Bonita Papers

"I don't think the answer would be all that unusual for kids that age. In fact, I bet if you asked a bunch of kids if they had any secrets, most would give a variation of that answer. To know how significant that answer was, I think I'd need to know more about what exactly the doctor asked about uncomfortable touching and what the time element was between that and asking about secrets."

The doctor inferred that the action of putting the board game on his head when asked about uncomfortable touching was unusual. Any verbal answers to the question aren't recorded in the papers.

There were no inferences made, at least none in the Bonita papers, about his answer to the question of secrets.

I'm thinking Patsy was so nervous that day because Burke might tell secrets instead of keeping them. I don't think he'll ever have questions about what happened about that night; I think he has the answers.

 

I agree that Burke's on the tape - but then when the cops arrived he was in bed asleep. I think his parents sent him upstairs to pretend he was asleep - and he must remember that.

About Burke reviewing the case as he gets older and considering its inconsistencies - maybe. Mr. Ramsey has two adult children and a son-in-law - have they done any reading about the case, or ever voiced a public opinion?

 

I agree with you about Burke's involvement. I really think if his parents thought he actually knew anything, that interview would have never taken place.

A couple other things I thought about:
- The Psychologist had knowledge about some things (bedwetting, information about the condition of JB when found, including apparent evidence of sexual abuse, etc.) that sent the questioning in certain directions and colored the interpretation.
- What would be a "normal" reaction to the unexpected death of your sister if you were a 9 year old boy? How would the conditions she was found under change the "normal" reaction?
- Burke didn't have a "normal" family. He had a distant father and a very emotional mother.
- The kids were "projects". Did they feel like projects?
- Burke's job was to be the invisible child. Seen and heard when he was wanted and out of sight otherwise. He and JB remind me of the kids in soap operas, visible when they need to be there to advance the plot, but otherwise not.
- John's comments about Burke and secrets say more about him than about Burke.

These are some of the "secrets" in the Bonita Papers that I think Burke knew that he was hiding or minimizing:

• "No matter which friend or co worker you talk to, they all describe John as quiet, reserved, non-confrontational and slow to anger - some even called him cold. In spite of the reserved public appearance, John was known as a loving and devoted father." (The loving, devoted father was seen publically, was the private father the same?)
• [regarding Beth's death] This father, who had been described as cold reserved, was often found crying alone at night – sometimes hiding to do so in the attic of his home in Boulder. (Was the "pattern" of grieving Burke had observed the "cold reserved" or the "crying alone"? At any rate, it looks like grieving in their family (at least for men) was to be private and not seen by others. If he saw his dad crying, that would be a secret. Compared to Patsy who was very emotional.)
• "If there were any problems in the marriage, it was handled in the typical Southern tradition of 'sweeping it under the rug" by all outward appearances everything looked perfect on the surface. Some friends say the Ramsey family was too perfect almost "make believe". (A history of ignoring the elephant in the living room. What kind of "elephants" was he aware of?)
• "Patsy was a dichotomy one moment extremely social and giving, and the next not speaking because of some perceived wrong-doing. She would remain a friend as long as you did what she wanted." (Had he seen this and wondered if her parental love could disappear like her friendship did if you didn't do what she wanted?).
• "Like her mother's bedroom, JonBenet's room took on the appearance of a shrine whenever the Ramsey residence was readied for one of the City's tours Pageant dresses, sashes and trophies were on display throughout the room." (His mom and his grandma also had these "shrines to perfection", so obviously perfection was important in his family. He also knew one big secret about JB; she wasn't perfect, she wet the bed, which did not exactly fit the picture of a beauty queen.)
• "Although considered intelligent by his teachers, Burke appeared to lack self-motivation and had motor skill problems which made it difficult for him to transfer his thoughts to paper, whether in the form of handwriting or typing....John and Patsy both insisted Burke learn other skills and encouraged him to actively participate in sports. He joined
  a local youth baseball team, and his mother hired a personal basketball trainer for him. (So, in a family that valued perfection, he knew he was not perfect. And who hires a personal trainer for a 6 or 7 year old? How did they find out he had motor skills problems? What was his parents reaction to that? Did he want to join the baseball team and have a trainer?)
• I can't find off hand where this is, but it did say that the kids were not told anything about their mother's illness. Burke was 6 and must have heard and known things about her illness that he was not "allowed" to discuss because everyone was pretending to the kids that nothing was wrong (a very big elephant in the living room).

 

I did think his actions were strange.

Not knowing exactly what had been asked, I don't really know what that action referred to - was it a response to "secrets' or "uncomfortable touch"? I don't know from what is recorded.

 

Sue, this is what the papers say: "Dr. Bernhard began to ask about uncomfortable touching. Burke picked up a board game and put it on his head."

 

How old was Burke during these interviews? 9-10?
I have two sons and no daughters. They are both on their 20's now and out living on thier own. When my boys were 9, if anything of any sexual nature, even innocent sexual nature like a peck on the cheek, came up I remember that age as being the "Ewwwww, girls have cooties!" age. Kissing a girl would have been completely out of the question and if something like that were to come up you would be looked at like you grew a second head right in fron of them. Oh how horrible a thought to even giggle or find anything the least bit humorous about girls. (Trust me, my boys outgrew this and are happy, well adjusted young men who LOVE women. Maybe too much.) Anyway, I think for Burke to put the board game on his head would be his signal that he didn't feel comfortable talking anout improper touching. IMO it could have been anything having to do with anything of a sexual nature and he would have acted the same way. I think it is a perfectly normal reaction for a boy of that age to not want to talk about things like that. It's embarrassing. And it's not normal for a kid that age. I don't think it means he's trying to hide something or there was something devious going on with him. I just think it is natures way. Of course I'm not a child psychologist or anything like that, but sometimes theres alot to be said for experience and common sense. It's just my opinion that there is no big deal to this whole thing. I'm open to hearing all sides, though. (Actually to tell you the truth if he had been all over this type of conversation and interested in hearing more, THAT would worry me.)

 

From the Bonita Papers:

"The DNA analysis of the trace evidence recovered from the duct tape revealed a human hair, an animal hair, later identified as beaver, and various natural and man-made red, blue, pink, purple,and brown fibers."

Thats alot of different colors! Where would purple have come from? This sounds like it really could have been taken off the doll, with this many colors involved.

 

According to the Bonita papers: "John's and Patsy's first child, Burke Ramsey was born on January 27, 1987 in Atlanta, Georgia."
The interview was done on January 8, 1997, so he was just short of 10.

Since the Bonita papers is a summary of the psychologist interview, there is not a lot of information about the context of things (like what did the doctor actually say that was the beginning of asking about uncomfortable touching.)
I don't think I know enough to know what his actions mean, other than that he was showing signs of discomfort. What I don't know is what exactly it was related to.
I can think of some possible things: touching he experienced, or witnessed, what Karen mentioned about her sons at that age, maybe having caught a glimpse of his parents in an "intimate" moment, something he knew about the area of the body where his mom's cancer was (even though he wasn't supposed to know), or maybe that (according to the Bonita papers), he had told the psychologist that "The thing he liked most about his mom was that she gave him lots of hugs and kisses,". Maybe he had second thoughts about saying that; what if the doctor thought that was not an appropriate thing to say about his mom?

IMHO, if his parents thought he had anything to do with JB's death or if they thought he knew anything about inappropriate touch to himself or JB, he would not have been there for that interview.

 

Beckner requested a follow up videotaped interview with Burke at a neutral setting in one on one meeting with a detective experienced with children, and that all questions and answers be confidential with no information given to attorneys or family members. Counsel for the Ramseys also denied this request. (12/7/97 - that would be almost a year later.)

We had an unusual experience with one of our kids when they were in a kindergarten classroom; I'll not share it, but from it, I know kids can do the darndest things at a younger age than nine when left unsupervised.

Still wondering here why the Burke's best friend and his mother weren't named in those papers. I mean, it's not like everyone else and their dog weren't named.

 

Hi Sue!
I don't know how to highlight certain portions of a post like you just did. So as to your last paragraph I say, "I completely agree."

 

Other stuff about Burke: Although considered intelligent by his teachers, Burke appeared to lack self-motivation and had motor skill problems which made it difficult for him to transfer his thoughts to paper, whether in the form of handwriting or typing.

The Ramsey housekeeper often complained about following the youngster from room to room picking up the shreds of wood he left from his whittling.

It's been interesting going back over this stuff. All in all, I find Burke is a very small part of the papers, but a very interesting part for me.

 

Hi JC!
You know I was just thinking about why Burkes best friend and mother weren't named. The Bonita papers seem to me to be a very rough draft for the book. Maybe she was going to get those details somehow later and write them in. Could be that this particular piece of information was from a police report and those names weren't written in it. She was obviously confused about who was who at the time because she names "Roxy Stine" and there is no such person. That is a combination of names Susan Stine and Roxy Walker. I think she has a Roxanne Walker in there somewhere but maybe she didn't connect it to "Roxy". I'm assuming Burkes best friend was Doug Stine and his mother was Suasn Stine, but I don't know. I don't remember reading Dougs name in there anywhere eithor. So, I think all this would have come together and she would have found these name mistakes if she had had a chance to finish what she started. Thats just my best guess, for whatever it's worth.

 

I have lots of experience on other (not crime related) boards, so I've picked up knowledge of how things work along the way.
To make things shorter, and just highlight portions of the post, you can do the QUOTE like you did, but just delete the parts you don't want.
Just be careful not to delete anything in the sort of boxy parenthesis - the ones that look like [ or ]
Anything inside those is a code to the computer, so the code has to have one at the begiining of the code and one at the end. And, if you have a set to begin the QUOTE, you also need a set to end the QUOTE; the backslash key / tells the computer to end whatever is after the backslash.
Just play with it a little and it will make sense.

 

We're both writing from experiences of a different kind (which is good, helps to see things from different angles). I'm working from the standpoint of having worked in an inpatient Psych setting with kids for over 2 years (quite a while ago) and sitting in on some patient interviews.
The other experince that I'm thinking of is when my older sister was a teen and worked in a store. There were some thefts from the cash register (a clerk had to have done it) and all the clerks were asked to take a lie detector test. Because my sister was a teen, my mom was along. The technician told my mom after the test that my sister had answered truthfully about not having anything to do with the thefts. BUT, she had reacted strangly and had apparently not answered truthfully with some of the (usually innocous) questions that they ask as calibration/control questions (yes and no things like, I ate lunch today, I have one brother). He told my mom he thought she should be aware that there was something going on in the family dynamics and it seemed (from my sister's reaction) that it involved my brother. As it turned out, my sister answered untruthfully to the lunch questions because someone in our house had eaten a piece out of a pie that baked to take to a party later. My brother got blamed for it, but after the lie detector test, my sister confessed that she was the one who ate it. She felt guilty when "brother" was mentioned in the test because he had been blamed in her place.
So anyway, that's where I'm coming from.

 

JC and Sue. I remember reading in Steve Thomas' book that Burke made beeping sounds, and did place his game board on his head; asked if the detective was wearing a Rolex watch etc.,

The beeping sounds in between his speech made me wonder if he had Tourette's Syndrome. My brother's grandson has this, and he couldn't speak without beeping every now and then. I have talked about this before, but no one ever gave me any answers. With your medical background, Sue, do you have you anything to say?

 

There seems to be a lot about Burke that we don't know. With the very little we do know, there isn't enough to come up with anything for sure. One of the things that occurred to me was something called Asperger Syndrome (it's a very high functioning type of autism, where kids are usually very intelligent and may "fit in" with average kids quite well). Some of the things that make me think that are the sort of strange things under stress (I had not heard about the beeping, but the beeping and the game on the head fit as ways to decrease stress). Some kids with Apsperger retreat into video or GameBoy games when stressed. Also, what I had posted before (and JC picked up on too);

Kids with Aspergers often have problems with gross motor skills (just not coordinated) and specifically with transferring thoughts to paper (even though they are very intelligent). What people call lack of motivation is common too in Aspergers - not really that they are not motivated, but, like kids with Attention Deficit Disorder, they are often not able to concentrate easily and apply themselves, especially on things someone else is asking them to concentrate on. For things they themselves like (making very eleborate Lego models, drawings, etc, they can concentrate for hours. (Bill Gates is one of the famous people that some have proposed has mild Aspergers).
Something like Asperger would also explain some of the other strange things noted by the Psychologist, like lack of emotion about JB's death and some of Burke's lack of warmth for his family (I don't have time right now to pull it out of the Bonita papers.
But, I think there is a lot about Burke we don't know and don't have enough info to make any sense of.

 

This young boy I spoke of above with Tourettes is about the same age as Burke Ramsey is now, and this young boy hated his younger sister, and was very jealous of her, and could be violent with her at certain times. He had to be watched with an eagle eye. He is also very intelligent and he retreated to his computer, playing games etc., I see a similarity in the symptoms of Asperger's, Sue.

Thank you for your reply, Sue. I didn't want to distract you from the present discussion. As for the trainer for Burke. More than likely, Burke had to be perfect; hence the reason for all the dancing sessions and God knows what else, for JonBenét to become Miss America.

 

There's always that sibling rivalry thing. I don't recall reading in the papers about brother hitting sister with a golf club, but I've read it somewhere.

My personal confession is that I have a vague, pre-school age memory of throwing a pair of sissors at my older sister. Awareness at that tender age that the action (or reaction) could have put her eye out was not present.

 

I thought this part of the papers was interesting:

On January 19, the Boulder police department received a telephone call from one of the bookkeepers at McGuckins Hardware in Boulder. The bookkeeper said she had received two phone calls, one on January 14 and again on January 19, from a man only identifying himself as John and requesting information about receipts for purchases with his American Express card on December 2 and December 9. The caller said he would call back on January 20.The bookkeeper said that the person calling was pushy, impatient and intimidating. Boulder police met at McGuckins early on the morning of January 20 and set up a tape recording for calls to the accounting department. The bookkeeper had volunteered to assist with tape recording of this conversation. The call came in soon after the store opened,
but this time the caller was cordial and patient:

"This is John. I called you last week looking for some receipts," said the caller. The bookkeeper said she had the receipts, but asked John to verify the number of the American Express account. John gave her a number that did not match the account number appearing on the receipts.

Bookkeeper: "That's not the correct number that I've got out of the system."

John: "Ok, but you were able to pull a purchase on an American Express on 12/2 for $46.31 and on 12/9 for $99.88?"

Bookkeeper: "That's correct. I was not able to pull anything for a John Ramsey.'

John: "Ok I'm looking at the invoices here from American Express and it does say 12/2 and 12/9 for those amounts on this card could be under Patsy's card too."

Bookkeeper: "That's exactly what it is, it's under Patsy's card.''

After confirming that John's and Patsy's American Express cards were under a joint account, the bookkeeper agreed that she could provide John with the information from the store if he would provide a written request. John told the bookkeeper he would provide the written request by fax machine and asked the bookkeeper to send the store receipt to him by fax.

A few minutes later John called again. "I just got your fax and I wanted to thank you for that. I also wanted to ask you if there was a itemized invoice available on those two. I got the credit card invoices but not the itemized copies." The bookkeeper apologized for the mix up and told John she would immediately fax the itemized receipts.

 

I remember reading some vague stuff about it and the Ramsey camp (at least I think I remember) tried to say a reporter did this.
Reading it in this detail though, it sure sounds like someone who was calling with a lot more info than a reporter was likely to have had access to.
The one thing that I wondered about though was the number:

We don't have American Express, but joint accounts that we have use the same number on all the cards associated with that account. Does anyone have an American Express card and know whether they work that way or if each card in the account has its own number?