Understanding the Ramsey note

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by DocG
Elle, if the killer(s) couldn't bear leaving the body out in the cold, then why bother writing a ransom note in the first place? Assuming the note was written by an insider and not an intruder, then it would have to have been part of a plan which involved removing the body from the house. No other possibility makes sense. If the killer(s) decided to leave the body in the house, then a different note could have been written, a taunting note by someone "out to get" John and taking revenge. But there'd be no point in writing a ransom note. Once the body is discovered in the house, then the ransom note would be revealed as staging and actually backfire on the writer.
Which is exactly what happened and why the Ramseys will forever be under that "umbrella of suspicion.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>This is why the Ramseys were up all night DocG. Confusion for the Boulder Police was the "name of the Game." I will stick to my guns. Patsy Ramsey put her journalism skills into play and with the help of John Ramsey created a "real live Cluedo" game for the BPD using the same skills which won her the Talent Award at a Virginia Beauty Pageant all those years ago, when she had to come up with another speech because of copyright issues with the speech from the play and movie "The Pride of Miss Jean Brodie." With the help of a friend, she managed to write the winning speech with no problem; therefore writing the War and Peace ransom note came easy to her. She also had a friend in her husband, John, helping her along that night too. jmo

 

DocG

I disagree that John is the most likely perpetrator of incest upon his daughter....I think that it is equally likely, given the current evidence available to us, that it was one of JonBenet's brothers who was committing the incest.....

If that were the case, then of course it may have been possible for John to have been completely innocent of the molestation, the murder, and the writing of the ransom note....

We might then consider that he only became suspicious after Patsy made the phone call to police, when he had time to reread the long, convoluted ransom note, which began to sound a lot like his wife's personal writing.....I think that if this is the correct scenario, that John may have begun a search of the house and may have found JonBenet's body even before the police arrived, and at that point began to cooperate in a cover up with the murderer (Patsy), by calling his attorney and helping Patsy call in all of their friends to help dilute the situation.....his co-operation in the cover-up would have been to protect his wife and son from discovery and prosecution......

In my opinion, your version of John as incest perpetrator, murderer, and note writer, is only one possible scenario in the Ramsey murder, and not the most likely one either.....

Voyager

 

Voyager, Elle, et al.

I'm already familiar with the Patsy dunnit scenarios and the Burke dunnit scenarios. You don't need to remind me of those. What I'd really appreciate here is a response to the argument I've presented. I've gone to a lot of trouble to outline a case that places John at the center of suspicion. I'm not saying I can prove he did it. But I do think that what I've presented is more than enought reason to suspect him of being the sole perp. You certainly don't have to agree with me. But PLEASE if you disagree with any of the statements I've made, do me the favor of refuting them. It's not helpful to be reminded of Elle's conviction that "the War and Peace ransom note came easily to" Patsy. I already knew Elle felt that way. And Voyager, like Elle, you're responding ONLY to the notion of John as sole perp and NOT to any of the arguments I presented demonstrating the logic of that notion. It's easy to say "No, I'm absolutely sure it was Patsy" or "Burke" or whomever. What I expect and would in fact really love to see is a truly logical, sensible refutation of my theory. As opposed to a simple denial. Anyone can do that.

 

Hi DocG

Reading your post, quoted above, has me wondering. This theory has John clever enough to alter his handwriting so it won't be recognized. And he was eliminated as the one who wrote the ransom note.

However, the printing was similiar enough to Patsy's writing that she cannot be eliminated as the note's author. Is your theory that John altered his writing which, by accident, looked like Patsy's or was the style he used purposefully designed to implicate his wife?

-Catfish

 

DocG.....

You have not explained with any clarity why you believe that John is the most likely perpetrator of incest....You have just stated that he is and therefore this follows that....Don't get your points DocG.....WHY is it that John is more likely the perpetrator of incest that his sons....Please show us where you have explained that....I read your posts and don't see anything that convinces me of that at all....

You don't seem to have done me the courtesy of reading my post carefully enough to understand that I was putting the theory of Burke or his brother as perps as only two of the possibilities....Maybe Patsy was the perpetrator of the incest.....

I put forward the possibilty of Patsy as the murderer as only one possiblity....Just as likely as John to be the murderer, just maybe for different reasons...

After reading Cherokee's thread on the Ransom note and looking at the handwriting samples, I am even less convinced that John's handwriting is that in the note....The handwriting, and the style of expression, vocabulary, and subject emphasis definitely resemble those of Patsy.....So that part of your thought process alone leaves me at a dead end with your theory.....

I am sure that you spent some time writing your John as perpetrator theory where one step leads to the next part of your theory, but frankly, I find your whole process illogical.....

I find your post lacks the basic consideration of taking each posters response seperately, reading it for content and meaning and then addressing each of our theories individually.....You have addressed us "et all" as if we all said the same thing and you were the only poster with a unique brain and theory.....

I find that quite unsatisfying in a discussion....
Voyager

 

Voyager

This thread is about the note, not incest. I'm arguing that the note makes no sense unless we see it as part of a plan instigated by and for John Ramsey. Neither you nor anyone else has addressed that. As far as incest is concerned I think anyone with any degree of experience in psychology, sociology or even just newspaper reading would agree that the father in the family is going to be the most likely suspect where incest is involved. That's especially true when the only other males in the family are either living many miles away or nine years old. I didn't think that needed any explanation. In any case my argument doesn't deal with that, it deals with the note.

"You don't seem to have done me the courtesy of reading my post carefully enough to understand that I was putting the theory of Burke or his brother as perps as only two of the possibilities....Maybe Patsy was the perpetrator of the incest....."

Anything is possible, Voyager. But please if you don't mind I'd be really interested if you could come up with even one instance in the entire history of crime of mother-daughter incest leading to murder.

"I put forward the possibilty of Patsy as the murderer as only one possiblity....Just as likely as John to be the murderer, just maybe for different reasons..."

The murder itself is IMO far more difficult to make sense out of than the note. Which is why I've concentrated on that. If we look carefully at the note we see that John is the ONLY one who could have profited from it. That HAS to make a difference in how we see the entire case. Once we know who wrote the note, we can concentrate on how and why JonBenet was murdered.

"After reading Cherokee's thread on the Ransom note and looking at the handwriting samples, I am even less convinced that John's handwriting is that in the note...."

As Henry Lee has stated, the handwriting experts are all over the place on that one. But of course you, Voyager, along with Elle and WY and just about everyone else on this forum already KNOW she wrote it, so why would any of that matter to you folks, eh? I, on the other hand, am forced to accept that the handwriting evidence is inconclusive. As is the content. What is NOT inconclusive, IMO, is the logic behind the writing of the note itself. It could only have worked for one person, John. That's NOT inconclusive IMO. But if you think you can refute that logic, be my guest.

 

Catfish

Excellent question, Catfish.

I don't think that either John's printing, of which we only have after all these years a very short sample, or the ransom note resemble Patsy's printing even remotely, as far as overall style is concerned. There certainly are isolated instances of resemblance involving certain letters. As one might expect when comparing the note to many others as well. And there is one exemplar from Patsy, her "right hand sample" taken from the note itself, as presented by the National Enquirer, that does in some ways resemble the note stylistically. I don't know what to make of that because that one exemplar is totally different in almost every respect from every other example we have of Patsy's printing or writing. The slant is upright, whereas Patsy's usual slant is rightward -- the pressure is heavy, whereas Patsy's tends to be quite light -- there are sloppy areas where letters are squashed or run into one another, whereas Patsy's letters tend to be neat, flowing and unsquashed. So I just don't know what to make of that sample. All I can say is that the NE is known to have presented a phoney example of the note itself. So they are capable of anything I suppose, as long as it makes their point.

Frankly I don't think either any of us OR any of the "experts" are qualified to determine who wrote or didn't write the note. Forensic document analysis works well enough in detecting things like forged checks, etc. But where deliberate deception is involved then all bets are off.

To answer your question as straightforwardly as possible, no I don't think John deliberately attempted to imitate Patsy's printing. And I don't think the note lookes anything like her printing. I think it looks much more like John's.

HOWEVER. I am not attempting at this point to prove that John wrote the note. There are many on this forum who feel sure Patsy wrote it and consider that proven. I disagree. But I'm not interesting in proving anything at this point. What I feel to be really obvious is not that John wrote the note, but that he cannot, by ANY stretch of common reasoning, be ruled out. I think the evidence tells us in no uncertain terms that he must be ruled back IN. And once he IS ruled in then that changes EVERYTHING about this troubling case.

 

I disagree with this, DocG : "I think anyone with any degree of experience in psychology, sociology or even just newspaper reading would agree that the father in the family is going to be the most likely suspect where incest is involved. That's especially true when the only other males in the family are either living many miles away or nine years old."

If kids are left to themselves, and kids are left to themselves even in the best of homes, if not all homes, well dog, no telling what games they play.

Not to deny the incest of fathers, in any way, tho.

 

I disagree with this, DocG : "I think anyone with any degree of experience in psychology, sociology or even just newspaper reading would agree that the father in the family is going to be the most likely suspect where incest is involved. That's especially true when the only other males in the family are either living many miles away or nine years old."

If kids are left to themselves, and kids are left to themselves even in the best of homes, if not all homes, well dog, no telling what games they play.

Not to deny the incest of fathers, in any way, tho.

fftopic:

 

Tempester, I live in Canada and I asked the same question a few years back, and was told it was possible for some banks to be open in the U.S. on Boxing Day.
I suppose the Americans on this forum could answer this question for you.

 

DocG....

You did even worse with your most recent post, repeating your habit of ignoring the opinions and emphasis of the individual poster, misrepresenting what was said and again lumping all of our opinions incorrectly together as one and dismissing us as ignorant, uneducated, ill-read "Patsy Did It" groupies.....

Your attitude toward me and some of the other posters here is pompous and rude....Perhaps others are not offended by your dismissive attitude, however, I am and will not be posting to you again as it is frustrating and useless as far as trying to have an intelligent, informative debate.....

I am sure that you will find others who will enjoy your thoughts and theories and possibly find them interesting....I do not.....

I will not try to make any "sense" of the ransom note, as I feel that it was written the night of the murder in a state of hysteria, trying to explain away and point away from the truth with a long and ridiculous triade......It is a totally illogical document without truth or merit....part of an illconceived staging......

This is my personal opinion, not based on any group opinions or forum decisions and has been since the first month after JonBenet's death when I read the first reports of the ransom note....

That's it, over and out....
Voyager

 

Yes, tempster, unless it falls on a Sunday. And some banks are open on Sunday.

 

Thankyou JC and ELLE 1

 

Banks

Yes, the banks would have been open that day -- even though it's "boxing day" in the UK it's just the day after Xmas in the US. But banks don't normally open until around 9AM. Which makes it crystal clear that the "tomorrow" in the note meant the day AFTER the note was found. If it meant the same day, then there'd be no way John could have gone to the bank and retrieved the ransom money prior to awaiting the call which was to come between 8 and 10 AM. But then the word "tomorrow" usually does mean tomorrow, doesn't it? Only in the context of this wildest and weirdest of all murder cases could anyone ever assume it meant today.

 

Voyager

This is going to sound especially cruel, Voyager, even worse than what I said in my last "worse" post. But it's the truth. I don't care about your opinion. What your opinion is as to who did or didn't do it and when that opinion was formed, early or late, matters not one teensy whit to me. I'm not interested. And if you need a reason to suspect the father of incest, rather than a brother who is known to have been living in another city at the time or another brother who was nine years old at the time, then I especially am not interested in your opinion.

What WOULD interest me would be any THOUGHTS you might have as to why anyone other than John Ramsey would have wanted to write that particular note. That's the topic of this thread, not incest. And what I'm interested in are reasoned thoughts, NOT opinions. THOSE are a dime a dozen, especially where this case is concerned.

 

Common sense

Common sense. We all have it. But are sometimes reluctant to apply it. Our thoughts, like our observations, are all too often controlled by what we WANT to believe, just as we all too often see what we want, or expect, to see. If you want or expect to see Patsy's printing as identical to the printing in the ransom note, then that's probably what you'll see. If you want to see it as the work of an intruder then it will probably look very different. To me Patsy's printing is totally different in style from that of the note. Her style is flowing, clear, elaborated, right slanted, with a light touch and a marked margin drift to the left. The note is cramped, sloppy, unelaborated, slanted in all directions, some right, some back, some vertical, with a heavy touch and no margin drift. How these very obvious differences can look to some like dramatic similarities is, to me, simply one more example of how we see what we want or expect to see.

John was ruled out. Patsy wasn't. There probably wasn't any intruder. So we expect to see Pasty as writer of the note. And since that's what we expect, then lo and behold that's what we see. Common sense would tell us that marked differences in flow, neatness, elaboration, slant, touch and margin would suggest two different writers. But common sense always seems to lose when it runs counter to what we want -- or expect -- to believe.

All comparisons I've ever seen, including my own, are inconclusive. Since deception is definitely a factor, it's possible Patsy wrote it despite all the obvious differences. It's also possible John wrote it, despite his being "ruled out." Experts make mistakes. On the basis of the handwriting itself I have to admit I can't tell.

But when we ponder the REASONS why the note might have been written, then there ARE some conclusions we can draw. Not on the basis of handwriting analysis, but on the basis of: common sense. An intruder might have written the note. But common sense tells us that's unlikely. Why? Because no intruder, whether a kidnapper, a pedophile or someone "out to get" John Ramsey, would have had anything to gain by writing it. And a lot to lose, since it could be used as evidence against him.

Patsy might have written it. But common sense tells us that's unlikely as well. Because it makes no sense to write such a note unless it's part of a plan and the plan would have to involve getting the body out of the house before the police are called. Otherwise the note boomerangs on its writer and it becomes all too clear that this is an inside job. Patsy is the one who called the police. Common sense tells us that if she is the writer of the note she wouldn't have done that. The note is addressed to John and empowers John as the one who is going to have to take control of the situation. Common sense tells us that if Patsy wrote the note she'd have empowered herself and not John, so she could take control of the situation rather than leaving it to him. And common sense also tells us that the two of them working together on a coverup would NEVER have called the police knowing the body was still in the house.

So, while so much else in this case is inconclusive, commons sense tells us that the most likely person by FAR to have written the note is John Ramsey. Does this mean he IS the one who wrote it? There's no way of telling for sure, it may never be proved. But there is certainly reason for him to be our suspect number ONE. And clearly the decision to "rule him out" as writer of the note must be reconsidered. That's just plain common sense folks.

 

No sense

Some have claimed the note makes no sense, that it's just the product of a hysterical, panic driven mind, Patsy Ramsey in overdrive. She way overdoes her Christmas decorations so why not her phoney ransom note? So why would we expect it to make sense?

I'd like to turn this around if I may. What that line of thinking tells me is that if you absolutely positively MUST believe Patsy wrote the note, despite all the many indications to the contrary, then you are FORCED to drop all reason, all logic, all common sense, and claim the note makes no sense at all. That, to me, is not a commentary on the note, but a commentary on the degree of desperation of those who simply MUST declare her guilty come what may. So who is out of control here, who is actually operating in overdrive, hysterical, making no sense at all? Patsy? Or those who simply must see her as absolutely positively guilty as charged no matter what?

One more thing. Once we argue that the note makes no sense and was written by a deranged mind capable of any absurdity, then we have to realize that the same argument could be made in favor of the intruder theory. Which tosses out one of the strongest arguments we have against that theory, that it would make no sense for an intruder to have written it.

 

Actually, in my opinion the strongest argument we have against the intruder theory is that there is no consistent forensic evidence showing an intruder left a trail throughout the house. The dark fibers and animal hairs which shed so freely onto JonBenet's body did not shed equally freely onto the broken window frame, or onto JonBenet's bed, or into the paint tray, or onto the duct tape, or onto the cord of the ligature, or onto the baseball bat the Ramseys claim does not belong to them, or onto the white blanket, or onto the pink Barbie nightgown, or onto the pineapple bowl, etc. Contrast this with the red fibers consistent with Patsy's clothing. At least those fibers appear both on the tape and in the paint tray. That short trail is the only one we have so far, and it points to Patsy.

I will give you this, DocG. A case can be made that John did this, and that the dark fibers found only on JonBenet's body but nowhere else came from his socks. I can give this theory some weight by noting that when John claimed an intruder broke into his Vinings house, he added the odd detail that the intruder wore socks on his hands, that they fell off, and that the intruder was able to put them back on before continuing his assault on John. This may be an inadvertant confession to a clue on John's part. If John took off his socks and put them on his own hands to keep his DNA and fingerprints from appearing at the crime scene, it would explain a lot. It would explain why the fibers were found on JonBenet in the cellar room, but not on her bed. It would be something heretofore undetected. Is there any real reason to think that John ever gave the socks he wore December 25/26 to the BPD investigators? If he did not, then those fibers could theoretically belong to John and only John, yet still go unidentified to this day.

 

My Apologies To Everyone Else On This Thread....

But I absolutely feel compelled to acknowlege the rude, obnoxious person who has just posted to me that though he knows it is cruel, "I don't care about your opinion."

Less Is More for some people....Let me make it very easy for him to understand....

:flipper:

Voyager

 

Socks?

Now it's socks? Oy Vay! Do I have to insult half the denizens of this forum in order to get SOMEONE to pay attention to what I've posted? You don't have to agree with me folks. Just say SOMETHING in response to what I've written, that's all.

Why_Nut, for your information it wasn't fibers from his socks, but from the collar of his shirt. They were found in JonBenet's underwear. That's a lot stronger than the fiber evidence linked to Patsy, since her fibers could easily have gotten where they were via transfer from JonBenet herself, who'd been in close contact with her mother. But fibers in her underwear are a different story. If they'd been found in her hair or on her dress that could easily be explained. But her underwear? THAT's evidence for sure and NOT in John's favor, no.

As far as the lack of forensics pointing to an intruder, that's in the "inconclusive" category. The folks over at BORING (Bent ON Ramsey Innocence Never Gonnagivein) claim there were many fibers found that were never identified, so to them that of course MUST mean an intruder was present. And of course they see the DNA that way too. I disagree and I'm sure you do as well, but there you have it: inconclusive.

What makes the intruder theory so unlikely when we boil it all down is the extremely unlikelihood of any intruder wanting to leave a meaningless "ransom note" while at the same time failing to take the victim with him. THAT's what makes this case special, the existence of the note and that's what keeps John and Patsy under that umbrella, the fact that the note makes NO SENSE unless we see it as insider staging.