JonBenet's Skull Fractures: The Weapon

Thank you BOESP. I have never seen a junior set. This is what I thought they would look like, because I knew they wouldn't make the golf balls smaller.

 

Exactly. My point was that the shorter shaft on a junior golf club would make an up and down motion easier to perform, especially for an almost 10-year-old.

 

Thank you BOESP!

 

Thank you for posting this information heymom. How sad for those who had to die because of these injuries.

 

You are very welcome. We have a junior set bought for a grandson when he was five and they are cute! I know nothing about golfing but Mr. BOESP does. He says the length varies in good club sets and they can be cut down to spec for the height of the individual. I am assuming the Ramsey clubs were likely best-of-the-best.

Mr. BOESP says the longer the club the more exerted pressure on the object hit. He also said (after me describing the head wound to him) that for that type damage, whoever did it, if they did it with a golf club, had to be quite a bit taller and that a ten-year-old boy would be physically capable of this type action even with a regular golf club. I know nada about this but he does.

I am still not convinced Burke did it. I still lean toward Steve Thomas's PDI version but all these discussions are bringing insight into this case. I don't doubt the club could have made the comminuted fracture but I can't see it creating that 8.5" fracture without another source of pressure. Mr. B. says, "Of course it could.":fishslap:

Btw, does anyone remember the angel taken into evidence that was listed on one of the search warrants? Iirc, it was on a downstairs tree where the presents were. Regardless, how would an angel tie into this?

 

I am not fully convinced either, BOESP, that young Burke is responsible for this horrific crime. Patsy was always my first thought too! Let's hope we do find out the truth with all the bright minds around here!

Sorry, I don't remember the angel information!

 

Thank your golfing expert for us, BOESP.

As to the angel, all I remember is that there was a broken one taken into evidence which was listed on a search warrant. Was it found in the basement, with a knife...or something with it?

I don't remember anyone ever explaining if it had any significance to the case, though. It's a good question. Like so many things in this case, it's hard to follow up on every detail when there has been no trial.

 

Well done, Elle. Always thinking, aren't you? :wave:

 

RE: the angel ornament.

I'd have to go through the search warrants to know for sure, but I think the "angel" was speculation over an item listed simply as a "broken purple ornament" on the inventories. I think that because of the items listed before and after it, it was thought to have been found in the WC (I hate using that abbreviation, because I know what it means to our Brit friends.). I asked about another possible meaning of this here, but never got a response. I was wondering (and still am) if this might be something that could account for the skull fragments that are outside of the oval shaped depressed fracture.

 

Thank you, KK, but I do wish I was in the same bracket agewise as all you younger ones here. I lifted up Kolar's"Foreign Faction" book and it felt heavier than the last time I held it in my hand. See what I mean!

 

:floor:

Thank you, Elle, for all you add here. :hug:

 

THANK YOU! I'll just keep on moving otg! I was wondering if Chief Kolar's book was
available for downloading. I bought my husband a Kobo - same deal as the Kindle. He is powing his way through books using this, but he has big hands to hold it. I even find this Kobo on the heavy side.

 

I realize it's hard to even contemplate such a horrific crime being done by a child, Elle. But the way Kolar wrote his book, there is no doubt that is what he is implying. And don't you think that Burke's reactions are strange beyond belief? I mean, just a few days after his sister has been killed, he totally eliminates her from a drawing of the family! He never asks investigators any question about her, and states that he is not afraid of any intruder that might have killed his sister. He is pictured SMILING at the camera in candid polaroid shots of him and his parents, where John and Patsy look haggard and stressed-out. This is only 2 DAYS after his sister was killed in the family home!!! He seems to not have a care in the world during his little sister's FUNERAL. Yet, he is known to be under a psychiatrist's care after JonBenet's murder, and perhaps before - but for what?? If he really didn't see anything, doesn't know anything, and doesn't seem to care, why should he even be seeing a psychiatrist in the first place? The whole picture is askew, IMO.

Burke even seemed to know about the blow to JonBenet's head before any information was released to the press. That is classically self-incriminating, yet because Burke was underaged, and being protected by lawyers, the police did not/could not follow up on it.

For Chief Kolar to go into such detail about Burke, and about Sexual Behavior Problems, at the very end of his book, and yet never quite say what we know he must have wanted to say, tells me that he believes he found the answer to what happened that night in the Ramsey home. I don't know if he has sorted every aspect of the crime out - did Burke do it all, did Patsy do anything except write the ransom note, what did John do, etc. - but I do think he knows quite a bit that no one else could seem to face, including Steve Thomas. Maybe because Burke was under 10, anything regarding his possible involvement was redacted? Or maybe Thomas fell for Patsy's ploy of over-dramatizing and since she wrote that ransom note, he believed she did a lot more than that? In that case, she and John succeeded! Victory!

I'm going to have workers in the yard tomorrow but I will do my preliminary experiments come hell or high water!

 

The paperback version is out, but so far, no electronic version. The hardcover book IS VERY heavy, probably double the weight of other books that size.

Foreign Faction in paperback

 

Initial observations of melon experiment

I got a small watermelon at the grocery store today. It was the same price as the cantaloupes and I was more in the mood for watermelon! Now, that may have skewed the results a bit, because the rind of the watermelon may be harder. So I will try it again with a cantaloupe.

I picked 3 clubs to use. The putter that we've discussed; a driver, and an iron. Just random picks - the driver because the head of it looked more oval than the others. The iron because it looked more used so I figured it was a useful tool that might come to hand if someone grabbed a club out of a bag.

I quickly realized that the driver and the iron do not have enough weight to really whack a hard surface. I did try the iron once, but it basically bounced off the watermelon leaving barely a scratch. Now, granted, I'm not a male, and my upper-arm strength may not even reach that of a 9 year old boy. But the driver was even lighter, so I didn't bother.

The putter did get some results. You can look at the photo and see what happened. The 2nd whack netted not only a horizontal crack, but a vertical one, but that may have been caused by the previous crack on the other side (I rolled the watermelon over to get a fresh surface for the 2nd whack).

No displacement. I didn't successfully punch through the surface of the melon. I am not sure how a small watermelon compares to the skull of a 6 year old girl which is covered with thick hair. Maybe it's a pretty good comparison. If it is, then all I have to say is that whoever brought whatever they did down upon JonBenet's skull had to be pretty angry/furious/enraged, and have enough adrenaline to really kill someone. I wasn't mad at the watermelon. :rolling:

And, I think it had to be a pretty heavy object to make that hole and crack.



The Innocent Watermelon...

 

The Weapons - but I only used the putter

First Whack - a nice long crack!

Second Whack - a bonus perpendicular crack!

Another view of the perpendicular/vertical crack.

 

I would strongly encourage any of our male forum members to try this experiment themselves, given that we are discussing a male's ability to crack open another person's skull with some sort of heavy object.

You'll probably have to inhibit your own strength or the melon will split in half; whereas, I had to really pull the club up and consciously strike the melon almost as hard as I could in order to make a dent.

 

0h there is a lot of truth in what you're saying here heymom, and I have thought the same about Burke behaving in a strange manner. I personally thought he did have some kind of health problem(?). I am unsure about Burke being the culprit of the previous sexual evidence they have discovered in JonBenét. I can't see how Patsy overlooked this by the evidence from the autopsy.

About Chief Kolar. I just wish he would finish what he started; however I am aware of why he refuses to answer many questions. I believe Burke did turn ten shortly after JonBenét's murder, didn't he? This did save him
from being removed from the house.

I am going to read about your experiment now.

 

Good for you attempting to do this heymom! Not an easy task! You will
feel better for having achieved this. All I can think of is a person really has to be outraged and out of their mind to attempt this action on a six year old child's head. Their anger would also add to their strength, I'm thinking, as opposed to a person just swiping it as hard as they can. Just a thought!

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

 

Well, dear Elle, I would say that denial is a very strong defense mechanism. And Patsy had been ill herself, with cancer, and flying across the country for chemo which must have been very difficult, all alone. So she was effectively not parenting during that time, and the 2 children were being raised primarily by the housekeeper(s). I don't think they ever actually had a dedicated nanny, so even the housekeeper would have been focused on cleaning more than taking care of them.

I believe that Patsy's phone calls to the pediatrician on the night of Dec. 17 (is that right?) may have been in regard to some revelation by JonBenet, or some sign that Patsy could no longer ignore. But probably Patsy had to "go on with the show," felt that she could not cause total disruption in the family, and break up her outwardly happy home, especially at Christmas-time, with all of their plans for the holiday. She may have been trying to figure out what to do about this mess, when all hell broke loose on Christmas night.

I think even a strong person would flip out for a while if he/she discovered sexual abuse had taken place within the family. I mean, that ends any pretense at a storybook life, and the consequences will be horrific, and long-lasting (forever, basically). One has to do the right thing anyway, though, in spite of the pain going forward.

Maybe Patsy would have eventually done the right thing, I don't know. She had a lot to lose, or she thought she did, by acknowledging what was going on with JonBenet. Ultimately, she lost it all anyway, and may have condemned herself to hell.