John Ramsey's New Book - The Other Side of Suffering

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by Tricia, Jan 18, 2012.

  1. zoomama

    zoomama Active Member

    Ooooh Cynic, I totally agree. There will be no "tough" questions asked of John while on any of these programs. I'm sure that there was some sort of agreement before hand that limited any questions that would touch on something that might be in the least way incriminating or suggestive that John had anything to do with the demise of JBR. Do you still think Wood is in the picture anywhere? Like pulling the strings so John can talk. I certainly hope I miss every one of his appearances. How about all of you?
     
  2. cynic

    cynic Member

    I don’t think Woody is with him but he probably helped draw up pre-interview terms for his appearances.
    With respect to watching the appearances, I will watch them all because watching is free and I have a strong pain threshold. I won’t buy his book but I’ll read it at the library or bookstore.

    The press coverage is every bit as terrible as we feared it would be, behold:

    [snip]
    In fact, with hindsight, Ramsey has a fascinating view of today’s child beauty pageant “Tiger moms,†who parade their daughters on the hit TLC show, “Toddlers and Tiaras.†Ramsey said he never sat and watched the show, but he has caught snippets of it, which he said he finds disturbing.
    “It’s very bizarre,†he says outright. “And, it certainly– Patsy and JonBenet didn’t approach it that way. We– they just did it for fun.â€
    Ramsey said he remembers his little girl in a parade, just days before JonBenet was found killed in the basement of the family’s Boulder, Colo., home on Dec. 26, 1996.
    “Patsy had her sitting atop a friend’s convertible in the Christmas parade waving at the people lining the streets,†Ramsey recalled. “Patsy’s mother later told me that a strange man approached the car during the parade and it made her uncomfortable. I think about these things now and it makes me cringe. We were so naïve. I now believe with all my heart that it’s not a good idea to put your child on public display.â€

    [snip]
    Within hours, the Boulder police began treating the Ramseys, especially John, as suspects. Ramsey said he got a tip from a caller inside the Boulder police department, telling him they were targeting him and he should get a lawyer. When the investigation was leaked to the press, it sparked a media frenzy.
    “I had 24-hour-a-day cameras outside of our house for, gosh, a year, probably,†he said.
    There were tantalizing clues around the house — a footprint, a broken window, some DNA evidence – all sparking wall-to-wall tabloid coverage of the case. When asked if he thinks JonBenet’s killer could still be at large, Ramsey said, “I believe he is.â€
    “He’s either alive, dead or in prison, and one of those three,†he said.
    John is remarkably free of bitterness when it comes to talking about the investigation. The only time he gets worked up is at the thought that the Boulder police’s rush to judgment may have allowed the killer to hurt others.
    “That rests squarely on the shoulder of Boulder police,†he said.
    It would take 12 years before the Boulder district attorney’s office completely cleared the Ramseys of any wrongdoing in their daughter’s slaying, and issued an apology in 2008. But in the meantime, John Ramsey’s reputation was ruined and he had lost his thriving business. JonBenet’s mother, Patsy Ramsey, died of ovarian cancer at age 49 in 2006.
    In his newly released book, “The Other Side of Suffering,†John Ramsey talks about his incredible journey from grief to hope. He recounts how deeply his faith helped him navigate course from suffering to forgiveness.
    While no one would blame him for being angry or bitter, â€I was for a time,†Ramsey said. “But you can’t stay there. It’s damaging to you as a person.â€
    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlin...pageants-says-toddlers-and-tiaras-is-bizarre/

    Also, his interview on GMA:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMNnyxkigEg
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2012
  3. cynic

    cynic Member

    Here’s some more and it’s not pretty:

    John Ramsey's Lingering Suspicions
    Daily Beast, Lucinda Franks
    Oct 13, 2008 2:14 AM EDT
    Finally exonerated in the murder of his daughter, JonBenet, Ramsey talks about the loss of his wife and his wealth—and the suspicions that still haunt him.

    [snip]
    After the child beauty queen was found strangled in the basement of her Boulder, Colorado home in 1996, Ramsey watched the grief, and the stress of being falsely accused, slowly kill his wife, Patsy, who died of cancer in 2006. A grand jury that sat for 13 months refused to indict the Ramseys, yet the Boulder District Attorney announced they were “still under an umbrella of suspicion,†and they spent the next decade shunned by friends and hounded by the press.
    Then, in July, a new Boulder DA, citing fresh DNA samples, officially cleared the Ramseys and apologized, in a letter, for the “ongoing, living hell†of their ordeal. In his first in-depth interview since receiving that letter, John Ramsey describes those painful years to The Daily Beast.
    After the murder, Ramsey, who had built a billion-dollar computer company up from nothing, fell precipitously from the peak of wealth and prominence, losing not only his daughter, but also his career and his home. "The fact I'm no longer under suspicion will never bring back my life,†he says. “Once your reputation is tarnished, it stays tarnished."
    But Ramsey hopes that the new "touch" DNA evidence can eventually release him from the mental torment of not knowing who murdered his child, and from a haunting suspicion that it was someone in the family’s inner circle. He and a few allies from Boulder suspect one particular friend who was familiar with the Ramseys’ home and details of their life. However, District Attorney Mary Lacy, who took over the case in 2005, says that this individual "has been thoroughly vetted and cleared through the new DNA."
    The discovery of DNA from an "unidentified male" in three places on JonBenet's long johns allowed investigators to rule out the possibility that a single sample of this DNA found earlier belonged to a worker at a clothing factory (this was the original police theory). They also concluded that this stranger—not any of the people in the Ramseys’ circle, who were previously tested—was the murderer.
    Yet Ramsey’s suspicions persist. Asked directly if he thinks this acquaintance killed JonBenet, Ramsey says, "Oh, I don't think so, But then he proceeds to poke holes in the man’s alibi and describe how the Boulder police botched the investigation from the beginning. Moreover, Pam and Michael Archuleta, who remained close to the Ramseys and are also speaking publicly for the first time, tick off circumstantial evidence that they believe points to this man. Asked about the new samples of “stranger†DNA, Michael, who was the pilot of John Ramsey’s King Air jet, adds, “perhaps this person's DNA was not found because he hired someone to do it for him."
    [snip]

    [snip]
    As both a public service and a personal crusade, Ramsey now spends much of his time promoting state laws that mandate the lifting of a DNA sample from anyone accused of a felony, which would substantially expand the national DNA registry. (His website is DNAFINGERPRINTLAW.COM.)
    At age 64, Ramsey still has the gloss of wealth about him. He greets me in a wine-colored cashmere sweater and yellow-checked shirt, his wavy hair the color of cornstalks in winter; he is smooth and genial, even debonair.
    [snip]
    Then he sits up and in a stronger voice says: "As for Burke, I don't let anybody I don't know get near him." JonBenet's brother was nine years old at the time of the murder and is now a senior in college. "If anything happened to him, I wouldn't survive it.â€
    "Sometimes, in a crowd, I will see the flash of a little coat that looks like JonBenet's… I can't stand to hear children cry, I really cannot bear it."
    For solace, he goes every Sunday to a small church nearby, just as he did with Patsy. He obsessively reads the theology books that line the sunroom: Max Lucado, C.S Lewis, even Billy Graham. Having seen true evil, he is trying to find "an intellectual rather than an emotional basis for believing in God."
    "Do you still feel married to Patsy?" I ask, "Do you think about her a lot?"
    "No, no," he says, his face relaxed but his eyes miserable. "Just occasionally, when a pleasant memory comes back."
    "You talk of her in the present tense," I say.
    "Do I? Oh well, just an accident."

    [snip]
    Such a flood of tragedy defies any normal reaction, and John Ramsey's responses have been often judged abnormal. It was his bizarre poise on the morning of the murder that first raised police suspicions about him. "They wanted me to wail and cry in front of them,†he says. “It somehow escaped them that how people really feel is not always apparent."
    John was also criticized for immediately getting a lawyer. "I got a call from someone in the law enforcement system on the second day. They told me I better do it, because the police were already considering me the prime suspect."
    "It started when our frantic call brought a single rookie cop who was so inexperienced she didn't seal off the house or collect evidence. She even had to send out for a book on kidnapping," John says. "Then, later, they took 200 DNA samples and one by one they purportedly eliminated our friends and acquaintances so they could investigate the only people they really thought had done it—us. And our DNA wasn't even found on our child's body!"
    Patsy became a suspect because of the similarity of her writing to that of the ransom note, "But no expert would say that the handwriting absolutely matched," John says. The police floated false rumors—such as the fact that no footprints had been found in the snow around the house, when there was no snow there that day—hoping to smoke out family members.
    The tabloid press followed them everywhere. "They banged on our car and, called us child killers. They printed garbage. A Japanese camera crew even broke into Burke's school," John says. "We worried. We didn't know who was out there. Someone had killed our daughter. All we wanted to do was protect Burke and give him a normal childhood."
    After Geraldo Rivera broadcast a mock trial of the Ramseys, Patsy went to bed for two days. They took all of the TV sets out of the house and cancelled the newspapers. One day, Patsy was in a supermarket checkout line with her son. "The headlines from a tabloid screamed out that Burke had done it,†John says. “She dropped her produce and rushed Burke out, but the damage had been done." Burke saw a child psychologist for two years.
    Ramsey admits, for the first time, that both he and Patsy suffered waves of guilt about the murder. "I kicked myself for not getting more sophisticated house security. We left it off that night because it would go off like a siren and catapult us out of bed."
    Patsy, he says, “wondered who she had enticed by putting JonBenet in beauty contests.†And both parents lamented that the videos of JonBenet vamping in these competitions—released by the pageant organizations—became the only thing most people knew about their daughter.
    "But she was a born performer, she and Burke would put on all these plays,†Ramsey says. The pageants were only an occasional fun thing."
    Yet Pam Archuleta, over coffee and then wine at the Boulderado Hotel, said Patsy was “obsessed†by the contests, and she describes the alcove just outside the master bedroom in Boulder where Patsy displayed all the photos, trophies, ribbons and tiaras from her own days as Miss West Virginia. JonBenet’s pageant costumes were “handmade in New York, much finer than the other contestants,†says another family friend. "Her hair was highlighted, her makeup applied thickly and designed to make her look older. Besides, she had to take piano and singing lessons, she had a coach. Does that sound like fun?â€

    [snip]
    Some friends saw JonBenet's bedwetting and other problems with toilet training as a protest against the pressure of the pageants. They believe she might have soldiered on to please her mother after Patsy’s harrowing battle with cancer.
    When JonBenet was two years old, Patsy was essentially absent for a year during her treatment. "JonBenet just stuck to me," John said, with a rare smile. "I was upset because Beth had just been killed in the accident and JonBenet would tell me 'Dad I don't like that face.' I would smile and she would say 'That's better.'"

    [snip]
    In his campaign for a larger DNA database, John Ramsey points out that thousands of rapes and murders can be prevented, for such criminals often strike many times. “DNA can, of course, exonerate people as well," he says wryly.
    Because the new, more sensitive, “touch" DNA test can recover tiny samples from surfaces that the old DNA could not,more and more states are requiring that samples be taken on arrest.
    “The last hope I have,†he says, is that “one day I will get a call from somewhere in the country and a voice will say, 'We know who killed your daughter.'"
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...exonerated-in-the-murder-of-his-daughter.html
     
  4. cynic

    cynic Member

    Oh, and BTW - he hasn't lost his lizard ways:

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2012
  5. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    It is every bit as nauseating as I thought it would be.
     
  6. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    Excellent questions, Cynic, but as you said, John doesn't have the cojones to get within ten feet of a REAL interviewer who would ask them! :mad:
     
  7. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    Thank you, Elle. Right now, they think it's either a severe case of food poisioning or a particularly vicious intestinal virus. We are seeing some improvement, but it's slow. If it's not either of the above, we'll see a gastroenterologist for more tests, but we're hoping it's something temporary and not chronic. They've ruled out appendicitis, and GI tract obstructions. As you know, it hard to see your child suffer.
     
  8. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Kathy Griffin's response to Ramsey's media BS parade:



    Like I said: John ain't fooling nobody but himself if he thinks anyone believes his lies.
     
  9. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    OMG, I DON'T have a stong pain threshold, and just reading your excerpts of John's sanctamonious BS interviews is EXCRUCIATING! :headache:

    I won't be buying the book either. I hope the publisher loses money for thinking it would be profitable to promote John Ramsey's crap and lies! I predict the book will go straight to the bargain bin, but not before doing more damage to the truth, especially through these fawning national interviews.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2012
  10. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    Ha ha, I love it! Thanks, Cynic!

    Our suffering is knowing the truth, while having to look at John Ramsey's lying lizard-tongued face, and watch him publicly tout a rescinded exhoneration as he throws innocent people under the bus!
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2012
  11. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    Hey, KK, it's about time you showed up on this thread ... and good for Kathy Griffin!!! :yay:
     
  12. Why_Nut

    Why_Nut FFJ Senior Member

    So, the Kindle version has downloaded to my iPad, and off to the races we go.

    This thing is a wreck of writing, that is for sure. Ironic that John writes several times of how he and Patsy would have "pity parties", since this book reads as one giant pity party for John. Literally, homeless men on the street apparently have it better than John, because John Suffers So Much while these homeless men have found peace with their fate.

    The book desperately needs fact-checking and annotation, so I will go through chapter by chapter and see what it yields.
     
  13. Elle

    Elle Member

    It does sound like food poisoning to me, Cherokee; especially if no other children are falling sick at the same school or any of your neighbour's children (?). Let's hope there will be one special doctor above the others. who can pinpoint what it is, and ease your anxiety. It is not easy when you can't take their place.
     
  14. Elle

    Elle Member

    Don't think Thor will want a copy of this photo! Ech![​IMG]
     
  15. Elle

    Elle Member

    With Kathy Griffin saying this on tv KK, it still keeps the public informed!
     
  16. Elle

    Elle Member

    It is good you are well organized when it comes to this case Why_Nut.
    Shall look forward to your posts.
     
  17. Why_Nut

    Why_Nut FFJ Senior Member

    Note: Nit-picking is something done when one or two flaws in a work may be present. But if a person were covered head to toe in nits, would it be considered nit-picking to want all of them removed, lest the person suffer from the weakness all those nits are causing?

    Chapter one:
    ==========
    "Burke plays downstairs in the living room by the Christmas tree. He's trying to assemble a mechanical robot made of the Legos he got for Christmas, so I sit down on the floor to help him put it together, but it's way too complicated for tonight."

    So it is a robot now? Funny, for years John told the story as he did in DOI:

    "Meanwhile, I went downstairs to try to get Burke to come up to bed, but he was deeply involved in assembling the miniature parking garage he had received that morning. I could tell he wasn’t going to go to bed until the project was finished, so I settled down on the floor beside him. Helping him complete what his mind was focused on was the best way to get us both in bed."
    ==========
    "Some people, however, are not always all that impressed with Patsy's creative talents. In 1995, two thousand people went through our Christmas house, which Patsy had decorated to support a fund-raiser for the Boulder Historical Society."

    No, it was 1994. Also, do the numbers. In 1994, the Historic Homes for the Holidays tour took place over two days, a Saturday and a Sunday. The hours were 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. The tour would therefore encompass at most 12 hours. Divide 2000 by 12, and you find that in any particular hour an average of 166 people were inside the house, not counting support staff. We have all seen pictures and video of the inside of the house. Can you imagine 166 *unique* individuals crowded into that living room and that dining room during any one hour, let alone 12 different sets of 166 people oooh-ing and ahhhh-ing over Burke's bedroom? I question John's and Patsy's oft-quoted numbers of 1500 to 2000 people coming through the house (let alone the usual accompanying theory that JonBenet's killer scoped out the house during this tour filled with heavy coats and sweating visitors in a house also equally described as hot enough to require cracked windows).
    ==========
    "'John, I found a note on the stairs! It's a ransom note!' She screams, frantic. 'John! There's a note!' She rushes to JonBenet's room and through the playroom to Burke's room and I follow. Burke is sleeping peacefully in his bed, but JonBenet is gone."

    Followed by John's reading of the ransom note, and then:

    "I hurry upstairs to put some clothes on, and run back downstairs. Patsy rushes to check on Burke and he is still asleep."

    So now the story is that Patsy and John checked on Burke, then Patsy checked on him *again*? This is at odds with all other described scenarios.

    Patsy in DOI:

    "'Burke!' John yells. 'What about Burke?' Both of us race to Burke’s room at the far end of the second floor and find him apparently still asleep. Best not to arouse him until we figure out what’s happening here, I think. He’s better of asleep for now. I step into the hall."

    Patsy in the 1997 police interview:

    "And I uh, screamed for John.He was up in our bedroom still and he came running down and uh, I told him that there was a note that said she had been kidnapped. And uh, uh, I think he, he said, I said, ‘What should I do. What should I do,’ or something and he said, ‘Call the police,’ and I think somewhere, I remember I said something about, you know, check Burke or something and I think he ran back and checked Burke and I ran back down the s tairs and then he came downstairs."

    And then in the same interview:

    "TT:Okay. Was Burke still in the same bed? He hadn’t moved beds or anything like that? PR:I don’t know. I didn’t go in there and look."

    Patsy in her 1998 police interview:

    "He said, 'call 911, call the police.' I ran upstairs, and I think -- I think -- I -- I can't remember if -- I think I asked him to check on Burke, one of us checked on Burke, and I remember just seeing him at the phone, trying to --"

    John's 1997 interview:

    "At some point we checked Burke, I think I checked Burke."

    John's 1998 interview:

    "I think Patsy said -- I don't know if she checked on Burke. I don't know if she checked on Burke. I remember running around a lot."
    ==========
    "I rush up the stairs. I tell one of the policemen about the window. I can barely form the words."

    John's 1998 interview:

    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.
     
  18. zoomama

    zoomama Active Member

    Why Nut, I'm enjoying your comparisons of John's versions of the truth. Hee hee and my how they have been sanitized. I'm so glad I stuck to my guns and not watched any of his recent interviews. Did he bring his new wife with him or even talk about her? I see his lizard tongue is active once again. eeewwwe
    It seems that John didn't really invest any time at all in JonBenet's pageants. His telling of them as something slight where Patsy was obsessed with them says it all. And the collection of awards and crowns all on display outside their bedroom says a lot. Did he not see all of these trophies and stuff?


    Cherokee I'm so sorry about your kidlet. I hope it will soon be all over and they can get back to a healthy child.
     
  19. Thor

    Thor Active Member

    Oh Lord. How about our suffering watching the lizard tongue dart in and out and hearing all his Bullsmit?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2012
  20. Thor

    Thor Active Member

    Too late!
     
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