You Have Got To Read This

Actually, it is correct to say the FBI’s suggestions were ignored. They were not ignored by Steve Thomas or the BPD, but were completely by the DA’s Office.

I don’t know if anyone here remembers but I used to post things on the JBR case at JW that I was told by my FBI contacts. I posted such things as I was told that the FBI could have stayed on the case (taken over) if John Ramsey or Lockheed had pressed the issue that foreign terrorist were threatening a defense contractor executive. I posted that John Ramsey avoided the FBI like the plague. I posted that the FBI was convinced that there was going to be NO indictment by the GJ - many at JW with inside “sources†were saying Patsy was definitely going to be indicted. I posted that the FBI had several meetings with the Boulder DA’s investigators and Lou Smit and their suggestions were totally ignored. I posted that the FBI made suggestions just prior to the GJ (including having the Ramseys testify under oath) and were ignored. Several posters at JW posted that if the Ramseys testified their lawyers would get all the “evidence against them.†My FBI contacts told me that the FBI Agents wanted the Ramseys under oath and they believed there was no reason why the Ramseys shouldn’t testify because the Ramsey lawyers were getting all the evidence from “leaks†in the DA’s Office anyway. I posted that when they left Boulder, every single Agent from headquaters said he/she would not got back to Boulder unless ordered to. Most of this was later confirmed in various JBR books. I also posted that the FBI thought ST was very good and tried to get him to apply for the FBI, and that the FBI thought obstruction of justice charges should have been brought against the DA’s office – all of this was later confirmed in ST’s book.

And, BTW, in reference to the mame/MW thing going on on other threads. At the height of the MW bruha, mame posted that there was an “on-going†investigation of MW’s allegations by the FBI. She allowed as how her “sources†told her it might take them a year to complete their investigation. I checked with all three of my FBI contacts and they ALL told me the FBI was NOT investigating MW’s strange allegations - “strange†was their exact word. I emailed mame and told her she might wish to give-up on the on-going FBI investigation thing because it was not true. She didn’t reply to my email, and posted again that “the FBI investigation might take a year.†I posted at JW that all of my FBI contacts told me there was no on-going investigation of MW’s allegations. After that, I was continually attacked by the MW gang.

I never revealed my FBI contacts back then for their protection. I can now… first was my son-in-law’s father who worked in the FBI crime lab for over 30 years – he passed away several years ago. Second was my wife’s 2nd cousin, an FBI Agent stationed in the south – he became a lawyer. And third was a black in-law who was an FBI Agent up north – he left the FBI and went to work for a security company.

Anyway, I believe that is a good article and I totally agree with Ginja’s synopsis.

 

Shadow, are you sworn to secrecy, or anything? Because if not, there's a few things I could gnaw over with ya.

 

Holy chit--that is an amazing find, Rash. You should submit that to the DA

 

The Ransom of Red Chief

O'Henry:

"We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight to-night at the same spot and in the same box as your reply -- as hereinafter described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary messenger to-night at half-past eight o'clock. After crossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a small pasteboard box. The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to Summit.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you will never see your boy again.

If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to them no further communication will be attempted."

:leaf:

 

The Lindbergh Ransom note

Dear Sir

Have 5000$ redy. 25000$ in 20$ bills 15000$ in 10$ bills and 10000$ in 5$ bills After 2-4 days we will inform you were to deliver the mony We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the police the child is in gut care.



:leaf:

 

From Central Daily (A Pennsylvania newspaper)

Mon, Jul. 03, 2006


Lessons, in life and death, for journalists

Patsy Ramsey, after losing a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer on June 24, will now go to her grave in Marietta, Ga., forever linked in the collective mind of the American public with the 1996 murder of her 6-year-old daughter, JonBenet.

One can hope that she will finally find peace there, buried next to her beauty-queen daughter.

Patsy Ramsey was never arrested, never indicted and never charged with her daughter's murder.

She was, however, largely convicted of the crime by some members of both the mainstream and tabloid press after Boulder, Colo., detectives named Patsy and her husband, John, as primary suspects. Journalists everywhere jumped on the story, with none-too-subtle sexual overtones in some of their reportage about the young girl with makeup, teased-out hair and provocative adult-like outfits.

It was a made-for-cable-news event.

The cautionary lesson from the media coverage of the JonBenet Ramsey murder should have been this: Go slowly and cautiously when reporting that a person is a suspect in a criminal case because repeating such allegations, day after day, can be just as damning to that suspected person as if he or she were actually convicted of the crime in a court of law.

Sadly, it is a lesson that has gone unheeded by some in the news media. Just ask former Los Alamos research laboratory employee Wen Ho Lee or bioweapons researcher Steven Hatfill.

Today, some journalists and newspapers employ the term "person of interest" to avoid the "suspect" moniker, as they did when linking Hatfill to the mailing of anthrax-laced letters back in 2001, but that change of lingo is only so much semantics and verbal gymnastics.

When a colleague from Penn State and I interviewed John and Patsy Ramsey in person in April 2001 at the law office of their Atlanta-based attorney, L. Lin Wood, we asked Patsy Ramsey to pick the one word that best described her feelings about the news media, in light of the coverage of her daughter's death.

"I guess the first word that comes to mind is 'disgraceful,' " Patsy Ramsey said.

When asked to elaborate, she said she felt that way "because the media have made it into something without trying to find out the truth. They have just perverted what happened, with total disregard for trying to find out who murdered this child, and without doing investigative journalism.

"They were being fed information from the police. They just took it and ran with it without first questioning the credentials of their source. Who is this police officer? What's his agenda? Does he have an agenda?"

Those are fitting questions, framed from the perspective of one intimately burned by the news media.

Perhaps journalists would do well to remember them now.

We also queried Patsy Ramsey as to whether her daughter's death was, indeed, "news" in the first place.

"I would say yes because you're alerting the public that there is a child murderer at large," she responded, adding later that "I think it should be (journalists') responsibility to report what has occurred -- a child has been found murdered in her home on Christmas Day. Period."

Most strikingly, we found that Patsy Ramsey had developed a keen sense of the scoop mentality in journalism -- the desire to get the story first and beat the competition. In particular, we asked her what advice she would give to attorneys who represent news media outlets to pass along to their clients.

"Don't race to the deadline. It's all about who gets there first and accuracy be damned. And I'm sure the attorneys would say great, because they want things vetted to death to try to avoid this kind of litigation. But if it's one minute to press time or CNN is going to go with it or ABC at noon, then accuracy be damned," Ramsey said.

Sadly, when people find out that I met the Ramseys, the first question they almost always ask is, "Do you think she did it?"

That question is now and forever moot and, if it is all that people talk about in the future, then the passing of both Patsy Ramsey and JonBenet will have amounted to naught.

We are better off, at long last, taking a close look at her perspective of the media coverage that blanketed her and learning from it.

Clay Calvert is professor of communications and law at Penn State, co-author with Robert D. Richards of the 2002 law journal article "Press Coverage of The JonBenet Ramsey Murder and Its Legal Implications: A Dialogue with John and Patsy Ramsey and Their Attorney, L. Lin Wood" published in Catholic University's CommLaw Conspectus, and author of the book "Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy and Peering in Modern Culture" (Westview, 2000). The opinion of the columnist does not necessarily reflect the view of the university.
Click here to find out more!

 

The propaganda barrage continues unabated.

 

..."a child has been found murdered in her home on Christmas Day" ...
hmmmm, really Patsy?

 

Yeah, I caught that too.