The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey (CBS Special)

Lots of things don't make sense in this case (not that I'm an expert or anything) but I can't get past the fact that the note is unlikely to have been written by an intruder. It seems too long and the amount of money too specific etc..

 

The Lou Smit guy, who came to believe the Ramseys were innocent, was hired by the DA. He was not employed by the family. In the A&E doc, they show an interview with Smit where he says he even went into the case assuming what a lot of people did, that the parents probably did it and it would be a quick case.

There is also evidence in the A&E documentary not mentioned in the CBS doc that authorities (the police department?) tried to force Smit a number of years later to hand over *all* of his evidence and investigation research/materials, and specifically mentioned they planned to *destroy* Smit's material. That's certainly quite extreme, and Smit fought them and won.

 

The note is perhaps the most problematic and weird part of the case. But it's worth noting that, as far-fetched as it is, I don't think even the proponents of the "unknown intruder" theory deny that the note was written on the Ramsey family notepad and with their pen. The "intruder" theory does likely require that someone broke in and spent A LOT of time in the home.

 

Yes, to write a draft that they found and then a 2 page note? Has any intruder ever done that?

 

Maybe if they had OCD?

 

The two interviews they show of Burke Ramsey, one right after the murder and the other one when, if I recall correctly, he was 11. Two things; did the family allow him to be interviewed (could they have refused either time) and was anyone else present (a family lawyer?) other than the interviewers and Burke?

It seems to me that if Burke knew what happened to his sister even to the point of him being responsible, there's no way the parents could reasonably expect a 9 or 11 year old to be savvy enough to keep that to himself in the face of a professional interviewer.

 

Doesn't seem unusual to me at all. My wife and I raised two girls.
She always called 'em panties. Started during potty training. "You don't want to go in your big girl panties".

 

Parents that treat a young daughter (or son) as miniature adult beauty queen/models are suspect to begin with. Creepy with a capitol C.

 

It was the mother, man. I take one look at her face and I can see she's a vapid idiot who spends most of her time worrying about her appearance. She's so well coiffed in this young beauty pageant way. Little curly poodle doo. Obviously a wanna-be beauty queen who pushed her little girl into it.

 

I wasn't aware that a draft of the ransom note had also been found. Are you certain about that?

 

She's also dead from cancer.

 

She WAS a beauty queen, not a wannabe.

I just find it hard to believe that parents would do this sloppy a coverup, and would strangle their own daughter with a homemade garrote, etc.

Regardless of who did this I just feel increasingly more and more sad for this poor six year old whose blooming life was so tragically ended.

 

Right, Patsy Ramsey was crowned Miss West Virginia in 1977, under her maiden name. One of her sisters was also in pageants, winning the same title in 1980.

Miss West Virginia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia »

So putting her daughter in beauty pageants is akin to "keeping the business in the family" in my opinion. Never mind JonBenet was just a small child. I'll bet the woman had aspirations that her daughter win the Miss America crown someday, something she nor her sister were able to do.

 

This might be so. And it might be normal...in certain circles. But I can't help but think this tiny girl, in full makeup, wearing adult type clothes, playing what is essentially a act, or a role...is creepy. And off putting.

 

The CBS special mentioned that at least 2 rough drafts were found.

 

The note was so long that it took the CBS panel over 20 minutes to copy it by hand. How long did it take to write as original text? The note pad and pen were also returned to their original locations in the home and not left with the letter. As mentioned by others, there were 2 drafts found in the home as well. Then there is the opening statement about representing a "small foreign faction". What the heck does that mean? Historically, ransom notes are short, to the point, and present a position of strength and power. The ransom letter is the biggest problem with the intruder theory. Of course there are many problems with the family member theory too. I guess that's why we are still talking about it 20 years later.

 

The train track and wounds matched.

 

Oh I agree, much too young!

 

In the A&E doc, UK experts was asked to examine the two pairs of marks on the girl's body - on the jaw near the ear and the back, IIRC. [The DA's investigator, Smit, concluded that they were a result of a stun gun; the police dismissed this and at one point declared that a toy train track in the house had caused them when the killer stabbed JonBenet with it.] The UK experts' analysis was that while the toy train track was of an approximate width to the marks on the body, the shape of marks themselves did not match the ends of the connecting prongs of the track. They concluded definitively that a stun gun was the source of the marks - that the marks were characteristic of a stun gun impact and that even that one mark that was slightly blotchy is a result when the stun gun does not have or does not maintain constant contact with the skin's surface during the 'stun'.

 

The CBS team interviewed Fleet White but didn't give any details, did they? Just that it
was interesting. Or informative....

 

That's what the special said.

 

The ransom money that was asked was for the same sum as the father's Christmas bonus that year which is odd. And to write a long note and never take the daughter is way strange. No crime I have ever heard of ever matched that scenario.

 

I've heard three shows say "almost the same as" his bonus, not exactly.

Which made ME wonder if it was someone low down in the pecking order at Ramsey's company who knew his bonus amount and what he might be able to get on hand right away, snuck into the house during the day when people were in and out, perhaps late at night wrote the note, then went to kidnap Jon-Benet, hit her too hard, panicked about going through with the kidnapping or found it too hard to get the girl going out of the house, then decided she had to be killed as she knew him/her, fashioned the garrote, strangled the unconscious girl and left the house.

No one seems to have mentioned that as a possible occurrence. . . . The crime scene was so compromised by bungling first police actions that there are a number of possibilities and obviously no certainties.

 

I can't fathom someone in that scenario waiting until they get inside the house to write a ransom note, looking around for paper and pen because he didn't bring his own, and throwing away a rough draft or two....it makes no sense.

 

Zero sense. I'm sorry, they did it. Patsy wrote the note. Don't know if the son did it. But I know the mother and father and both idiots. Or they were guilty about something and it wasn't an accident.