The log grabber

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by DeeDee, Mar 3, 2008.

  1. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    Sorry I don't remember who asked me if I had a link, but I did find the picture of the log grabber that was on the floor of the wineceller. It was on Ruthee's site, but that site is missing a lot of pages now- Ruthee's been dead a few years. I was able to find it on "acandyrose" - this link will take you right to Ruthee's pages. Scroll down and click on "The Jameson Factor" and the log grabber pic will pop right up.
    Here's the link: http://www.acandyrose.com/ruthee.htm
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2008
  2. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    [Edited to correct my mistake about the log grabber: don't want to confuse anyone.]

    Thanks, DeeDee. I was the one who asked for the picture link, and I have seen it before, but it's been ages. I believe that picture was printed in a tabloid long, long ago. I also believe it was a "staged" picture, though I won't swear to it under oath. It seems like we went through this way back when, and the log grabber would obviously be important if LE missed it totally. But notice the blanket on the floor, the plaid one? I've never seen that mentioned in any reports or books, have you?

    See, there was a series of "staged" photos done in the home for the tabs that were so tediously done, I once had to use a magnifying glass to determine two pics that looked the same were not, in fact, the same. One was a crime scene pic of the basement cellar room, from the doorway, and the other was "staged" in the cellar to look like the crime scene pic. Wonder who made the money to do that?

    And I wonder if this pic with the log grabber was also staged for those tabloid pics. If memory serves, it was. Maybe someone else remembers and correct me if I'm having another brain cloud.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2008
  3. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    What you see as the plaid blanket- I saw as the piece of sheet metal that had been covering the hidden floor safe.
    Remember what was said about the floor safe? I think I read it in Steve Thomas' book, possibly in PMPT, but there was mention of a large piece of sheet metal that was on the floor of the wineceller, covering the floor safe. There was some speculation that this sheet metal was the source of the sound of "metal scraping concrete" that neighbor Mr. Stanton said he heard, after being awakened by his wife after she was awakened by the scream around midnight. It is widely believed that the sound may have been the paint cans in the wineceller (also visible in that pic) being scraped along the floor.
    Some people believe that there was a plan to hide the body in that floor safe- that's why the sheet metal was moved. I am not sure about that, but there was supposedly a piece of sheet metal in that room. The patterns that look like plaid look to me like reflections in the metal.
    There is mention of there being more than one blanket in that room. But in other photos, there is really just the white blanket visible. Some people think the pink Barbie nightie was mistaken for a small blanket at quick glance by LE who mentioned "bankets". I'd be surprised if no one else reported a plaid blanket- ANY other blanket would have been taken into evidence along with the white blanket.
    I think that pic I posted, if it wasn't staged, was taken after the white blanket was removed as evidence, because it isn't there.
    Keep in mind that at that the time the white blanket, pink nightie, etc was taken into evidence, there was nothing to indicate a head bash at that point. Otherwise, I can't believe they would leave anything that could have caused it there. Yet, as unbelievable as it seems, they did NOT bring in for testing the flashlight (other than for prints- as far as I know, it was never tested for microscopic evidence of JBR's hair, skin, bone. The bat was not tested, the golf clubs were not tested- they were actually allowed to be removed from the home by Aunt P, even though by this time the skull fracture had been revealed.
    And we wonder why we find ourselves here 11 years later discussing this unsolved case!
     
  4. heymom

    heymom Member

    That looks like some kind of metal sheet to me, too, with some sort of reflection or artificial lines from the photo scattered across it.

    I do wonder if maybe they were going to try and hide JonBenet's body in the safe, but she was too big...wonder how they would have worked that into the staging.

    You know, in those cold clear Colorado nights, sound does travel a long way...so people really could have heard a scream, and metal scraping on cement.
     
  5. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    There were tests done by LE, and portrayed in PMPT, showing that sounds coming from the basement could indeed be heard from across the street- as well as from the third floor parents' bedroom.

    There's no way the Rs wouldn't have heard it. Especially as she was killed closer to midnight. If the parents had been sleeping (which I don't think they were) it wasn't a deep sleep.
     
  6. heymom

    heymom Member

    People leave their windows open up there, too, since the nights are cool or cold and the air is fresh. So the sound traveling and the windows being open...I'm sure if anything happened in the Ramsey household, SOMEONE heard it. Whether or not they wanted to SAY they heard anything, is another matter.
     
  7. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    The neighbor (Melodie Stanton) who heard the scream said that she did, in fact, sleep with her bedroom window opened even in winter.
     
  8. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Actually, the "safe" is in the picture and you can see the actual door and its latch. There is a faint red line drawn to it from the words "Hidden safe". It's the gray rectangle beside the plaid blanket. If that is a plaid blanket. That's what it looks like to me, but then it could be something used to "paint" upon, maybe with a stencil or something like that.

    Edited for correction: In an interview with LE, I believe it was, John Ramsey said that he thought that originally the cellar room was for coal, from the days when a coal furnace was used...I think.

    http://www.geocities.com/Area51/nebula/9337/jameson.html
     
  9. AMES

    AMES Member

    Looks like a metal sheet to me too! I wonder if the reflection that we see..is reflections of the paint cans?? Looks to me that colors reflected are vertical red and gold. Take a look at the paint can in the 3 o'clock position. It has what looks like red and gold horizonal stripes at the bottom. Have you ever looked at yourself in a reflection...and you look like you are upside down? Or sideways?? If its not a mirror...then sometimes refections will reflect a different position than the actual one.

    I just enlarged the picture...and the paint can that I am talking about...its at the TOP of it, not the bottom. It looks like there is just ONE large paint can...but, there is actually two. (I knew that I had never seen a paint can that tall before). So, its actually the TOP of the paint can in the 3 o'clock position. I believe that is where those colors in the medal are coming from..that makes it look like a plaid blanket.
     
  10. heymom

    heymom Member

    I always thought that maybe Melodie had been "convinced" to retract her story...either by concerned family and friends, or by someone who might have been deeply incriminated by her statements. If she did retract her true statement out of fear or reluctance to get involved, she will have had to live with her choice since that night...I can't BLAME her for not wanting to get involved, given the obvious POWER of John Ramsey...
     
  11. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    That is very likely what happened. I bet she was pressured- possibly by the R lawyers, the DA's office, friends of the Rs like the Stines, even their own friends may have said "Are you nuts? Don't get involved in THAT- or the Rs will throw you under that bus, too."
     
  12. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    Yes, I think it may very well be the paint can labels reflected in the sheet metal. You can also see the cigar box, that JR spoke about, in the picture.
     
  13. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    If you go back to Ruthee's site via my link, you can click on "The Killing Fields", which states that police removed a "large piece of sheet metal" from the wineceller. No mention was made of a plaid blanket. Looking at the photo again, the object is too straight-sided and rigid-looking to be fabric.
     
  14. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Here is th link from "The Murder Mansion": "Last modified November 30, 1999".

    http://www.geocities.com/Area51/nebula/9337/killingfield.html

    Ruthie wrote:

    I have never read any discussion of a piece of sheet metal taken from the basement room, but I didn't come online until 2000, so I obviously missed it. I don't remember reading in any other source about it, either, but I could have missed that as well because the first book I read was Schiller's and it was so complex and voluminous, I quickly got lost. Maybe someone else remembers?

    Let me check the warrant listings of items removed.
     
  15. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

  16. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Here's the link to the "basement picture" we're discussing, so others won't have to go back to page one:

    http://www.geocities.com/Area51/nebula/9337/jameson.html

    I still don't see that as anything metal, nor black. I can actually see "folds" in the upper left corner, a curve of the fabric, it appears to me; also it looks like it has an angled fold in the lower area. Plus on the right there is a bit of a "corner" or raggedy edge off of it...? And I can't imagine any reflection from paint cans that would make stripes like that. Maybe I'm just visually impaired. Sorry. I'll keep looking.

    But back to the topic, enlarging the pic to look at it, I see the end of the "log grabber" BEHIND the screen, which I was sloppily thinking was a fire poker. My mistake, you called that one.

    I do not think LE would have missed that if they were collecting sheet metal, do you?
     
  17. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member


    Still looks like metal to me. But as far as the log grabber, it is easy to confuse that tool with a poker, I am sure many people would, especially if they do not own fireplace tools. As for LE missing it- well, lets just say that there was so much else that was missed- and at that point they were unaware of the skull fracture- that it doesn't surprise me that it was left there. Of course, a forensic study on the log grabber, as well as the flashlight, bat and golf clubs, would certainly have turned up any evidence of JBR's skin, hair, etc. But I don't think this kind of study was done on any of them. Pity, cause then we'd have the cause of the fracture.
     
  18. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    [Edited to correct date.]

    DeeDee, I truly think you're on the wrote track here. They combed that house for 10 days. The autopsy was done the next day after they found the body. LE KNEW the skull had been damaged, and a head blow would have been the first thought on that.

    Go back to the picture and enlarge it if you can. Look at the top left corner of the "sheet metal" and tell me how it has a CURVED EDGE like that? You can see the shadow from the raised fold following that curved edge. Now look at the right side, close to the edge: you can see a white line that is raised into curves, and there are two "triangular" shadows under those "humps" of the edge of the cloth.

    And what part of that is black sheet metal?

    I can't tell you where this picture came from, but I can say this: when LE turned the home back over to the Ramseys, the Ramsey lawyers and investigators went through it on their own. Eventually Jams even had a "tour" of it, pictures taken and all. There are many pictures of this home that have been printed that are not crime scene photos. The tabs were notorious for getting them somehow and staging them, as well. College students rented the house at one point, so they could have sold a little "staging" time, for all we know.

    Notice the date of this web page with that picture: "MODIFIED November 16, 1999". Lou Smit didn't release the PowerPoint he compiled to the media until after the Ramsey and Thomas books had come out. Smit went on his own media blitz with the PowerPoint in April of 2001.

    I really don't think this picture is a crime scene picture. I don't believe that log grabber was in that basement, neglected by LE when it's so obvious.

    Now let me tell you whose "hat" keeps popping up in my head on this: jameson. I wish someone else from the old forum days could help us out here if they remember, but many no longer read or participate. I'm thinking that jameson said this was staged or was somehow in the middle of it.

    Well, this is the best I can do. Maybe ACR will remember. I'll see if I can contact her on it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2008
  19. heymom

    heymom Member

    Now that I look at the photo again, that does look more like some kind of cloth. Maybe it was used as a painting drop cloth. Maybe the metal cover is already over the safe. I see that the top left corner of whatever that is, looks as if it's torn. But if this was in the house that night, surely LE would have picked it up for evidence! I have never seen this photo in the original bunch of crime scene photos that we have access to. Could someone have placed this blanket to show were JBR was found? I also don't remember anyone mentioning paint cans...
     
  20. JC

    JC Superior Cool Member


    It looks like fabric to me, too - like it's a light-weight floor mat that covered the safe and has been folded over to expose it?
     
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