyone wanting to keep at it.

 

[scottishgal]

@Lebowski, one thing I wish JR would do if he is innocent indeed is , double down through private Investigators on tracing the Male DNA found that was not the R's - all the familial ancestry DNA databases available now - would mean even an innocent donor of the DNA from that night/morning can now be traced surely?

 

[scottishgal]

30 years this year right .......JBR would have been 36 ......

 

[Lebowski]

Your points against IDI are very persuasive and convincing ! I officially have no idea what to think now

it's a baffling case. there is no smoking gun. and no simple theory seems to work.

I don't want it to be any of the three Rs I think - but that counts for nothing.

The amount of Narc energy that would be needed to inexhaustibly continue the cover up for decades , continue searching for the intruder, going to Comic Con couple of years ago, the netflix docu -
I can't imagine anyone wanting to keep at it.

the fact that JR is still out there 30 years later, not only protesting his family's innocence, but continually drawing attention to himself and the case, is IMO, a little bit of evidence for their innocence. it's weak evidence, and it still is perfectly consistent with some RDI theories, but it is one of the things that sometimes makes me wonder if there really was an intruder.

another such clue IMO is the fact that it's hard to come up with any specific RDI theory that is simple, fits the facts, and doesn't require some irrational decision-making. but that ultimately doesn't convert me, because perps sometimes do irrational things. especially ones who have never murdered before, as i'm sure the Rs had not.

 

[Lebowski]

@Lebowski, one thing I wish JR would do if he is innocent indeed is , double down through private Investigators on tracing the Male DNA found that was not the R's - all the familial ancestry DNA databases available now - would mean even an innocent donor of the DNA from that night/morning can now be traced surely?

I think he is pushing that?

agree 100% that it's worthwhile to do, and if an individual gets identified because of that, he should absolutely be investigated.

but don't get your hopes up. my understanding is this: the most promising sample is one that was mixed with JBR's blood and which analysts seem confident (?) is just JBR and one unknown male -- not 3 or more people. the amount of foreign material is small, and due to that and the mixing with JBR's blood, they were only able to get what's known as an STR profile. and that was only after years of painstaking work. STR is good enough to check in the CODIS database, and it has been, and there hasn't been a hit in 30 years. STR is also good enough to check for matches against individuals, and yes it is definitely not from any of the Rs.

but, as i understand it, STR is not good enough for forensic genetic genealogy. for that you need what's called an SNP profile. investigators don't have that. and i gather it's unlikely they'll be able to get an SNP profile from the extant samples, because it requires more material (what they had was barely enough for STR), and is harder to do when the sample is mixed. ... the one ray of hope here is that the relevant technologies have advanced a lot and will likely continue to advance, so it's conceivable investigators will be able to get suitable profiles in the future.

having said that, my guess is that the unknown male contribution will turn out to be from a factory worker in another country who folded the underwear before packaging. or something innocent and unrelated to the crime like that. investigators bought fresh packs of underwear and send them to the lab, and something like half the articles of clothing had unknown DNA on them, presumed to be from factory workers involved in handling or packaging.