Psychology Today Forensic Psychologist

[Tobiano8th]

i apologize in advance. i probably should have done some sort of search on this as i'm guessing it's been talked about alot here....

but anyway, here goes.

Who Killed JonBenet? Part 2: The Ransom Note

basically, 3 parts to this......... i disagree with some of what he says. of course, he's the expert and i'm nobody.

the big thing i think all kinds of people underestimate is that the ransom note isn't truthful at all.. PR or an intruder is just making stuff up. but people look for clues as if the note is truthful/logical............ if PR wrote it, she's writing it presumably as she thinks a male would write.

the ransom note written by an "english as a 2nd language"??.... i do agree with him on being confused on the indictment...

i've dug in on first degree murder. with child involved, intent/planning isn't required (in colorado). but the "assisting with first degree murder" when seemingly no one was going to be charged with that is very curious

here is the 1 comment that i really disagreed with,

I concluded, considering the enigmatic note on its own, that it leads me to believe it was written by an at least close-to-middle aged male intruder, familiar with John Ramsey's business, resentful of his affluence, and possibly of foreign birth, with English being his second language.

 

[fr brown]

i apologize in advance. i probably should have done some sort of search on this as i'm guessing it's been talked about alot here....

but anyway, here goes.

Who Killed JonBenet? Part 2: The Ransom Note

basically, 3 parts to this......... i disagree with some of what he says. of course, he's the expert and i'm nobody.

the big thing i think all kinds of people underestimate is that the ransom note isn't truthful at all.. PR or an intruder is just making stuff up. but people look for clues as if the note is truthful/logical............ if PR wrote it, she's writing it presumably as she thinks a male would write.

the ransom note written by an "english as a 2nd language"??.... i do agree with him on being confused on the indictment...

i've dug in on first degree murder. with child involved, intent/planning isn't required (in colorado). but the "assisting with first degree murder" when seemingly no one was going to be charged with that is very curious

here is the 1 comment that i really disagreed with,

I concluded, considering the enigmatic note on its own, that it leads me to believe it was written by an at least close-to-middle aged male intruder, familiar with John Ramsey's business, resentful of his affluence, and possibly of foreign birth, with English being his second language.

Maybe it was written by someone impersonating a middle-aged male....

Personally, I find these kinds of psychological analyses to be bogus. They're designed to come to a predetermined conclusion. That's fine. It passes the time.

This is the kind of statement I really find objectionable: "The use of lower case rather than capital letters and periods in 'am' (as opposed to the more usual abbreviation A.M.) hints again at the possibility of a non-native speaker or writer of English."

Who says that "A.M." is more usual? Both the AP and NYT style manuals recommend "a.m." (NYT only uses "A.M." in headlines.) In actual practice "8 a.m." has always beaten "8 A.M." by a mile and starting around 1981 "8 am" also beats "8 A.M."

 

[fr brown]

Maybe it was written by someone impersonating a middle-aged male....

Personally, I find these kinds of psychological analyses to be bogus. They're designed to come to a predetermined conclusion. That's fine. It passes the time.

This is the kind of statement I really find objectionable: "The use of lower case rather than capital letters and periods in 'am' (as opposed to the more usual abbreviation A.M.) hints again at the possibility of a non-native speaker or writer of English."

Who says that "A.M." is more usual? Both the AP and NYT style manuals recommend "a.m." (NYT only uses "A.M." in headlines.) In actual practice "8 a.m." has always beaten "8 A.M." by a mile and starting around 1981 "8 am" also beats "8 A.M."

I think the following is a meaningful observation about "am" versus "A.M."

Ransom note:
10 am

Patsy, 1/4/97:
10 a.m. (the period after the "a" may be an afterthought. It's extremely close.)
10 a.m.
10 a.m.

After the 1/4/97 session Patsy and her lawyers are given a xerox of the ransom note.

Patsy, 2/28/97:
10 A.m.
10 A.M.

 

[edpower]

i apologize in advance. i probably should have done some sort of search on this as i'm guessing it's been talked about alot here....

but anyway, here goes.

Who Killed JonBenet? Part 2: The Ransom Note

basically, 3 parts to this......... i disagree with some of what he says. of course, he's the expert and i'm nobody.

the big thing i think all kinds of people underestimate is that the ransom note isn't truthful at all.. PR or an intruder is just making stuff up. but people look for clues as if the note is truthful/logical............ if PR wrote it, she's writing it presumably as she thinks a male would write.

the ransom note written by an "english as a 2nd language"??.... i do agree with him on being confused on the indictment...

i've dug in on first degree murder. with child involved, intent/planning isn't required (in colorado). but the "assisting with first degree murder" when seemingly no one was going to be charged with that is very curious

here is the 1 comment that i really disagreed with,

I concluded, considering the enigmatic note on its own, that it leads me to believe it was written by an at least close-to-middle aged male intruder, familiar with John Ramsey's business, resentful of his affluence, and possibly of foreign birth, with English being his second language.

I love this series of articles.

When I first read them, the idea English wasn't the writer's first/only language really struck me.

The fact they primarily misspelled words with multiple ‘s’s; ‘bussiness’ and ‘posession’ means it's more of a natural 'tick' the writer has, as it'd be hard to fake, especially in a panicked situation.

That caused me to look up who would typically make these kinds of errors and I found this:

Language differences: English - Spanish

“A specific problem concerns the spelling of English words with double letters. Spanish has only 3 double-letter combinations cc, ll, rr. English, in comparison, has 5 times as many. Spanish learners often reduce English double letters to a single one, or overcompensate by doubling a letter unnecessarily; for example hopping for the present participle of hope.”

So that plus the pointing out of words like ‘faction’ and ‘attache’ instead of briefcase, pointing the author possibly being from Europe, which would support Spain and other European Spanish speaking countries as the author’s place of origin.

Then a few weeks later I watched a special on the JBR murder where they revealed the DNA profile they're working with is that of a Hispanic male, and it all just clicked or me:

The intruder seems to have been a Hispanic male.

 

[fr brown]

I love this series of articles.

When I first read them, the idea English wasn't the writer's first/only language really struck me.

The fact they primarily misspelled words with multiple ‘s’s; ‘bussiness’ and ‘posession’ means it's more of a natural 'tick' the writer has, as it'd be hard to fake, especially in a panicked situation.

That caused me to look up who would typically make these kinds of errors and I found this:

Language differences: English - Spanish

“A specific problem concerns the spelling of English words with double letters. Spanish has only 3 double-letter combinations cc, ll, rr. English, in comparison, has 5 times as many. Spanish learners often reduce English double letters to a single one, or overcompensate by doubling a letter unnecessarily; for example hopping for the present participle of hope.”

So that plus the pointing out of words like ‘faction’ and ‘attache’ instead of briefcase, pointing the author possibly being from Europe, which would support Spain and other European Spanish speaking countries as the author’s place of origin.

Then a few weeks later I watched a special on the JBR murder where they revealed the DNA profile they're working with is that of a Hispanic male, and it all just clicked or me:

The intruder seems to have been a Hispanic male.

Except that attache' doesn't mean briefcase in French (or Spanish). Briefcase in French is mallette: briefcase in Spanish is maletin. Attache' cases seem to be North American.

And if you look at the other article you referenced, the English-language pitfalls for native Spanish speakers go far beyond double consonants. I would expect abundant other evidence of non-nativeness in the ransom note (though deviation of might qualify).

The fact is that even those who have English as their first language struggle with double consonants. In my case, if there is one set of double consonants in the middle of a word, I often have a doubt as to which consonants those might be. (I once had an instructor write "perrrennnial" on the board. He had the same problem.)

As far as writing bussiness goes, when I went looking for it, this particular (rare) misspelling seemed to be associated with South Asia.

 

[Tobiano8th]

thanks for the responses

i think the ransom note is an incredibly well written document. i wish i could write that well. look at the flow and sentence construction. really no awkward sentences that i remember.

who could write that well and under a ton of time pressure?..... an english major, a journalism major? .... granted there are many of those in the world and in boulder at the time. note this is not a sarastic comment, there are lots of these out there. but most pedophile drifter types don't qualify.

 

[edpower]

Except that attache' doesn't mean briefcase in French (or Spanish). Briefcase in French is mallette: briefcase in Spanish is maletin. Attache' cases seem to be North American.

And if you look at the other article you referenced, the English-language pitfalls for native Spanish speakers go far beyond double consonants. I would expect abundant other evidence of non-nativeness in the ransom note (though deviation of might qualify).

The fact is that even those who have English as their first language struggle with double consonants. In my case, if there is one set of double consonants in the middle of a word, I often have a doubt as to which consonants those might be. (I once had an instructor write "perrrennnial" on the board. He had the same problem.)

As far as writing bussiness goes, when I went looking for it, this particular (rare) misspelling seemed to be associated with South Asia.

Wow. Nice! Thanks!

Anyone have any thoughts on the fact the words regarding law enforcement being capitalized? They mention that too in the articles.

 

[bambinoti]

thanks for the responses

i think the ransom note is an incredibly well written document. i wish i could write that well. look at the flow and sentence construction. really no awkward sentences that i remember.

who could write that well and under a ton of time pressure?..... an english major, a journalism major? .... granted there are many of those in the world and in boulder at the time. note this is not a sarastic comment, there are lots of these out there. but most pedophile drifter types don't qualify.

i've dug in on first degree murder. with child involved, intent/planning isn't required (in colorado). but the "assisting with first degree murder" when seemingly no one was going to be charged with that is very curious

 

[UKGuy]

i've dug in on first degree murder. with child involved, intent/planning isn't required (in colorado). but the "assisting with first degree murder" when seemingly no one was going to be charged with that is very curious

Since the "assisting with first degree murder" was GJ count, this leaves open the possibility that either parent could be charged with Murder1 at a later date?


The ransom note was authored by Patsy, no hand writing analysis is required, the construction and narrative along with the genre words used could only have been penned by her. The lady with the Literature Degree *advertiser censored* Laud.

.

 

[887sMtreme]

DBM

 

[887sMtreme]

Except that attache' doesn't mean briefcase in French (or Spanish). Briefcase in French is mallette: briefcase in Spanish is maletin. Attache' cases seem to be North American.
<Respectfully snipped for focus>

To be picky, attaché isn’t supposed to mean briefcase. In the RN, it’s an adjective used to describe a type of case. Though this is less common today, an attaché (the generic title of a diplomatic staff person) used to travel with important papers in a satchel that came to be called an attaché case. Lawyers carried their important papers, or briefs, in a similar thing, which came to be called a briefcase. This term gained general usage, while people feigning worldly sophistication have often preferred To say “attaché case.” Doesn’t that sound like Patsy?