Body being wiped down

Anyhoo

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This might not be relevant to anything, but I thought I would post it anyway. We have all heard about how JB's body had been found to be "wiped down", without any real indication of what that specifically means. One can envision someone taking a wet rag and wiping down the body with that to removed evidence so it would not be discovered by LE. For a long time I envisioned that someone brought a wet rag, etc. to the location of JB's dead body (in the basement) and did the wiping down there. Later, I thought that it would be more logical for someone who wanted to clean the body to physically bring the body to a location where it could be thoroughly cleaned, such as to a bathtub in a bathroom. If I wanted to clean a body and make sure it was done right, that is how I would do it. So I thought that, assuming the murder happened in the basement, that JB's body would have been carried to a bathroom upstairs to be cleaned prior to the staging. But then I read somewhere that there was a shower stall actually in the basement and I had one of those Aha moments, where I thought: that's how they did it. They brought her to that shower stall in the basement and cleaned her up there prior to the staging of the body.

The only reason I bring this up is that I have never read anything about this "wiping down" and this may be somehow significant.

Does this make sense to anyone? Am I off-base with this? Please share your thoughts on this.
 
http://jonbenetramsey.pbworks.com/w/page/11682461/December 26

The men next searched a shower stall located in the basement.

JR and FW said they searched a shower stall in the basement prior to finding JB's body.

Again, maybe this is nothing but maybe it means something. I have always found it interesting to hear that the body was wiped down, as if the perpetrator(s) were being careful to remove any evidence from the body. What if the body was not just wiped down? What if there was seminal fluid in the vagina after the sexual assault that was washed out in this shower stall? That would explain why no semen was found in or on the body.
 
This might not be relevant to anything, but I thought I would post it anyway. We have all heard about how JB's body had been found to be "wiped down", without any real indication of what that specifically means. One can envision someone taking a wet rag and wiping down the body with that to removed evidence so it would not be discovered by LE. For a long time I envisioned that someone brought a wet rag, etc. to the location of JB's dead body (in the basement) and did the wiping down there. Later, I thought that it would be more logical for someone who wanted to clean the body to physically bring the body to a location where it could be thoroughly cleaned, such as to a bathtub in a bathroom. If I wanted to clean a body and make sure it was done right, that is how I would do it. So I thought that, assuming the murder happened in the basement, that JB's body would have been carried to a bathroom upstairs to be cleaned prior to the staging. But then I read somewhere that there was a shower stall actually in the basement and I had one of those Aha moments, where I thought: that's how they did it. They brought her to that shower stall in the basement and cleaned her up there prior to the staging of the body.

The only reason I bring this up is that I have never read anything about this "wiping down" and this may be somehow significant.

Does this make sense to anyone? Am I off-base with this? Please share your thoughts on this.

The "wiping down" has been known for years and discussed on this forum for years as well. During the autopsy, there were two police detectives present as well as another female Medical Examiner. The two police were Dets Arndt & Trujillo. As is usual in an autopsy of a crime victim, the coroner will say verbally to police things that he does not put in the written report. The reason for this is that the written report is only for describing what the coroner SEES, and not what he thinks about it. For example, the autopsy noted JB's cross, ring and ID bracelet as "yellow metal". They were actually 14K gold, but to the coroner's eyes they were "yellow metal". Further tests with chemicals would be needed to ascertain if they were 14K gold.
The same held true for two much more important findings. One was that the coroner told police at the autopsy that her internal injuries were consistent with digital penetration and the other was that her pubic area and upper thighs appeared to have been wiped down with a cloth. Neither appears in the written report because opinions, no matter how expert, of the coroner do not belong in the official written report. Instead, they may be in his notes, either written or dictated, and may be shared with police or other LE. But the fact that the coroner found this evidence was made public by Det Arndt, and is not simply speculation.
 
I find this topic VERY INTERESTING, Anyhoo, but I became interested in the case more recently than many (most?) other posters.

Shapiro wrote an article in March of 2012 about the media portraying the crime, evidence, etc. inaccurately. Included in the article is this tidbit:

"The only time the police ever changed their course in the investigation was very early on when they initially suspected John Ramsey of the murder and then decided it could be Patsy instead. The very first stories following the December 26, 1996 murder falsely reported that semen was found on JonBenet after she was brought upstairs from the basement by her father, John Ramsey.

Those reports created intense speculation that John was a pedophile and a murderer who sexually abused his 6-year old daughter. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It later turned out that the so called semen found JonBenet was actually a skin cleanser that killer used to remove his or her DNA off JonBenet."

This is the only source, of which I am aware, mentioning "skin cleanser". Of course, we don't know that this is factual information based upon Shapiro's word alone, but it's interesting nonetheless... IMO.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...Shifts Guilt and Innocence Around the Ramseys
 
I find this topic VERY INTERESTING, Anyhoo, but I became interested in the case more recently than many (most?) other posters.

Shapiro wrote an article in March of 2012 about the media portraying the crime, evidence, etc. inaccurately. Included in the article is this tidbit:

"The only time the police ever changed their course in the investigation was very early on when they initially suspected John Ramsey of the murder and then decided it could be Patsy instead. The very first stories following the December 26, 1996 murder falsely reported that semen was found on JonBenet after she was brought upstairs from the basement by her father, John Ramsey.

Those reports created intense speculation that John was a pedophile and a murderer who sexually abused his 6-year old daughter. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It later turned out that the so called semen found JonBenet was actually a skin cleanser that killer used to remove his or her DNA off JonBenet."

This is the only source, of which I am aware, mentioning "skin cleanser". Of course, we don't know that this is factual information based upon Shapiro's word alone, but it's interesting nonetheless... IMO.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...Shifts Guilt and Innocence Around the Ramseys

It is interesting because it reveals the mind of the killer that they would think to do this. Was the entire body cleaned or just one region? Was only the pubic region cleaned? Why would it be important to clean that? What was being wiped away? What evidence in that region could it be that they were trying to remove? I can think of one thing: semen or seminal fluid. If not that, then what? Or is it possible that this was nothing but staging, to give the appearance that the killer cleaned their semen from her body?
 
her panties were changed as well which makes me think she was wiped off in order to clean her blood >>>hide the fact that she was assaulted?
 
her panties were changed as well which makes me think she was wiped off in order to clean her blood >>>hide the fact that she was assaulted?

If her panties were changed, did LE find her other panties or did they disappear?

If they cleaned a significant amount of blood away then that would indicate a more severe sexual assault. If we believe the Ramsey's did the staging, then it seems to me they would want for there to be blood to indicate sexual assault. It would be illogical to clean up your own staging. I think the wiping down was done for a different reason. I suspect someone was afraid that their DNA had been left in JB's vaginal region and they wanted this removed before LE found the body.
 
If her panties were changed, did LE find her other panties or did they disappear?

If they cleaned a significant amount of blood away then that would indicate a more severe sexual assault. If we believe the Ramsey's did the staging, then it seems to me they would want for there to be blood to indicate sexual assault. It would be illogical to clean up your own staging. I think the wiping down was done for a different reason. I suspect someone was afraid that their DNA had been left in JB's vaginal region and they wanted this removed before LE found the body.

could be.I started a thread earlier (not approved yet I see) re JR's bathrobe (found PR's comment weird) and all the talk re his underwear (why did LE insist re what he was wearing BEFORE 911 was dialed??)
 
I read this a long ago,sorry don't recall now whether in PMPT or ST's book that they found some fluid on her leg but they couldn't extract DNA from it.Does anyone know what kind of fluid it was?
 
I read this a long ago,sorry don't recall now whether in PMPT or ST's book that they found some fluid on her leg but they couldn't extract DNA from it.Does anyone know what kind of fluid it was?

I heard the fluid was a drop of JB's blood and that there was foreign DNA co-mingled with that blood that LE did extract and that it was a match with the foreign DNA found in JB's oversized underwear. The foreign DNA supposedly does not match any Ramsey.
 
Steve Thomas' Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation/kindle location 1745
Colorado Bureau of Investigation technicians gave us some bad news when they determined that the substance found on JonBenet's leg during the ultraviolet light examination at the autopsy, initially thought to be semen, was just a smear of blood.

Lawrence Schiller's Perfect Murder, Perfect Town/kindle location 4736
From the beginning officials have been convinced that a tiny spot fluid, found on the girl's leg, is semen. But lab tests of the fluid produced no DNA ... and were therefore inconclusive. Sources say the killer wiped the body clean of any other evidence.

ABC World News Tonight, March 13, 1997

didn't find it mentioned in Foreign Faction
 
Linda Arndt didn't make public what the medical examiner said. Det. James Byfield wrote in his search warrant affidavit what Arndt told him about witnessing the autopsy and the reasons that justified a new search warrant for items not previously listed. Until the autopsy, they didn't know about the sexual assault. Once they did know, they had to get an additional warrant to look for items that might be related to a sex crime (computers, storage media, video recorders, VCR tapes, etc.). When the search warrants were released publicly, that's when we found out about Arndt's relating Meyer's opinion that the genital injuries were "consistent with digital penetration," and that the Wood's lamp revealed something on the surface of her thighs which might have been semen. Byfield's exact words of what Arndt told him follow (from the search warrant):
In the presence of Det. Arndt, Det. Tom Trujillo of the Boulder Police Department, (Dr. Meyer) used a black florescent light to view the body including the pubic area of the victim in an attempt to observe the possible presence of semen or seminal fluid. (Your Affiant (Byfield) knows from previous experience and training that substances such as semen or seminal fluid, not visible to the unaided eye, may become visible when viewed under a black florescent light). Det. Arndt stated that she observed florescent areas on the upper inner and outer left thigh, as well as the upper and inner right thigh. Det. Arndt stated that her observations of the result of the black florescent light observation is consistent with the presence of semen or seminal fluid.
Det. Arndt informed Your Affiant that she observed Dr. Meyer swab these florescent areas. Dr. Meyer was also observed by Det. Arndt to obtain vaginal, oral and anal swabs form the child's body.
This warrant was requested and issued before the results of the swabs came back from the lab. I've always understood the lab determined that the smeared fluid was blood. I've never before heard anyone suggest it was "skin cleanser" (which I'm not sure would show up under a black light). But, who knows? Did Jeffie Boy reveal some inside knowledge that Alex Hunter told him about while they were looking at and giggling over men's magazines like a couple of teenagers? :dunno:
 
I heard the fluid was a drop of JB's blood and that there was foreign DNA co-mingled with that blood that LE did extract and that it was a match with the foreign DNA found in JB's oversized underwear. The foreign DNA supposedly does not match any Ramsey.
James Kolar's Foreign Faction/kindle location 3869
Denver Police Department crime lab supervisor Greg Laberge met me for lunch in early December 2005 and advised me that the forensic DNA sample collected from the underwear was microscopic, totally invisible to the naked eye. So small was in in quantity, consisting of only approximately 1/2 nanogram of genetic material, equivalent to about 100 - 150 cells, that it took him quite a bit of work to identify the 10th marker that eventually permitted its entry into the CODIS database.

[snip]

Labarge indicated that the sample had flashed the color of blue during CBI's initial testing of the sample, suggesting that amylase was present. Amylase is an enzyme that can be found in saliva, and it had been theorized by other investigators in the case that someone involved in the production phase of this clothing article could have been the source of this unknown DNA sample. It was thought that this could have been deposited there by coughing, sneezing, or spitting or through a simple transfer of saliva on the hands of a garment handler.

Laberge confirmed that no traces of semen had been present in the underwear or clothing articles worn by JonBenet upon the discovery of the body.

Laberge advised, confirming what Tom Bennett had previously shared with me, that some random DNA tests had been conducted in 'off-the-shelf' children's underwear to determine if trace biological DNA samples could be obtained from brand new clothing that had been shipped from the manufacturer.

He indicated that DNA samples had been located on the articles of new clothing, but that they had been approximately 1/10 the strength of the unknown sample found in JonBenet's underwear. The male sample identified in Distal Stain 007-2 was weak, and degraded to begin with, and weaker samples of the same genetic material were found in the waistband and leg bands of the underwear. It was observed that these were areas of the clothing that would have been handled more strenuously during the production phase of the clothing article.

Laberge indicated that it was his opinion that the male sample of DNA could have been deposited there by a perpretrator, or that there could have been some other explanation for its presence, totally unrelated to the crime. I would learn that many other scientists held the same opinion.

[snip]

It was my understanding that the Bloomies brand of underwear, worn by JonBenet at the time of the discovery of her body, was manufactured and produced in Taiwan, making it entirely possible that this article of clothing was produced in a garment sweatshop.

[snip]

Furthermore, there is no scientific method to determine when a biological specimen was placed at the scene of a crime.
 
Linda Arndt didn't make public what the medical examiner said. Det. James Byfield wrote in his search warrant affidavit what Arndt told him about witnessing the autopsy and the reasons that justified a new search warrant for items not previously listed. Until the autopsy, they didn't know about the sexual assault. Once they did know, they had to get an additional warrant to look for items that might be related to a sex crime (computers, storage media, video recorders, VCR tapes, etc.). When the search warrants were released publicly, that's when we found out about Arndt's relating Meyer's opinion that the genital injuries were "consistent with digital penetration," and that the Wood's lamp revealed something on the surface of her thighs which might have been semen. Byfield's exact words of what Arndt told him follow (from the search warrant):
In the presence of Det. Arndt, Det. Tom Trujillo of the Boulder Police Department, (Dr. Meyer) used a black florescent light to view the body including the pubic area of the victim in an attempt to observe the possible presence of semen or seminal fluid. (Your Affiant (Byfield) knows from previous experience and training that substances such as semen or seminal fluid, not visible to the unaided eye, may become visible when viewed under a black florescent light). Det. Arndt stated that she observed florescent areas on the upper inner and outer left thigh, as well as the upper and inner right thigh. Det. Arndt stated that her observations of the result of the black florescent light observation is consistent with the presence of semen or seminal fluid.
Det. Arndt informed Your Affiant that she observed Dr. Meyer swab these florescent areas. Dr. Meyer was also observed by Det. Arndt to obtain vaginal, oral and anal swabs form the child's body.
This warrant was requested and issued before the results of the swabs came back from the lab. I've always understood the lab determined that the smeared fluid was blood. I've never before heard anyone suggest it was "skin cleanser" (which I'm not sure would show up under a black light). But, who knows? Did Jeffie Boy reveal some inside knowledge that Alex Hunter told him about while they were looking at and giggling over men's magazines like a couple of teenagers? :dunno:

I always had this crazy (I admit :D ) idea....what if they found semen indeed but covered it up after figuring out who it belonged to?wouldn't surprise me to be honest
 
If her panties were changed, did LE find her other panties or did they disappear?

If they cleaned a significant amount of blood away then that would indicate a more severe sexual assault. If we believe the Ramsey's did the staging, then it seems to me they would want for there to be blood to indicate sexual assault. It would be illogical to clean up your own staging. I think the wiping down was done for a different reason. I suspect someone was afraid that their DNA had been left in JB's vaginal region and they wanted this removed before LE found the body.

Her panties were never found.
 
I always had this crazy (I admit :D ) idea....what if they found semen indeed but covered it up after figuring out who it belonged to?wouldn't surprise me to be honest

I don't think it's crazy at all. We've been told that only 10% of the evidence is public knowledge. And after all, AH managed to cover up a Grand Jury indictment for 13 years!
 
OTG, I'm addressing this to you because if anyone would know, it's you. ;)

I could swear that I remember hearing somewhere that the family actually could NOT be ruled out on that DNA sample (Or they couldn't be ruled out for something else). I can't remember where, or why, but I always wondered why no one ever talked about it. Does this ring any bells or am I totally confused? TIA
 
Does anyone else remember the story about a sealed box that JR had given his pilot asking him to store it at the airplane locker? As I recall, the box was given to him somehow before JonBenet's body had been found. The police didn't find out about it until several days later. I don't remember ever hearing the end of it -- whether it was located, recovered, what was in it. Anyone?
 
Anyhoo,

The reference to "wiped down" is from Coroner Meyer's verbatim remarks at the autopsy, i.e.

1996-12-27: Search Warrant 755 15 Street, Boulder, Colorado, excerpt
Your Affiant was present during the search of the premises of 755 15th St. The search was commenced at approximately 20:20 on December 26, 1996. The body of the deceased was removed by Pat Dunn of the Boulder County Coroners Office, pursuant to the warrant. The child was transported to Boulder Community Hospital. On December 27, 1996 a post mortem examination was conducted by Dr. John Meyer, the Boulder County Coroner.

On December 27, 1996, Det. Linda Arndt of the Boulder Police Department was in attendance at the post mortem examination of the body of JonBenet Ramsey examination conducted by Dr. John Meyer. Det. Arndt informed Your Affiant that the clothing that the child was wearing at the time of Dr. Meyer's post mortem examination was the same clothing that she observed the child to be wearing when the body was initially discovered.

At approximately 11:20 hours on December 27, 1996, Det. Arndt informed Your Affiant of the following information:

Det. Arndt informed Your Affiant that she observed entangled in the hair of the child a green substance. Based upon her observations while at the residence on December 26, 1996, she believed that the green substance observed in the hair of the child was consistent with the green "garland" like decorative Christmas material that she had observed to be decorating the spiral staircase inside the child's home.
Det. Arndt stated to Your Affiant that she was present and observed a visual examination by Dr. Meyer of the shirt worn by the child. She observed and Dr. Meyer preserved dark fibers and dark hair on the outside of the shirt.

Det. Arndt told Your Affiant that she personally observed Dr. John Meyer examine the vaginal and pubic areas of the deceased, Dr. Meyer stated that he observed numerous traces of a dark fiber.

.
.
.

Det. Arndt informed Your Affiant that she observed Dr. Meyer swab these florescent areas. Dr. Meyer was also observed by Det. Arndt to obtain vaginal, oral and anal swabs from the child's body.

Det. Arndt informed Your Affiant that Dr. Meyer stated to her that he observed red stains in the crotch area of the panties that the child was wearing at the time that the child's body was subjected to the external visual examination. Dr. Meyer stated to Det. Arndt that the red stain appeared to be consistent with blood. Det. Arndt further informed the Affiant that Dr. Meyer stated to her that after examining the panties (as described above), he observed the exterior pubic area of the child's body located next to the areas of the panties containing the red stains and found no visible reddish stains in that area. Dr. Meyer stated to Det. Arndt that his opinion is that the evidence observed is consistent with the child's pubic area having been wiped by a cloth.

In the same context Coroner Meyer opined that JonBenet had been subject to Sexual Contact and Digital Penetration.

No investigator from the Boulder Police Department has ever remarked if there was no size-6 Wednesday, day of the week underwear removed from JonBenet's underwear drawer, or if there was! This includes James Kolar, suggesting that it is a significant piece of the jigsaw?


.
 
James Kolar's Foreign Faction/kindle location 3869

Is it your understanding that there was a DNA match between what was co-mingled in the blood on JB's leg and the DNA found in the waist band and leg bands of the underwear?
 

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