May 20, 2003 Letter to Mary Keenan

WY,

I knew you were serious, and I hope someone investigating reads your post and questions the photographs taken by Lou Smit.

I will be honest WY, I was unaware Smit had taken his own photographs himself and thought I was looking at photographs which had been taken only by the Boulder Police. If this is the true case, then Lou Smit should be charged with "interference of crime evidence."

The only time I was aware of photographs being switched was when another photo had been printed by mistake. One which had pipes overhead. When I questioned this "Ibnora" replied and told me this was definitely the wrong one.

This window business has long been a sore point with me, and I have posted many times about it. from John Ramsey's scenario of having broken the window in August of 1996, returning from a business trip and finding no one home and removing his suit to enter the window well. Did his shoes come off before his pants? Did he then put them back on again to kick the window open? Standing at ground level and kicking a window in a window well is an awkward action to perform.

Where did he place his suit seeing he was concerned in getting it dirty - on the grass? On a bush? The man's a millionaire! What's the big deal in getting a cleaner's bill? He could have walked across the street and wakened the Barnhill's for his spare key. Why do neighbours hold a spare key? to be called upon in an emergency! Ramsey said it was late! Just how late, with Patsy and the kids not home ? He was not questioned enough about this scenario.

Like you WY I am also accused of analyzing everything. I'm still looking for answers to the above.

I agree with you 100% WY! It's frustrating! I know how you feel. I feel exactly the same. Thank you for replying!

 

Easy writer and WY,

If we could just put the two of you in charge of the investigation of the JonBenét case. we would solve this case, for sure!

 

The only reason John Ramsey

would have had for removing his suit (another of his fairy tales, I believe), is so he wouldn't ruin it when he scraped his body along the cement inside the window well. Over and over I've told the story of the couple of times I went through a basement window because I locked myself out of my home. It was a filthy mess.

My home did not have the window wells that the Ramsey home had. It was clear sailing - no stuffing myself into that small space, rubbing myself on all sides of the window well, no contorting myself to put a perfect baseball-sized hole in the window then reaching down through that hole to unlock the window. None of this computes with me. I'm a woman, and I don't think my hand would fit through a "baseball sized" hole, especially at such an awkward angle. I think it's nearly physically impossible for Ramsey to have done what he says he did with no way to bend inside that window well, not to mention getting cut on the broken glass as his hand and arm rubbed against the broken edges. But, I digress.

My basement window was already unlocked - I didn't even need to kick a hole in it. I didn't have to slither down into a window well. As I said, it was free-sailing. Or, so one would think.

First I had to sit down on the ground outside the window, feet first, of course. Then I had to push the window open with my feet and begin my entrance. Keep in mind the rough edges of the concrete and the wooden frame on the window. There were also a couple of nails there, as I found out. Suffice to say that by the time I finally dropped to the floor of the basement from the window, I had multiple scrapes from the rough cement, my hair had caught on the rough cement and splinters of old wood and been yanked from my head, my clothes were ripped and snagged from the rough cement and wood, my head had a couple of goose-eggs from being hit by the window I was trying to hold open with one hand while entering, both arms were scraped and bleeding, I had cobwebs, spiders, and old leaves, dirt, and sundry other debris in my hair and all over me, I was spitting out cobwebs, in fact, and gouged out skin from the nails, which probably were not on the Ramseys' window. My back scraped the edge of the window cement and wooden frame going in, and I left plenty of skin at the window.

This was in a free-access window, and I regularly swept down the walls and windows of that basement, although not every day or not even every week - maybe once a month. I know what it means to get into tight spaces, I've done it several times in one way or another, and you don't come out unscathed. You leave tons of fibers, skin, hairs, dirt, debris, both on the surfaces you entered and on yourself. After entering the window, I walked up my basement stairs and entered my home, leaving behind me a trail of evidence of what I had just done - dirt, debris, blood. That trail followed me into the bathroom and the sink, where I surveyed the damage to myself and cleaned up, leaving further evidence at the sink and vicinity thereof.

When Smit entered the window well at the Ramseys', it was well choreographed ahead of time, trust me. Even so, if there had been an evidence collector there, s/he would have found adequate evidence of his entry into that basement through that window. His body touched every surface of that cement. We didn't see him sticking his hand through a baseball sized-hole in the window, either, because when he gave his little performance, I believe those windows had all been replaced with new ones. That's total fraud as far as I'm concerned.

Try going through your basement window sometime, if you have a basement. It's no picnic, believe me. No intruder went through that window.

 

I understand perfectly WY about breaking in. I have broken in to my own home, but I entered through my sitting room window
which had smaller windows under the larger ones. I have since replaced those to even "smaller ones" and there's no way I could enter this house if I was locked out again. I'm a lot older now anyway! I've never had a window well in any of the homes I've lived in, but my oldest son has one in his basment, and every time I stand beside it, I think of John Ramsey and the "Impossible Scene."

Definitely no intruder!

Sounds like it may have taken you a while to heal from your break in escapade. However, having gone through this, you know what evidence was left.

 

Excuse Me, But.....

Am I remembering correctly that there were undisturbed spider webs still spaning the basement window when the crime scene was either photographed or described on the day or days just after the murder?

Does anyone remember all of the discussion on the forums about how long it takes that type of spider who built that web to rebuild the spider web once it is disturbed? Where has all of this discussion and this information gone?

Why have none of the authorities ever confronted Smit with evidence of this sort when he is publicly throwing around his ridiculous intruder theories to both the media, and earlier, to the Grande Jury?

So much has been lost over time as the Ramseys and their spin team have conspired daily to muddy the waters and confuse every important issue and every important piece of evidence....

Voyager

 

You're remembering right, Voyager

there was what appeared to be an undisturbed spider web that was somehow attached to the grate that covered the window well and extended down, I believe. The story was, that particular type of spider was inactive in very cold weather; however, if the temperature rose enough, it would respin the web. That's the straw the RST grabbed onto - that the sun came out and warmed the spider up and inky dinky spider rewove his web.

I didn't believe it, either. Okay, I'll tell you why I didn't believe it. If an intruder came through that entrance and the spider web was disrupted, some of it would have gotten on said intruder and been carried inside the house with him. So, where was it? There were no signs of that disturbed spider web inside the window well that I know of. It's one thing to say Mr. Inky Dinky Spider rewove his nest in record time. It's quite another to disregard not finding the remnants of his original spider web. What'd he do, eat it?

Gawd, these people and their theories are absurd.

 

Yup

I remember when they had the spider experts in too.

It was said they didn't think it was warm enough to be woven that quick and then those people were quickly excused.

 

There are many reports on the net relating to the spider web "for and against."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/ramseypartone000315.html


Police say there was no sign of forced entry into the Ramsey home. A basement window was open but, according to two officers at the scene, it was screened off by a spider web. Experts say this particular spider was dormant at the time of the killing. The web would have to have been intact the night of the murder and the next day when the officers checked the home. Officials praised this as an example of excellent police work. But the Ramseys gave keys to friends and domestic help and there is a dispute over an open pantry door. District attorney’s office sources admit that a determined suspect could have entered the home undetected.

 

Ah, yes, the open pantry door

It is just ridiculous. John Ramsey personally told LE officers that he had checked all the outside entrances, and they were all secure. It was December in Colorado, and the temperature outside was below freezing. Does anyone really think they would not have noticed a door standing open and freezing outside air entering the home? That little bit of folklore is just ludicrous. I live in snow country where the temp gets as frigid as it does in Colorado. An open door is quickly and easily detected, as the draft quickly reaches all spaces within reach. John and Patsy were allegedly standing right there that morning, John on the floor and Patsy in the kitchen nook calling 911. How silly to think they wouldn't have noticed the pantry door being open. All one really needs to do is be inside a warm home on a cold, wintry night and be blasted by frigid air as someone opens the door to enter to know just how silly it is.

 

Almost three years ago

I have just finished reading this excellent thread again, WY, and you describe breaking into your basement window to a T. This is exactly how I would imagine it to be. You were pretty scratched up and torn, with all the debris being dropped as you walked upstairs. I feel John Ramsey's story of being locked out was a lie. Didn't sound genuine to me at all.

Hard to believe these were written almost three years ago, with Patsy now gone, and here we are no further forward with this case. Sad, isn't it?

I enjoyed going over this thread again, reading Delmar's excellent letter to Mary Keenan, now Keenan Lacy, with Tom Bennett back in the saddle. Too bad we couldn't have heard something from Jim Kolar after waiting patiently for his report. We're back on the Ramsey Carousel again.

 

It's clearly obvious. Watching You's account is genuine, whereas John Ramsey's...

...is not.


-Tea

 

Your story rings true, WY.

 

Right on the money, Tea.

John uses the pronoun "you" to describe what HE is claiming he in fact did--ALLEGEDLY. It sounds like an instructional lesson in HOW TO BREAK INTO A BASEMENT WINDOW, BY IMA LYRE.

Boy, John Ramsey tells a pack of lies here. This is Lying 101. Classic errors of lying:

--Distances himself from his lies by changing from personal pronoun "I" to impersonal pronoun "you".

--Switches from first person telling of event to hypothetical "if": IF it's stuck...I don't remember IF....

--Uses the word "probably" twice, giving himself wiggle room if he's caught in his lies.

Then the real tell, in which John himself reveals clearly HE'S LYING, as he uses THE SUBJUNCTIVE TENSE--WOULD HAVE DONE. The subjunctive tense is what we use, second nature, AFTER A LIFETIME OF SOPHISTICATED AND HIGHLY EDUCATED ENGLISH USAGE, TO DESCRIBE THAT WHICH HAS NOT HAPPENED, BUT WHICH IS BEING IMAGINED AND SPECULATED ON: John said "THAT'S PROBABLY HOW I WOULD HAVE DONE IT" which can be followed through to the technical meaning--"IF I HAD DONE IT", rather than "THAT'S HOW I DID IT."

The man lied, pure and simple. And Smit ate it up.

 

Now let's look at the part of John's story THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO:

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm sure someone will, but I don't believe that is humanly possible, in that window well, where Smit demonstrated quite well on national TV that it's hard enough to get through the window on your backside, what with that LARGE HEATING DUCT BLOCKING THE WAY.

Think it through: you turn around and get on your knees on the window sill; your feet are sticking out behind you into the room, with your hands supporting your upper torso in the window well.

Now what do you do?

Just how do you then shift the weight of your body so that your body is going to drop or fall into the room? John said "and then just drop down."

I beg to differ, John. I don't think you ever did this, because if you did, you'd have ended up on your belly squirming in the well, over the window sash, scraping your family jewels in the process, and I think you'd remember it EXACTLY, rather than "probably" and "if."

Your knees are holding up your butt, with your torso weight distributed between your hands and knees. So how do you move both knees backward, out into a drop down so far, Smit's long legs didn't reach within a couple of feet from the floor when he was squirming in frontwards, without lying on your belly first? And you couldn't lie on your belly, because the window well isn't wide enough for you to do that perpendicular to it, is it? Not unless you're a midget. And last time I looked, John was short, but no midget.

Am I wrong here? Because I don't see how John could have done what he claims he did, even if he didn't exactly remember it.

Jams has said more than once she knows the person who was WITH John on that occassion. She NEVER names the person, though, does she? Now I know why. If she DOES know such a person who makes that claim, THAT PERSON IS LYING, as well. Another example of the RST WILLING TO LIE to protect the Ramseys.

And why didn't Smit go back to that house and try to enter the window from his knees like John described? If he had, he would have easily seen JOHN LIED. And then he MIGHT have asked himself this:

IF A MAN IS LYING TO LE DURING THE INVESTIGATION INTO THE MURDER OF HIS CHILD, WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?

So...John is back into at least "guilty knowledge" of the murder, IMO. Otherwise, he'd never have lied about this. Since we already KNEW he didn't even bother to tell LE about THE OPEN BASEMENT WINDOW until 4 months after the murder, that pretty much fits, doesn't it? THERE WAS NO OPEN WINDOW UNTIL JOHN OPENED IT THAT MORNING HIMSELF, AND LE TOOK THE PICTURE AFTER THAT FACT, OR UNTIL JOHN SAW THE CRIME SCENE PICTURE OF THE WINDOW OPEN AND MADE UP THE STORY TO BOOST THE INTRUDER CRAP, WHICH HE KNEW BY THEN WASN'T FLYING WITH LE. John must have hoped that LE would have noticed the picture, too, or seen the actual window open that morning, if he had opened it, and concluded that an intruder entered there.

If John did open it for LE to find, my guess is Fleet White being down there and snooping around screwed John's plan up, and so he didn't know how much to say, because he didn't know what Fleet had said. So John said NOTHING. Until 4 months later, after his lawyers had gotten enough of the police reports and witness statements and copies of the results of processed evidence from the DA to know what LE knew. Then John saw that he was going to have to "enlighten" LE about that darned window himself. So he did. And the RST has been flogging that lie every since.

Good work, Smit. You asked the right question and then ignored the lies you were told by John. Any rookie could have seen that immediately. Heck, the red flags in that story are obvious to even me. I bet there were plenty of detectives and investigators who saw right through that story.

Unfortunately, Smit isn't the detective he's fooled everyone into thinking he is, and the DA didn't care.

 

This is the part that gets me. How can anyone kick in a window, when you're cramped in a window well?

There was a patio door, which John Fernie claims to have read the ransom note from. Why couldn't John Ramsey have broken a pane of glass in one of those doors? Or any other window with easier access? Its a load of BS.

 

Precisely, koldkase!

The subjunctive tense--so THAT'S what it is! (I knew it was a specific kind, but forgot what it was called. Thanks!)

Of course some of those over at the BB will spin John's words as being a bunch of BORG lies.


-Tea

 

Elle, I'm guessing that John knows that more modern windows, as the back of the house must have in the newer wing, are very difficult to break. Double panes especially. They're made to withstand quite a lot of abuse. You could easily break your foot. In fact, doors will simply shatter with enough power, and by shatter, I mean they still remain intact, unless you're talking about a tornado or that kind of force.

But I see your point. If John wanted to "create" an entrance for the intruder, going down into a window well would be viable, since it would be easier to argue this was why the intruder wasn't seen breaking into the house.

What doesn't make sense to me is why John wouldn't call a locksmith. The man was rich. He had a cell phone, didn't he? Was it that late? If so, why not call some of their friends who had a key? Even the couple across the street had one. Is it easier to take off your clothes, with your neighbors and the "mysterious observer" watching you in your underwear, and climb in, WITH YOUR SHOES ON...and punch in a window pane? And who takes his pants off with his shoes on? NOBODY, that's who.

The whole story is absurd. It looks to me like John just made it up as he went. Shoes still on, but pants off? BS!

 

Well, imo Elle, it would've been a lot easier and more prudent to have kicked out an entire pane of glass than just a baseball-sized hole while in that window well but, since neither occurred, the point is moot.

BTW, the diameter of a regulation-size major league baseball is 2 3/4". I used this measurement to draw a circle on the middle of a sheet of graph paper, which I then cut out. Even with my fingers held as close together as I could possibly hold them, I was unable to get past the edge of the hole without scraping my knuckles and that's as far as I got. (And I'm 5'2" with a petite build.)


-Tea

 

We have nothing to do with what John told LE. It's all on the page. Compliments of jams herself.

Of course, they will disagree that John lied, saying oh, he just forgot. Oh sure, the Ramseys conveniently forgot everything it suited them to forget, didn't they? Their set of brass balls was never more obvious than when Patsy opined to Haney in '98 SHE WISHED THEY'D BEEN ABLE TO TALK TO LE EARLIER ABOUT ALL THIS, she's just so CONFUSED now!

Oh, the RST buys any ludicrous thing the Ramseys ever said. That's because they long ago threw out any reasoning ability in the Ramsey case. It's all about DENYING THE TRUTH. It's the RST creed.

Subjunctive mood : "expressing doubt, wish, or condition contrary to fact" (mood being "The form of a verb used to show how the action is viewed by the speaker") Prentice-Hall Handbook For Writers

John repeatedly uses "IF" in the hypothetical. IF the window was STUCK? Who cares? This is not about a stuck window.

This is another hallmark of lying: TOO MUCH SUPERFLUOUS DETAIL.

And voila: John was clearly lying, and anyone who wants to know the truth merely needs to go get on all fours on the side of his/her bed and see how one "just drops down" from there onto the floor without raising your body upright. Without putting one foot on the floor to support my weight while backing off the bed, I can't do it. I've tried. Even bouncing myself. Even shifting to one knee. Remember, that window was so small, Smit had difficulty stuffing his body through it frontways, sliding down the sill onto the floor. But more importantly, Smit could not put his foot on the floor from that window. He had to SLIDE down the wall. If I remember that correctly, as I've seen the picture many times. John could not have reached the floor with one foot while leaning his weight on the other knee, to shift his weight so that he could back into the house. He said himself, JUST DROP DOWN. It was a drop. You can't drop down from your knees in a small window, while on your hands and knees, without crawling on your stomach--can you?

Someone, please help me out here. I'm not young anymore. Am I that uncoordinated? I do not see how John could do what he says he did.

Like WY pointed out in her real life experience, it's not easy to do. The only window that can easily be climbed through is one that is large enough to accomodate your body size, legs moving through it from one side to the other, or a window that is close enough to the floor to aid your movement smoothly, which you can crawl through with ease and place one foot on a surface while transferring your weight so that you can then lift your other leg and pull it through.

Again, as Smit himself demonstrated, this window was small, the floor was a good drop from the sill, and the well was narrow. Not to mention the large air duct in the way right inside the window.

I do not believe that Smit did not spot that lie of John's. In fact, if Smit was looking to see if the "intruder" could get in and out that window, why didn't he also consider John's story and how that didn't work? Why would Smit ignore that?

More and more, I'm starting to think Smit was in on the whitewash all along.

 

Darn right, Tea. BTW, I've been trying for almost 10 years to discover how anyone so perfectly kicks out a baseball-sized hole in a window without leaving exposed shards and cracks all around the hole, which will stick into and slice anything that comes into contact with it.

You know why none of it makes sense is because it never happened. JR didn't go through that basement window, and neither did any intruder. And, nothing the RST says can make it so.