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JONBENET RAMSEY: Found dead in Boulder, Colorado on Christmas Day 1996 - Age 6
- Thread starter GrandmaBear
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Cousin Dupree
Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻
Who Killed JonBenet? Part 2: The Ransom Note
A forensic psychologist breaks down the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note.
www.psychologytoday.com
To begin with, the note is undeniably and deliberately addressed solely to "Mr." John Ramsey, JonBenet's father, rather than to both John and Patsy (though there was, according to police, allegedly an impression found in the pad from which its pages were torn of a "practice" version which initially evidently considered addressing it to "Mr. and Mrs...."). Why?
Cousin Dupree
Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻
Patsy's handwriting couldn't be ruled out as having written the note.
I've just started reading about the note and right off, I see two inaccuracies in his info: 1) it wasn't a "bedside" pad. 2) there were torn pages from the pad but those were never found.Who Killed JonBenet? Part 2: The Ransom Note
A forensic psychologist breaks down the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note.
To begin with, the note is undeniably and deliberately addressed solely to "Mr." John Ramsey, JonBenet's father, rather than to both John and Patsy (though there was, according to police, allegedly an impression found in the pad from which its pages were torn of a "practice" version which initially evidently considered addressing it to "Mr. and Mrs...."). Why?
Only when the perp is identified could we possibly surmise why the note was addressed the way it was.
If there's nothing else he said that's of particular interest to you, I'm not interested in reading that any further.
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An accurate characterization of those results is that she most likely didn't.
Cousin Dupree
Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻
You know the Grand Jury recommended the Ramsey's be charged with crimes:
Revealed: Grand jury pointed fingers at Ramseys in JonBenet's death
Prosecutors rejected indictment that found JonBenet Ramsey’s parents “unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly and feloniously” put their daughter into a situation that resulted in her death. The long-sealed findings were made partially public Friday.
Revealed: Grand jury pointed fingers at Ramseys in JonBenet's death
Tim SkillernOctober 25, 2013
DENVER — And we still don't know who killed her.
A grand jury investigating the strangling death of JonBenet Ramsey voted to indict her parents in the shocking Christmas Day slaying of the 6-year-old beauty queen, a judge made public on Friday.
John and Patsy Ramsey, who had always maintained their innocence, “unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly and feloniously” created conditions that resulted in her slaying, the grand jury found in 1999, court documents reveal.
The Ramseys were later apologized to and exonerated by Boulder's district attorney, and the jury indictment went nowhere. The case has since become one of the most frustrating ― and fascinating ― of murder mysteries.
The stark words accusing the parents of child abuse were not elaborated on in the four pages released by the Boulder County District Court. The two counts each parent were to be hit with were:
COUNT IV ― On or between December 25, and December 26, 1996, in Boulder County, Colorado Patricia Paugh Ramsey did unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly and feloniously permit a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation which posed a threat of injury to the child’s life or health, which resulted in the death of JonBenet Ramsey, a child under the age of sixteen.
An identical indictment contained John Ramsey’s name.
Another document, COUNT VII, alleged that each parent did “render assistance to a person, with intent to hinder, delay and prevent the discovery, detention, apprehension, prosecution, conviction and punishment of such person for the commission of a crime.”
“The grand jury found probable cause to believe that both of the Ramseys were responsible for their daughter’s death,” Karen Steinhauser, a former prosecutor and current defense attorney in the Denver area, told Yahoo News.
But while the grand jury believed there was probable cause to prosecute the Ramseys, the district attorney at the time disagreed.
“Whether it ever means there’s going to be a prosecution, whether it means there’s ever going to be justice for this little girl, I don’t believe it changes anything,” Steinhauser said. But she added that, hypothetically, new evidence could drag the case back into the spotlight.
Lin Wood, John Ramsey’s attorney, was not immediately available for comment, his office said.
Earlier this year, Wood said: "I have known for years that Boulder prosecutors did not file charges against John and Patsy Ramsey because the evidence to prosecute them did not exist.”
The documents certainly aren’t cathartic for anyone — whether for casual observers or for those who obsessively pored over every scrap of evidence for 17 years. Friday’s answers only prompt more questions: Why exactly did the grand jury reach those conclusions? Counts IV and VII were released, but were there others, and what did they say? To whom did the grand jury believe the Ramseys possibly rendered “assistance”?
Answers may never see light because while the court was expected to issue 18 total pages from the grand jury’s report, it released only four after a judge ruled on Wednesday that signed pages in the jury’s report would be made public. Judge J. Robert Lowenbach ordered that pages signed by the jury foreman — also called “true bills” — are the only official documents. The Daily Camera, a local Boulder newspaper, sued for their release.
The murder drew intense international media coverage and snared the imagination of several authors, made-for-TV film producers and amateur sleuths largely because of the horrific way in which she died. But the case also fanned passions because of home-video footage of her dancing — dolled up in adult outfits and pancake makeup — at beauty pageants, the family’s affluence and a bizarre, possibly red-herring ransom note.
In January, the Daily Camera reported that the grand jury had voted in the fall of 1999 to indict the Ramseys on charges of child abuse resulting in death, but Alex Hunter, the district attorney at the time, refused to prosecute. Hunter said he believed he did not have “sufficient evidence to warrant a filing of charges” against the Ramseys.
Friday’s revelations complicate a public exoneration of the Ramseys from more than five years ago.
On July 8, 2008, former District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote John Ramsey a letter that essentially cleared the family, at least in the eyes of her office. She told him that new DNA evidence shifted suspicion from the couple and their son, Burke, who was 9 when his sister was killed. A lab, Lacy said, recovered an unknown male’s DNA from JonBenet’s clothing.
“The match of male DNA […] makes it clear to us that an unknown male handled these items,” Lacy wrote.
Because the grand jury’s investigation occurred years before the new DNA evidence, it’s impossible to say what effect those findings would have had on the jury’s conclusions.
In that letter, Lacy added in a much more personal tone: “To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry. We intend in the future to treat you as the victims of this crime.” A prerecorded message at her law office in Boulder on Friday said she was not taking calls.
Patsy Ramsey died on June 24, 2006, of ovarian cancer. John Ramsey, now 69, remarried in 2011.
The morning after Christmas in 1996, JonBenet’s father found her dead with her wrists tied and mouth duct-taped in the basement of the family’s sprawling Tudor home in Boulder’s moneyed western edge.
Earlier that morning, Patsy Ramsey called 911 to report JonBenet missing after discovering a ransom note addressed to her husband. The note’s authors said they were “a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction” and tried to exhort $118,000 in exchange for JonBenet’s safe return.
Is this the end of the JonBenet saga, at least for a while?
“I would hate to say that because I think way back after the grand jury, we thought that was the last word.” Steinhauser said. “And I’m not sure there is any such thing in this type of case. It’s a very, very sad case because we’re talking about the death of a little girl, and probably no one is going to be held responsible for that death.”
Cousin Dupree
Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻
Couldn't be ruled out means that she's considered a person who did write it.
Cousin Dupree
Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻
If something happened to my child (I have no children, just sayin') like this, I would run to the police station to help them with the investigation. The Ramsey's not so much.
The parents of slain child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey have refused a request for another interview with Boulder, Colo., police investigating the Christmas night 1996 killing, city officials said.
John and Patsy Ramsey, who were interviewed last April, said they would submit to a second interview only if city police showed "good faith" by allowing them to review evidence, Boulder officials said. Boulder police rejected that and declined a second offer from the Ramseys to answer written questions.
The Ramseys have not responded to a police request to interview their son, Burke, 11. In a prepared statement, the head of the Ramsey murder investigation, Mark Beckner, expressed disappointment, saying, "While this development will certainly hinder our investigation, we continue to make progress and will not give up in our efforts to find JonBenet's killer."
JonBenet, 6, was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her parents' Boulder home about eight hours after her parents reported that she apparently had been kidnapped. Her parents have been described by city law enforcement authorities as the "focus" of the long murder investigation, but they have maintained their innocence, and no charges have been filed. Attorneys who represent the couple did not respond to requests for comment last night.
JONBENET'S PARENTS REFUSE TO TALK
The parents of slain child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey have refused a request for another interview with Boulder, Colo., police investigating the Christmas night 1996 killing, city officials said.
John and Patsy Ramsey, who were interviewed last April, said they would submit to a second interview only if city police showed "good faith" by allowing them to review evidence, Boulder officials said. Boulder police rejected that and declined a second offer from the Ramseys to answer written questions.
The Ramseys have not responded to a police request to interview their son, Burke, 11. In a prepared statement, the head of the Ramsey murder investigation, Mark Beckner, expressed disappointment, saying, "While this development will certainly hinder our investigation, we continue to make progress and will not give up in our efforts to find JonBenet's killer."
JonBenet, 6, was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her parents' Boulder home about eight hours after her parents reported that she apparently had been kidnapped. Her parents have been described by city law enforcement authorities as the "focus" of the long murder investigation, but they have maintained their innocence, and no charges have been filed. Attorneys who represent the couple did not respond to requests for comment last night.
There are many different conclusions of that analysis, at least one in which she was excluded.
But there were samples of her handwriting all over the place, including inside of that very pad that I would think should have been sufficient for such analysis. (If I'm not mistaken, "historic" writings are what would be most reliable, therefore, valuable.)
Anyway, is there anything else about the note you'd like to discuss?
Cousin Dupree
Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻
The request for $118,000 which happened to be the exact amount of John's bonus that year. A very odd number for a kidnapping. Why not $150,000 or $200,000? Also, the Ramsey's were not on edge when the phone call was supposed to come.
The note is really long. The person who wrote it stayed A LONG TIME in the house to write it. Much longer than necessary for time and the note. "I have your child, we want $118,000, and we'll tell you where to take it to when we call. Do not call the police!"
The Ramsey's had several movie posters in their house. The ransom note was filled with movie references like: "Don't try to grow a brain John" the "Don't try to grow a brain" is from some movie.
Cousin Dupree
Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻
The DA at the time of JonBenet's murder said that as long as she was DA, the Ramsey's would never be charged. What do you think of the Grand Juries recommendations being ignored?
The amount wasn't "exact" but indeed, it's very odd. Of course, I don't know why not some other amount and neither do you.
As for the Ramsey's "not on edge", that's someone's conclusion and what it's based on, I have no idea.
Yeah, I think it took a lot of time and thought to compose that note.
As I've shared here before, I'm intrigued by the circumstance of the pages torn from the pad, yet that one page with the few letters is still there.
I just think there's a clue there somewhere.
I know of only one movie poster in the house; if memory serves, the movie was An Officer and a Gentleman.
Yes, the note was filled with movie language, words and phrases from movies that weren't found among those in the home nor were the type of movies the Ramsey's were known to watch.
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Well, I wouldn't look at it as "ignored", I'd just say that the DA didn't agree that there was enough evidence to file charges.
Anyway, I don't know what the jury based their opinion on, do you?
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Cousin Dupree
Glory to #Ukraine 🇺🇦✊🏻
Evidence.
Could JonBenet Ramsey murder finally be SOLVED?
Fresh hopes have been raised that the notorious cold case of murdered pageant queen JonBenét (left) Ramsey may be solved.
www.dailymail.co.uk
@Sunburst mentioned this case is getting some attention this week so I thought I’d look it up and this is one thing I found.
Sunburst
Well-known member
I am down a rabbit hole again. This is going to be long.
Is it just me, or has almost no attention been paid to Charlevoix, MI, where the Ramseys had a second home that was primarily used in the summer? Charlevoix has a reputation of being summer cottages/second homes. Much has been of the amount of $$$ mentioned in the ransom note.
What, if anything, happened in Charlevoix in summer 1995 or summer 1996? Something that caused someone to become enraged at a Ramsey, probably John, or to be obsessed with JonBenet?
I can picture the family at a gathering at their home or a neighbor's, maybe a 4th of July cookout. The topic of bonuses paid to different neighbors at their various jobs comes up, and Patsy innocently makes a remark about how John's bonus was close to $118,000. The wrong person overhears her say that....
Alternatively, I can't shake the feeling that the beauty pageants had something to do with her death. A pedo goes to the pageants and becomes obsessed with JB, not a family friend, but someone on the periphery who can blend into a pageant audience. That ransom note sounds like a bunch of movie cliches all strung together, as many others have mentioned.
I used to think a RDI, now I am leaning more to an intruder. DNA at the scene ruled out the Ramseys.
Is it just me, or has almost no attention been paid to Charlevoix, MI, where the Ramseys had a second home that was primarily used in the summer? Charlevoix has a reputation of being summer cottages/second homes. Much has been of the amount of $$$ mentioned in the ransom note.
What, if anything, happened in Charlevoix in summer 1995 or summer 1996? Something that caused someone to become enraged at a Ramsey, probably John, or to be obsessed with JonBenet?
I can picture the family at a gathering at their home or a neighbor's, maybe a 4th of July cookout. The topic of bonuses paid to different neighbors at their various jobs comes up, and Patsy innocently makes a remark about how John's bonus was close to $118,000. The wrong person overhears her say that....
Alternatively, I can't shake the feeling that the beauty pageants had something to do with her death. A pedo goes to the pageants and becomes obsessed with JB, not a family friend, but someone on the periphery who can blend into a pageant audience. That ransom note sounds like a bunch of movie cliches all strung together, as many others have mentioned.
I used to think a RDI, now I am leaning more to an intruder. DNA at the scene ruled out the Ramseys.
GrandmaBear
Deputized Emu Slayer/Horse Thief Hunter
What is an RDI? Drawing a blank, sorry.
The heading to MI and having a place there has always stood out to me too.
Wasn't it though way before bonus time or the time of her death if say 4th of July? This is after or before the bonus?
The beauty pageants more so are hard to ignore with a pedo type. I do myself though lean to the immediate family. Like most of us, I've thought of all of it, been round and round and as you say down rabbit holes with all of it, but I always come back to someone in the home or well know to them and in the home.
it certainly has NEVER helped how this investigation was handled and the failures from the outset.
But the pedo thing is hard to ignore except she was found in their own home. I hate to be this type of person but sexing a child up at what age is hard for me to understand. I never will. This world is too much that way in many arenas and media and magazines and you name it. Let a child be a damned child.
So what are you thinking with the summer place? I mean she was found in their home in Boulder on Christmas. Isnt' that when the bonus came, end of year and not July?
I do follow your pageant thought. I think many things play into why this case became SO KNOWN and SO HOT in a day before internet to speak of and of course much of that is the pageant thing, the monied thing, the Boulder and "wealth"t thing and a blonde miniature beauty queen.
I have trouble envisioning this was a "normal" family in any sense. Status mattered, at least to Patsy. John had been married before and was went for another who maybe was looking for a man with a career and money if I am recalling facts correctly... I seem to recall someone, a handyman or something saying Jon Benet missed her dad, he was never home or some such. I have been through this case a million times as most of us have. And I don't buy all the Boulder screw ups. Initially maybe.
There is to me just too much that leans towards people in the home or someone they had in the home/family, etc. And cover up.
And I don't want to judge a parent even if innocent on other sh*t but the entire pageant sh*t and artificial shi*t and pressure on children is something I will NEVER understand. Unless you are some naive young mother to the world which Patsy wasn't.
Some or she can or cold say it is what Jon Benet wanted and ********. They don't even know of such unless taugth it or shown it.
I don't think if this case ever has an answer that I will buy it. If it comes back to a family member with some solid proof I MIGHT. I got ito tis and down major rabbit holes again a year or so ago on some sites. It refreshed me and yet I saw other stuff and when working it through I still came back to the family/someone in it. I've been there a million times.
Someone wouild have had to come into their home, and took her to the basement. Wrote a note at their desk on Patsy's notebad . Known the bonus amount and so much more. A screwed up investigation but no signs of some entry from outside and so on. A search with her missed then John finds her, alowed to go off, finds her and carries her up. There is just TOO much concidence and things to be explained which is how I have learned to come to conclusions on cases.
I could sidetrack into possibilities about dad and friends, I know a lot think it was the brother and so on.
I think one or both parents knew or know the truth. And if one didn't they came to a logical conclusion about who. And I beleive Burke likely was NOT the one but as he grows older and looks back also will know if he doesn't already what likely happened. And perhaps it was him and he being protected but I don't know that I buy that. Could be however. I think this was a weird family despite the outward appearance that mattered trying to be put on. I'm sorry but I will never ever understand how you could sex a young child up like an adult and supporters always have said Patsy came from the south where pageantry and such are the norm. Listening to her in interviews and more I don't know. I'm not saying she did it but it lies close to home. Image. Money. Children if anything are a show piece. Parties for important people where everything at home is nothing of the image wanted portrayed.
No stranger wrote that ransom note with the precise figure and carried Jon Benet to the basement while dad had taken a whatevever to sleep and yada yada yada. And Patsy didn't hear and Burke didn't. And sat down to write a note. There is just TOO much to explain. And then with the response and investigation as well. Way, way too much.
This is just my opinion of course. Almost all have been down this case a lot over many years.
Could it be some pedo who watched her in pageants and managed to enter thier home on he holidays and stalked and wrote a ransom note knowing he exact amount on Patsy's notepad on their desk and got her to the basement and did all? Well I guess so.... Without a one of them waking up, knowing they wouldn't and the habits so well and the home so well, etc.... And got out free and clear. I guess I am trying to show not to you but at this case as i talk of it how unlikely that is. There just is too much that would have to be explained. It took me a bit when I started following cases to realize that if you have to make a different excuse to explain all these weird things or coincidences that it is almost anstromoically impoissible or likely.
However could it have been someone they KNEW and were okay with, now that I do consider a slim possibility.
But for me it is close. The answer is in the people in the home or someone they allowed in the home.
But at heart I believe it lies with the family. And they know. And always have.
The entire DNA **** iI don't even buy that came about in far later years after a majorly screwed up investigation.
Maybe they aren't guilty, maybe one is, maybe none are, maybe all are. But they know what happened and who it was. And are proteciting image as and projecting one as they always did while living a far fro perfect life.
I say it all the time but this is not anyone's opinion, it just got me down the rabbit hole as I thought about it again out of the blue and why I think what I do. Just talking it out.
This one and Madeline McCann if there ever are answers or charges or convictions, I don't think I will buy them. I will think because they are so shamed and such cases don't lose interest that they just want to get an answer and close it so the public quits wondering.
I have thought of intruder theories and much else but I come back to if so, the person knew the home, knew her bedroom, knew the family's plans and where they slept, if they would hear, knew the desk and all and the bonus amount and so on. it is too much for me to buy that it was anyone but someone immediate or they knew closely. i think immediate. Mom dad or son.
Just my opinion of course.
It is a haunting case isn't it? It remains to this day awful with no answers.
Sunburst
Well-known member
The bonus money was apparently paid in January each year, for the previous year.
RDI Ramsey Did It
PDI Patsy Did It
JDI John Did It
BDI Burke Did It
IDI Intruder Did It
There seems to be a male intruder who broke into the Charlevoix home and was actually living there, in JB's room. The housekeeper found male clothing and other items, when the family had not been there for several months.
RDI Ramsey Did It
PDI Patsy Did It
JDI John Did It
BDI Burke Did It
IDI Intruder Did It
There seems to be a male intruder who broke into the Charlevoix home and was actually living there, in JB's room. The housekeeper found male clothing and other items, when the family had not been there for several months.
No, you're right, there's no attention to that yet, needless to say, it's a very disturbing circumstance.
There's also the breaking and entering/ assault (or attempted assault) of a young girl about 6 mos after the murder and not far from the Ramsey home that no one pays attention to and as far as I know, it's (also) still unsolved.
My understanding is that every check stub of 1996 reflected that amount and so it's info that could have been obtained sometime throughout that year by anyone having snooped in John's (home) desk.
I don't view it as "sexing-up" children, nor I do understand that point of view.
When I see pageant photos of JonBenet, I see a little girl playing dress-up, which is surely natural.
And participating in pageants had been a positive experience for Patsy and I don't doubt it's what JonBenet wanted to do and why not when it's perfectly natural for a little girl to want to be like her mother?