Hi gang - long time lurker finally got registered. I've been reading this forum for almost 6 years. Love it.
There are so many things about this case to talk about, but here are some things i think in a nutshell:
The 911 call on the 23rd is a big clue. Someone made that call and either hung up to avoid being detected, hung up because they changed their mind, or got cut off. Something happened then and i'm certain it's part of this.
The reason why i'm certain this case is RDI is this: The ransom note clearly stated that they must not involve not only police, but friends as well. So what did the Ramsey's do? They called as many people as they could. Now if they truly believed they were being watched, they would not have gathered so many people in the house.
The reason they did this was so that JB would be "killed". "Woopsadaisy, we forgot to follow the instructions and now looks what's happened. Couldn't have been us."
I think their original plan would have been to get JB's body out of the house, but that part of the plan didn't get to materialise.
I'm not sure if the killing was accidental (as in someone lashed out at her but didn't intend to kill her) or premeditated. The 911 call on the 23rd puts doubt in my mind that it was purely accidental, but at the same time i have a hard time believing that someone planned to kill her in advance. Hard to say.
But i do think it was Patsy, and Steve Thomas' theory makes a LOT of sense.
I have to say that i haven't read/heard an IDI theory that fully makes sense and puts all of the pieces together. Most of them are missing important links, or leave facts out. I think it couldn't possibly have been an intruder.