Ressler Interview

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by BobC, Oct 1, 2004.

  1. BobC

    BobC Poster of the EON - Fabulous Inimitable Transcript

  2. DocG

    DocG Banned

    Thanks for that link, BobC. Ressler makes a LOT of sense. There's no reason to leave a ransom note behind if you haven't actually kidnapped anyone. But there is ALSO no reason to write a PHONEY ransom note and then call the police, knowing the body is still in the house and the note will be revealed as staging when the body is discovered. Any thoughts on why Patsy would have both written the note AND called the cops?
     
  3. Prairie

    Prairie Member

    Because she wasn't thinking clearly and she's not exactly a rocket scientist. John told her to call the cops. What could she do? I don't think John knew about the crime and cover-up at the time. I think he figured it out as it progressed. By then it was too late.
     
  4. Sabrina

    Sabrina Member

    There was a show on Ressler last night on CTV.

    He started the profiling program for the F.B.I., regardless of what what you hear from others -- they reported to him.
     
  5. DocG

    DocG Banned

    The note certainly looks like the work of someone thinking very clearly indeed. Very precise instructions are provided. And it states that the "kidnappers" are going to call "tomorrow" between 8 and 10 PM. Patsy must have had SOME sort of plan in mind.

    Are you saying you think John wasn't aware of her plan, and innocently insisted she call 911? If the two of them were in it together, why would he have wanted that call made?

    Let's assume John went along with Patsy's plan and agreed not to call the police at that time. What do you think would have happened then? How would Patsy have followed through with the kidnapping staging? How would she have handled that 8AM call? Do you think she planned on letting John in on her scheme at some point? Or was she hoping to keep him in the dark? And if the latter, how could she have hoped to do that?
     
  6. DocG

    DocG Banned

    Oh and one more thing. If you expect us to accept that Patsy wasn't thinking clearly and was no rocket scientist, then your forcing us to accept a similar sort of argument from the BORING camp. (Bent On Ramsey Innocence Never Gonnagiveaninch.)

    So maybe it was the intruder that wasn't thinking clearly. Maybe HE's the one lacking rocket scientist smarts. Some poor fool breaks into the house, writes a meaningless "ransom note" for no particular reason and leaves it there as evidence against himself out of sheer stupidity. Isn't that Jameson's theory?
     
  7. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    The crime wasn't well planned - how could it be? The Ramseys generally hoped everyone would believe JB had been kidnapped. The idea was to throw everyone off, remove the focus of the crime to outside the home, then hopefully find a time when they could quietly remove JBR's body from the basement room to a vehicle and then to a site well removed from the home where she would be "discovered" by someone. At least, that's what their quickly thrown together plan was. They expected the police to leave their home when the call didn't come through and start investigating outside the home. When that didn't happen, and Arndt suggested the walk through inside the house to look for anything that looked suspicious, JR had to change his plan. He was flying by the seat of his pants. He improvised by "finding" JB's body.

    From there, it was just one fiasco after another with the RAmseys being allowed to leave the home wearing clothing that should have been taken in for evidence then and there and without being separated for questioning.

    To me, there is no other scenario that can explain their actions that morning.
     
  8. DocG

    DocG Banned

    Wy

    "The crime wasn't well planned - how could it be? The Ramseys generally hoped everyone would believe JB had been kidnapped."

    How could they possibly have had such an expectation? The body was in the house when the call was made. They were believed at first, but inevitably JonBenet was going to be found.

    "The idea was to throw everyone off, remove the focus of the crime to outside the home, then hopefully find a time when they could quietly remove JBR's body from the basement room to a vehicle and then to a site well removed from the home where she would be "discovered" by someone."

    The best time to remove the body was clearly BEFORE the police were called. The note gave them the perfect excuse NOT to call. If this is an inside job, that's clearly one important reason it was written to begin with.

    "At least, that's what their quickly thrown together plan was."

    Not so quickly. The note is almost three pages long. A LOT of time and thought went into writing it. If JBR had been killed prior to midnight, as seems likely, her killer(s) would have had 5 full hours to plan the staging.

    "They expected the police to leave their home when the call didn't come through and start investigating outside the home."

    I find it very hard to believe Patsy would have been that naive. How could she possibly have hoped to get the body out of the house after the police and FBI had been alerted? The note is full of warnings NOT to call the police. So what could she have been thinking to write such a note and then call them after all? That's like committing a crime and then calling the police on yourself. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how dumb that would be.

    "When that didn't happen, and Arndt suggested the walk through inside the house to look for anything that looked suspicious, JR had to change his plan. He was flying by the seat of his pants. He improvised by "finding" JB's body."

    IMO he had to improvise because the plan had been blown. The police were there because PATSY called them. JOHN is the one you need to be looking at, WY, isn't it obvious?

    "To me, there is no other scenario that can explain their actions that morning."

    Sorry, WY, your scenario explains nothing. It would be laughed out of court. NO one would be so dumb as to spend all that time staging and then spoil the staging by calling the cops before the plan is fully executed. The note makes a LOT of sense as staging. But NOT the call the 911, that makes no sense at all. Unless Patsy is INNOCENT.
     
  9. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

     
  10. DocG

    DocG Banned

    Wy

    Thanks, WY, for that very thorough and thoughtful response. But please take another look at the note. You say it would have been risky for the Ramseys to dump the body prior to calling the police, but the note gives them the perfect alibi for doing exactly that. If they or their car had been spotted leaving the house at any time on the 27th, or their car had made tracks in the snow, so what? They'd simply have shown the note to the police and told them they were following the kidnappers orders and delivering the ransom. John would have gone to the bank that morning and collected the cash. He could then have found a phone booth and called either his home or cell phone. That would have provided the needed record for the kidnapper's call. No need to worry about their prior plans. JonBenet had been kidnapped! That would have been the message given to all concerned: "She's been kidnapped, we're afraid to call the police, we're cooperating with the kidnappers and getting the ransom money together. Please tell no one."

    The plan I've outlined would have been an excellent plan. Totally foolproof? No. But certainly viable. The plan you're seeing would have been totally UNworkable. There's no way the police would have left the house to look for the kidnappers. Where would they look? A phone call was suspected, so they'd be haning around the house waiting for the call. And they'd probably have gotten dogs to sniff around the house to track the kidnappers. Meanwhile the body would have been getting more and more decayed and sooner or later someone was bound to notice that odor.

    If your line of reasoning makes sense, then Ressler's doesn't. He rejects the intruder theory because no intruder in his right mind would leave such a note without taking his victim with him. He is, in other words, assuming that any possible intruder would have had some sort of logical plan in mind. You're claiming that Patsy and John were throwing logic out the window and just winging it. But team Ramsey could, by the same token, make the exact same claim for an intruder. Which is in fact what Jameson has done. Whose reasoning do you want to follow, that of Jams or Ressler? I'll take Ressler, thank you.
     
  11. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    What if someone had seen John at that pay phone while he was making that call to his home? Cell phones leave traceable records. John could very well have done what you said, but how would he explain making that call to his home if he were going to claim it was the kidnapper making the call? It's an imperfect plan, Doc, with too many variables.

    What about his going to the bank and collecting that much cash? As it happened, he had to pull some strings to get that much money into his account. That would indicate to me he didn't have ready access to that much cash. Banks don't open around here until 9:00 a.m. By then, he would have had to notify his older children and the pilot who was waiting for them at the airport that JB had been kidnapped, or made up another excuse. At the very least, his children would have been told. Once family gets involved, all kinds of advice starts flying - would they have told him to call the police?

    I don't think it's strange at all that Patsy called 911 that morning. I would have done the same thing, no matter what that note said. If a kidnapper has my child, that kidnapper has already proven he can't be trusted. I think it is perfectly logical the police were called in when they were. No way would I depend on a kidnapper to keep his word to give my child back if I paid money to him. But, maybe that's just me.


    Then, why, Doc? You are claiming Patsy never knew a thing about any of this, and therefore she screwed up JR's plans by calling 911. But, I don't agree with you. There are too many others things going on by this time. Do you really think JR could have pretended not to be irritated by Patsy's foiling his plans? I don't. How much time transpired between the time Patsy called 911 and the time the police arrived? That's the time JR was allegedly back upstairs getting dressed. Five, ten minutes? If Patsy was completely in the dark all that time, why did she later claim that JR TOLD her to call 911? She said, what should we do? He said, call 911. Why would she say that, if she didn't know what was going on, unless he really did tell her to call 911? Does that indicate that she was covering for JR, then, afterward? It can't be both ways. Either Patsy knows nothing and does not lie for JR, or she knows everything and is in on the plan. Under your scenario, Patsy knows nothing, but she still covers (lies) for JR. Why would she do that if she were innocent?



    I know you think that. I just don't agree with you. Frankly, I don't see either plan as viable, especially in light of the fact that Patsy wouldn't have covered for JR by saying he told her to call 911 if JR's plan was NOT to call 911. He wouldn't have told her to call under that plan. Right? Then, why did Patsy lie? Doesn't make sense, does it.

    I am saying that, IN THEIR MINDS (not mine), at that point in time, the plan to hide her may have been viable. It certainly wasn't a time of logical thinking or planning. It couldn't have been. Their daughter was dead, probably accidentally, but accidentally in the commission of some type of crime. No one could think straight under those circumstances.

    Well, they surely SHOULD HAVE gotten dogs there that morning. That should have been the very first thing they did. Had they done that, we wouldn't be here talking about this today. Where would they look? Where does any law enforcement agency start looking? We could ask RC that, since he's been through it. Obviously, they couldn't look for JB. But they could start their investigation with the neighbors, start looking into acquaintances, get flyers printed up and posted, get the news on TV to BOL for JBR - all the things they usually do in a kidnapping case. Yes, the note said to expect a phone call, but when that call didn't come, the worst should have been assumed and investigators should have been combing the streets, working the phones, looking for this six year old girl. As it was, Linda Arndt was the only detective in the house that morning. JR was alone in the basement that morning. I suspect he was trying to figure out how to get her body out of there without anyone suspecting.

    Things didn't go as he had hoped, and he had to improvise. I believe this is why he went into that basement first and "found" her body.

    You have answered your own question with the bolded part of this statement, Doc. "No intruder in his right mind would leave such a note without taking his victim with him." Of course he wouldn't. The Ramseys were banking on it. You say they used no logic? This is perfect logic. The ransom note was for the sole purpose of blaming an intruder, who would never leave without his victim, right? Lead the investigators right out of the house, because the intruder wouldn't leave her inside the house, so why look for her there? Look for her outside the house.

    You can't compare the logic of a possible intruder who has had the benefit of days or weeks of planning with the logic of heartbroken and adrenaline-fueled parents, who never planned to kill their daughter. Their sole "planning" came with the cover up and staging AFTER the murder, in a relatively short period of time. It's not even a wash. Patsy and John tried to use logic, but they were winging it for the most part. That's not to say they made the right decisions, but who's to say? It's worked for them for the past eight years. They must have had something going for them besides the bungling of the investigators and their lawyers' manipulation of the DA's office.

    I absolutely agree with Ressler when he says no intruder in his right mind would leave such a note without taking the victim with him. I don't think we are so far apart on this issue, except you insist that Patsy wasn't involved. I believe they were both involved in the cover up and that JBR's death was an accident that happened during the commission of a crime - IOW, either Patsy lost it and clobbered her daughter, or JR was into some funny business with her. To me, it doesn't matter which one did it as much as it matters that they both conspired to cover it up. That makes them both guilty in my eyes and in the eyes of the law.
     
  12. DocG

    DocG Banned

    Wy

    "What if someone had seen John at that pay phone while he was making that call to his home? Cell phones leave traceable records. John could very well have done what you said, but how would he explain making that call to his home if he were going to claim it was the kidnapper making the call? It's an imperfect plan, Doc, with too many variables."

    Only someone personally acquainted with John would be likely to remember seeing him in a phone booth at that particular time. So sure there would have been some risk, but not much. And yes, cell phones leave traceable records, which is what he would have wanted. No record is made of the call itself, just the time of the call and where it came from -- in this case a phone booth near the bank, where presumably the "kidnappers" would have been "monitoring" his actions as indicated in the note.

    "What about his going to the bank and collecting that much cash? As it happened, he had to pull some strings to get that much money into his account."

    That's AFTER his plan had been blown. He was pulling strings because he needed to raise the money BEFORE the banks opened, to be ready in case the call came THAT morning at 8. It WOULD be interesting to learn whether or not he had that much in his bank accounts at that time. Possibly his money was all tied up in investments. For a millionaire, however, which is what John was, $118,000 is NOT that large a sum. He might well have had it in a savings account or even a checking account.

    "I don't think it's strange at all that Patsy called 911 that morning. I would have done the same thing, no matter what that note said. If a kidnapper has my child, that kidnapper has already proven he can't be trusted. I think it is perfectly logical the police were called in when they were. No way would I depend on a kidnapper to keep his word to give my child back if I paid money to him. But, maybe that's just me."

    That may well have been her thinking, yes. But John might have tried to convince her otherwise.

    "If Patsy was completely in the dark all that time, why did she later claim that JR TOLD her to call 911? She said, what should we do? He said, call 911. Why would she say that, if she didn't know what was going on, unless he really did tell her to call 911?"

    If you're so sure they are both guilty, then why accept their version of what happened? Looks very much to me like they're both lying. The question is: why? In the Tracey documentary, Patsy gives a totally different version of what happened. She says SHE is the one who decided to make the call, she told John and he agreed. I don't believe that version either, but there is a clear contradiction there for sure.

    "Does that indicate that she was covering for JR, then, afterward? It can't be both ways. Either Patsy knows nothing and does not lie for JR, or she knows everything and is in on the plan. Under your scenario, Patsy knows nothing, but she still covers (lies) for JR. Why would she do that if she were innocent?"

    Excellent question. I'm surprised you haven't read my analysis in the "Understanding the Ramsey Note" thread. You ought to have memorized that by now, dear. :)

    To get to the heart of this case, IMO, you have to take two big leaps. You have to 1. realize that the handwriting experts who ruled John out COULD have been wrong -- in which case he must be ruled back IN; and 2. realize that Patsy might have been persuaded to tell some "white lies" in order to back up some of John's claims -- NOT because she knows the truth, but because they are in this together and it would look bad for both of them if they started squabbling over certain "unimportant" details. In the CNN interview, John states that calling 911 was HIS idea. How would it have looked for Patsy to interrupt him at that point to correct him and claim it was HER idea?

    If this seems a bit of a stretch to you, I can understand that. But to me this is the ONLY scenario that explains the existence of the note, why it was written and who is the most likely writer. All others just don't work. Unless you want to claim the note makes no sense at all. On that score I can't agree.

    "You have answered your own question with the bolded part of this statement, Doc. "No intruder in his right mind would leave such a note without taking his victim with him." Of course he wouldn't. The Ramseys were banking on it. You say they used no logic? This is perfect logic. The ransom note was for the sole purpose of blaming an intruder, who would never leave without his victim, right? Lead the investigators right out of the house, because the intruder wouldn't leave her inside the house, so why look for her there? Look for her outside the house."

    You really think the Ramseys were naive enough to think they could get the body out of the house AFTER the police had been called? Well I suppose if YOU are naive enough to believe that then maybe THEY could be. :)

    "You can't compare the logic of a possible intruder who has had the benefit of days or weeks of planning with the logic of heartbroken and adrenaline-fueled parents, who never planned to kill their daughter."

    Team Ramsey is claiming their intruder did no planning at all, but improvised all the way. They see this person as some sort of wigged out junky, with no plan, writing the note as a fantasy and leaving it behind because he was too doped up to think. YOU see it otherwise, but that doesn't mean it happened EITHER way.
     
  13. Elle

    Elle Member

    I've often thought the Ramseys could have removed JonBenét's body earlier that morning, and with it being holiday time, people do visit each other at all hours. Some people start opening presents at midnight on Christmas night. I don't think this would have mattered who had seen them leaving the house late. Nobody's business anyway.

    If the Ramseys didn't have to fly to Minneapolis that morning, some other plan would have been hitched. They were stymied because they had to pick up John's son, John Andrew, his daughter Melinda and her fiancé Stewart Long. They couldn't leave JonBenét's dead body behind in the house. They were stymied all right, more ways than one.
     
  14. Moab

    Moab Admin Staff Member

    They sure couldn't afford to have the "big kids" show up at the house prior to JBR being found either, and I think that was a catalyst for John hurrying things along a bit. If you remember John met "the big kids" at the curb when they arrived, and I don't remember them ever entering the house that day. Weren't they whisked away relatively fast?
     
  15. Elle

    Elle Member

    Right, Moab, can you imagine that scene? They went into a van and talked in there. This is when John Ramsey made the statement that JonBenét's body had been found at 11:00 am. Stewart Long phoned Steve Thomas and confirmed this for him at a later date. Makes you think, doesn't it? The body was found at 1:00 pm approx.

    John and Patsy were escorted to the Fernie's home, but not too much information was given out about where his son and daughter went. Not that it matters to the case.

    Plus John Ramsey made another mistake on the Larry King Live show. He said to LK ..."There were a lot of people buzzing around at 3:00 am.that morning." (26th Dec.) This makes you think too, doesn't it, Moab? The friends were called around 6:00 am. So we're told..
     
  16. Moab

    Moab Admin Staff Member

    You said it all in that mouthful!
    :did:
     
  17. DocG

    DocG Banned

    The trip could easily have been cancelled. Just call everyone involved and either tell them someone got sick or tell them the "truth", that JonBenet has been kidnapped and ask them to keep that secret until her ransom can be arranged. WHY does that keep coming up? It's a non-issue. No Brainer. And like that. Sheesh!!!!
     
  18. Elle

    Elle Member

    We know they had to cancel anyway, whatever else they chose to do, that's very obvious DocG. Sheesh! The whole trip to Disneyland had to be cancelled too, Sheesh! No Brainer! You've chosen the right words!
     
  19. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    I don't accept their version of any of it, Doc. The only thing I know for sure is they were both in the house that night. I don't know (and neither does anyone else) what their actions were in the hours after they left the Whites' house and the time Patsy called 911 the next morning. Anything I say here is for discussion purposes only.

    One thing I do know for sure, an innocent person doesn't have to lie, and an innocent person doesn't give two (or three) different versions of what happened. The truth doesn't change. So, it would appear both John and Patsy lied about some things and, therefore, everything they say has to be questioned.

    Reread my posts, Doc. Naivete has nothing to do with it; I offered a scenario for the sake of discussion, only. People make decisions based on circumstances surrounding an issue at a given time. Under these circumstances, I can most certainly see the Ramseys making the decision not to move the body during the night. JB was wrapped in a blanket by her killer. That would signify someone cared about her. That same someone may not have wanted her body dumped out on the cold, hard, snowy ground. It could be argued either way. The thing is, it's all speculation. To me, it all points to Ramsey involvement. I don't believe John wrote that note, but I do believe he had input into the note.

    You make some good points, but you don't see Patsy in that note, and I do. You don't accept my reasons for believing Patsy wrote the note, because my reasons don't meet your criteria, although you overlook the fact that I believe the samples I have seen of Patsy's and the note are near duplications.

    I believe Patsy wrote the note, and some day, if we're all still living and this case is ever solved, I'm going to come back and say, I told you so.
     
  20. Elle

    Elle Member

    These have always been my own feelings, that the Ramseys couldn't bear the thought of leaving JonBenét out in the cold.
     
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