Hi dogperson. People have suggested a variety of Burke-flashlight-basement scenarios, and the reason they seem unlikely to me is that JBR found the basement creepy and disliked going there at all. I can only think she would have liked going there alone with Burke at night, using the flashlight, far less.
It emerged during the investigation that the Rams normally kept their flashlight (you know, the one that the flashlight found on the kitchen counter so closely resembled :waiting
in a small drawer in the back hall, so putting it away there would have been the least suspicious choice despite proximity to the kitchen. Why it was left in the open but wiped down - who knows? I expect St. Peter will be thoroughly bemused some years from now when person after person arrives at the pearly gates and says, "Why did the Ramseys leave the flashlight on the counter?"
