The log grabber

So presents for Christmas and BURKE'S BIRTHDAY were hidden in that cellar room.

Now catch this:

Of course, it could be nothing. But one theory I consider is that Burke sneaked out of bed to play with his Nintendo, and maybe he sneaked downstairs to peek at his birthday presents, and that's where the unwrapped ones came into play. Maybe JonBenet was with him, or followed him. Or maybe he did that alone, but was awake and moving about the house when JonBenet woke, they ate pineapple, played a while, and then got into a sibling fight that resulted in the head blow.

Or not. Just another theory.

 

Back to the cellar, here's how John described it:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I just read, it sounds like the ALREADY wrapped presents (including some from FAO Schwartz) were hidden down in that basement room that even John said was "nasty."

Patsy didn't WRAP presents in that dirty and cluttered basement room. She HID them down there.

So, the partially-wrapped packages weren't BEING wrapped, they had been re-opened and were half unwrapped. Patsy was looking for something. The other set of Bloomie underwear perhaps?

 

So very true, KK.

Interesting stuff from Why-Nut's case blog, which gives insight into what drove Patsy, what made her tick.
Patsy played Miss Perfect for the world, and no doubt later expected her little daughter to do the same.

I somehow get an eery association from this to the situation many years later when Patsy wrote the ransom note ...
When writing the first lines of the ransom note, she too was hoping to get everyonee else in the palm of her hand, believing her ruse. She was "in her own world" then, dissociating herself from the crime by writing this note and staging the bizarre strangulation scene.

 

Either that, or the kids were trying to look into their presents.

Since we don't KNOW where the package of size 12-14 Bloomies actually WERE when they were "packed" and sent to Atlanta, the packages could have been opened looking for them, to retrieve the "Wednesday" undies for the correct "Day of the Week". The maid LHP said that JonBenet wore Day of the Week undies, if memory serves. (I always have to put that "memory" caveat up now, as my memory isn't much to brag about now.)

What is clear is that there was a lot of FAMILY activity in the cellar room with Christmas. Decorations taken out; presents hidden there. Since that's where the body was staged, and outside that room is where the paintbrush was broken and JonBenet was strangled in all probability, meaning also that's where the paintbrush was shoved inside her BEFORE it was broken to use in the garrote, those unwrapped presents could be key, considering Patsy's and John's attempts to obfuscate their connection to the murder.

 

It's very clear from Patsy's "dramatic interpretation" success in high school competitions, even nationally, plus her pageant talent success, she was quite the MANIPULATOR.

Add in her degree in journalism and her professional experience in an ad company, and you've got the perfect recipe for the ransom note writer, IMO.

 

Especially since the room did not even have a table!
Another opportunity was lost to get Patsy with her back up against the wall. One of a long list of opportunities. Those interviews with the Ramseys were just plain pitiful.
Not only did ST not challenge Patsy about this obvious lie - he even makes it clear to her what he is after when he asks her immediately afterward if she has duct tape in her home similar to Jonbenet's mouth. What did he expect Patsy to answer? Of course she would say "No".
Patsy knew now that Thomas thinks she might have been rummaging for a piece of duct tape there (fromt the My Twinn doll package maybe?), unwrapping some already packed presents in the process.

 

"It's very difficult to establish character and build to a dramatic climax in less than three minutes."

Patsy might have said years later, "It's very difficult to establish character and build to a dramatic climax in less than three pages."

 

Some of the R lies are half-lies. They twist and bend events to suit their defense. PR may very well have wrapped presents in the basement, but she sure did NOT wrap gifts in the wineceller. What, balance them on top of the filthy paint cans when there were several other basement areas that could be used? So yes, she wrapped in the basement, but no, not in that room. I also simply cannot accept that she hid presents in there either. It was dirty and to paraphrase JR, nasty, with mold all over. That was a huge house. The Rs had the entire top floor as a master suite. Those gifts could have been hidden elsewhere. They hid JBR's new bike at the Barnhill's next door. Why do that if they could have kept it in the wineceller?

As far as housekeeper Linda H-P, she DID mention that artificial trees were kept in that room, and there was an artificial Christmas spray on the wall immediately outside the wineceller door. I have always thought that the fake needles found in JBR's hair actually came from the trees stored in the wineceller and not from being carried down the stairs, which had fake greenery garland on them.
With proper forensic methods, it could have been determined whether the needles in her hair came from the garland or the trees. Different manufacturers use different materials, while they all have similar matter, it could certainly be determined which was the source of the needled in JBR's hair. Of course, to do that, someone would have actually bothered to test them against the trees and garland, and I have never heard that anyone did. It would have settled a major question in the case- was she carried down the stairs or not? If the needles did not match the garland, then I'd infer that she walked down the stairs herself, and was killed in the basement. If they matched, then the possibility exists that she was killed (or at least knocked unconscious) upstairs.
Of course, she could have been carried upright, over the shoulder, and then wouldn't have brushed against the garland. But testing the needles would have gone a long way towards piecing the events of the night together.

 

Patsy never mentioned wrapping the presents in the Butler's kitchen that John Ramsey talked about (?). I wonder why not (?). John talked about wrapping paper being in there too. Probably the Butler's kitchen was used by Patsy instead of the windowless room with paint cans and window screens clutter. No way did Patsy Ramsey wrap presents in there. Definitely a red herring.

Patsy was covering her tracks just in case her DNA was found in this basement room from the time she was putting JonBenét in there after she was dead. Patsy had to provide evidence of having been in this room, she threw in the Christmas present wrapping for good measure. Frustrating!

Thank you KK for all the other information you have posted here. I'll read Why_Nut's tomorrow.

 

What's puzzling is that R forensic evidence (hair, fibers, prints, etc.) could be legitimately found in ANY room in the house- after all, they lived there. Why cover it up? Well, it's a natural reaction to try to hide guilt. It goes along with lying about feeding JBR pineapple. Why lie about something that had nothing to do with her death? That answer is simple, too. While the pineapple snack itself had nothing to do with her death, it's presence in her digestive tract places her awake when she got home from the White's and also fixes a time of death pretty close to their arrival home- when parents were likely to be still up and when no intruder would ever chance creeping around the house.
And for the Rs "abducted from bed" theory to work, she had to be in bed. What is so silly about that is that she could have eaten the pineapple and THEN gone to bed and been abducted. There was NO NEED for PR to lie about the pineapple. So the fact that they DID lie suggest they are lying about whether she was asleep or awake when they got home. Even that was not necessary. She could have been awake on arrival and still been taken from bed. So again their lies are about things that they didn't need to lie about. They lied to hide their guilt and to cloud the events of the night.

What ties BOTH parents to this crime is the presence of their forensic matter ON the body- fibers in the garrote, in her panties, on her body,and on the bowl of pineapple they denied touching or even owning at first- and not the presence of prints or fibers on doors, windows, or in any room of the house (including the wineceller).

 

I think Patsy just simply forgot JB ate pineapple when she got home and so when they concocted their or her story they made it something easy to remember, such as she was asleep the whole time. I also don't give Patsy the credit that some posters do here about being forensically aware. I don't think she did anything on purpose such as throw herself on JB's body when she was found to transfer fibers. If she was that knowlegeable about forensics she would never have forgotten about the pineapple.

 

You guys are great today. I have no doubt, no doubt, you could present this case to a jury with information that you have gleaned from this case and present an incredible case against Patsy.

 

If only we could.

That being said, it is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback and "woulda-shoulda" this case. But if LE had thought (or been allowed) to ask even half the questions that we raise here they'd have made their case. Of course, that is exactly what Hunter didn't want to happen. He stonewalled the police at every turn so he could use the excuse that there wasn't enough evidence to charge the Rs. Well, how could there be? The police weren't allowed to gather the evidence. Sickening, really. I don't know how that crew lives with themselves- and that includes the Grand Jury. But I guess over time, Hunter just kept telling himself that there wasn't enough evidence...like a mantra said over and over...and eventually he believed it.

 

Either she forgot Jonbenet had eaten pineapple, or JonBenet, after coming home, simply snatched some pineapple with her fingers from the bowl while Patsy was upstairs and therefore didn't know she had eaten some.
I believe the bowl was still standing on the table from earlier in the day.

Just my opinion too. Imo Patsy was not even thinking of such things as fiber evidence, let alone of facts like the contents of the victim's digestive tract always being forensically analyzed during autopsy to determine the time of death.
The clumsy way in which the crime scene was staged indicates that the stager's mind did not function in an analytical manner (how could it, given what had happened!) and the result is things like a body found in the home (with wrist ligatures which did not restrain) together with an absurdly worded ransom note.
It was also an incredible blunder on Patsy's part to say JonBenet had been asleep when after coming home while she was aware that Burke KNEW she had been awake. For when interviewed by Dan Schuler in 1998, Burke himself stated JonBenete had been awake, and had walked up the spiral stairs in front of Patsy.

Have the Ramseys, when interviewed, ever been confronted with Burke's statement contradicting their own story?

 

Solace, can you imagine how a prosecutor like Victor Woerheide (who hauled family killer Jeffrey MacDonald over the coals durig the Grand Jury hearing) would have dealt with the Ramseys?
He would have sprung their contradictory statements on them, asking them tough questions which would have backed them into corner where there was no way out for them.
A prosecutor like Woerheide (or Brian Murtaugh who was also excellent) would NOT have given Patsy a break when she started shedding her crocodile tears because questions began to touch a dangerous area. Instead he would have insisted, and not let her escape from that corner like the interviewers of the Ramseys did.
Just look at this:

This statement of Patsy is quite a bombshell because here we have a suspect trying to explain away her presence at the place where the body was found! A suspect who is trying to make her story fit the evidence.
The stupid way in which she is trying to explain it away is a windfall for every interrogator.
But instead of insisting by showing her pictures of the filthy wine cellar and asking her to show where exactly she wrapped her presents there (the room had no table! ), they let Patsy get away with it.

It was those interviewers who turned out to be a windfall for the suspects.

Good catch, DeeDee.
For indeed it happens quite often that guilty suspects try to weave elements of truth into their fabricated stories.
No way did Patsy wrap any presents down that dirty wine cellar which did not even have a table. She probably used another area in the basement for that.

 

It makes you wonder if Smit even read DOI, doesn't it?

John also says that Patsy packed for the trip to Michigan (the day before they were to leave) in John Andrew's room. That room was hardly pristine yet Smithead seems to think that since that room didn't look like something out of House Beautiful it was a clear sign that an intruder had been luking there.

The Ramseys gave themselves away as liars time after time after time.

Little

 

I thought

I thought it was shown that the pineapple was eaten later than when the R's got home. I'll have to do some checking on it.

 

Okay I found a post on the thread More disinformation from jameson
from scarifier who says he/she is a sports nutritionist and says the pineapple was eaten within 2 hours of her death. I also found this post by easywriter:

Total BS is right.

According to JamNut:

“Dr. Dobersen also told me that there is NO WAY to tell when JBR
ate that pineapple. She could have eatten it at 3 or 4 in the
afternoon before going to the Whites for dinner. Since no one
paid attention to what she ate at the Whites', they can't tell
anything about the pineapple and when it was consumed.â€
(jamesonadmin Oct-26-02, 08:46 AM (EST))

Granted, Dr. Doberson is by no means the sharpest knife in the
drawer, but I will lay long odds that he never said such a thing.
Way back when, I researched this area exhaustively. Literally,
every authority source I looked at stated that fresh pineapple is
one of the fastest in digesting in the acid fruit class. TOTAL
digestion is two hours, or less. There was not total digestion.
Granted, there are always some variables, but to state that
JonBenet could have eaten the pineapple at 3 or 4 in the
afternoon is a total contradiction of all relevant evidence,
relevant science and is nothing but total nonsense. Considering
the source and past performance, what can you expect from this
source except lies and nonsense?

I know that the discussion is that she ate the pineapple after she got home but if she died at midnight or after she ate the pineapple later than just after arriving home. Especially since there wasn't total digestion.

 

As usual, Jammie lies about the pineapple. As a matter of fact, the coroner CAN tell when the pineapple was eaten. Happens all the time in autopsies, where the location and condition of food in the digestive tract can indicate a time of death. Items do not "leap frog" over each other in the digestive process, no matter how more easily digested one food is than another. The pineapple could NEVER have been eaten earlier in the day- it would have left the small intestine (where it was found) and been part of the "soft green fecal material" much further along in the digestive process. It would have been processed by the body's enzymes and no longer been able to be identified as pineapple. Even if JBR had had NOTHING to eat at all at the White's, the pineapple would not have been found where it was if she ate it before going there. ALL digestion stops with death. Digestion is metabolism. The metabolic process cannot continue without cell energy. Cell energy ceases when the oxygen supply stops, which occurs when breathing and heartbeat and circulation stop. In other words- death.
Estimated TOD is approx. 2 hours after eating the pineapple, or between 12-1am- which, by the way, also agrees with the stage or rigor mortis the body was in when brought up (full rigor), which takes approx. 12 hours- with the body brought up at 1pm on the 26th, death occurred approx. 12-1am, or about twelve hours earlier.