Patsy & the Ransom Note..A Hidden Truth?

At least you had the patience to finish it WY. Another poster mailed it to me a few years ago, because she lost patience with it. I just couldn't get into it at all.

I do think Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note, with the same speed
and flair she wrote her award winning talent piece, for a Miss Virginia Beauty Pageant. Written overnight, because of the copyright of "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." Patsy was thwarted from making this speech from the play, and with a little help from a friend she rattled up a speech on "copyright" and won.

 

Sorry I've been gone - work and holiday obligations.

I agree that Hodges goes way overboard, but I think before he jumps off the boat he really nails the psyche of our Patsy.

He analyzes three writings, two of which we know are Patsy's, and the other is the ransom note. In addition to pointing out actual linquistic similarities, like the famous "and hence", he looks at what ideas are portrayed in the note. In addition, he looks at a couple of photographs of Patsy, JonBenet, and the family.

One of the things that he finds in all of this is that JonBenet threatened Patsy's femininity. Patsy spent many hours, not just a couple of Sunday afternoons, turning JonBenet into a pageant girl, and hopefully a superstar. (Incidentally, she made her look more like the girl who beat out Patsy for Miss America, rather than Patsy herself.) This stepped up after Patsy had her cancer and hysterectomy. Patsy is a very feminine creature, and she had to have been devasted when her female organs turned on her and caused her to have to have them removed.

After the cancer, JonBenet is dressed up in a showgirl outfit (which Patsy may have just thought was a Mummer costume) that closely resembles one worn by Patsy when she was a young woman. The outfit is covered in sexual symbols, such as a bird on the wrist and a huge boa on the butt. She is also dressed in a "hot" little black and white number that resembles one that Patsy wore before she got sick. JonBenet is dressed up, made up, bleached, and taught to grind her hips after Patsy "loses her femininity."

(Before anybody starts up about hysterectomy causing a loss of womanness, I don't think that's usually the case, and it wasn't for me when I had to have one, but I think it was the case for Patsy.)

The constructed image of JonBenet was so ingrained in Patsy that the first thing she says in the 911 tape to describe her was "she's blonde." Hodges shows that lots of what Patsy writes is constructing things - like saying Melinda Ramsey was graduating from the Medical College of Georgia, but not saying it was in nursing rather than medicine.

He also analyzes a photo of the Ramseys where John is holding JonBenet and his hands are on her pubic area. In this photo Patsy is in the center with a huge cross shining out from the middle of her chest. THe photo, taken when Patsy was doing chemo because she's wearing a wig, does display that Patsy is the center of attention. Hodges also thinks that John's hands indicate incest, which is a stretch. But I don't think it's a stretch that this and other photos could have begun a jealousy thing in Patsy.

 

I agree about the hysterectomy, wombat. I had a hysterectomy when I was 29 years old, long before they ever had laser therapy to zap iffy cells. I didn't have cancer, but they were worried about some of the cells. I had three children, and I wasn't looking to have more. I was, in fact, quite happy to be rid of the cramps and nuisance every month, and I've never regreted it. I did not have the oopherectomy, though, which is the removal of the ovaries, so I wasn't immediately thrown into menopause like Patsy was. Therein may lie the difference, I don't know.

I've never been as vain as Patsy, either, and I have never been in competition with my own daughters, as it appears she may have been.

 

Me too, WY - except ovaries out as well, and I was 36, no kids.

Patsy was more at risk than others, I think, because she so identified with being female. There are so many signs that she was profoundly affected by her illness - and really, why shouldn't she have been? But prior to her illness, she was already extremely competitive in a feminine way, extremely perfectionistic, and extremely manipulative. The whole ransom note is like this - first she pretendsto be firm and dastardly for a while, the "kidnapper" starts with motherly/sisterly advice - I advise you to be rested - and then gets nasty again - your daughter being beheaded - and then ends with "use that southern common sense of yours John", "It's up to you now John" and the optimistic "Victory!" She's flirting and manipulating and reaching out to little secrets that she knows about John as she proceeds through the note.

Dressing up JonBenet to look like her rival(s) is also about manipulation and control. Underneath she thought - Look, I can make a perfect little Miss America out of this kid, and she has to mind me and do what I want. We don't know for sure, but Hodges, Wecht, and others, including maybe the coroner, concluded that JonBenet was sexually abused prior to December 25th, 1997. Patsy subconciously could have sensed that. Sometimes you suspect, or just feel things, and you sort of know but don't KNOW. Maybe that part of Patsy was helping this horror along.

Lots of times after women have hysterectomies, their sex drives diminish, and their partners lose interest in them. Sometimes in families the father looks toward the nearest opportunity for gratification. It's sick and disgusting, but the father already loves the child. Sometimes the mother finds out and reacts radically to her whole world crashing down, and in a way, resolving itself. And lots of times a great big lie is told to try to facilitate putting the perfect world back together.

 

From pg 398 of DOI (pb version)-

"Whatever it was, this man may have decided I was a target that could be hit by hurting my child."

So, is JR admitting, in so many words, that he was the actual target that was going to be hit but JonBenet was hit instead?

 

Absolutely!!!

I've never read DOI because I refuse to send them money. Also I'm doubtful I could stomach it!

Hodges would say that John saying "this man" could actually refer to PPR because of her illness. Also "I was a target" - that's a Hodges confession.

 

The only thing you're missing with the Ramseys' book is insight into their psyches. The book itself is written with a lot of sophomoric adjectives and amateurish theatrics - just like the ransom note. Patsy's propensity to over-dramatize everything shines through in the book - just like the ransom note.

As much as it galls me to read the poorly-written thing again, I find I must, because as I reread, I find more and more contradictions and much more to question. My barf bag has gotten bigger, I admit - just a price one has to pay for enlightenment.

DOI is a wealth of information about the Ramseys and the way they convoluted everything.

 

OK. Maybe I'll get a used copy and the barf bag.

If she uses the same sentence structure in the book as in the ransom note I'm going to go ballistic!

 

It's not just the sentence structure, wombat, it's the aura. It's the subliminal recognition, if you know what I mean. Hodges would know.

 

I just looked up DOI on Amazon. The good news is I can get it for 49 cents, the bad news is this is the review:

Editorial Reviews

Product Description:
The Death of Innocence is part memoir, part murder mystery...[It] paints more than a plausible picture of a family victimized at first by the horrific murder of a young girl and then by a relentless media and police campaign to smear their reputation and prove their guilt. As we read their account of the hellishness of their lives since their daughter's murder, we realize that nothing has been fair.

• What the stunning DNA evidence actually revealed
• What the Grand Jury really heard
• The truth about the photographs doctored by the press
• The startling oversights of the Boulder police
• Why officials neglected to follow any other leads
• Every lie, myth, rumor, and innuendo invented by the media to ruin the family's reputation
• The actual findings of forensic experts
• The inside information that could finally bring the real killer to justice

Includes 16 pages of personal photographs.

***

"A relentless media and police campaign to smear their reputation and prove their guilt"!!! Prove their guilt? Did Patsy write this? If so, it's another confession, because it implies there was guilt to be proven.

 

49 whole cents? I hope they weren't pinning their retirement on their literary skills! I think I will wait until it's a dime. :scream:

 

Not to worry, wombat - all those "revelations" are the same old crap that come out of the swamp and Lou Smit's hole. Spin is spin is spin is spin...

 

Once again...........

Patsy's Prints on Pad.
Period.

RR