We are all acquainted with the famous picture proof Lou Smit has presented against the concept that police arriving on the scene on the morning of December 26th could have seen footprints if there were any, because there was frost. This cannot be, Smit says, because after all, the pictures themselves show no frost: I went to visit some relatives in North Carolina in 2003. It was November, and the weather was cold at the time. I went out in the morning to watch over the family dog while it took care of its bodily functions. See this picture? What do you see? Grass, of course. But wait! What is this? You see green grass in the sunlight, but what do we see in the shade, where the sunlight has not yet touched? That is frost. And in case it is not clear what the frost betrays, try this angle: Those were my own footprints, in the frost, an artifact of having walked over to the fence. I hope the point is illustrated well. When Reichenbach examined the yard in the early hours of December 26th, and he saw no footprints in the frost, he was in position to have seen them if there had been any. But as soon as the sun rose, starting at about 7:30, the frost would have melted as the light hit it, just as you can see for yourselves in my pictures. The Ramsey crime-scene pictures were taken between 8 a.m. and 10. Picture 91, as you can see one of Smit's favorites was numbered, was taken quite late in the process, and therefore a hefty amount of sun had melted away the frost Reichenbach witnessed. Shall we take bets on whether this post is carried over to Yonder Forum for discussion and dispute of indisputable facts? I think it unlikely. But in any case, here is photographic proof of the phenomenon of pristine ground no longer showing what was actually on it just moments before, and by extension, what would not have been on it had I not walked over to the fence.
Rats! I took some pictures on Friday of the frost on our sidewalk. I ended up erasing them and i don't think we're going to get frost again for a while. But, sort of the same thing happens with frost on the sidewalk as the frost on your grass. The footprints don't show up unless you are at the right angle. And, even in the winter, once the sun hits them, they are history.
Wn You have beautifully illustrated a point which I have made myself. The "no footprints in the snow" comment was made BEFORE the photographers came. Snow can melt very quickly - especially if it is just a light dusting. We get a fair amount of snow and frost here in the North of Scotland. We have an excellent system of snowploughing and gritting to deal with it and an excellent warning system for school closures etc. I often waken to a light covering of snow or frost which is completely gone within an hour or so of daylight. The RST pointing to photographs taken later in the day and saying "Look there was no snow!" has always seemed completely daft to me. It's a bit like someone saying there were ice-cubes in the kitchen sink and someone else providing a photo taken of the sink an hour or so later and saying "here is the evidence that there were no ice-cubes in the sink"! ALSO, there is the comment about it being warm enough for that spider to come out and respin its web ..... if it was warm enough for the spider, it was surely warm enough to melt a little snow?
I think the lack of footprints - or even more importantly tire tracks - in the snow is a key issue in this case. At 6 in the morning, when the Boulder PD started to arrrive, there would have still been a light covering of snow over the yard and driveway. Cops, even these cops, would have noted them. PMPT and Steve Thomas's book both quote the cops as noting no disturbance in the snow that was still present. At 1 in the morning or so, when someone in the house is taking duct tape off the backs of framed family photos, strings off dolls (or maybe draperies), breaking oilpaint brushes up, and composing a couple of ransom notes, that person wouldn't have looked outside for a while. I think the decision to stage the kidnapping was made soon after whatever happened to JonBenet, and then the process, performed in a hysterical state, took a couple of hours. I think the stager(s) were going to take JonBenet somewhere when they first decided to make it look like they didn't kill her, and then when it came time to take her outside, they noticed the snow. They didn't know which way the weather was going to go at that point, but they knew they couldn't have a set of tire tracks leaving and then coming back to the house. Everything else about the staging shows a desperate and ignorant covering of all bases. But a kidnapping doesn't make sense if the child is still in the house - it violates the whole premise of the story that is being told.
ANother point Another point about the "no footprints in the snow" is that it is a valid observation anyway. No-one is disputing the fact that there WAS snow. The officer merely observed that the snow he observed had no footprints in it! He did his job - he observed and recorded.
Good post, Wombat I've always thought the Ramseys chickened out of taking JonBenét's body away for all the reasons you have stated above, because removing JonBenét's body would have been their best bet. It never ceases to amaze me how the Ramseys managed to get away with this scheme.
Excellent job, WhyNut. Very impressive! It's clear Officer Reichenbach knew what he was doing and filed an accurate report. He mentions BOTH an old layer of patchy snow AND a new layer of frost. It's the new layer of frost that's important, but Smit and team Ramsey have always ignored that, pointing instead to the (totally irrelevant) photos of patchy snow. It's photos such as the ones Smit released that make it crystal clear he is NOT functioning as a neutral investigator but a Ramsey advocate. His whole intruder theory is exactly the kind of red herring a lawyer drags out, usually as a last ditch attempt to mount a "reasonable doubt" defense. Smit is a phoney. The lack of footprints is for real. There was no intruder!!!!!
I had to wait for some frost, but here is some light frost on the sidewalk. No one has walked on it yet, so no footprints. The second picture is footprints on another section of frosted driveway. And the third picture is a closeup of a footprint.
