I have questions....

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by koldkase, May 19, 2012.

  1. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Thought I'd just put up a thread since I'm looking at the LE interviews of the Ramseys and so many questions come up that have never been answered.

    This has been brought up before, but no answers, since Haney and DeMuth didn't bother to follow up on this obvious "mistake" Patsy made when recounting the morning she and John "discovered" the kidnapping (and by follow up I mean no arrest was made):

    http://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9945

    I don't remember any other account of that morning where either Patsy or John mentions he went into the basement looking for JonBenet before the 911 call. Maybe I have just forgotten; does anyone else remember? Or did Patsy have a "slip" of the tongue? Patsy is describing screaming for John, WHO WAS UPSTAIRS IN THEIR SUITE; but then suddenly John is coming UP from the basement, SCREAMING.

    In fact, if you read this whole passage/line of questioning in the '98 interview, Patsy and John were running around screaming like chickens with their heads cut off. Amazingly, Burke was awake in his bed, never thinking to come out and see what all the screaming was about, not even bothering to ask his parents when they "checked on him" as he lay in his bed pretending to be asleep....

    Haney has some interesting observations and questions about Patsy's 911 call:

    So the detectives had heard that call many times, no doubt, and now Haney reveals they wondered if Patsy practiced her 911 call before she made it: "WE have a kidnapping...I'm THE mother...."
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2012
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  2. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Here's another statement Patsy made in the '98 interview that has been brought up many times, because Patsy used the word "flashback" when describing hearing JonBenet scream. A flashback is when you RELIVE something through remembering it.

    http://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9945

    Patsy clearly knew what a "flashback" was, because she first describes her "flashback" of seeing JonBenet's body on the living room floor--and she did see that.

    So when did she hear JonBenet scream that night?

    Was this the same scream the neighbor heard?

    Why didn't Burke or John hear that? Or did they?

    It's so hard to follow Patsy's convoluted, inconsistent, ever-changing stories.
     
  3. cynic

    cynic Member

    You should find these to be of interest:

    http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15661

    http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15778

    http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41292&page=2

    http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7469&page=2
     
  4. cynic

    cynic Member

    Very much related to John discovering the body early...
    JR: So when I first found her I was like "Thank God, I found her." I didn't want Patsy to see her that way, and I ran upstairs and got a blanket off one of the chairs.
    LS: Upstairs?
    JR: Probably up in the tv room. I just ran up these stairs and went back down and put the blanket over her.
     
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  5. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Speaking of ever-changing stories, let's look at Patsy's account of reading the autopsy report. Notice where Patsy says she read parts of the report--but then confusingly falters in her language. Notice her sentence structure is hard to follow--a clear sign when Patsy is fudging the truth, lying, or trying to mislead the detectives, IMO. She frequently avoided committing to specific answers all through her LE interviews, usually when it was really important:

    [I'll be pulling some of this off a thread where we were discussing some of this transcript yesterday.]

    http://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9945

    Patsy first says she "knows" there was a red heart on the "hand or forehead"--obviously she didn't see it if she couldn't say which one, right? But later that day she told Haney and DeMuth she saw the heart drawn on JB's hand the morning of her death, calling it "well drawn":

    Two pages later in the transcript, she changes her story:


    Then they finished for the day. Patsy left and came back the next morning with another version of this story (after meeting with the legal team the night before, she also revealed):

    Finally Haney did try to pin her story down because she was clearly tap dancing to cover up her earlier statement.

     
  6. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Now I'm going to back track, because it helps me to clarify since the Ramseys' own words are very confusing. Here's what got me started on Patsy changing her story about the heart on the hand: John and Patsy's differing accounts of the autopsy report.

    On the same day Patsy back-tracked to "explain" her memory of the heart on the hand because she "might" have read about it in the autopsy report--or heard others talking about it, take your pick of excuses--she was evasive about even reading the autopsy report. She then said at one point she only read parts but she knew there was "something" on the neck and a head injury. But in another interview with Smit and Kane, John was telling a very different story: John says they never received the autopsy report.

    John's interview on Day Two out of Three in '98:

    So which is it? Did Patsy get the report and read it, but never mentioned it to John? That would be very strange indeed.

    John obviously knew something about the injuries to the child that day, even using the word "accidentally" in what appears to be a referecne to the skull fracture, though it's a gray area because his words were "inaudible" to the transcriptionist. Was he informed of these injuries by his lawyers but hadn't seen the report? If he's telling the truth, was Patsy lying to mitigate her statement the first day that she'd seen it that morning?

    JonBenet wasn't found until well into the afternoon. Patsy slid into her "clarification" the next day she couldn't remember if she'd seen the heart AFTER THEY FOUND JONBENET'S BODY. But that wasn't in the morning, as she first said. I find it every telling that she deftly hit key points of her disclaimers without missing a beat. She knew exactly what she was doing, IMO.

    Patsy's interview at the end of Day One of Three days of interviews in '98:

    At the beginning of Day Two:

    In the afternoon of Day Two:

    We've heard gossip that LE use Patsy's and John's interviews as training for detecting when the witness/suspect is lying. I don't know if that's true, but I can certainly believe it, because to my untrained eye, something is not adding up in their stories.
     
  7. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

  8. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    I haven't yet checked out the WS threads, but your quote here--I thought John was talking about when he put the child down in the living room AFTER "finding" the body. No?

    My reference to John screaming as he came up from the basement was Patsy recounting when they found the ransom note, BEFORE they even called 911. Am I confused--and how could I not be--or are you referring to a different issue altogether?

    I'll check out those links you posted. Thanks.
     
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  9. cynic

    cynic Member

    What the Ramseys refer to as the "TV room" is on the 1st floor.
    Therefore, if he ran upstairs to the first floor that places him in the basement.
    When she was "found" in the afternoon she, of course, was already wrapped in a blanket, papoose style.

    Patsy Ramsey: "Yes, I did then see her. My friends were -- I was in the TV room and they were -- I said what is it? What is it? And they kept, you know, holding me, wait, I don't know what it is. One of our friends ran into the room and said, we need an ambulance, tried to dial 911, and I kept screaming, what is it? What is it? And, you know, then in just a couple of minutes, then I walked into the living room."
     
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  10. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member


    Okay, interesting. I was thinking of the kids' "playroom" on the second floor, I guess.

    Read the first thread. Blue Crab had some good sources, if memory serves, even before most of us saw the transcripts.

    But I have to admit, it's so confusing trying to follow these transcripts, without the crime scene photos, with all the "inaudibles," with that huge house and so many different and changing versions. The detectives went around and around, and I know that's how they interview people so they can determine if they stay with the same story, and also to pry more info out, sometimes just small details that dribble out a little at a time.

    I'm reading the transcripts some more, because John Ramsey is asked at one point if the crime scene techs were there, during the questions about the basement window, when he was down there, etc. He says yes, they were there. He's asked if Officer French went down there before they arrived and he says yes. It's a bit ambiguous, but Kane was pushing to find out exactly when John was in the basement that morning, when he saw that chair in front of the door, etc., and that's when John says it was before Arndt was there prepping him for "the kidnappers' call." That changed John's timeline for being in the basement to before 7 to 9 am, as far as what he had been telling LE.

    Oh, I brought up the "crime scene techs" being there that early because the first link is to a thread where people are trying to figure out when the crime scene photo was taken of the chair in front of the train room door, as John said he moved it. That's the point of the thread, as you know. Posters seemed to think no photos were taken before the body was found, but I somehow got the impression photos were taken early in the morning. Maybe I thought that because of the staged ransom note on the stairs and the staged basement window cracked open,etc.

    It's all so confusing....

    Whew. Trudging on....
     
  11. cynic

    cynic Member

    I've always gone with this old RMN article listing it at 9:00 A.M. The source for the story is Lou.

    In fact, police photographs taken before 9 a.m. the morning of JonBenet's death show much of the perimeter of the house, including walkways, free of snow.

    [SNIP]

    A photograph of the closed door with the palm print was taken before 9 a.m. the morning of the killing, before JonBenet's body was discovered.

    http://m.rockymountainnews.com/news/2001/May/05/standing-in-her-shoes/
     
  12. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    Their lies are so upsetting and the lack of police follow up on it is even more aggravating. Det. Linda Arndt SAW JR carrying JB up from the basement in an upright position, his hands around her waist, and she was NOT covered by a blanket.
    It wasn't until Det. Arndt moved JB from the foyer where JR placed her, to under the Christmas Tree, that JR pulled an afghan from a chair in the living room and put it over JB's body. Arndt added to the destruction of the crime scene FIVE times. First by allowing JR to search the house unsupervised, second by moving the body herself after JR brought her up, third by allowing him to throw an afghan over the body, fourth by throwing a sweatshirt over the body herself, and fifth by allowing Patsy to throw herself over the body as well.
     
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  13. cynic

    cynic Member

    It's no wonder that Arndt later developed Ramnesia, if I screwed up that badly I'd rather forget it all too.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2012
  14. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Oh. My. God. You are so right, DeeDee.

    I love that you have such impeccable memory.

    I hate to be so hard on Arndt, but come on: no matter how desperate she was when left without aid while she repeatedly called for back-up, there is no excuse for complete incompetency in managing the crime scene, then secretly meeting with the Ramseys and not filing a police report on that, either.

    Flowers from the Ramseys delivered to her at the police station? Exactly what did she think that message was to the BPD?
     
  15. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Gawd, this case was so full of dysfunctional people, I don't think it's possible to gather a more desperate group in one crime. Thomas was the only sane one in the gang. No wonder he had to take another path to identify the killer.
     
  16. cynic

    cynic Member

    Some info on the window:

    JR’s recollection of the window and the importance ascribed to it seems to increase over time.
    First it was:
    LOU SMIT: Did you tell anybody about that?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I don't really remember.
    1998

    Then it becomes:
    The window was open. It was broken. I went back upstairs and reported that to Detective Arndt.
    COURIC: You did tell her about the...
    Mr. RAMSEY: Yes.
    COURIC: ...open window?
    Mr. RAMSEY: I did.
    2000

    He seems to have some problems with his memory a year later.
    Q. …did you inform anybody of what you found in the basement?
    A. I don't recall specifically if I did or not. I have a vague recollection of telling Linda Arndt that I found an open window with broken glass, but that I perhaps had broken that glass myself months earlier.
    Q. Do you think you might have mentioned that to any other law enforcement officer beside Linda Arndt?
    A. Not that I recall
    2001

    Finally, John’s memory recovers fully, 2 years later, and he confidently proclaims:
    I told Linda Arndt that I found the window open and I found a suitcase under the window.
    2003


    Below is a series of Q and A’s on the issue, including all of the above quotes in context:

    JR: I said, you know, this window’s broken, but I think I broke it last summer. It just hasn’t been fixed. And it was opened, but I closed it earlier and we got down on the floor and looked around for some glass just to be sure that it hadn’t been broken again.
    ST: And Fleet had talked about earlier being down there, I think alone at one point, and discovering that window. When you say that you found it earlier that day and latched it, at what time of day was that?
    JR: I don’t know. I mean it would have been probably, probably before 10 o’clock.
    ST: Was that prior to Fleet’s first trip down?
    JR: I didn’t know he was in the basement. I didn’t know that. I mean other than that trip with me.
    ST: And on the trip that you latched the window, were you alone when you went down and latched the window?
    JR: Yep
    .
    John Ramsey, 1997 Interview

    LOU SMIT: I remember in your report. Did you ever go down to the basement?
    JOHN RAMSEY: Um hmm. I went.
    LOU SMIT: Who was with you at that time?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I was by myself. I was. I had gone down the basement. I went in the --
    LOU SMIT: You're going to have to back up a little so that the camera (INAUDIBLE)?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I came down the stairs. I went in this room here. This door was kind of blocked.
    We had a bunch of junk down here and there was a chair that was in front of the door. Some old
    things. I moved the chair, went into this room, went back in here. This window was open, maybe
    that far.
    LOU SMIT: Okay. You said -- or how far were you? An inch?
    JOHN RAMSEY: An inch, maybe, or less. It was cracked open.
    LOU SMIT: Which window?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I think it was the little one.
    There's three windows across here, as I recall. I think it was the middle one. It was that was broken. There was pane class broken out of it, which I attributed to breaking myself.
    LOU SMIT: People go into that basement?
    JOHN RAMSEY: But it was open and there was a suitcase under it. This hard Samsonite suitcase.
    LOU SMIT: Describe how the suitcase was positioned?
    JOHN RAMSEY: It was against the wall. I think the handle was on top. It was directly under the window, as I recall. And I closed the window, I don't know why, but I closed it. And then --
    LOU SMIT: When you closed it, did you lock it or close it?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I latched it. There's a little latch on it.
    LOU SMIT: And you're sure of that?
    JOHN RAMSEY: Pretty sure, yeah. Yeah, I am sure. I don't think I looked anywhere else. I think at that point I still was trying to figure out how they'd get in the house.
    LOU SMIT: Well wouldn't that trigger your (INAUDIBLE).
    JOHN RAMSEY: Yeah. Yeah.
    LOU SMIT: Did you tell anybody about that?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I don't really remember. I mean, part of what is going on you're in such a state of
    disbelief this can even happen. And the, you know, the window had been broken out. And you say hah, that's it. But it was a window that I had used to get into the house before. It was cracked and open
    a little bit. It wasn't terribly unusual for me.
    Sometimes it would get opened to let cool air in because that basement could get real hot in winter. So it was like, you know, after I thought about it, I thought it was more of an alarming situation how it struck me at the time. It was still sort of explainable to me that it could have been left open.
    And the suitcase was unusual. That shouldn't have been there. I took that suitcase downstairs, I
    remember. But I sure wouldn't have taken it all the way back there and put it against the window.
    …
    LOU SMIT: When you noticed it, about what time was that? That's kind of important. In terms of time now.
    JOHN RAMSEY: Well it would have been probably before nine o'clock, I would say. It would have
    been that time period: seven to nine. Cause I was still, you know amidst all this other stuff, trying to figure out what's going on here? How did they get in the house? I know this is before Linda
    told us to go through the house. It was well before.

    John Ramsey, 1998 Interview

    Fleet White went downstairs to basement to look for JBR (Schiller 1999a: 44). This time is supported by Carnes (2003:14): "The Whites arrived at defendant's home at approximately 6:00 a.m., and Mr. White, alone, searched the basement within fifteen minutes of arrival. (SMF P 23; PSMF P 23.)
    Mr. White testified that when he began his search, the lights were already on in the basement and the door in the hallway leading to the basement "wine cellar" room was opened. (SMF P 25; PSMF P 25; White Dep. at 147, 151-52.)" (Carnes 2003:14).

    Q. Do you remember what you saw in the basement when you went down there?
    A. I saw a partially opened window with broken glass and a suitcase beneath the window.
    Q. When you would - did you see anything else there?
    A. Not that looked out of the ordinary.
    Q. May I ask why you went to the basement at that time?
    A. I was trying to determine how someone could have gotten into our house.
    Q. Did anyone ask you to go to the basement at that time?
    A. No.
    Q. Do you know if anybody saw you go to the basement at that time?
    A. I have no idea.
    Q. When you saw that the basement was in the condition that it was in, as you have just described it, and you came back upstairs, did you inform anybody of what you found in the basement?
    A. I don't recall specifically if I did or not. I have a vague recollection of telling Linda Arndt that I found an open window with broken glass, but that I perhaps had broken that glass myself months earlier.
    Q. Do you think you might have mentioned that to any other law enforcement officer beside Linda Arndt?
    A. Not that I recall
    Q. When Linda Arndt asked you to go down to the basement, I think that was sometime in the early afternoon -
    A. I don't remember the time. I really don't.
    Q. When she asked you to go down to the basement, could you explain why you chose going to the basement since you had already been there earlier?
    A. She told me to go through the house and look for anything - go through the house thoroughly, as I recall, and look for anything that seems out of place. And so my intent was to do it thoroughly.
    Q. Did you ask Fleet White to join you?
    A. I think I did, as I recall.
    Q. Do you remember exactly the sequence of events when you went down to the basement the second time?
    A. Uh-huh (affirmative).
    Q. Can you tell me where you looked?
    A. I went back into the train room, showed Fleet the broken window, explained to him that I might have broken it myself months ago. I showed him the suitcase that I saw under the window, which I felt was very out of place. We looked for any large pieces of broken glass. And then I got up and went to the cellar room, opened the door, and found JonBenet.

    John Ramsey Deposition, Wolf v Ramsey Lawsuit, December 12, 2001

    BARBARA WALTERS: The police searched your house but they didn't find Jon Benet. But at one point you went downstairs and found an open window.
    JOHN RAMSEY: Yes.
    BARBARA WALTERS: A window that you had broken yourself at one point to put your hand through and find the latch.
    JOHN RAMSEY: Right.
    BARBARA v/o: That window was in a storage room at the rear of the house. It was on the other end of the basement from the room in which JonBenet's body would later be found.
    BARBARA WALTERS: What did you think when you saw this open window?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I was a bit alarmed, but I was more alarmed with the Samsonite suitcase that was standing up below the window.
    BARBARA WALTERS: I have seen the actual police photograph that was taken of that window and the suitcase and, and, there it was in full sight.
    JOHN RAMSEY: That looked wrong. That suitcase did not belong there.
    PATSY RAMSEY: It was out of place.
    JOHN RAMSEY: It was out of place.
    BARBARA WALTERS: So you thought perhaps..
    JOHN RAMSEY: It was...
    BARBARA WALTERS: ...the kidnapper had gone through that window.
    JOHN RAMSEY: I...that was my first impression, yes
    .
    BARBARA WALTERS 20/20 MAR 15, 2000
    http://www.webbsleuths.org/dcforum/DCForumID70/42.html

    COURIC: Detective Linda Arndt was assigned to the Ramsey home during those long hours. Sometime that morning, John Ramsey headed for the basement. Why did you go there?
    Mr. RAMSEY: We had a basement window that was under a--a grate, a removable grate that I had used the past summer to get into the house when I'd lost my keys. I--I wanted to check that window. I went down to that room. The window was open. It was broken. I went back upstairs and reported that to Detective Arndt.
    COURIC: You did tell her about the...
    Mr. RAMSEY: Yes.
    COURIC: ...open window?
    Mr. RAMSEY: I did.
    COURIC: And what did she say?
    Mr. RAMSEY: I don't recall that she said anything.

    Today Show, March 20, 2000
    http://thewebsafe.tripod.com/03202000ramseytodaypt1.htm

    KING: In the book, you write about the suitcase and the open basement window, but the police say you never told them about it.
    J. RAMSEY: That's false.
    P. RAMSEY: False.
    J. RAMSEY: I told Linda Arndt that I found the window open and I found a suitcase under the window.

    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...27/lkl.00.html

    "Each window had four panes, and Fleet White, having been down there earlier, pointed out the baseball-sized hole in the upper left pane of the middle window. 'Damn it, I had to break that,' John Ramsey said, adding that it happened the previous summer when he kicked in the window to get into the house after locking himself out. Should have fixed it then, he noted, taping his forehead. The window was closed but unlatched."
    JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 27

    "Rick French....was reportedly still tortured by his failure to open the wine cellar door when he searched the house in those first few minutes"
    Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Lawrence Schiller, page 660

    Larry King: A window. Was that window open when they investigated it?
    Lou Smit: Yes. When John Ramsey had first seen the window...
    Larry King: There we see a window. That's the window, right?
    Lou Smit: That's the window. Now, again, that picture that you see is the first photograph taken of that window after the crime scene technicians got back into the house. Now, later on, I believe that it was noted that this window may have been opened even by John Ramsey and Fleet White. But what that window did show us, when we first seen it, was that entry could have been made there.

    May 28, 2001 Larry King Live Interview with Lou Smit

    Lou Smit: "So you think that the chair would block the door and nobody would have gotten in there without moving it?"
    John Ramsey: “Correct.â€
    Lou Smit: "In other words, let's say that the intruder goes into the train room, gets out, let's say, that window?â€
    John Ramsey: “Uh huh.
    Lou Smit: "How in effect would he get that chair to block that door, if that is the case, is what I'm saying?"
    John Ramsey: "I don't know... I go down, I say, "Ooh, that door is blocked." I move the chair and went in the room."
    Lou Smit: So you couldn’t have gotten in without moving the chair?â€
    John Ramsey: "Correct... I had to move the chair."
    Lou Smit: "The thing I'm trying to figure out in my mind then is, if an intruder went through the door, he'd almost have to pull the chair behind him... because that would have been his exit... so that's not very logical as far as......"
    John Ramsey: "I think it is. I mean if this person is that bizarrely clever to have not left any good evidence, but left all these little funny clues around, they... are clever enough to pull the chair back when they left."

    John Ramsey, 1998 Interview
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2012
  17. Learnin

    Learnin Member

    'Damn it, I had to break that,' John Ramsey said, adding that it happened the previous summer when he kicked in the window to get into the house after locking himself out. Should have fixed it then, he noted, taping his forehead."


    This sounds so contrived, rehearsed, especially after you know that John went straight to that room and then to the wine cellar.



    Let's pretend something. Let's pretend that John didn't know his daughter was in that wine cellar. He believes she's been kidnapped....gone...out of the house.

    Arndt tells John to look for something out of place...a clue. Keep in mind that John has already been through the basement earlier and says he reported the broken window to Arndt. John already knows there's an interesting tidbit in that room...the broken window. So, why go back to that room when you've already been through it and reported a potential clue? Wouldn't you go to another room to look for another tidbit?

    But, let's pretend John went back down to look over that room because he thinks the kidnapper might have come in through the window he broke. Wouldn't you spend some time in there looking at the ledge and then go outside to look around at the grate, etc.? Even if you thought that was a possible entrance, you would have to know the kidnapper wouldn't have taken JBR out that way, he would've gone out the first door he came to after getting JBR downstairs. The last thing you would do would be to go to the room that John, indeed, went to. What did he think the kidnapper did after getting in through the window? "Hey, I need to find a room to take a smoke."

    No. My money is on John knowing JBR was in the wine cellar.
     
  18. cynic

    cynic Member

    In 1997, PR says the always latched the cellar door, but a year later Ramnesia sets in and says she “would not have specifically necessarily locked it.”
    Specifically, necessarily???

    Ah yes, but the ever so courteous intruder/pedophile/kidnapper/murderer took the time out of his busy schedule to latch it?
    (Also, the small pivoting peg is not readily obvious, nor would it bE likely that someone would expect something that archaic as a means of securing a door.)

    [​IMG]

    TT: Okay. Um, that, that cellar door, that peg on that, does that have to be down to deep that door closed?
    PR: Uh, well, no it will close. It, you know, it kind of sort of sticks on the carpet a little bit.
    TT: Um hum.
    PR: I mean, it will close, but that kind of I always kind of flipped that down just so the kids wouldn’t get in there.
    TT: Okay. But it doesn’t the door won’t open up because of the carpet without that lock down. If you leave the lock in the up position the door doesn’t just swing (inaudible).
    PR: No.
    TT: Okay. Were you ever, you were not ever in the basement that morning before the police got there?
    PR: No, I was not.

    Patsy Ramsey, 1997 Interview

    PATSY RAMSEY: Okay. This is back, this is what we referred to as the (inaudible) cover, these are (inaudible) painting here. When were these pictures taken, before we found JonBenet?
    TRIP DEMUTH: Yes.
    PATSY RAMSEY: See that door is locked there, because there is a little tab thing on there.
    TOM HANEY: Is that the way it is normally secured with that, is it a block of wood?

    PATSY RAMSEY: Uh-huh.
    TOM HANEY: And how firmly or loosely is that attached?
    PATSY RAMSEY: You mean the wood?
    TOM HANEY: Yes, the wood, the block.
    PATSY RAMSEY: Well, you know, it bends, you know. I mean, you have to turn it.
    TOM HANEY: You have to actually apply some force?
    PATSY RAMSEY: Right.
    TOM HANEY: Would it be capable of falling down on its own?
    PATSY RAMSEY: No, I don't know, and I wasn't always -- you know, I was hiding some Christmas presents and stuff back in there for Christmas.
    TOM HANEY: Okay. Do you recall –
    PATSY RAMSEY: What I was going to say, I mean, after bringing the stuff up out of there after Christmas, I would not have specifically necessarily locked it because it kind of drags on the carpet.
    TOM HANEY: All right.
    PATSY RAMSEY: So I can't say that I personally left it neat and tidy shut and closed after I had gotten all of the toys out of there.

    TOM HANEY: You said it kind of drags on the bottom of the carpet. The carpet is too high or the door is too low. How tough is it to open, I mean is it –
    PATSY RAMSEY: You can do it. I can do it, but you had some resistance.
    TOM HANEY: Okay. Is there a spot where you couldn't open past that?
    PATSY RAMSEY: No.
    TOM HANEY: So if we refer to your 90 degrees to pull over, it would do that with just some effort?
    PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah.

    Patsy Ramsey, 1998 Interview

    JOHN RAMSEY: Right. I remember grabbing the handle because the door was latched because I expected it not to be latched. I reached out, flipped the latch and opened the door and immediately looked down.
    LOU SMIT: And you say immediately?
    JOHN RAMSEY: There was a white blanket. And I just knew that I had found her.
    LOU SMIT: How were you standing in the doorway when you observed that?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I was probably right there. The door pulled open. The handle was on the left side of the door and it opened this way, as I recall.
    LOU SMIT: So now, I just want to get that right because when you opened the door, you could look inside the room. Is the light on or off at the time you open the door?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I think it was off. I don't remember it being on. It was off.
    LOU SMIT: Would you be able to see into that room if the light was off?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I saw clearly, instantly. Yeah.
    [SNIP]
    MIKE KANE: Okay. Now when you went around to the wine cellar door, you said you pulled at it and, I think you said that you were surprised that it was latched?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I just said I remember pulling on it almost popping out of hand because it's always been open. And I don't think the latch was latched.
    MIKE KANE: I think you said, (I didn't expect it to be latched.̃ Was it normally not?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I'd say, I mean, the door was kind of stuck anyway, so it wasn't common to latch it.

    MIKE KANE: Did that latch, and I've seen pictures of it, it was on like a pivot?
    JOHN RAMSEY: It was on a block of wood.
    MIKE KANE: A block of wood, but it was pivoted?
    JOHN RAMSEY: Right.
    MIKE KANE: Was it enough that it would fall down on its own or did you have to physically turn it?
    JOHN RAMSEY: I think you had to physically turn it.

    John Ramsey, 1998 Interview

    The sergeant found no evidence of forced entry during a walk through the house, then went outside. A light dusting of snow and frost lay atop an earlier crusty snow in spotty patches on the grass. He saw no fresh shoe impressions, found no open doors or windows, nothing to indicate a break-in, but walking on the driveway and sidewalks left no visible prints. It was frigid, about nine degrees, and Reichenbach returned inside.
    He went down into the sprawling basement and walked through it. At the far end was a white door secured at the top by a block of wood that pivoted on a screw. Reichenbach tried to open the door, stopped when he felt resistance, then returned upstairs. Reichenbach, Officer French, and one of the friends Patsy had called, Fleet White, would all check that white door in the basement during the morning, and White would even open it. They found nothing.

    JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, pages 19-20

    Earlier, Rick French, the first police officer to respond to the mother’s 911 call, had immediately searched the house for the child and for any sign of forced entry, but he found nothing. Then he read the ransom note
    Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Lawrence Schiller, page 7

    When Rick French, the first officer on the scene after Patsy’s report of a kidnapping, later saw the spot where the body had been found, he remembered his search of the house in the early morning. In the first minutes, French, seeing from where he stood that the door was latched shut, had thought there was no need to open it. Now he was baffled by his own decision. How hard would it have been to open the door? Had JonBenét still been alive when he stood just a few feet away and decided not to open the door? The thought devastated him.
    Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Lawrence Schiller, page 21

    White told the detectives that he had been there only a few minutes when he started to search the house. Alone, he went down to the basement, found some of the lights on, and started calling out JonBenét’s name. It was so cluttered down there—with boxes stacked everywhere and shelves overflowing with odds and ends—that he could hardly see any open spaces where she might be. He started in Burke’s train and hobby room, where he saw a suitcase sitting under a broken window. On the floor under the window, he found small pieces of glass. He placed some of them on the windowsill. Then he moved the suitcase a few feet to get a closer look at the window. White said he was sure the window was closed but unlatched. After he left the train room, he turned right, into the boiler room. At the back of the room, he said, he saw a door to what the Ramseys called the wine cellar. He turned the closed wooden latch and opened the door. The room was pitch-black, he said. He didn’t enter, and he saw nothing. When he couldn’t find a light switch, he closed the door and went back upstairs. He did not remember whether or not he relatched the door. Later, when White saw John Fernie, he told him that a window downstairs had been punched open. The police wondered why White had not seen JonBenét’s body and later Ramsey had, since they both stood at the same spot after opening the door to the wine cellar.
    Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Lawrence Schiller, page 44

    He then described going to the little cellar room on the subsequent trip downstairs with Fleet White, unlatching and opening the white door. He snapped his fingers and said, “It was instant, I mean, as soon as I opened the door I saw the white blanket. . . and I knew what was up.” She was on her back on the floor with the white blanket folded around her, her arms were tied, and there was a piece of black tape over her lips, he said, and her head was cocked to one side.
    The door opens outward, so he would have had to step back or aside before moving through. He did not say he saw the blanket after turning on the light but “instantly.” Fleet White had stood in that same doorway that morning and could see nothing in the windowless darkness. I had always considered that Ramsey might have known something before he entered, and with this new admission of going to the basement earlier, I was sure of it. By the time he went back downstairs with Fleet White, I thought he knew exactly where the body was.

    JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, pages 192-193

    We conducted tedious re-creations in the small room where the body was found, duplicating lighting conditions with the help of a photographic expert with sensitive meters and placing a white cotton blanket where JonBenét had lain.
    John Ramsey had said he spotted the blanket instantly when he opened the door.
    It was as dark as a coal mine at midnight in there, and to open the door, he would have had to step back to a point where a blind corner would have blocked his view. I stood where Ramsey had been and saw only a wall of impenetrable blackness.
    Lou Smit: “I can see in there.”
    Even with the light on, Detective Gosage said, “I had to step completely into the cellar and look around the corner to my left to see the blanket on the floor.”

    JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 220

    Ramsey stuck to his original story of seeing the girl’s body “clearly and instantly” when he opened the cellar door and for the first time said he did not turn on the light. Our tests and the testimony of Fleet White had convinced us that it was impossible to see anything in the darkness, particularly when the view was blocked by a jutting interior corner.
    JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 361

    (It does appear to be extremely dark in the room, especially when the door is partially open and someone is standing at the entrance as depicted in the fourth picture below.
    The last picture shows that you do have to step inside and look down and to left to have any chance of seeing the body.)

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    CASKU further said that placing JonBenét in the basement was consistent with a parent not wanting to put the body outside in the winter elements. The familiarity with and relocking of the peg on the white cellar door were noted. The ligatures, they said, indicated staging rather than control, and the garrote was used from behind so the killer could avoid eye contact, typical of someone who cares for the victim.
    JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, page 243

    It was time to let Sergeant Wickman confront the Intruder Theory.
    “The prominent red flag in the big picture is the utter illogic of such an intruder’s actions and behaviors,” Wickman said. “For one to believe an intruder committed this crime, one would also have to believe all of these things.” Enumerating conflicting points, Wickman asked, “Would an intruder”:
    Have taken the time to close JonBenét’s bedroom door, which Patsy said had been found closed?
    Have taken the time to relatch the obscure cellar door peg that police and Fleet White found in the locked position?
    Have placed JonBenét beneath a blanket and taken the care to place her favorite pink nightgown with her?
    [SNIP]
    Have wiped and/or re-dressed JonBenét after the assault and murder?
    Have fed her pineapple, then kept her alive in the house for a couple of hours while she digested it? (That same fresh-cut pineapple that was consistent, right down to the rind, with a bowl on the breakfast table that had the print of Patsy Ramsey’s right middle finger on it.)
    [SNIP]
    Have been able to navigate silently through a dark, confusing, and occupied house without a sound in the quiet of Christmas night?
    [SNIP]
    Be a stranger who could write a note with characteristics so similar to those of Patsy Ramsey’s writing that numerous experts would be unable to eliminate her as the author?
    [SNIP]
    Have been so unprepared for this most high-risk of crimes that the individuals representing a “small foreign faction” failed to bring the necessary equipment to facilitate the crime?
    Have been able to murder the child in such a violent fashion but so quietly that her parents and brother slept through the event, despite a scream loud enough to be heard by a neighbor across the street?
    [SNIP]
    And, Wickman pointed out, given the medical opinions of prior vaginal trauma, the night of the murder must not have been the intruder’s first visit, unless the vaginal abuse and the murder were done by different people.

    JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, Steve Thomas, pages 346-347
     
  19. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Now that you've jogged my memory, this is one of the reasons why I thought there were crime scene photos from earlier in the morning. Do you remember someone--I'm thinking Smit--doing the TV interview rounds who showed the photo of the cellar door with the latch closed and said [approx.] "behind this door when this picture was taken, was the body of JonBenet"?

    [​IMG]

    Those pictures are quite revealing, aren't they? Reading how Smit was so clearly biased even while staring in the face of the reality of the evidence, I no longer believe Smit's Team Ramsey allegiance was due to incompetence--though there's that, too. I think Hunter brought Smit, Ollie, and San Agustin on board to find reasons not to indict and try the Ramseys, and Smit found the money too good, the "Christians" too likable, and the fame irresistible.

    See, this is EXACTLY why I'd like to ask John Douglas why he has spent the last 15 years "undoing" all his own writing about this subject BEFORE he was mesmerized by JOB Ramsey. Before Ramsey, Douglas said THE SAME THING. Then he spent 2 hours with JOB and voila! No such thing as "caring" and "undoing" in cleaning, redressing, and wrapping the body like a "papoose"--JOB'S OWN WORDS. Her feet were sticking out of the end of the blanket, says Douglas! Now he's a TEAM RAMSEY GOD.

    I was reading a fairly recent men's magazine article Douglas was interviewed for, and I swear the man thinks he can walk on water. I wanted to suggest that he get an Air Force fighter jet to fly him all over the world so he can solve all the murders in the world, since he now firmly believes he's the only one capable of it anymore.

    Oh yeah. Now I remember why it's been a long time since I read Thomas' book.

    :burnedup::rage::hopmad::steamed:

    Any DA who couldn't make this case against the Ramseys in a trial should have stepped down and gone into basket weaving in a rest home.

    I simply can't give JOB Ramsey a pass, either. Do you remember how Thomas trapped him in the LKL interview? When John was so angry at Steve, arguing he (John) knew Patsy didn't do it, Steve told him he couldn't know, could he, because John wasn't in the basement that night, was he, as he was asleep upstairs? Old JOB about busted a gasket, he wanted to jump Steve so badly. NEVAH have we seen old JOB so angry at the killer, not even close.

    I've always felt if Hunter hadn't interfered from Day One, this case would have been solved in one week.
     
  20. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    And speaking of suspicious stories John told, these photos are in other discussions here about the basement window. I've actually added a couple to so it's completely clear that nobody backed through this window on his knees one wierd Boulder night in Ramseyland.

    This was a demonstration for some TV program or another put on by Team Ramsey, I'm guessing. While this guy was simulating the "intruder" going out the window, reverse the sequence and John's story is clearly not credible.

    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 22, 2012
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