NIV Study Bible - listen carefully/SBTC

Plenum7

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There are very few things not already covered in this case and I fully expect this has been found before, but I searched and couldn't find any posts dealing with it.
I want to see if any of the content of the ransom note can be connected to other texts (inter-textuality).

This approach was suggested by John Ramsey himself in one of the many pieces of misinformation he has promoted. When questioned by detectives (June 1998) about the $118,000 being the same sum as his bonus, he denied it and instead cited a Biblical parallel.

Ramsey: “No, I think that was just
a bit of a coincidence. That was my net bonus after tax. And it wasn't exactly 118; it was 118 and something… I mean, the closest that I've come to have some believability is this theory that Father Rol came up with. There were psalms, which were circled in the Bible, which apparently were fairly vengeful psalms. 118 Psalms was a vengeful psalm in the King James Bible. It talked about victory (INAUDIBLE). I think I've read it a hundred times, I guess, (INAUDIBLE). I guess I would accept that kind of a tie more than I would the bonus amount.”

He is referring to an observation offered to police by the family clergyman Father Rol Hoverstock, namely that he thought the ransom figure might allude to Psalm 118 which, he said, in the King James has the phrase: "bind the sacrifice with cords…"

Team Ramsey seized on this and promoted it as a likely source for the ransom figure. It then grew into a rumor that police found Patsy Ramsey’s Bible open to Psalm 118.

The connection with Psalm 118, though, is spurious on every level. That the ransom sum was $118,000 is not just “a bit of a coincidence” as Ramsey claimed. And Psalm 118 is not especially vengeful or about victory.

Nor did the police find Patsy’s King James open to that passage, as rumored.

Rather, (as photographs attest) the police found John Ramsey’s New International Version Study Bible open to Psalms 35-36. The suggestion of Psalm 118 was offered by Father Hoverstock in response to police questions about those psalms.

So, I have examined those psalms in exactly that edition. (I have a NIV Study edition.) There are several things of interest in Psalm 35.

1. It IS vengeful and about victory. “May those who plot my ruin be turned back in dismay…” and similar themes.

2. Thematically and textually it is linked to the Book of Job and specifically to Job 21, which begins with the words (in the NIV): “Listen carefully…” – I note that “Listen carefully” is a NIVism found as the translation in several passages.

3. The first stanza of Psalm 35 (which is set out in verse in the NIV) has the following words capitalized at the beginning of lines: Contend – Take – Brandish – Say. That is, the letters CTBS. Backwards this gives SBTC. Thus SBTC (co-joined with the word “victory” could conceivable signify Psalm 35.

That is the ransom note begins and ends with Biblical allusions from the NIV passages found open on John Ramsey’s desk. “Listen carefully…” from Job 21 and “Victory SBTC” from Psalms 35.

Again, I stress that it was the Ramseys themselves who wanted to connect the ransom note to Psalms. But by a spurious connection from the wrong psalm in the wrong Bible. When we look at the right psalm in the right edition of the Bible we find some interesting connections.

Most posts on forums etc. are under the mistaken view that the police found Patsy's Bible open to Psalm 118, and so there is wild speculation about psalm 118. Wrong. It was JRs Bible, not a King James but an NIV Study, and it was open to psalm 35. (So I'm entitled to some wild speculation about psalm 35!) I was running my eye up the side column and nearly fell off my chair when I read the letters SBTC in the opening stanza. A long shot, I know, but not nearly as long as John Ramsey's nonsense about psalm 118 being the source of the ransom sum!

As I say, I would be surprised if this had not been found before.

Plenum7
 
This is really interesting. I missed it before, so want to bump it in case others did.

JR and PR often compared themselves to Job.

And if this is just more hinky stuff in the Ramsey case, it's very hinky stuff. Especially considering how religious Patsy was.

Oh, Brother Moon. I miss him. If only he could behave.... :wink:
 
NIV Psalm 35:

Psalm 35 NIV

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* Psalms 34
* Psalms 36
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Of David.

1 Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me;
fight against those who fight against me.

2 Take up shield and buckler;
arise and come to my aid.

3 Brandish spear and javelin [a]
against those who pursue me.
Say to my soul,
"I am your salvation."

4 May those who seek my life
be disgraced and put to shame;
may those who plot my ruin
be turned back in dismay.

5 May they be like chaff before the wind,
with the angel of the LORD driving them away;

6 may their path be dark and slippery,
with the angel of the LORD pursuing them.

7 Since they hid their net for me without cause
and without cause dug a pit for me,

8 may ruin overtake them by surprise—
may the net they hid entangle them,
may they fall into the pit, to their ruin.

9 Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD
and delight in his salvation.

10 My whole being will exclaim,
"Who is like you, O LORD
You rescue the poor from those too strong for them,
the poor and needy from those who rob them."

11 Ruthless witnesses come forward;
they question me on things I know nothing about.

12 They repay me evil for good
and leave my soul forlorn.

13 Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth
and humbled myself with fasting.
When my prayers returned to me unanswered,

14 I went about mourning
as though for my friend or brother.
I bowed my head in grief
as though weeping for my mother.

15 But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee;
attackers gathered against me when I was unaware.
They slandered me without ceasing.

16 Like the ungodly they maliciously mocked ;
they gnashed their teeth at me.

17 O Lord, how long will you look on?
Rescue my life from their ravages,
my precious life from these lions.

18 I will give you thanks in the great assembly;
among throngs of people I will praise you.

19 Let not those gloat over me
who are my enemies without cause;
let not those who hate me without reason
maliciously wink the eye.

20 They do not speak peaceably,
but devise false accusations
against those who live quietly in the land.

21 They gape at me and say, "Aha! Aha!
With our own eyes we have seen it."

22 O LORD, you have seen this; be not silent.
Do not be far from me, O Lord.

23 Awake, and rise to my defense!
Contend for me, my God and Lord.

24 Vindicate me in your righteousness, O LORD my God;
do not let them gloat over me.

25 Do not let them think, "Aha, just what we wanted!"
or say, "We have swallowed him up."

26 May all who gloat over my distress
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who exalt themselves over me
be clothed with shame and disgrace.

27 May those who delight in my vindication
shout for joy and gladness;
may they always say, "The LORD be exalted,
who delights in the well-being of his servant."

28 My tongue will speak of your righteousness
and of your praises all day long.
 
MIV Psalm 36:

Psalm 36 NIV

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For the director of music. Of David the servant of the LORD.

1 An oracle is within my heart
concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: [a]
There is no fear of God
before his eyes.

2 For in his own eyes he flatters himself
too much to detect or hate his sin.

3 The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful;
he has ceased to be wise and to do good.

4 Even on his bed he plots evil;
he commits himself to a sinful course
and does not reject what is wrong.

5 Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.

6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
O LORD, you preserve both man and beast.

7 How priceless is your unfailing love!
Both high and low among men
find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

8 They feast on the abundance of your house;
you give them drink from your river of delights.

9 For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.

10 Continue your love to those who know you,
your righteousness to the upright in heart.

11 May the foot of the proud not come against me,
nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.

12 See how the evildoers lie fallen—
thrown down, not able to rise!
 
Yes, I discovered that the backwards *acrostic* CTBS in Psalm 35 had been noticed before. It jumped out at me. I read that John Ramsey's Bible was opened to Psalms 35/36 - even though he and Paster Rol kept going on about Psalm 118. Psalm 35 seems thematically relevant. And it is exactly in this NIV edition that the acrostic occurs. Moreover - a point I haven't seen made elsewhere - "Listen carefully!" is NIV idiom. And the cross-reference from Psalm 35 goes to it in the Book of Job. So if someone had been reading Psalm 35 they might have cross-referenced to that phrase in Job. Conceivably.
 
Wrote a response to this yesterday and fat-fingered the keyboard, closing the whole window before it posted. I hate it when that happens!

Thanks for posting these verses, SunnieRN.

I just want to say that these Psalms verses are right bitter, to me. It certainly doesn't seem at all what Christ was about, who asked God to forgive his own killers as he was being tortured to death in public.

But these verses, in hindsight, could have been the Ramseys' mantra. They operated very much as if this was how they viewed LE and anyone who didn't drink the Kool-Aid. Team Ramsey weren't a bit afraid to destory the lives of many other innocent people to point to "an intruder." They even did so in their own book, not to mention Smit's and Tracey's many PR propaganda campaigns.

So the question I take from these verses, if they truly played a part in the cover up of this murder, and maybe the murder itself, in some way, is what happened before the murder that brought about the events of that night? Did Patsy and/or John really feel entitled to the wrath of god on their "enemies"?

They certainly were arrogant enough in the aftermath, that's clear to me. Did they really believe they had the power of god on their side in the death of JonBenet? Were they actually of the mind that they were righteous and everyone else was simply to be destroyed, no matter what it took to get that "VICTORY!" over the molestation and murder of JonBenet?

They certainly never implied they were calling the wrath of god on any intruder/child murderer. John even felt sorry for PERV Karr when he was arrested, and said so publicly, though all the rest of Team Ramsey seemed positive this was the "intruder" who molested and viciously murdered JonBenet. (John has no intuition when it comes to appropriate feelings and behavior, IMO. He needed Patsy to cue him, and she was gone by then.)

These verses lead me to speculate why the Ramseys would have felt the need to decimate their enemies on that night or before. Was that passage open because Patsy and/or John felt someone was trying to bring something on them? Was it related to the murder at all? Or was it opened after the murder, as inspiration to help them "fight" what was going to come? In that context, did it in fact play into the thoughts and words in the ransom note?

As I said, this is interesting. Thanks for bringing it up, Plenum 7. It's an area I haven't paid that much attention to, though obviously the Ramseys spent a lot of time giving lip service to god in the years after the murder. The most appalling to me was near the end of her life, Patsy telling an audience JonBenet had "served her purpose" in this life.

Time to check some of the transcripts, particularly the one of their interview on the Christian Broadcast Network. And their book.
 
Looking at the hardback copy of DOI, two times Patsy mentions Psalm 57:

On p. 81, when she states that in a hotel in July of 1993, she opened the Gideon Bible and it fell to this Psalm. She quotes this: "In the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, / Until these calamities have passed by."

The next mention is on p. 91, talking about 1999, after she'd finished her cancer treatments and related surgeries. Patsy had gotten a letter from Howard Early's wife, telling Patsy that Howard had died in November of that year from his cancer. Patsy quote the letter and then says she realized she could help people. Her words are rather incredulous, as she mentions not only that she prayed to god about being "challenged to help people...", but states this: "God, I will do whatever you want me to do...but nobody knows who I am." Then she suddenly realizes this: "People all over the world know who I am because they know JonBenet." How that escaped her in her earlier prayer, I have no idea, since a great deal of what they talk about in the book is how the media has chased them all over the country.

But then Patsy says something even stranger:

Months earlier those few lines from Psalm 57 had meant so much. In my darkest hour they had turned on a light. "Until these calamities have passed by," the Bible had promised. The calamity of cancer had passed....

In this section of her book, Patsy was telling the story of the discovery of her cancer in July 1993, all the way through to when she was told she was "cleared of cancer," in Jan. 1994--the best "date" I can come up with, 13 days after her final surgery following her Dec. 26 check-in at the NIH to determine if the chemo treatments had worked and she had no cancer cells.

So then she jumps ahead to "In March of 1997, three months after JonBenet died, when I went back to the National Institute of Health for one of my regularly scheduled six-month checkups." She tells the story of a nurse telling her JonBenet was in heaven, etc., a "priceless moment...."

From that passage, she jumps again to 1999: "And so was the moment [priceless] in late spring of 1999 when I received a letter from Howard Early's wife, whom I had met when I was struggling against cancer." Here she quotes the letter, from which I excerpted above. Then she writes the passage saying "Months earlier those few lines from Psalm 57 had meant so much."

I'm quite befuddled. It looks to me like it was SIX YEARS EARLIER, in July 1993; or at least that's what she said earlier in retelling the story.

Now we know that John's Bible in their home was found open to this Psalm the morning JonBenet was murdered. But even that was three years earlier, not "months earlier" as Patsy seems to be referencing. Unless Patsy counted time in months instead of years, as in "70 months earlier...."
Thoughts?
 
Okay, I see I got confused between Psalm 35 and 36, vs Patsy's speaking to Psalm 57. I can't get back in my post to edit, sorry about that.

But that's two critical times in the Ramseys' lives, when tragedy struck, that the Psalms seem to show up. Is there something about the Psalms that spoke to them more than other passages?

John's Bible in their home was found open to Psalms 35 and 36 on the morning JonBenet was murdered. Patsy referenced Psalm 57, though I'm unable to follow her timeline in her book.

Gosh, I hope someone can speak to the Psalms and their general religious themes. My Bible quoting is very rusty: 23rd Psalm? The Lord is my shepard?
 
Pulling from the Ramseys' LE interviews, I found this one from JR's, with Steve Thomas, in '97:

[typos included]

ST: John, this $118,000, is that a, do you believe that to be tied to your 95 bonus paid in 96?
JR: Well, that’s, I mean that occurred to me later as I started to think about what that number meant, and I thought, gee that might have been the net amount of my bonus. I didn’t even know that until we had, we went back and looked. And that was paid in February of 96, and was $118,223 or something like that. And I think that’s a plausible place where that number could have come from, and it certainly showed up in every pay stub of mine from then on, through the rest of the year. It was deferred compensation, so separate out of your gross pay. The only other logical theory that I’ve heard is this one that apparently you found a small book or a bible with some verses circled. And Father Rol also said I heard that 18th Palms was a very vengeful Psalms. And those are the two logical theories I’ve heard for that number.

Then when asked about the ransom amount in 1998 by Smit and Prosecutor Kane, here's what John said about Psalm 118:

[Notice how JR changes the topic suddenly in this first excerpt.]

16 LOU SMIT: Okay. And I know, John, that it
17 really hurts to talk about this guy, but that's
18 probably all you've thought about since day one.
19 You must have a mental picture of the type of
20 person this is. I mean, in your mind. I know I
21 have a mental picture of various people that I
22 would look at. But I'm sure you think about this
23 all the time.
24 JOHN RAMSEY: Oh, absolutely, everyday. You
25 know. Of course, my first instinct is, it was a
0040
1 man. Because of some of the similarities,
2 apparently in Patsy's handwriting, I wondered if
3 it was a woman. The ransom note seemed childish,
4 in terms of a young person. I think this person
5 was very sick or trying to be very clever.
6 You know, if they really wanted to do this, hurt
7 us and walk away, why did they go to the trouble
8 of leaving a ransom note? When Mike Bynum said,
9 (Thank God they left a ransom note.̃ You know, why
10 is that? And it finally dawned on me what he
11 meant. They left us a piece of evidence. They were
12 clever enough not to leave much else, apparently.
13 I think it's say somebody that's very sick, thinks
14 they're very clever, is playing games. You know,
15 we heard about the two Bible verses, Psalms, that
16 were circled in some book. I don't know, some
17 book or not. I was not told that directly. We
18 heard it through the backdoor.
19 LOU SMIT: You didn't circle Bible passages?
20 JOHN RAMSEY: (INAUDIBLE). They were leaving
21 little clues to analyze this. I think entry was
22 gained through the basement window.
23 LOU SMIT: Why do you think that?
24 JOHN RAMSEY: Because the window was cracked
25 open. There was this large suitcase under it, as
0041
1 if it was used to climb out.
18 MIKKE: And now it's been 18 months that
19 you been thinking about that. Do you have any
20 other thoughts on it? I mean, I know this has been
21 -- you see, it has to have a correlation with you
22 (INAUDIBLE).
23 JOHN RAMSEY: No, I think that was just
24 a bit coincidence. That was my net bonus after
25 tax. And it wasn't exactly 118; it was 118 and
0340
1 something.
2 MIKE KANE: Do you think this was a random
3 figure as opposed to a purposeful figure?
4 JOHN RAMSEY: A purposeful. I think there
5 were a lot of things left around that were
6 purposeful.
7 MIKE KANE: But you haven't been able to --
8 JOHN RAMSEY: I mean, the closest that
9 I've come to have some believability is this
10 theory that Father Rol came up with. There were
11 psalms, which were circled in the Bible, which
12 apparently were fairly vengeful psalms. 118 Psalms
13 was a vengeful psalm in the King James Bible. It
14 talked about victory (INAUDIBLE). I think I've
15 read it a hundred times, I guess, (INAUDIBLE).
16 I guess I would accept that kind of a tie more
17 than I would the bonus amount.

More from the 1998 interview with JR:

9 LOU SMIT: You said you looked at
10 a biblical theme. In what sense?
11 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, just because we
12 had heard there were psalms circled, possible
13 118 being 118th psalm and there was some, I
14 think some interesting things there. So I tried
15 to just take it another step, does SBTC mean
16 anything in the bible. I couldn't.
17 MIKE KANE: Did you do some
18 research yourself in that regard?
19 JOHN RAMSEY: Yeah.
20 MIKE KANE: What kinds of things
21 were you looking in the bible for?
22 JOHN RAMSEY: Any time I pick
23 up the bible I look in the index. I read
24 passages, I read thinking does that stand for
25 anything. You know, looked in the dictionary.
0476
1 I looked it up on the Internet, there is a Web
2 site called SBTC, it's a little bit bizarre, as
3 far as I could tell.
 
Here are some quotes from Patsy's '98 LE interview regarding the open Bible on John's desk, and she appears to me to be very vague about it. (She wasn't asked about the Bible in her '97 interview.) Then she says she didn't know what John's Bible reading habits were...odd, considering her devotion to her religious beliefs. Finally she throws the "Bible" into a run down of why she thinks the intruder got into the house while they were at the Whites' house, meaning she's clearly aware of the issue of the circled Bible passages which John was being questioned about, as well, and wants to attribute those to an intruder. Remember that this Bible in question was upstairs in their bedroom suite on the third floor, where John had a desk/office area, which Patsy seemed to be as clueless about as much else in her home, by June 1998.

From Patsy's interview with Haney and DeMuth, June 1998:

9 TOM HANEY: Now we are up to 326, it is just
10 one photo on that page.
11 PATSY RAMSEY: This is on John's desk, a
12 picture of Linda and John -- looks like his bible.
13 TOM HANEY: Do you have any -- do you have
14 different bibles.
15 PATSY RAMSEY: Well, we have a lot of bibles.
16 TOM HANEY: Okay.
17 PATSY RAMSEY: I don't know if they are
18 different.
19 TOM HANEY: You said it is his as opposed to
20 being ours or yours.
21 PATSY RAMSEY: I see what you mean. Well,
22 yeah. I think it was his on his desk.
23 TOM HANEY: Kept on his desk?
24 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah.
25 TOM HANEY: Is that where he normally had it
0444
1 or where it was normally kept.
2 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah. He would read it there.
3 TOM HANEY: You said you had other bibles.
4 PATSY RAMSEY: Yeah.
5 TOM HANEY: Did you have one somewhere else
6 that you particularly read out of?
7 PATSY RAMSEY: I had a red, kind of red
8 leather one that I would use.
9 TOM HANEY: Okay. Do you know John's habit
10 as far as reading the bible, was he cover to cover
11 or --
12 PATSY RAMSEY: No, I don't know. I don't
13 really know his habits.
14 TOM HANEY: Okay.
15 PATSY RAMSEY: With that.
16 TOM HANEY: Could it have been cover to cover
17 or at random, depends on --
18 PATSY RAMSEY: Right.
19 TOM HANEY: Do you know if it would be left
20 open to a particular page for a particular reason.
21 PATSY RAMSEY: No.
22 TOM HANEY: Now, in the house in addition to
23 several bibles, you had a ton of books. Let's take a
24 couple of minutes and talk about some of those, some
25 which you may know something about, maybe you don't.

Here, she doesn't remember, seldom went into John's office...BUT she's surprised John might leave the Bible open like that. She was rather obvious in her attempt to distance John and herself from that open Bible, I think.

1 TRIP DEMUTH: I brought that photo out
2 because I want to know, this is 287 and 226 are of the
3 bible. Does it look unusual to have the bible open
4 like that? Some people leave it open all the time.
5 Other people like to have their desk tops cleared up.
6 PATSY RAMSEY: John is pretty finicky about
7 his desk top, you know. He -- yeah, I would think he
8 would not leave it like that. I never went in there
9 that much, so I didn't pay attention. My bathroom was
10 around back here.
11 TRIP DEMUTH: Well --
12 PATSY RAMSEY: I would be surprised that he
13 would leave that open.
14 TRIP DEMUTH: I don't want so much to know
15 what you would think it would be. Do you have a memory
16 of how the bible was on top of the desk usually?
17 PATSY RAMSEY: No. I have no memory of that.

And now we see that the Bible is sticking in her mind as evidence of that old intruder, roaming around the house, deciding to open John's Bible to circle some passages, being religious as he was in spite of his murdering ways. But if Patsy didn't know John's reading habits with his Bible, and she seldom went into his upstairs/bedroom office area, why would she think the intruder opened the Bible and circled the passages? It appears to me she's simply trying to point LE away from John and herself, which only makes sense to me if she knew exactly why that Bible was open to those passages.

16 the 25th, there were four people in that house?
17 PATSY RAMSEY: What?
18 TOM HANEY: I am saying when you
19 went to bed there were four people?
20 PATSY RAMSEY: We don't know that.
21 TOM HANEY: What do you think?
22 PATSY RAMSEY: I have always
23 thought that perhaps while we were gone, that
24 the person or persons came into the house and
25 were there when we got back.
0600
1 TOM HANEY: What makes you think
2 that?
3 PATSY RAMSEY: Because we were
4 gone several hours, and they could have had
5 their way with the house. Have known where
6 flashlights were, where pads of paper were,
7 where bibles were, where Christmas cards were,
8 where -- you know. If we are gone three or four
9 hours. No one knows for sure.
10 TOM HANEY: Well, somebody knows?
11 PATSY RAMSEY: Somebody knows,
12 you're damn right somebody knows, and I want to
13 find that.

She's scared here, so her tone changes; she gets aggressive. She and her PI Armistead accuse Haney of "badgering" her. Words are flying and it's "multiple speakers" and we don't know what exactly the argument is about, except that Patsy and Armistead want Haney to stop his line of questioning.

14 TOM HANEY: Let's just stay with
15 your theory for a minute here. This thing that
16 you mentioned, whether it's a theory or not.
17 PATSY RAMSEY: Uh-hum.
18 TOM HANEY: That while you're gone
19 to the Whites somebody comes in?
20 PATSY RAMSEY: Uh-hum.
21 TOM HANEY: When you come home from
22 the Whites, do you notice different lights on,
23 do you notice doors open that weren't open?
24 PATSY RAMSEY: No.
25 TOM HANEY: Okay, do you know--
0601
1 PATSY RAMSEY:
2 (MULTIPLE SPEAKERS.)
3 TOM HANEY: I am not badgering?
4 PATSY RAMSEY:
5 TOM HANEY: Except not in this way,
6 I mean when --
7 (MULTIPLE SPEAKERS.)
8 TOM HANEY: That night when you
9 came?
10 PATSY RAMSEY: We haven't but
11 other people have.
12 TOM HANEY: Okay, and again both of
13 us haven't been privy to everything the other
14 one's done.
15 PATSY RAMSEY: All right.

Interesting.
 
Sorry, Plenum, I seem to be highjacking your thread. Anybody else want to weigh in? I have a few more sources I want to check out and post, and then I'll butt out.

Remember this 1995 Christmas letter from the Ramseys? Yet another VICTORY! lap.

Though as a little aside: JB was riding around Michigan in parades all summer? I still don't understand why JonBenet was a year behind in her schooling. Did she ride so many floats when she was four she was stunted in some way? I have no idea, but Team Ramsey never talks about this. Yet another Ramsey secret.

John and Patsy Ramsey 1995 Christmas Newsletter

Twas a week before Christmas with a million things to do, And wouldn't you know it, Mom came down with the flu. Fortunately the gifts were all gotten and under the tree, But the Christmas cards didn't make it - as you can well see! So we'll take this opportunity to extend the Holiday Cheer. And be the first to wish you a Healthy & Happy New Year!

We've finally given in to the computerized form letter! What better way to keep the high-tech industry in business!? Speaking of business, John and Access are going great guns. Europe has been successfully conquered with offices in every country except Norway! Mexico & Canada opened too. (Can you believe this grew out of our garage on Northridge?) Anyway, John was rewarded by parent company, Lockheed-Martin, by being elected an office of the company.

All work and no play make John a dull boy, so he leaves plenty of time for the latter. This year John, John Andrew, and Melinda took the crew of the Miss America (our sailing sloop) to victories in the NOOD Races in Chicago and a 4th place division finish of the Chicago-Mackinac Island Race. Seventy-knot winds in the Mac race really made the finish line look pretty good! John Andrew is a freshman at CU here in Boulder, and Melinda is due to complete her Nursing Degree from MCG [Medical College of Georgia] in Augusta next June.

Burke is busy in his third grade year at a new school named High Peaks. It is a Core Knowledge school which accesses high academics and personal achievement. He loves it! He continues with Boy Scouting and the piano. This winter he is the tallest guy on his basketball team. Summer on Charlevoix was spent taking golf and sailing lessons each day. Burke is quite the sailor!

JonBenet too had a busy summer in Charlevoix. She was crowned Little Miss Charlevoix in a pageant in June and spent the rest of the summer riding in convertibles in various home-town parades throughout Michigan. She performed a patriotic tap & song for her talent. She and Burke both won ribbons in several decorated bicycle contests. In October, JonBenet become Little Miss Colorado, she rode on the "Good Ship Lollipop" float during the Boulder Christmas parade. (Grandpa Paugh built the float!) She waved and sang all along the parade route! She also takes piano, violin, and drama classes. Busy little Pre-kindergartener![sic] (Busy Mom hauling her around!)

I continue to have good check-ups at NIH in Bethesda, MD. God has surely blessed me with energy and the ability to return to raising a family. I thank Him every morning when I wake up and see the sunrise reflecting on the Flatirons over Boulder. Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Hope your Christmas was merry and here's to 1996! By the time you read this we'll be cheering on the Buffs at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas and then on to the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix! Thanks to everyone who visited us in Colorado or Charlevoix this year. Please come see us in 1996! Love to you all!

The Ramseys

This was never "a few Sunday afternoons," as the Ramseys would have everyone believe once they felt compelled to explain the pageant activities which dominated the life of their murdered child in her last two years.

VICTORY!? I don't think so. Epic fail.

So how did Patsy get from "a few Sunday afternoons" of fun pageant activities to a ransom note written to explain her molested and murdered child in her basement?

Did it involve her cancer and horrendous, disfiguring treatments, and her faith which she clung to with all she had to get through it? Were the Psalms and the Bible passages circled part of it?

You've got me thinking about some things I haven't looked at that much before.
 
KK, this may not help you in your quest for the Ramsey's reliance on the Psalms, but are you aware that King David (the writer of most of the Psalms) lost a son to death? He also had a man killed in order to have his wife. Yet the bible tells us he was a man after God's own heart. For me, this shows that even though we are all human and make mistakes, God is willing to forgive if we are truly contrite, as David obviously was.
Now, the part about losing his son. One of my favorite sayings of David's concerned this death. He said "I cannot bring him back, but I can go to where he is". I believe one of the reasons the Ramseys relied so heavily on the Psalms is that they felt such a kinship to King David and they knew that if God had forgiven him for his multitude of sins, He would surely forgive them. My thoughts could be the furthest thing from the actual truth, but after careful consideration, I really do believe the R's based a lot of their faith on what the Psalmist wrote. What bothers me is that God knows our hearts and our pretentions of faith are wasted on Him.
 
KK, this may not help you in your quest for the Ramsey's reliance on the Psalms, but are you aware that King David (the writer of most of the Psalms) lost a son to death? He also had a man killed in order to have his wife. Yet the bible tells us he was a man after God's own heart. For me, this shows that even though we are all human and make mistakes, God is willing to forgive if we are truly contrite, as David obviously was.
Now, the part about losing his son. One of my favorite sayings of David's concerned this death. He said "I cannot bring him back, but I can go to where he is". I believe one of the reasons the Ramseys relied so heavily on the Psalms is that they felt such a kinship to King David and they knew that if God had forgiven him for his multitude of sins, He would surely forgive them. My thoughts could be the furthest thing from the actual truth, but after careful consideration, I really do believe the R's based a lot of their faith on what the Psalmist wrote. What bothers me is that God knows our hearts and our pretentions of faith are wasted on Him.

No, I didn't know this story actually, and you've stated it beautifully. Perhaps you have hit upon the key. I was reading the Christian Broadcast Newwork interview with John and Patsy and a lot of things they said would fall right in line with this. I swear, at times they seemed so full of themselves, I thought they slipped up rather significantly. Here are are a few:


SCOTT: And then subsequent to Beth’s death you were struggling with this, you had cancer.

PATSY: Stage 4 cancer. The only difference in John and Patsy Ramsey from our good ole buddy Job in the Bible is that we have television in the 20 and 21st century. The whole world knows about this.

And here, instead of Patsy saying, "I did not kill JonBenet" when Scott asks her a pointed question about it, she says something else entirely, focusing on why god saved her from cancer for some unknown other purpose.

SCOTT: I don't know if it's a real question or a rhetorical question. Patsy, you were in your 4th stage of ovarian cancer. How long was it before JonBenet's death?

PATSY: It was diagnosed in 92, July of 92.

SCOTT: Okay. Ninety-six percent of people who come to that stage of cancer die. You lived. Now if I understand correctly, you believe you were supernaturally healed by God.

PATSY: Yes, I do.

SCOTT: Is there documentation to go along with that?

PATSY: Yes there is. As a matter of fact I just received a letter from my original oncologist here in Atlanta. He unequivocally believes, knowing where I was and where I am now, there was divine intervention. That was in writing.

SCOTT: So God with foresight with forethought, heals Patsy Ramsey so she could murder her daughter?

PATSY: Our God does not work that way. I believe that our God sees things that we don't see and understands things that we do not understand. What man has meant for evil, He will use the good. He has saved me for some reason. I remember praying on my knees when I had cancer, "God why did you give me two children when you are going to take me away from them and not be able to raise them?"


SCOTT: Did you understand God was a healing God?

PATSY: I did not know about that. I have read it for years, and years, and years about Jesus healing the lepers and all kinds of healing taking place but I really didn't understand it.

SCOTT: It was more of an historical fact.

PATSY: Right, it wasn't real. But our rector in Colorado really explained to me that Christ died on the cross for our salvation. That the trip to the cross, when he was carrying and walking to Calvary and taking the lashing -- that was borne for our healing. It says right in the Bible, "By his stripes, I am healed."

SCOTT: So your rector told you. Episcopal rector.

PATSY: Yes. We had a healing service, anointing of holy oil, laying on of hands, this was on a Tuesday afternoon and at that time I had just been back from a session of chemotherapy from the National Cancer Institute. It was my second treatment. On Thursday of that week I took a CT scan and there was no sign of the disease.

SCOTT: How many days from the time you were prayed for and the time you took the test?

PATSY: Two. From that day forward there was never any sign of the disease.

SCOTT: How many years has it been?

PATSY: It will be eight years from diagnosis.

SCOTT: You're clean.

PATSY: Yes, I am. I am healed. Divinely healed by God and chemo.

And they move on to questions about Burke. I find that stunning.

But speaking to your mention of David, Patsy mentions "David" here in the context of JonBenet's religious lessons:


SCOTT: Did JonBenet understand anything about God?

PATSY: Very much!

JOHN: She was … (starts to cry) … amazing.

PATSY: She was a participant in the Episcopal church, where I learned about the healing. That was called Cathechesis of the Good Shepherd. And it was a learning environment like the Montesorri style of learning, it was for preschoolers. JonBenet took it when she was about 5 or 6 years old. It was an environment where they learned about the Last Supper. They had a little mustard seed where they would learn about faith. They had a little corner of the room where they learned about baptism and christening, and JonBenet's christening gown was a part of that display. They learned about David and they learned about the Apostles. They polished the silver chalice, and they learned about the colors of Advent and Lent and all of that.

They learned about prayer, and they would have a prayer time in a prayer circle. I have this vivid recollection, this picture in my mind of JonBenet, blowing out this candle. She is kneeling in front of the pint-size altar, blowing out her candle and watching the smoke rise. She would tell me that that is her prayer going up to heaven. She was very spiritual.

Then this classic example of Ramsey patronization:

SCOTT: The bottom line, below the bottom line, people will ask me, "O.K., you've come out of this, confidentially, what do you think? There is also a side not only as a journalist, but being an ordained minister in the church, to say to other pastors, if they ask me, "Would you recommend to let these people come to my church?"

JOHN: Let me ask you this? What if we were murderers? Would we be denied access to a church? I hope not.

PATSY: That's the people who need to be there. Aren't we "preaching to the choir" as they say.

SCOTT: Well, they still say that.

JOHN: That is a problem we Christians have in our churches.

PATSY: We need to welcome everyone.

JOHN: We think it's a club we belong to because we are all good and we are better than most. Jesus addressed the worst of the worst in his society.

Okay, I'll quit hogging the thread now. Thanks for the insight. It's got my wheels turning.
 
See,this is exactly what I don't like.Who knows how many psychos interpret all this religious stuff the way they like it and then act upon it.

PATSY: Our God does not work that way. I believe that our God sees things that we don't see and understands things that we do not understand. What man has meant for evil, He will use the good.

Imagine how an unstable person interprets THIS!!I can do whatever bad things I like,God will find something good in it!
 
I think PR started with pushing JB into the pageant thing because she thought she will die and wanted to leave something behind,this was a tradition in her family.It must be tough,you prepare yourself for the worst and then things suddenly change,so do your plans,must be confusing.I think she compared JB a lot with herself and that's why she said,she's better now and will not have to know what cancer is.Same re wearing the same clothes.But JB didn't had her own strong personality.
I know this from personal experience.When you show how much you DON'T wanna be like one of your parents,that parent doesn't like it.Especially if that parents thinks he's the best and no one is like him/her and he/she's the role model for everyone.
 
Does this make any sense to you?

PATSY: Perhaps when he has a family of his own or when he has a child of his own or when he is able to put together what could have happened. Why was he not taken and she was? All of those questions.
 
no,no,no,we didn't use the psychic in our spin

JOHN: Our investigators control the web site. They put that picture on there. We did not contact a psychic as has been reported. The sketch that appeared on the web site that our investigators use was provided by Dorthy Allison on a television program a year or so ago. Our objective is to keep this alive in the public's mind, in hopes that the one lead that we are waiting for will come through.

SCOTT: So you allowed it to be used?

JOHN: We don't control the web site. The information that was put on there was put on there by our investigators, what they think is appropriate.

SCOTT: The reason why I raise the question because you claim to be Christians and you know, or I hope you know or have been taught, biblically, God doesn't look with whole lot of kindness on psychics or their practices.

PATSY & JOHN: Right. I know.

SCOTT: It's considered to be witchcraft ...

PATSY: Demonic.
 
JR:This is not going to come now from clever detective work, it is going to come from the public.


-----

This is what I hate,between 10 lines of religious talk they drop one of these lines written by their lawyer.
 
JOHN: But if not in our lifetime, ultimately that creature would have to stand before the God of the universe and be accountable. That is the only justice that really counts. And we take comfort in that.

End of story.Ain't that cute.
They even found a religious excuse as to why they aren't really looking for the killer.
 
JOHN: But if not in our lifetime, ultimately that creature would have to stand before the God of the universe and be accountable. That is the only justice that really counts. And we take comfort in that.

End of story.Ain't that cute.
They even found a religious excuse as to why they aren't really looking for the killer.

Madeleine, you know me, I would just love to address every single point you just made, but I won't as I'm sure everyone would get bored and leave!

BUT- That psychic bs, and that's just what it is, BS. Why couldn't they just admit that freakin sketch was on there because they wanted the world to see that it couldn't have been them that did this horrible thing! Oh no, we're on a Christian network, no way we can act like we might actually believe this bs. God would be disappointed in us if we did and He may even take back Patsy's healing! This just shows me that the Ramseys could lie anywhere, did not matter to who either. I bet I know one they won't lie to. They may try but it's just like John predicted, they will have to stand before the God of the Universe, and He will call it exactly what it is. Oh yes, justice will be done, and even the Ramsey's money and connections won't get them out of it. Promise!
I have to take that back, they won't even be able to hold their head up in front of God, much less try to lie to Him. In reference to children, Jesus said "woe unto one that harms one of these". Oh yes, justice is coming, swift and sure!
 

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