Burke Ramsey... the missing link

Heymom ... you're right

That makes sense heymom .... I guess you mean they had to try and stick to whatever they were boxed in by, with their scanty initial version of events.

It makes even more sense, in retrospect, when you consider why they kept taking so long to do any interviews with LE. As you say, I think their lawyers were always dependent on getting a copy of their initial statements and rehearsing them over and over again, until they could find a way to explain the many discrepancies.

There is one thing though, I think their lawyers had a massive amount of data from the other side that they shared with Ramseys, even though they probably will never admit it. They were all trying to refit their stories to the circumstancial evidence that lay before them.

Regards,
Mandarin

 

Yes, you are right on that point, I'm sure. Some of the discrepancies we discuss, and that all of you have seen for years and years, must have come from the Ramsey's knowledge of what LE was looking at, and trying to point anywhere else, away from the suspicion that anyone could see hovering around them.

Heymom

 

Easy Writer,

I can in no way match or even come close to your knowledge or writing skills on matters from this case. However I do take exception to a statement of yours concerning Burke's statement that was possibly heard on the 911 call. And that statement is "What did you find?" Some where I read that there seemed to be an emphsis on the word "YOU" So when you read that statement with the emphesis it goes like this, "What did you find? That to me does not convey "ignorance of circumstances". To me that says something like I know what was there but what did you find that was there. If I take that same phrase and stress each of the other 3 words in it I get a somewhat innocent question. But with the stress on the word "you" it goes back to him knowing that something was there and he knew it. Is that a stretch of my imagination? Perhaps. But just try it yourself and see.

Also why is it you dismiss out of hand that the flashlight couldn't be involved in causing the head wound? There was a hole in the skull of JBR. For the life of me I have tried to imagine a flat surface being struck by her head and having that flat surface cause a hole in her skull. Acracked skull yes of course, but a huge hole? Yes, I can see that a flat surface would help keep the scalp intact ergo no blood...but so would a towel or other little padding wrapped around the flashlight do something similiar. Wouldn't it? And I can't forget that the flashlight found on the kitchen counter was wiped clean of prints or any foreign matter like hair or other DNA. And so were the batteries wiped clean. Why? That to me raises a very red flag. Who among us has a flashlight in our house with wiped clean batteries? Curious no?

 

Hi Zoomama. Thomas's book says Burke said: "What did you find?" p. 15 paperback.

 

I just finished ST's book. What to make of the green stuff in her hair? That was supposedly darned along the staircase? I wonder how that got there? Could she have been pushed down the stairs? Or carried hurriedly down the stairs, and brushing her hair along the edging?

 

EasyWriter,
Have you given any thought to circumstantial evidence which connects Burke?:

- The sexual molestation was more "child-like" than what you would find from an adult assault.
- The Ramseys lied about JonBenet being awake when they got home (eating pineapple) to make it appear the two children had no contact.
- Burke's fingerprints on the glass of tea and pineapple bowl.
- Burke's knife found in the basement.
- Burke hiding in his bed pretending to be asleep.
- Burke not being at all scared or upset that his sister was "missing".
- The stick on the garrote and the housekeeper (LHP) telling police Burke was always whittling on sticks so she took his knife away.
- Who would need to tie a stick on a cord to pull it tight, a child or an adult?
- The dictionary dog-eared to the word "incest" where the parents may have tried to find out if Burke was guilty of a crime.
- Burke being moved to an insecure location rather than taking the chance he might be questioned by the police.
- Patsy being so nervous while Burke was being questioned by the social worker.
- Burke telling the police he thinks one of the ways his sister may have been murdered was by being hit over the head.
- Burke's baseball bat laying outside the rear door in the middle of winter.
- Children hit other children over the head with an object, parents normally do not.
- Burke would have put the wrong size panties on his sister, her parents wouldn't make that mistake and Jonbenet wouldn't either.
- The parents staging a false crime to protect Burke because they would have had no way of knowing a child under 10 is not culpable.
- A lawyer being hired for Burke - does a completely innocent child (who slept through the night and knows nothing) REALLY need a lawyer?

That's for starters... There's probably more circumstantial evidence that points to Burke than either parent. Just because Patsy wrote the note doesn't mean she was protecting herself. :thumbsup:

 

I agree with everything you have written here and on the last page.

One of the problems with any of the heavy wielded items as the weapon is that they are very heavy, and it is very hard to lift some of them and come up with enough force to do the amount of damage that was done.

Interestingly, one of the reasons I came up with thinking the head injury was more likely due to hitting into something was also a childhood accident. I was watching a softball game at a church picnic and was sitting on the ground about 10 feet to the side and slightly behind the batter. After hitting the ball, batters are supposed to drop the bat, but one man (very strong guy who hit a home run) threw his bat and it hit my leg. The throwing motion was basically letting go of the bat on his followthru. The noise when it hit was really loud - a loud crack. I thought every bone in my leg would be broke, but it ended up I just had a really bad bruise. I'm not saying I think it would be impossible to do damage with a wielded item, but from my experience at getting hit, I think it would be easier with it happening the way Easy Writer described.

 

a curious ( well to me ) aspect of the 'whack' from whatever..is the issue of transference....now I will asume ( yeah yeah I know...what am I thinking ) that the area of the contusion was inspected for forensic matter.. if none was found..then it points to a hard cleansmooth surface... tiles..or basin etc might fit this criteria..

just a thought

 

BStrat ... that's a thought provoking list of stuff possibly implicating Burke. But I'll just address the one that I've singled out, becuz when answered, it essentially makes all of the others moot.

You seem to agree with most here that John and Patsy were involved in the staging and coverup of the crime. That being the case, you have to answer the question, "What was J & P's MOTIVE for risking EVERYTHING in Burke's behalf?"

Of course, the point quoted above suggests that you believe that the Ramseys were probably unaware that Burke could not be held criminally culpable ... and that makes sense. But the thing that sinks your theory is that Mike Bynum (and any of the subsequent Ramsey attorneys) would be aware of that fact, and would have advised the Ramseys to come clean.

Sure ... the Ramseys would have taken a public relations "hit" for their early staging. But, juries would understand their panic, and their desire to sheild their child. In fact, they would probably NOT be prosecuted had they come clean immediately ... especially in Boulderistan.

You can BET that Bynum, Haddon et al would have explained the consequences of continuing their sham ... Loss of career, loss of good name, loss of MILLIONS in attorney fees ... and the possibility of going to prison (leaving Burke to god only knows what future).

They would also have explained that Burke would NEVER have a chance to put the event behind him ... having to continue the lie ... forever. Consider the guilt ... he would FOREVER feel responsible for not only the death of his sister, but ALSO the ruin and imprisonment of both of his parents. The kid would be a lifelong basket case ... and likely a short life at that.

Nope ... John and Patsy weren't covering for Burke. They WERE covering for each other.

Is John covering for Patsy, or vice versa? Strong arguments can be made each way. My personal opinion is that John covered for Patsy.

Why would John risk everything for Patsy? She had no income to protect ... and I've never detected what looked like a genuine "love" between them at that stage of their lives.

... So ... why WOULD John cover for Patsy. Simple ... look to the prior sexual abuse. That is the ONLY issue that I can see where a savvy business man would risk EVERYTHING to cover for a wife who had killed his daughter and namesake. If Patsy went down, you can BET that she would have taken John down with her if he refused to help. And I'm sure that John was wise enough to understand that he would have become the prison spermbank if sent to prison. THAT is motivation, my friend!

Burke didn't do it.


...YumYum

 

YumYum,
I agree with everything you said. I've continually felt that Patsy accidentally killed JonBenet. And I think John helped Patsy stage the crime scene in order to save both their butts. John had to save Patsy's from a murder/manslaughter charge and Patsy had to save John from molestation charges. My opinion of course.

 

Well .... I Can See 4

You know I can see 4 different scenarios:

1. Of course John would cover for Patsy .... not necessarily out of love of wife, but certainly to protect his high profile CEO image. Do you honestly think a man of his stature (at that time) would not think quickly, to protect his reputation, no matter whom he suspected?

2. I can see Patsy covering for herself - fearing John's wrath, especially, as it seems, he was still not over the death of his 1st born daughter Beth.

3. I can see Patsy covering for Burke, here again, fearing John's utter rage, if he found out that Burke had caused her death.

4. Finally, I can see John, eventually coming on board, despite any anger or rage he had toward either Patsy or Burke, to protect his CEO profile & lest we forget, his considerable fortune that he amassed.

John, of all people, knew full well, the costs of attorneys, whether it was an accident or not. Ironically, he ended up paying mega bucks anyway, but somehow managed to retrieve a lot of his fortune through lawsuits on Burke's behalf.

You know, I've often wondered if (in the Patsy and Patsy/John scenario) ..... if they had intended to dump her body outside, but either ran out of time, couldn't quite figure out how to do it without being seen or lastly, couldn't stash the body outside because of the love they or any parent had for their child .... it was Xmas, you know!

Regards,
Mandarin

 

As i've said before

please consider where the head injury is. Then try to put yourself in a position where your head would be hit that way. Falling backwards would not cause that fracture. Falling forwards would not cause that fracture. Hitting against something sideways is the only way it could have happened, if you are hooked on the scenario that she fell/was pushed. Then consider how high on the side of her head the fracture was - it was closer to the top than the side. Position yourself at the side of your bathtub in a way that the edge of the tub would contact your head about where the fracture was. That will give you an idea what position JBR would have had to be in.

 

I qualified this with an “if†since I really don’t know this for
sure. If I ask, “What time is itâ€, in the general scheme of
things, this means I don’t know, but want to, i.e., ignorance. If
I ask with emphasis, “What time do YOU haveâ€, it could imply I’m
not satisfied with an answer I got from another person, but is
still derived from my ignorance of what time it is.

If it did happen, it implies to me that Burke perhaps hearing
Patsy telling the 911 operator what she “foundâ€with Burke hearing
part of the conversation, but not enough to know the story. It
this was the situation, perhaps, he was simply trying to
ascertain, “found what.†Since I have never heard the alleged
question, I have no way of knowing if there was any emphasis on
“Youâ€, and if there were, what emphasis and logical inference. If
Burke is on the tape, it’s just one more of many instances of
Ramsey lies. Other than that, I consider it a minor point that
does not change the basis argument that there is no evidence
linking Burke to crime.

“Also why is it you dismiss out of hand that the flashlight
couldn't be involved in causing the head wound? “(ibid)

The dismissal “out of hand†was accompanied by descriptive
elements of physics that reject the flashlight as involved.

“There was a hole in the skull of JBR. For the life of me I have
tried to imagine a flat surface being struck by her head and
having that flat surface cause a hole in her skull. Acracked
skull yes of course, but a huge hole? Yes, I can see that a flat
surface would help keep the scalp intact ergo no blood...but so
would a towel or other little padding wrapped around the
flashlight do something similiar. Wouldn't it?â€(ibid)

A towel would not suffice to make up the physics deficiency. As
for “huge hole†(actually one and three quarter inches by one
half inch) by contact with a flat surface, don’t forget the skull
is not flat.

Arcs have long been used in the construction of bridge supports
and other structures. Since an arc ending on each side by
connecting to a vertical column tends to transfer weight to the
stronger vertical columns, they are far superior to a totally
lateral set up. A skull is a “mass of arcs.†This natural
condition is a better protection for the brain than flat for the
same reason arcs are superior in structural design. Any force,
coming in contact with the arc distributes the force over a much
greater area than would be the case if the skull were flat.

Energy is max at the point of contact with gradual dissipation as
it radiates through the object; in this instance, a skull. That a
section would be dislodged is not all that mysterious. A skull is
neither symmetrical, nor consistent in density at every point. An
applied force will follow the weakest lines from the point of
contact. The size of the object of contact, the surface of the
object of contact, amount of force, the point of impact, angle of
contact, and speed of impact all effect the end result.

Although every individual deals with the speed factor often, few
realize what is happening. The “energy release time†refers to
the amount of energy at a given point at a given time. The faster
the release, the more energy exerted in a given area at a given
instant. You can’t push a machete through a half inch tree
branch, but can cut it easily with a swing although the overall
amount of energy required is the same. Another example: Flashbulb
cameras are often powered by four 1.5 v AA batteries wired in
series to produce 6 volts. If these batteries were directly
connected to the flashbulb, they wouldn’t work. Although the
voltage and power is there, by design, these batteries cannot
release the energy with sufficient speed to meet the
power\release time requirements to create the flash. This problem
is resolved by using the batteries to charge a capacitor to the
six volt level, BUT with a circuit design that allows the release
of the same energy and power within a fraction of the time
batteries take.

The beauty of the natural laws of physics is that they are
universally applicable. When JonBenet’s head came in contact with
something, the speed of the contact was sufficient that much of
the energy was absorbed in the small area of contact before it
had time to dissipate by radiating beyond to create the fracture
pattern. THIS is what dislodged a skull fragment.

I did not intend to go into this much technical detail. I did so
to illustrate that my dismissal of the flashlight as cause was
not “out of hand.†It was based on physics no less than the
physics by which I dismiss the idea of circumferential
strangulation by angular force.

“And I can't forget that the flashlight found on the kitchen
counter was wiped clean of prints or any foreign matter like hair
or other DNA. And so were the batteries wiped clean. Why? That to
me raises a very red flag. Who among us has a flashlight in our
house with wiped clean batteries? Curious no?†(Ibid)

Curious maybe, but that’s the end of it. I don’t know about the
wiped clean part, but when I lived in the cold country and was
out at night at lot, it was not unusual for me to wear gloves
even when changing batteries.

Since the flashlight, like a lot of other items were the normal
possession of the Ramseys, it would not have been suspicious to
find their prints on it. If the idea was to get rid of foreign
matter or other DNA, why bother with the batteries? The bottom
line is that the flashlight has no known connection to the crime
scene whether we know why there were no fingerprints or not. I
regard the flashlight as another red herring like the hole in the
basement window; a diversion and distraction, but with no known
evidentiary relationship to said crime scene.

 

My thought is that they placed the flashlight there on purpose, just like the ransom note. It had no fingerprints because they wanted it to be connected with the intruder/kidnapper/murderer, not themselves. Just as the ransom note was clean of prints even though any normal person would have picked it up. I do not believe it was the murder weapon, only that the Ramseys wanted LE to believe that it was, the better to hide the real event.

Heymom

 

Oh, EasyWriter, you had to know I would get into this:

Not exactly. The reason "arcs" (called arches in bridge design) work is because they transfer all applied forces in compression, and do not develop tension. We didn't have a good material for tension forces until the development of steel - most structures were built of stone, which have high compressive strength but low tensile strength. The skull is like a dome, which is a rotated (three dimensional) arch that transfers all load in compression.

Again, not exactly. The force of the quickly moving object is greater because of the acceleration it induces on the object it hits - force equals mass times acceleration. Force in an object then tranlates into stress, or force per unit of area. At the point of contact, if the stresses induced in the material exceed their strength, the material will fail. Football players wear helmets because they are stronger than skulls.

A structural materials engineer (me) would look at JonBenet's skull and say that it failed in "punching shear;" i.e., the inability to resist a force applied perpendicular to the material, creating a shear through the bone cross section that it could not resist. The material itself (skull bone) did not have enough strength to transfer the impact load to the rest of the object, and therefore failed locally. The horrible crack radiating out of the hole in her head resulted from the discontinuity it created in the stress paths of her skull.

This is absolutely true.

 

I do not know physics well enough to even ask this well, but wouldn't an object like a flashlight or a golf club continue to transfer energy into the skull even after it contacted bone? What I am wondering is if there would be a difference between JBR sort of "bouncing" off a hard surface, a hard hit and then away, like a sink or the edge of a tub, and someone taking an object and hitting her head with it. The flashlight would not bounce away, but have some momentum and continue into her skull until actually pulled away by the perpetrator.

Shoot, I hope you can get the idea of what I am asking.

Heymom, no rocket scientist

 

So, Wombat ... from your engineering expertise point of view ... do you think JonBenet was struck with an object, or is it possible her head whiplashed into a hard surface and struck IT?

 

I think it is more likely she was struck with an object from above her head. There was an efficient delivery of force right to the place where her skull was displaced, meaning that it was concentrated and nearly perpendicular to the surface to create a punching shear.

It is possible that this could have happened by JonBenet hitting something, but I haven't seen any object in the crime photos that looks likely. The bedposts are the closest thing, or maybe a fixed doorknob on a closed door.

I have thought that the speed required to develop this injury, if she hit something rather than something hit her, could have been created by a "ricochet" kind of movement. For instance, if she had on a red turtleneck, and was in a fight with Patsy about bedwetting/soiling, and was crying and being bratty while Patsy yanked off the turtleneck, her head could have ricocheted into a doorknob or the bedpost.

A tub or sink edge wouldn't have delivered the oval-shaped punching blow.

But I believe it is more likely someone stood above her and to her right side, a couple of feet away(since the injury wasn't directly on top of her head), and struck her hard with something. I can't tell if it was accidental or not.