So I bought a copy of "Mind Hunter"

There is none so blind as he who will not see.

 

I may have posted this at least 3 years ago at FFJ (also before that at JW), but for those who missed it…

My son-in-law's father (I'll call him Ned) worked in the FBI labs for over 30 years. Back when Douglas first began supporting the Ramseys, Ned told me that Douglas was being paid by the Ramseys and would find "rationalizations" to support their innocense. He said Douglas had a huge ego and would go against the common thinking at that time (the Ramseys did it) even if he wasn’t paid. Before it became public, he told me that the Ramseys tried to hire Gregg McCrary before Douglas but McCrary turned them down. He seemed to have more respect for Robert Ressler and Gregg McCrary than Douglas.

I met McCrary one afternoon at Ned’s home in Spotsylvania County, VA. As I recall, McCrary was assisting (free of charge) the Spotsylvania County Sheriff in the investigation of two (or three) murdered teenagers. I think his description of the killer was a “transit†or military person – turned out to be military.

 

:ghost:

Be afraid, be very afraid. :ghost:

 

McCrary's comments on this case have bugged me, like he was holding his cards close to his vest.

 

Why waste time on this guy?

After all, pride goeth before the fall, right?

 

You're like my hubby

He wonders why I bother with all this Ramsey stuff...But I wanted to read what JR was reading when JonBenet was killed. And I did, and it was edifying. There were plenty of interesting paragraphs in Mind Hunter - that might have been inspiration for staging "that child's" body.

 

Maybe. After all, I've heard stories about crooks getting more sophisticated because of shows like CSI and whatnot.

It's not always a good idea for the magician to reveal ALL secrets!

 

heymom...
Mine is the SAME way. He says.."Do YOU think that you are going to solve a ten year old crime?" He says other stuff about it too, that I will not post. He is just very insensitive. Yes, he can be a jerk.

 

Mind Hunter also has several references to duct tape being used to cover the mouths of victims and five or six references to ligature strangulation. And it mentions Susan Smith and OJ Simpson, both of whom Patsy talked about in her famous TV appearance.

In JonBenet Thomas says that Wickman said Mind Hunter was on John's night stand. In his 2001 depo, Thomas isn't sure whether Wickman said it was on John's or Patsy's and refers Wood to his book.

 

I've read Mind Hunter since my previous post. I can't say that the references to duct tape and ligature strangulation stuck out particularly.

The book did make me think about Patsy's language during her 911 call. Douglas talks about another murdering mom telling 911 that someone had kidnapped her child and how it was Gregg [McCrary's] experience that a parent will do almost anything to psychologically deny that situation. McCrary felt (and Douglas seems to agree) that the use of the word kidnap suggests that she was "thinking ahead in the scenario that will play out."

Patsy's situation is different because of the presence of a ransom note, but would she say "we have a kidnapping"? We? Have? Is that how you report a devastating and terrifying personal violation?

I might report a flooded basement that way....No, I'd be too upset.

 

I am sure the 911 call was thought out. Remember, it was still a horrific situation for Patsy- her daughter, whom she loved, was dead and someone in that house was responsible. Adrenaline is pumping hard, raising heartbeat, respiration, blood pressure. Yet, her panting heard on the 911 call sounds faked somehow. Her babbling description of "she'd blonde, she's 6 years old..." to the 911 operator would be the kind of thing you'd say to a detective, not the 911 call. For that, you'd be screaming about your kid being kidnapped. You probably wouldn't say "we have a kidnapping...".

 

I agree with all you're saying here, DeeDee! I thought exactly the same as you when I heard Patsy's breathless voice on this 911 call. Faked!

 

It becomes very clear that no one would say that if you imagine yourself getting up in the morning to, say, find your child murdered. Would you get on the phone and say "We have a murder"? Finding your child has been abducted isn't that much different.

We have a spill on aisle 5; we don't have a kidnapping.

It is like she's imagining herself in the role of a responding detective. The detective "has a kidnapping" in the sense that it's his business, but it doesn't affect him profoundly.

 

I hear you fb and agree with you.

The very fact John Ramsey himself never made the phone call to begin with. as soon as he "supposedly" reads the ransom note on the floor is almost laughable.

When someone finds an emergency, that person grabs the phone and dials 911. If others are present, someone grabs the phone and dials 911. I agree with Steve Thomas. For the CEO of his own company having to tell Patsy to call 911 is just unbelievable! Plus Patsy Ramsey asking him "What should I do?" is another red herring. Patsy Ramsey was one very capable active business woman. The Ramsey scenario is not believable!

 

Patsy was actually in pretty good shape. After she greets the emergency dispatcher, the next thing out of her mouth is her address. She then waits for the dispatcher to ask her what's going on. That prompts the "we have a kidnapping" phrase followed by "hurry, please." Then it's the dispatcher's turn again; she asks for more information. Patsy starts with another "we have" phrase, stops and adjusts it to "There's a note left and our daughter's gone." The note being left has a higher priority in the sentence than her daughter being gone. Then it's the dispatcher's turn again.

You'd think that the dispatcher would have trouble getting a word in edge-wise, but she almost has to pull the story out of Patsy. In fact, it's the dispatcher who wants to talk about JonBenet. Patsy mostly wants to talk about the note. When asked when the kidnapping happened, Patsy says, "I don't know. I just found the note and my daughter's (inaudible)."

Again, note first; JonBenet second.

Their stories about getting up that morning don't jibe. John says he got up at 5:30, showered and was getting dressed when he heard Patsy yelling. Patsy says she didn't get up until sometime after 5:30, took 20 or 30 minutes in the bathroom putting on makeup and getting dressed, spent another 5 or 10 minutes scrubbing a stain out of a red jumpsuit and then found the note. The 911 call came in at 5:52am. His story is plausible. Hers isn't.

John, in my view, was just trying to catch up. In his '97 and '98 interviews, John only says he got out of bed before Patsy when he's reminded to do so. He probably initially thought she'd gotten up before him, but when he sees her on the landing in the clothes she was wearing the day before, he must've realized she'd never made it to bed. So she's been running around the house all night, probably yelling loudly at JonBenet for some of it and all of a sudden the kid's kidnapped? He undoubtedly smelled a rat. He'd want to have a think. But Patsy couldn't afford to let him do too much thinking.

Harking back to that morning, here's what John says in '97 about his first sight of Patsy that morning:

TT: Second, John, let me have, we going to have back here for just a second, you got up, showered and got dressed, did Patsy get up and shower and dress that morning?

JR: Well, she got up, I mean she was downstairs. I don’t remember if she took a shower or not. She was, I think she was dressed when I saw her first.

I think he's mostly telling the truth there. His first sight of her that morning was on the landing. She wasn't in bed when he got up.

 

Well documented fb! You have zoned into the crucial parts.

 

I think if John and Patsy were both involved in the staging, their stories would be roughly equivalent in plausibility. He's got 20 minutes to get up, shower and shave before hearing Patsy scream. That seems reasonable.

Patsy's story, on the other hand, is out of whack even when you interpret the various times she gives in the most favorable light. If she gets up at 5:30 and spends only 20 minutes putting on her makeup and getting dressed, she doesn't have enough time to stop in the laundry and fuss with JonBenet's red jumpsuit.

Here's what she says in '97:

I stopped kind of briefly there in the laundry room area um, and I remember the ironing board was up I think and I fussed around with this little red jumpsuit of JonBenet’s cause it had, had some spots on it and I was going to remember to do something with that when I got back and uh, so I had, I had the light on in there in the laundry room area and uh, um then I started down the spiral staircase there. I came, I had come back down, I’d come down the back bedroom stairs there. . .

But here's what she says in '98:

13 TOM HANEY: Okay. So we are still
14 at the ironing board and this little red outfit.
15 What do you do with that, how long does that
16 take?

17 PATSY RAMSEY: Just, I don't know,
18 just a few minutes. And I don't know, I can't
19 remember what I was doing. I just remember I
20 was trying to get this bag ready to go to the
21 lake, I had two suitcases in here of the
22 children's things, I was trying to get ready,
23 because when we came back from the lake we were
24 going on to Disney and the Big Red Boat.

That's completely different. Now she's not so much fussing with JonBenet's red jumpsuit, she's getting a bag ready for the trip. And she's not actually getting it ready; she's just trying to get it ready.

She's trying to get the bag ready, but something is keeping her from doing it. This wasn't happening on the morning of the 26th. That morning was quiet and there wouldn't have been anything to keep her from doing whatever she needed to do with the bag. My guess is that this frustration with packing actually happened, but it happened the night before. Something was keeping her from doing what she needed to do. That was probably the beginning of the whole thing.

 

Patsy had the whole night to rehearse act one of the whole scenario that fateful night, but had trouble remembering everything she said before fb. She kept putting her foot in it.

 

Patsy even says to Haney, during her intervew...when asked about John's demeanor during that time...that he was "calm and cool" during the whole thing...which I find odd. If my daughter had been kidnapped...you can bet your sweet butt, that my husband would not be all calm, cool and collected. Haney then asked her about herself duing this time period, and she admitted that she was "hysterical". But...who makes the 911 phone call....the calm, cool and collected CEO....or the hysterical housewife?? Even Haney thought it was odd, that John didn't make that call. I figure that John appointed her as the one to call, because she was the actress in the family. I could tell that all of that heaving breathing on that 911 call was faked too.

 

They still got away with it, Ames! Well said! It's usually the calm and collected one who makes the call. Patsy had to turn on the drama.