The Scream in the Middle of Christmas Night.

A striking part about the Jonbenet case the report that a neighbor had heard a scream coming from the Rasmbey house on Christmas night a little past midnight (from another source I read it was 2 AM...but I seem to see the "past midnight" figure more).
Apparently this scream was placed as coming from the basement. I believe the husband of the woman who heard it also said he heard a "metal grating" sound.
If this scream was Jonbenet's, this very well may have marked when her murder began. Only question would be...would this scream have happened when she was struck in the head? I suppose it would, since I've read after the blow she would have been unconscious.

Jonbenet died between 10 PM and 6AM. The parents claimed they put a sleeping Jonbenet to bed from "nineish" to 10.
Burke places Jonbenet as awake when they all got home, and walking into the house. John Ramsey also originally stated he had read to Jonbenet before she went to sleep (he later denied he did that). And naturally, we have the pineapple which if one listened to the parents, should not have been on the table or in Jonbenet's system.

I have also read a separate neighbor said she had seen lights on in the Ramsey house during the night. I haven't been able to find more info about that, though.

I also found an interesting piece of an interview between Patsy and Tom Haney:

PATSY RAMSEY: Uh-huh, I have flashbacks of
17 seeing my daughter lying down on the floor in our
18 living room, and I have flashbacks of hearing JonBenet
19 scream. I have nightmares where I am, you know,
20 searching, searching, searching trying to find
21 somebody, and trying to find who did this.

Complete interview: http://www.jonbenetindexguide.com/1998BPD-Patsy-Interview-Complete.txt

Very strange for to her to include flashbacks of Jonbenet screaming in with flashbacks of seeing her body on the floor.
After all, according to the parents, they never woke up and never heard a scream.

Very strange for to her to include flashbacks of Jonbenet screaming

Interesting observation. Another slip of the tongue maybe...

The screams in the night were reported my Melodie Stanton and the metal on concrete noise was reported by her husband Luther after she woke him up.

Later this scream came into doubt by R's own lawyers as reported by Ellis Armistead. Melodie later was unsure of which day she heard the scream and at one point described it being a non audible scream but a form of energy emerging from JBR.

Luther never recanted his metal on concrete noise observation.

I would imagine that any mother who had her 6 year old daughter beaten, strangled and assaulted would have terrible thoughts of what her last moments were. Patsy knew of the neighbor hearing a scream, no mother would be able to get that image out of her mind IMO.

OB

tumble said:

Very strange for to her to include flashbacks of Jonbenet screaming

Interesting observation. Another slip of the tongue maybe...

The screams in the night were reported my Melodie Stanton and the metal on concrete noise was reported by her husband Luther after she woke him up.

Later this scream came into doubt by R's own lawyers as reported by Ellis Armistead. Melodie later was unsure of which day she heard the scream and at one point described it being a non audible scream but a form of energy emerging from JBR.

Luther never recanted his metal on concrete noise observation.

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Yeah, I had also read about how Melodie went to "become unsure" and then started describing it as energy coming from Jonbenet (naturally whenever a witness gets weird her credibility may drop). One wonder if she had a reason for feeling discouraged.

Old Broad said:

I would imagine that any mother who had her 6 year old daughter beaten, strangled and assaulted would have terrible thoughts of what her last moments were. Patsy knew of the neighbor hearing a scream, no mother would be able to get that image out of her mind IMO.

OB

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This is true...a distraught mother would have certain imaginings.

I simply noted in her interview it was odd how she mixed in a statement that paints her as having heard her scream along with another event she personally witnessed.

SleuthingSleuth said:

A striking part about the Jonbenet case the report that a neighbor had heard a scream coming from the Rasmbey house on Christmas night a little past midnight (from another source I read it was 2 AM...but I seem to see the "past midnight" figure more).
Apparently this scream was placed as coming from the basement. I believe the husband of the woman who heard it also said he heard a "metal grating" sound.
If this scream was Jonbenet's, this very well may have marked when her murder began. Only question would be...would this scream have happened when she was struck in the head? I suppose it would, since I've read after the blow she would have been unconscious.

Jonbenet died between 10 PM and 6AM. The parents claimed they put a sleeping Jonbenet to bed from "nineish" to 10.
Burke places Jonbenet as awake when they all got home, and walking into the house. John Ramsey also originally stated he had read to Jonbenet before she went to sleep (he later denied he did that). And naturally, we have the pineapple which if one listened to the parents, should not have been on the table or in Jonbenet's system.

I have also read a separate neighbor said she had seen lights on in the Ramsey house during the night. I haven't been able to find more info about that, though.

I also found an interesting piece of an interview between Patsy and Tom Haney:

PATSY RAMSEY: Uh-huh, I have flashbacks of
17 seeing my daughter lying down on the floor in our
18 living room, and I have flashbacks of hearing JonBenet
19 scream. I have nightmares where I am, you know,
20 searching, searching, searching trying to find
21 somebody, and trying to find who did this.

Complete interview: http://www.jonbenetindexguide.com/1998BPD-Patsy-Interview-Complete.txt

Very strange for to her to include flashbacks of Jonbenet screaming in with flashbacks of seeing her body on the floor.
After all, according to the parents, they never woke up and never heard a scream.

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The scream would, of course, mean there was absolutly no drugging of JBR. I would imagine that being involved in a situation like that would cause Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It involves nightmares, night terrors, anxiety..ect.

JonBenet could not possibly have screamed after being hit on the head. The force in which she was struck would have immediately rendered her unconcious.

A flashback is a recall of an actual memory, not an imaging of what might have been. Patsy referring to a flashback of JBR screaming is her referring to a memory. If it wasn't an actual memory and a slip of the tongue to call it a flashback, she should have clarified that. However, I always consider someone's first automatic response to be the truth... often "clarification" after the fact is a cover up. Politicians are guilty of this all the time. I just tend not to put much faith into anything that comes after "what I meant to say was, blah, blah, blah...".

Toltec said:

JonBenet could not possibly have screamed after being hit on the head. The force in which she was struck would have immediately rendered her unconcious.

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This is true. The scream, if hers, was either leading up to the blow to her head, or as it happened.

What really strikes me is that if it was an intruder...they normally should have been getting out of Dodge right after the scream. Screams jar an intruder (they're usually jumpy enough)...it would make them worry others in the house heard the scream and so, having struck Jonbenet, they would make their escape post-haste.
It's highly unusual an intruder would stay and do everything that was done to her past the head blow.

Seems like either an intruder with nerves of steel, or no intruder. Or...an intruder who escaped after the headblow...and did nothing past that.

I think it was the person that killed her screaming. Screaming because their rage had resulted in her death.
IMHO

curiositycat said:

I think it was the person that killed her screaming. Screaming because their rage had resulted in her death.
IMHO

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Is possible...we can't really know for sure as it is now if it was Jonbenet screaming, her killer, or a third person who came upon the scene.

curiositycat said:

I think it was the person that killed her screaming. Screaming because their rage had resulted in her death.
IMHO

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Very interesting, that could be. But...lets say that this was the case. And say Karr(or who ever) killed her and then screamed. The Ramsey's should have heard this.

The scream which a neighbour heard (and is not even too sure about) is another difficulty in the case. One would expect a killer to flee immediately to avoid detection. But we don't know he circumstances - maybe he was drugged himself and fearless at that time. He does seem too cool and confident in sticking around to arrange the body, close the door of the room, and even put a chair against it, and then exit the house.

One major difficulty: If he was going to kidnap her, why hurt her in their house? Maybe he only meant to subdue her and then take her away but then where was he going to take her, if he was just on holiday with his brother in Colorado? And what was he going to do, have his brother an accessory?

He insists it was an accident. If it was meant to be a kidnapping of a live child for money, why strangle her and also crack her skull? I have always wondered if the cracked skull was the accident, and it was from dropping her while trying to get her out of the window. It was a concrete floor, the question is, would such a fall cause the skull to crack that way? Would he then panic, realize she was dead and then decide to arrange the body and leave? Did he forget he had left the ransom note on the stairs? It makes no sense to leave the note if she was dead.

The note is so long that it surely can't have been written after the torture and the death, when he would have been wanting to escape right away. So I think he forgot it.

would such a fall cause the skull to crack that way

Many think it was the flashlight that hit her on the head. The head of the flashlight matched the indented part of the skull.

It makes no sense to leave the note if she was dead.

Agree

lilpony said:

Very interesting, that could be. But...lets say that this was the case. And say Karr(or who ever) killed her and then screamed. The Ramsey's should have heard this.

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Yes, they SHOULD have heard it, BUT....If she was in the basement at the time of the scream, which most people deduce to be the case, there is an extremely high chance they didn't hear her scream. In the basement is a huge, cylindrical duct-like thing, I don't know what it is called--last night on TV Lou Smit said it was akin to being a large megaphone, I think it is some sort of air return? Anyway, it leads directly to outside, right in the direction of the neighbors house. They have done tests having one person in the basement scream, one person listening for it IN the neighbors house, and someone else upstairs in John & Patsy's room. What they found out is that it could be CLEARLY heard from INSIDE the neighbors quiet house, while it was BARELY audible from upstairs in the Ramsey's bedroom. It sounds ridiculous, but not when you put that big-duct-thing in the picture. It is because of that that sounds in the basement can clearly be heard outside, but barely can from upstairs.

Lets say there was a scream and the R's didn't hear it.

She didn't scream going down into the basement with the perp.

Was the perp molesting her without any duct tape and ligature at that moment?
Was it after the scream he decided to use the duct tape he had brought to the scene, and continue from there?

The perp apperantly already knew what LE had to to serious testing to understand, that the scream was inaudible in R's bedroom. And he kind of knew that Melodie Stanton would not call LE giving him plenty of time.

julianne said:

Yes, they SHOULD have heard it, BUT....If she was in the basement at the time of the scream, which most people deduce to be the case, there is an extremely high chance they didn't hear her scream. In the basement is a huge, cylindrical duct-like thing, I don't know what it is called--last night on TV Lou Smit said it was akin to being a large megaphone, I think it is some sort of air return? Anyway, it leads directly to outside, right in the direction of the neighbors house. They have done tests having one person in the basement scream, one person listening for it IN the neighbors house, and someone else upstairs in John & Patsy's room. What they found out is that it could be CLEARLY heard from INSIDE the neighbors quiet house, while it was BARELY audible from upstairs in the Ramsey's bedroom. It sounds ridiculous, but not when you put that big-duct-thing in the picture. It is because of that that sounds in the basement can clearly be heard outside, but barely can from upstairs.

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Julianne, thanks for the info. I did not know this. I understand now. I never really followed this case in the past. But I am very interested in it now.

tumble said:

Lets say there was a scream and the R's didn't hear it.

She didn't scream going down into the basement with the perp.

Was the perp molesting her without any duct tape and ligature at that moment?
Was it after the scream he decided to use the duct tape he had brought to the scene, and continue from there?

The perp apperantly already knew what LE had to to serious testing to understand, that the scream was inaudible in R's bedroom. And he kind of knew that Melodie Stanton would not call LE giving him plenty of time.

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Indeed...he wouldn't have known about how the acoustics worked in the house. First thing on his mind would be "Everyone else in the house MUST have heard that". Second thing to hit his mind would be the neighbors. It probably was a loud scream.

It's hard for me to swallow he just continued on (possible scenario)...molesting her with a paint brush handle, possibly sexually assaulting her himself in some way., wiping her down, fashioning a garrote and using it, loosely tying something to her wrist, covering her up, maybe go wite a ransom note if he hadn't already...and THEN leave the house all while remembering what things to take back with him.

I also would find it hard to believe a guy who was maybe doing this for the first time would have such steely nerves.

SleuthingSleuth said:

Indeed...he wouldn't have known about how the acoustics worked in the house. First thing on his mind would be "Everyone else in the house MUST have heard that". Second thing to hit his mind would be the neighbors. It probably was a loud scream.

It's hard for me to swallow he just continued on (possible scenario)...molesting her with a paint brush handle, possibly sexually assaulting her himself in some way., wiping her down, fashioning a garrote and using it, loosely tying something to her wrist, covering her up, maybe go wite a ransom note if he hadn't already...and THEN leave the house all while remembering what things to take back with him.

I also would find it hard to believe a guy who was maybe doing this for the first time would have such steely nerves.

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Indeed. And why was JBR found with duct tape on her if he didn't use it to start with? He brought it to the scene.

And on top of it it seems he applied the duct tape when she was unconcious, a perfect lip imprint was left on the patch.

Stange, he lets her scream but finds it appropriate to duct tape her when she has passed out.

tumble said:

Indeed. And why was JBR found with duct tape on her if he didn't use it to start with? He brought it to the scene.

And on top of it it seems he applied the duct tape when she was unconcious, a perfect lip imprint was left on the patch.

Stange, he lets her scream but finds it appropriate to duct tape her when she has passed out.

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Yep...the tape was put on her after she was out cold or dead. Was part of staging.

The only intruder theory I can think of is someone who was trying to copy the Polly Klaas case...which means somehow they got Jonbenet down to the basement without her making a sound...and then in the basement she screamed and they struck her in a panic. With her appearing dead, the intruder flees the scene, his plan botched.
In such a theory...the ransom note must have been written earlier that night before the murder. Plan would have been to take her and leave the note as a deception.
Such a theory though would have no explanation or allowance for the garotting and staging...the intruder would have no reason to do any of that (my only guess in such a theory would be fetish), and would have been pressured to leave after the scream anyways...which kinda ruins the mood for a "fetish moment".

But for an intruder to be using his own tape that has fibers from Patsy's clothes on the sticky side...that's a tough sell.

Too many odd things in the case make intruder theories seemed forced.