In-Depth Discussion of Kolar's Book "Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet?"

How did you know it was the son, Learnin? How old is he? Did he have a history of being ill? It's amazing how we can live beside our neighbours and not really know them. What a shame the mother didn't have anyone else around to have helped her. Hope you will post a link and update us. When one hears of a crime like this, you cannot help but wish you had been there yourself to have saved this woman. Life sure is one big trial, isn't it?

 

Life is, indeed, a trial, Elle. The son came home at around 4:30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon and reported his mother had been killed. She lived in a nice residential area with many homes close by. What stranger would walk into a home on a Saturday , in broad daylight, viciously murder someone and walk out in clear view of all neighbors? I'll try and post a link.

 

Try this link, Elle.

http://cjonline.com/news/2012-09-16/hachmeister-case-contains-novel-elements


Sorry to disrupt this thread.

 

Wearing gloves while writing the note and not wearing gloves while giving writing samples to the police and having the handwriting still match as well as it did shows me that if they had Patsy put on a pair of gloves while giving the sample the handwriting match would not ever have been able to be disputed by anyone.

 

I still want to know if Burkes clothes were requested and tested for matches. I can't even find where it says anywhere what Burke was wearing that night. We know about John, Patsy and Jonbenet but what was Burke wearing? Is that around somewhere and I missed it? The police have the Whites Christmas party photos so they know. Just one more answer that we are not privvy to.

 

Thank you, Learnin. Glad he's been arrested. He sure is a Charmer of a different kind!

 

I still can't get over the length of this famous ransom note Karen. Patsy Ramsey's state of mind was up the creek, and yet she was never arrested. Amazing!

 

Lin Wood earned his keep in Atlanta that August, 2000. He stomped and trolled and interrupted and argued and diffused questions and cued the Ramseys like a guard dog on the front lines.

Poor Kane about had his own nervous breakdown. I don't think he'd ever seen anything like Lin Wood before. Lawyers in general are respectful of other lawyers, but not old Woody. He's a showman, pure and simple. He'd be challenging his opponents to duels in another era, no doubt.

He may put on a good show, and he may help his clients with his bullying; but he was on wife #4 last time I counted and he lived a tortured childhood, no doubt.

There's a reason he was branded Attorney for the Damned by Radar Mag.

Whatever we read in LE transcripts from the Ramsey interviews, in 1997, '98, or 2000, I believe what LE says about the evidence. The Ramseys were caught out lying, evading the truth, and obstructing the investigation many times in all those interviews, IMO. But LE detectives and lawyers told the truth. No games were played in those sessions by LE. They had too many Ramsey high-powered lawyers watching them every second, all of it on tape, and they knew it.

 

Y'all bear with me, because I want to copy some of your different posts on the topic of the broken basement window and then bring in something y'all triggered in my memory--Kolar's basement window video.

From Elle:

Patsy really wasn't a very good liar. She had many "tells" and here she demonstrates a prominent one: she subconsciously gives the breaking of the window a passive voice: the window that broke. But the window didn't break itself. Someone else broke it. This indicates there's a reason Patsy doesn't want to admit the truth about how that window got broken--and by whom.

Now let's look at another lie she Patsy LE about the broken window, which is very different from what the maid said, according to...sigh...a tabloid, which of course isn't the best source. But with all the people selling evidence and stories early in this case, a lot of what we learned was from tabs and a lot of that did turn out to be truthful. So for argument's sake, let's pretend the maid's Star story is genuine--she didn't remember the window being broken, so did she vacuum up glass in that area of the basement or not?

Personally, I know Patsy lied endlessly to LE, and any other time she was talking, IMO, and I haven't seen any proof the maid ever lied, so there's that.

From rashomon:

Another huge "tell" that Patsy's lying is classic: too much information. She's overly embellishing, to try to be convincing. That's because she's not being totally truthful. What's she covering up?

I think I may have an idea. Let's look at JR's story on this in my next post.

 

Not only this, Elle, but JR's story about breaking that window and climbing in IS NOT ACTUALLY POSSIBLE.

Let's look at some of JR's many stories about that window.

From the BDA interview in 1998:

So what is JR saying? He was checking to see if the window had been broken AGAIN, by the intruder, after he verified the pane wasn't the one HE actually broke earlier that year? But then he states he KNEW the window hadn't been fixed, but the glass had been cleaned up so if there was MORE glass...the intruder broke it AGAIN? Or was he trying to say he wanted to see if he actually remembered he had broken the window at all?

Oh, John, you're not a very good liar, either. Good thing you and Patsy had a lot of money and connections or you'd have been nailed DAY ONE.

Continuing to describe his circumstances and how he broke and climbed in the basement window, sans jacket and pants (BDA interview, 1998), this is a long passage, but oh, it is full of strange stuff:

Notice JR says he's done this two or three times. But look at his language--very vague: Well I can't remember exactly when it was. I've done it maybe twice, maybe three times [in less than six years]; I think that was done one summer I came back late; for some reason I didn't have a key. I don't know why...usually if I don't drive my car I take a cab or something to the airport and back, and I don't have a key the house keys are on the key ring.

And NOW he suddenly gets very specific: But that was the time, it was in the summer I had come back from a business trip. I think I had a
suit on. It was late. It was like about 11:30 at night. It was dark. It was (INAUDIBLE) Amazingly I took the grill off. I think I probably kicked the window with my foot and then reached in and unlatched the window.

The man goes into great description of how he went into that window, but the fact is you can't back into a room from a window well that narrow, from a window sill four feet off the ground, without doing yourself some bodily harm. It's not practical, it's not intuitive. How Smit went into that room through that window is how anyone would. Except JR the Undressed Pretzel Man.

Now here's another little oddity from JR's story, and I'll tell you why:

Jams for some reason began telling a different story. She said numerous times on her forum that SHE knew someone who actually was with JR that night when he stripped and climbed through that window! She refused to name names, and why she decided it was better to announce indirectly that JR LIED TO LE about this, I can only guess, but she did and that's a fact. I suppose she thought she would do the Ramseys a favor by backing up JR's ridiculous story, but not giving the name of his "company" only made him look worse: either he lied to LE or she was lying; if he lied, why was this witness yet another big Ramsey mystery person? I swear, Team Ramsey never understood that by making things more secretive, they only made the Ramseys look MORE guilty.

So we have JR on his second or third trip down into the basement through that broken window--which he implies he's BROKEN before, as well. He not only realizes it's "amazingly" improbably he'd lift the grate and go through that to get into the house, but then he goes from vague language to OH! Yeah, here's the details and boy, howdy! Stripped and backing in on his knees...which is even more unbelievable and impossible.

So I doubt he ever went through the window...at all.

So how did the window get broken? And why did JR and Patsy lie about it?

Now he's back to being very vague: I'm just going to bolden the telling language:

Now, this next part is curious. Didn't Patsy tell us a long story about how JR had lost his cell phone before that Christmas? It was 1996. Cell phones were big and clunky back in the early 90s, I remember. But Patsy got JR a nice, small new style of cell to replace his old one, but she ended up just keeping it--remember that long, twisted, fabrication Patsy told about that "lost cell phone"? Yeah, that one.

So how come JR didn't have a cell phone he could use to call for help? Anyone here have a cell phone back then? Were they too large to carry in a briefcase, for example? JR said he was coming back from a business trip, and Patsy said JR's secretary had replaced the one he lost and that's why she kept the new one for herself. So JR wouldn't have taken a company cell phone on a business trip with him? Or would the battery have been run down? I have no idea...but not having a cell phone after taking a taxi ride home, when his garage door opener was in the garage in his car? That seems plausible enough--maybe it did happen.

But taking off his pants and backing into the window--nope, not buying it. Look at the window well when Smit goes into it: he can barely squeeze in sideways. How did JR get on his knees and back through the window, then drop to the floor four feet below when his feet were far from the ground?

More vague answers.

And the infamous no-pants story:

Did you get that? "That's probably how I would have done it?" But you said you'd done this two or three times, JR. What's "probable" about it? Either you did it that way or you didn't?

When a person says "that's probably HOW I WOULD HAVE DONE IT" they are using the subjunctive case. We all use it. It's ingrained in our English nuances from childhood. It means IF I HAD DONE IT, THAT'S PROBABLY HOW I WOULD HAVE DONE IT. When you use the conjunction "if" you are setting up a supposition: Supposing I did this...not I DID THIS.

JR never went through that window as he describes here. I doubt he ever went through it at all.

And he did it again: Once I was in the basement I COULD find my way to the door. Not I DID find my way; but I COULD find my way--IF I were doing this.

Subjunctive mood is applied when we are speculating: "In grammar, the subjunctive mood...is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred." Wikipedia

JR was trying to think his way through a story that he was making up as he went.

So why lie about something so seemingly innocuous.

Learning, I think this might be one of those things we've had the wrong idea about all along. Continuing to a possible answer, following up with the "scuff mark" on the wall.

[Moving the section with wombat's post to follow, as this is taking more space than I anticipated.]

 

Look again at the stain. Without Smit's BULLCHIT explanation that this was a SHOE SCRAPE, leading us AWAY FROM ANOTHER POSSIBILITY, what do we see?

Broken window; long stain TRAILING LIKE A SPLASH down the wall...?

Remember where the large glass shard was in the video McKinley posted in her Daily Beast article? OUTSIDE THE WINDOW, on the window well side of the ledge.

Was that window in fact broken FROM THE INSIDE?

You can look at screen captures some of us took from that crime scene basement video and notice the glass shard on the window sill, a position which would have been on the OUTSIDE of the closed window: http://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9777&page=2

 

Here are a few photos to demonstrate the implausibility of JR entering the basement window on his knees and dropping down.

See how narrow the window well was in these photos:

http://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/showpost.php?p=180009&postcount=11

Now see Lou Smit squeezing himself through and dropping way down to the floor:

http://www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9775&page=2

 

I'm going to work on some pics and thoughts and I'll be back to clarify what I'm thinking...which may or may not mean anything at all. Oh, yeah, you know it. :headache:

 

Well done, KK! Thank you for putting all this together! Takes time! My knees are bruised from falling all over John Ramsey's lies. Unbelievable! Biggest one is the fact he normally went through the side door in the garage leading to the house. This is how we come into our house too.
He got away with it KK! This is hard to accept!

 

I know. Elle. I want to go back and do the same kind of comparison analysis on JR's first "big reveal" about that window, when he told LE four months after the murder, Oh, by the way, I broke that window. But I've been working on something else first.

Maybe we can learn something from the lies about the basement window being broken. I keep asking myself, as surely we all have, why lie about how the window was broken.

Then y'all were debating it and wombat posted her image of the mark on the wall under the window. How many times have I looked at that mark? But for some reason, this time, in context of discussing the window, a thought jumped out at me.

Let's look at a composite of that window I put together. It's very rudimentary, so maybe cynic or otg or someone with better photoshop skills can do a better image if they have time and think this is worth pursuing.

See my next post.

 

What jumped out at me is the location of the broken window pane in relation TO THE MARK ON THE WALL UNDER THE WINDOW. when the window is fully closed it's more obvious.

I honestly can't remember ever seeing a photo of that window closed with the broken pane showing. Maybe someone else has and would be so kind as to steer me to it, and thanks so much.

In the meantime, I've worked on the long shot photo we've had for years, to insert at least a similar "closed" window--it's from that same photo. I copied and overlaid it on the "open" middle window, which has the broken pane.

The reason I did this is so I could see if that broken window did in fact line up with the mark on the wall underneath. Lou Smit's "scuff mark from a shoe"?

I'm not seeing a scuff mark from a shoe.

I'm seeing something liquid running down the wall.



Now remember the shard of glass on the outside of the window sill? If that was there from the original break, perhaps the window was broken from inside the room, not the window well?



Did someone throw something and break the window, something with liquid in it which ran down the wall? The position seems right to me: top left window pane, middle window: long, irregular stain on the wall directly under that.

Maybe this is the thing you're talking about, Learnin, which we've missed for so long.

But then, we've been led on so many snipe hunts by the Ramseys and their guard dogs Smit, Tracey, Hunter, and Lacy....

Well, maybe it's nothing. What do y'all think?

 

Well, KK, I for one can't wait for your post. I feel we have gotten a little "wandering" as we discussed the Kolar book, even though everyone's input has been awesome. It's like Mae West said - they used to call me Snow White, but I drifted (baBOOM).

The wandering is partially Kolar's fault, sort of, because he chose to preserve the grand jury confidentiality, as a good law enforcement officer who swears to, must. He wrote the book in spite of that, and drew some irritatating (to me) borders around what he could discuss. He let us know what he thinks without telling us. Very crafty writing, even though he constantly wrote "publically" instead of "publicly."

We are on a razor-edge of being able to lay the entire case out, step by step. Or perhaps, if they were interested, the Boulder County District Attorney's office could give it a go.

 

I don't think it is "something liquid running down a wall," it's slow infiltration of water from outdoors into the wall, probably travelling down a crack in the foundation to make the elongated stain, IMO. Water "wicks" due to capillary action, and would travel from outside to inside the wall. The stain is old in 1996, and has been painted over. The paint over the stain probably formed a pocket, since it did not bond to the moist part of the wall, and this pocket is full of dirt and mold, thus causing the visible discoloration.

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

Whatever we read in LE transcripts from the Ramsey interviews, in 1997, '98, or 2000, I believe what LE says about the evidence

Absolutely...it's gospel and we can bank on it.

And a comment about Wood throwing his weight around like he did during those interviews. Imagine you are a father, or a mother, of a child who has been brutally murdered and you are really unaware of who killed your child.

Maybe I'm different, but, I think I would say: "Lin, these are legitimate questions and I'll answer them to the best of my knowledge, if you don't mind."