If saying the note was on a bottom rung of the stairs had been a well-thought-out plan by both Patsy and John to implicate LHP we would have these straightforward statements from the beginning:
Patsy: I found the note at the bottom of the stairs.
John: I picked the note up off the stairs and carried it over to the patio door (because the light is so good there on the floor before dawn in the middle of winter).
Instead we get this:
4/30/97, John:
"JR: Well, I’d gotten up at a little before the alarm went off, 5:30 a.m., 5:25 a.m. and went and took a shower; was getting dressed and uh, heard Patsy screaming, and I ran downstairs and I think probably intercepted her maybe in the landing there, the second floor landing I don’t remember exactly; but, ah, she showed me the note and uh, . . .
ST: Did she show the note on the second floor landing?
JR: I don’t remember, uh it seems like I came downstairs, but I think she was running up and I was running down, I think, as best as I can remember, the note was still down on the first floor....
JR: Well I’m, it’s a lot of screaming going on around that, but we saw the note and read the first part. Ah, I think I might have run upstairs to look in JonBenet’s room. At one point I laid it on the floor and spread it out so I could read it real fast without having to sit and read it."
4/30/97, Patsy:
“TT: Okay. You yelled for John. John comes down. Okay, what happened, where did John read the note at when he read it?
PR: Down, down in the, you know, on, not, not in the laundry room area, but down. I said there’s a note down there....
TT: Okay. Patsy, do you recall who moved the note from the bottom of the stairs down to where John could read it with the good lighting.
PR: I think he did. I, I (inaudible). "
6/23/98, John:
"JOHN RAMSEY: Well, I think. But it seems to me that [I was] somewhere here on the second floor, partially down the stairs.
LOU SMIT: She had the note in her hand?
JOHN RAMSEY: As I recall, I remember I spread it out on the floor just kind to absorb everything quickly."
6/23/98, Patsy:
"TOM HANEY: ....You come down the spiral stairs [the second time]. The note is--
PATSY RAMSEY: Somewhere in this area, maybe still on the floor or something, you know. I don't know what happened to it exactly when I bounded upstairs. I think it was right there somewhere.
TOM HANEY: The second time you don't recall exactly where it was?
PATSY RAMSEY: I think it was laying around on the floor here somewhere or something. After I went up the stairs. It was there somewhere. I know I came down here, and I either handed it to John or he went in and picked it up."