Is the caller the killer?

[fr brown]

During The Behavior Panel's discussion of Michael Peterson's body language, they mentioned the checklist that law enforcement is now using to analyze 911 calls. As I recall, they suggested Repetition, Inappropriate Politeness, and Thinking Pause as (hypothetically) indicative of guilt. (TBP is hilarious, btw, when talking about Peterson. I highly recommend.)

In the paper below the author also talks about extraneous information, possession of the problem and incorrect order:
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1485&context=master201019

As many people have noted Patsy oddly says "We have a kidnapping." I think that would be Possession of the Problem." "There's a note left and our daughter's gone" would be Incorrect Order. Patsy mentioning the note three times is Repetition. "She's blonde" could be Extraneous Information. Patsy saying "please" seven times equals Inappropriate Politeness. "What?" is Thinking Pause. I don't know how to evaluate "I'm the mother," but I think it should be in there somewhere, maybe in something called Distancing.

Patsy Ramsey: Police?
911: What's going on ma'am?
Patsy Ramsey: 755 15th street.
911: What's going on there ma'am?
Patsy Ramsey: We have a kidnapping. Hurry, please!
911: Explain to me what's going on. Ok?
Patsy Ramsey: There. We have a, there's a note left and our daughter's gone.
911: A note was left and your daughter's gone?
Patsy Ramsey: Yes!
911: How old is your daughter?
Patsy Ramsey: She's 6 years old. She's blonde, 6 years old.
911: How long ago was this?
Patsy Ramsey: I don't know. I just got the note, and my daughter's gone.
911: Does it say who took her?
Patsy Ramsey: What?
911: Does it say who took her?
Patsy Ramsey: No! I don't know. There's a, there's a ransom note here.
911: It’s a ransom note?
Patsy Ramsey: It says SBTC. Victory! Please!
911: Okay, what's your name? Are you...?
Patsy Ramsey: Patsy Ramsey, I'm the mother. Oh my God! Please!
911: Okay, I’m sending an officer over, OK?
Patsy Ramsey: Please!
911: Do you know how long she's been gone?
Patsy Ramsey: No I don't! Please, we just got up and she's not here. Oh my god! Please!
911: Okay, Cal....
Patsy Ramsey: Please send somebody.
911: I am honey.
Patsy Ramsey: Please.
911: Take a deep breath and...
Patsy Ramsey: Hurry, hurry, hurry!
911: Patsy? Patsy? Patsy? Patsy?

 

[fr brown]

I realize that Patsy's 911 call also has two Minimizing Justs: "I just got the note, and my daughter's gone." and "Please, we just got up and she's not here."

This could be seen as establishing non-guilt--something that shouldn't be a priority in a 911 call.

The 911 call would tick a lot of boxes these days.

 

[UKGuy]

I realize that Patsy's 911 call also has two Minimizing Justs: "I just got the note, and my daughter's gone." and "Please, we just got up and she's not here."

This could be seen as establishing non-guilt--something that shouldn't be a priority in a 911 call.

The 911 call would tick a lot of boxes these days.

fr brown,
I agree, it all sounds scripted to me. Patsy is concentrating on the extraneous details while a genuine caller would just leave all that out.

"Please, we just got up and she's not here."
Red flag here, i.e. my daughter has been kidnapped and I've been up all night, -

Who cares when Patsy got up?

This is Patsy is visualizing, in real time, what her staging steps must be, so she wants to say them out loud, i.e. a staging mistake.

.

 

[proust20]

The 911 call is significant as an extension of the RN. The openings are similar - "We have a kidnapping"/"We represent a small FF". PR emphasized the plural. While the RN is too lengthy, the 911 is too brief. JB is not mentioned by name in either. Reporting a missing person without providing an identity is absurd.

Answering "What?" to "Does it say who took her" is a common stall. PR was unprepared for questions. Her response is the cryptic acronym at the very end of the RN. But, the FF self identifies as the culprits at its outset. This important info is withheld. Also, she omits that the RN is addressed to her husband.

Of course, PR must maintain a semblance of ignorance of the many dire warnings of the RN in order to make the 911 in the first place. Not to do so would be dismissive of the seriousness of the kidnapping.

To-"...what's going on" - PR responds "There's a note & my daughter's gone". The still unnamed child is secondary. 'Gone' can also mean dead.

Unconsciously, PR did not want to hang up the phone correctly? An urge to confess?

 

[fr brown]

Answering "What?"...is a common stall....

That's the point of the article I linked to. The original work of Harpster (and Adams) looked at the 911 calls of people who were subsequently found to be the guilty parties and looked for the same language (and other vocal behavior). The emphasis is on quantifying, rather than intuition. We all, I wager, have a feeling there's a lot that's off in Patsy's call, but this provides a framework to evaluate it.

According to Harpster's thesis, in the 12% of 911 calls containing the "Huh factor," 91% were guilty of the offense: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=ucin1163534092&disposition=inline

I might have gotten the wrong end of the stick on "repetition." I think what's meant is repetition of a phrase within the same sentence. But I do think it must be significant that Patsy harps on the ransom note to the 911 operator, to the extent of mentioning the note before mentioning her missing daughter.

 

[proust20]

At first PR describes it as 'a note'; but then, elaborates it to 'ransom note'. A non-deceptive person would do this process in reverse.

 

[fr brown]

At first PR describes it as 'a note'; but then, elaborates it to 'ransom note'. A non-deceptive person would do this process in reverse.

Now that you mention it, when did she realize it contained a ransom demand? She claims only to have read the first couple of lines before bounding up the stairs to get John. The ransom demand isn't until the second paragraph.

From 1997:
PR: And uh, I, I remember reading the first couple of lines and I kind of, didn’t know what it was or uh, and then I (inaudible) you know after the first couple of lines I, it dawned on me, it said something about, ‘We have your daughter’ or something . . .

 

[fr brown]

Later in the '97 interview she says that she also looked at the signature and may have glanced at the $118,000 ransom demand. In '98 she says she saw the warning about calling the police and threats of execution a couple of seconds before she called 911.

I think most parents would be inclined to simply pay such a small ransom without involving the police. At least you'd discuss it for a few minutes.

 

[fr brown]

I've read that, in some jurisdictions at least, the recording of the 911 call starts as soon as the call is connected, which may be a second or two before the 911 operator answers. (Above I inadvertently left off the operator's saying "911 Emergency." Listening now, I hear silence/rumbling on the line until the operator answers at which point Patsy starts hyperventilating, mumbles something and says "Police."

In this excerpt from Patsy's '97 interview she says that John was still upstairs when she initiated the 911 call. When, where and how John first saw the note is a hopeless mess of obfuscation. Personally, I don't think John has yet seen the note. It's sitting near the patio door where Patsy placed it before sounding the alarm:

Steve Thomas: Okay. When you uh, after the note and after what I’m assuming is just sort of pandemonium, after seeing the note, uh, and you called for John, you went to the kitchen and called 911?

Patsy Ramsey: Well…

ST: Is that right?

PR: …I called, um, I, ran up and opened, you know, pushed open her door and realized she wasn’t there and I ran to the stairwell that goes up to our room and called for John and, and, then, you know, momentarily went downstairs to the kitchen to call.

ST: Was that when John was checking Burke and the rest of the house that you made that call?

PR: Uh, I believe so. I mean everything just happened so fast right there. I, I don’t remember, I just remember at one point, you know, we were saying what about Burke and John ran into check Burke and I ran back downstairs and then suddenly he was downstairs and I mean it was just…

ST: Okay.

PR: …so fast, you know, everything.

ST: Um, and obviously Burke was Okay and he was able to sleep through this until he was later awakened. Is that right?

PR: Right.

ST: Okay. Um, but at some point John came back and caught up with you. You don’t recall if it was during the 911 call or after.

PR: Well I remember I, I remember myself being of [sic] the phone and he was crouched down on the floor there in the hallway looking, reading at the note.

ST: Okay.

PR: And I was on the phone so I don’t know which happened first or it, simultaneously or.

ST: Okay.

PR: I remember as I was talking to that person looking down at him in his underwear reading the note.

 

[proust20]

It's quite likely that the Rs called an attorney before making the 911 call. This is reasonable behavior, and not in itself an indication of guilt. I assume that sound legal counsel should be to call LE.

However, if JR wrote the RN, the context of the 911 is very much altered. In that putative circumstance, PR could have believed that the RN was a real document. So then, JR might have expected PR to follow its instructions and not call 911, as he was planning on removing the body from the house. I only say this for the sake of argument. While the RN is addressed to Mr. Ramsey, who is designated as the agent capable of rescuing his child, PR assumes the active role and places the 911 instead.

While PR is on the phone, she offers a cursory reading of the RN. When did she realize that it was written with her own notepad on which she often doodled?

 

[dogperson]

I've always thought the wording of Patsy's 911 call indicated deception. The way she says, "We have a kidnapping," is not natural. The very second I connected with the 911 operator I'd be screaming, "My daughter's gone!" or, "My daughter's been taken!" In an emergency it's natural to put the most important, most urgent information first which would be that the child is gone. But right up front she's like, "We have a kidnapping," which sounds like she's trying to distance herself (and other family members) from the situation. It's being presented as, "We're victims. A kidnapper took our daughter. Somebody is holding her for ransom. We have nothing to do with this. A stranger has her."

Patsy sounds flustered but not like a hysterical mom dealing with a legitimate kidnapping situation. I think she was phrasing each sentence in a way intended to focus the investigation outside of the family and outside of the house. If LE can be made to think the child has been kidnapped then Patsy doesn't expect them to go looking for her in the wine cellar or anywhere else. She'd reasonably expect JonBenet's room to be looked at for fingerprints, etc. and the first floor doors and windows for a point of entry but I think the kidnapping story and ransom letter were to keep investigators from focusing on the home and the family. She couldn't just say they woke up and JonBenet was gone. There had to be "proof" that she was taken away from the premises and was being held somewhere else. That was supposed to give her and John time to do something about the body.

For the record, I don't think Patsy was the killer but I think she knew who was and that she was working hard to protect that person. I'm pretty much in the "BR did it" camp which I feel best explains why she and John went to such lengths to avoid LE and withhold items that were asked for in the investigation.

 

[fr brown]

I've always thought the wording of Patsy's 911 call indicated deception. The way she says, "We have a kidnapping," is not natural. The very second I connected with the 911 operator I'd be screaming, "My daughter's gone!" or, "My daughter's been taken!" In an emergency it's natural to put the most important, most urgent information first which would be that the child is gone. But right up front she's like, "We have a kidnapping," which sounds like she's trying to distance herself (and other family members) from the situation. It's being presented as, "We're victims. A kidnapper took our daughter. Somebody is holding her for ransom. We have nothing to do with this. A stranger has her."

Patsy sounds flustered but not like a hysterical mom dealing with a legitimate kidnapping situation. I think she was phrasing each sentence in a way intended to focus the investigation outside of the family and outside of the house. If LE can be made to think the child has been kidnapped then Patsy doesn't expect them to go looking for her in the wine cellar or anywhere else. She'd reasonably expect JonBenet's room to be looked at for fingerprints, etc. and the first floor doors and windows for a point of entry but I think the kidnapping story and ransom letter were to keep investigators from focusing on the home and the family. She couldn't just say they woke up and JonBenet was gone. There had to be "proof" that she was taken away from the premises and was being held somewhere else. That was supposed to give her and John time to do something about the body.

For the record, I don't think Patsy was the killer but I think she knew who was and that she was working hard to protect that person. I'm pretty much in the "BR did it" camp which I feel best explains why she and John went to such lengths to avoid LE and withhold items that were asked for in the investigation.

When would they have time to do something about the body? They're going to be under suspicion no matter what. That room would have been thoroughly searched at some point that day. Even Fleet White looked in there, but didn't know where the light switch was.

If Patsy really wanted to divert suspicion away from the family, she would have done better not to demand a ridiculously small ransom so close in amount to John's bonus.

 

[icedtea4me]

<snip>
Answering "What?" to "Does it say who took her" is a common stall. PR was unprepared for questions. </snip>

What if Patsy, in her guilt, heard the question not as "Does it say who took her?", but as "Does it say you took her?"?

To-"...what's going on" - PR responds "There's a note & my daughter's gone". The still unnamed child is secondary. 'Gone' can also mean dead.

Indeed. Gone can mean dead.

Unconsciously, PR did not want to hang up the phone correctly? An urge to confess?

Hmm... I'd say this was something from her subconscious.

 

[fr brown]

I've read that, in some jurisdictions at least, the recording of the 911 call starts as soon as the call is connected, which may be a second or two before the 911 operator answers. (Above I inadvertently left off the operator's saying "911 Emergency." Listening now, I hear silence/rumbling on the line until the operator answers at which point Patsy starts hyperventilating, mumbles something and says "Police."

In this excerpt from Patsy's '97 interview she says that John was still upstairs when she initiated the 911 call. When, where and how John first saw the note is a hopeless mess of obfuscation. Personally, I don't think John has yet seen the note. It's sitting near the patio door where Patsy placed it before sounding the alarm:

Steve Thomas: Okay. When you uh, after the note and after what I’m assuming is just sort of pandemonium, after seeing the note, uh, and you called for John, you went to the kitchen and called 911?

Patsy Ramsey: Well…

ST: Is that right?

PR: …I called, um, I, ran up and opened, you know, pushed open her door and realized she wasn’t there and I ran to the stairwell that goes up to our room and called for John and, and, then, you know, momentarily went downstairs to the kitchen to call.

ST: Was that when John was checking Burke and the rest of the house that you made that call?

PR: Uh, I believe so. I mean everything just happened so fast right there. I, I don’t remember, I just remember at one point, you know, we were saying what about Burke and John ran into check Burke and I ran back downstairs and then suddenly he was downstairs and I mean it was just…

ST: Okay.

PR: …so fast, you know, everything.

ST: Um, and obviously Burke was Okay and he was able to sleep through this until he was later awakened. Is that right?

PR: Right.

ST: Okay. Um, but at some point John came back and caught up with you. You don’t recall if it was during the 911 call or after.

PR: Well I remember I, I remember myself being of [sic] the phone and he was crouched down on the floor there in the hallway looking, reading at the note.

ST: Okay.

PR: And I was on the phone so I don’t know which happened first or it, simultaneously or.

ST: Okay.

PR: I remember as I was talking to that person looking down at him in his underwear reading the note.

Here's an example of the 911 caller, Chanin Starbuck, being recorded before the 911 operator answers:

 

[fr brown]

Here's an example of the 911 caller, Chanin Starbuck, being recorded before the 911 operator answers:

Here's Patsy Ramsey's 911 call:

 

[Rusty123]

I've always thought the wording of Patsy's 911 call indicated deception. The way she says, "We have a kidnapping," is not natural. The very second I connected with the 911 operator I'd be screaming, "My daughter's gone!" or, "My daughter's been taken!" In an emergency it's natural to put the most important, most urgent information first which would be that the child is gone. But right up front she's like, "We have a kidnapping," which sounds like she's trying to distance herself (and other family members) from the situation. It's being presented as, "We're victims. A kidnapper took our daughter. Somebody is holding her for ransom. We have nothing to do with this. A stranger has her."

Patsy sounds flustered but not like a hysterical mom dealing with a legitimate kidnapping situation. I think she was phrasing each sentence in a way intended to focus the investigation outside of the family and outside of the house. If LE can be made to think the child has been kidnapped then Patsy doesn't expect them to go looking for her in the wine cellar or anywhere else. She'd reasonably expect JonBenet's room to be looked at for fingerprints, etc. and the first floor doors and windows for a point of entry but I think the kidnapping story and ransom letter were to keep investigators from focusing on the home and the family. She couldn't just say they woke up and JonBenet was gone. There had to be "proof" that she was taken away from the premises and was being held somewhere else. That was supposed to give her and John time to do something about the body.

For the record, I don't think Patsy was the killer but I think she knew who was and that she was working hard to protect that person. I'm pretty much in the "BR did it" camp which I feel best explains why she and John went to such lengths to avoid LE and withhold items that were asked for in the investigation.

Can you remember what items they withheld from investigators?

 

[Donnertronner]

I believe in the group saying there were three individuals involved, two male, one female. Apparently they have been identified via DNA evidence.

 

[CircuitGuy]

I realize that Patsy's 911 call also has two Minimizing Justs: "I just got the note, and my daughter's gone." and "Please, we just got up and she's not here."

I don't think the call was sincere. But I don't those instances of the word just are minimizing. I think she's saying it happened moments ago. This use of the word just sounds normal to me.

 

[CircuitGuy]

In the paper below the author also talks about extraneous information, possession of the problem and incorrect order:
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1485&context=master201019

As many people have noted Patsy oddly says "We have a kidnapping." I think that would be Possession of the Problem." "There's a note left and our daughter's gone" would be Incorrect Order. Patsy mentioning the note three times is Repetition. "She's blonde" could be Extraneous Information. Patsy saying "please" seven times equals Inappropriate Politeness. "What?" is Thinking Pause. I don't know how to evaluate "I'm the mother," but I think it should be in there somewhere, maybe in something called Distancing.

That thesis paper is interesting. I see several of the red flags described in the paper in this call.

Factors Present in the 911 Call: (All of these are only marginally correlated with guilt according to the study. They're not "red flags" in the author's model.)
7. Possession of the Problem - Saying "I have a problem" instead of describing the problem. Clearly present - In the study this was correlated with guilt, but not that strongly.
8. Thinking Pause - Asking "What?" in response to "Does it say who took her?" sounds like a a thinking pause to me rather than saying she didn't get the question. -
12. Lack of Fear - To me this is overwhelmingly present. It wasn't like she found a dead body on the street. Someone had broken into her house. How could there not be some fear of the perpetrator being nearby?

Jim Cromer (the author) says that Lack of Fear is not statically significant in their study. Of the two cases where the caller was guilty and in danger, in both cases they did not express fear. Of the innocent callers in imminent danger, however, over half of them did not express fear either.
The lack of fear is very suspicious to me. I'm interested in what the rate of lack of fear is for larger samples of guilty callers. In this small sample, the rate of lack of fear is 100%.


Factors Not Present: (ones considered "red flags" in the paper's model are in red.)
1. Lack of Plea for Help - The 911 call exhibits the opposite. Patsy does ask for help urgently.
2. Extraneous Information - I don't count "she's blond". I would count if Patsy told a story of how they had been at a party and possibly some things that happened at the party, as if telling a story rather than calling for help. I don't see that here.
3. Conflicting Facts
4. Non-Responsive Remark
6. Inappropriate politeness - I don't count please as being polite. I think it was part of the urgent plea for help.
9. Minimizing Just - The paper includes people saying I just got here, the way I speak English it would almost be wrong not to say just when describing something that happened moments ago.
10. Unexplained knowledge
11. Narrative "with" - This is when you say I did XYZ with the victim rather than the victim and I did XYZ. "I'm the mother" and "she's blond" could fall remotely into this because it sounds so distant. I think she may have been used to her hearing her described this way at pageants, with her name age, hair color, the parents' names, etc.
13. Incorrect Order - I don't count there's a note left and our daughter's gone as incorrect order because she said she made those discoveries in that order. It's a little bit odd use of the passive voice: "there's a note left" rather than "they left a note", but passive voice is logical because she was saying she didn't know who left the note.
14. Weapon Touch - This is where the caller explains away some evidence the police may find. We really don't see any of that here.
15. Second Caller - Handing the phone to someone else. - She could have easily put John on the phone, but she didn't.

NA:
5. Accepting the body dead. - It's not applicable to the call, but this red flag is present when John found her. I didn't hear about him saying call an ambulance in case she might still be alive.
16. Reporting secondhand knowledge with urgency of being present at scene of the crime

So none of the "red flags" are present. 94% of innocent callers had 0 red flags. 57% of guilty callers had 0 red flags.


My Conclusion: This study's model does not show signs indicative of guilt in the Ramsey 911 call. The study sample size was small though. Intuitively, the black of fear really stands out to me. All cases where the caller was guilty and should have been in fear based on the fact pattern (well both b/c it was 2 cases) did not express fear. I suspect there's something to that, which would become significant with a larger sample. I just don't see how fear of the perpetrator never came up.

 

[fr brown]

....13. Incorrect Order - I don't count there's a note left and our daughter's gone as incorrect order because she said she made those discoveries in that order....

On Dec. 26 Patsy told Ofc. French she discovered JonBenet was not in her bed before she went downstairs and found the note.