20/20 Special - The List: Who Killed Jonbenet? on 15 Jan 2021

[Spartygirl]

Final 10 minutes, MH revealed as suspect.

And

?"There was a person seen walking across the lawn the night of the murder"?

Ha..
first I have heard of that... and Ive been following since the beginning.
well, darn...get a photo of this person "walking across the yard" and lets investigate. Sheesh

 

[ReconDoc83]

The fact that the DNA was found co-mingled with JonBenet’s blood, and nowhere else on the panties indicates it got there from the wound inside of her, made by the end of the paintbrush that is missing. Years later they found the same profile on her longJohns. This second find eliminates contamination of the first because they were tested in two different labs on two separate items of clothing years apart.

Would it be so bad if BPD were to green light analysts in pursuing a genetic search of the DNA evidence? Is there some compelling reason the Ramseys should not be allowed to clear their name once and for all?

their names were cleared in 2008....

 

[root661]

their names were cleared in 2008....

And then came Garnett and they weren't and haven't been since as I understand it.

“I’ve said many times that I thought the exoneration letter was ill-advised and was of no legal consequence, but I always understood it to be based entirely on the DNA and the analysis by Ms. Lacy of the DNA,” Garnett told the Camera.

DNA in doubt: What's next in JonBenét Ramsey case? | 9news.com

 

[icedtea4me]

their names were cleared in 2008....

Why? Because of foreign dna? That dna from saliva which contains skin cells could've been left on a cloth napkin by one of the Ramseys' male guests who was at their Xmas party on 23 Dec. That dna could've gotten to where it was found via secondary transfer.

 

[searchinGirl]

Why? Because of foreign dna? That dna from saliva which contains skin cells could've been left on a cloth napkin by one of the Ramseys' male guests who was at their Xmas party on 23 Dec. That dna could've gotten to where it was found via secondary transfer.

Just curious. Do you begrudge the Ramsey family of wanting to find the murderer of JonBenet?

 

[searchinGirl]

their names were cleared in 2008....

Yes you are right. I should have said it is time to actually solve this crime once and for all. Thank you.

 

[Colorado303]

@Colorado303,

I understand the need to find a 3rd option here because the reality of the crime is harsh. But let's take this possibility to the next level.....

Premise: JR, PR, JBR, or BR opens the door and lets someone in the house who ultimately kills JBR.

Would you:

A. Turn them into the police?

B. Kill them yourselves?

C. Allow them to roam free to kill other children, write a ransom note, and cover it up for 25 years all the while allowing your own family to be suspect #1?

Nope, I wouldn’t. Unless my spouse had absolutely no idea it was going on and I was desperate to make sure they never found out. Highly unlikely, but it can be made to fit the facts (one of which the grand jurors believed was Patsy wrote the ransom note).
IMO the same can’t be said for the intruder theory.

My odds:

80+%—BR killed his sister and parent(s) covered it up. Or parent(s) thought he had and staged the cover-up unaware she was still alive.

15% — A parent (almost certainly Patsy rather than John) killed her in a fit of anger and staged the cover up.

<5% — A 3rd party killed her after knowingly being given access to her by parent(s).

0% — She died during an act of sexual abuse by a family member

0% — An intruder entered the house without anyone’s knowledge and killed her.

 

[BoldBear]

I haven't been here in ages, but here are my reasons why Lou Smit doesn't deserve consideration:

1) The window well may be used as a point of entry, but it's not proven. There were 6 points of entry from the first floor with 2 children in the family and Burke's friends being in the home on Christmas day. Any one of those doors could have been unlocked and all an intruder had to do was turn a door handle to enter the home. Lou Smit dismisses this and focuses only on the window well. Since there are so many points of entry and no evidence that 1 door wasn't accidentally left open, the window well is just speculation. Treat the window well entry as speculation--the whole long list of evidence that Lou produces about the window well creates an intruder story. Without it, there are very few pieces of evidence that point to an intruder.

John already claimed that he broke the basement window. Patsy claimed that she cleaned-up the broken glass with LHP. following her with the vacuum. (This was a poor job of vacuuming because pieces of glass were left behind.)

2) The window well as an exit. Lou liked to speculate that the suitcase was used for an intruder to climb into the window well. *important* Understand the layout of the house and where the window well was located--it's easily viewed from central and high trafficked locations in the home. In order for an intruder to have 1st-floor access to the notepad and the pen, then that person would have command of the 1st floor. An intruder can be unseen going from the basement to the lower half of the house. From there, there are only a few feet from the 1st floor and back kitchen/study and the exit close to the window well grate. Would someone have done such a slow climb-out from a window well (that was in a central and visible location to those who lived in the house) or simply have snuck around the 1st floor and taken the quick door out? There was too much work and unnecessary exposure to want to climb out of the window well with the grate when there was an easier way out.

There was an alarm pad in the mudroom just off of the back hallway. Someone with access to the 1st floor and enough time to kidnap JB from her room on the 2nd floor and write a 2.5-page ransom note along with a practice ransom note would have had enough time to locate the alarm pad in the mudroom and see if it was armed or not--it was never armed. (Something Lou didn't bother to mention.)

3) Lou speculates that the intruder waited in the house before the Ramseys returned home from a Christmas party at the Whites. 1 point of evidence he used was that a dust ruffle was out of place in the guest bedroom on the 2nd floor. Again there were 2 children in the home on Christmas day and a stack of fallen children's video cassettes in the room where the dust ruffle was out of place. How does Lou know the displacement of the dust ruffle came from an intruder and not one of the children (maybe looking for hidden Christmas gifts before Christmas day?) This was wild speculation on his part.

4) Lou found some rope in the guest bedroom. Some rope? Well, JAR could have used that rope for his rock climbing. Or (Patsy didn't remember) but there was a rope that looked like it used on a scarecrow for Halloween. Lou assumed that the intruder brought it with him. Unfortunately, there was some confusion because the rope was found in a duffle bag in that room. Why was it there? Lou wanted to connect it to an intruder. Why wasn't it tested for DNA?

5) Early on, there was an unidentified palm print on the door to the windowless room. That palm print was later to be identified to belong to one of the members of the family--no intruder.

6) The unidentified boot print in the windowless room. Burke could have owned the boots. Those boots have not been found but there have been several reports that Burke owned that brand. Also one of the investigators could have left the boot print in that room so the boot print can be from contamination from and investigator.

Burke and Jonbenet's presents were left in the windowless room before Christmas. The woodblock lock at the top of the door was why the parents assumed that the windowless room was a safe place to hide Christmas presents. Kids find Christmas presents and they were aware of the room.

7) DNA evidence. Too many details to go over the DNA evidence. It also needs to presented as to what was known during the evolution of DNA evidence during the Ramsey years. The answers to why this case isn't going to be solved by the DNA evidence needs to be explained in more detail than I'm willing to go into here. If you think it's a DNA case, then I'm sorry for what you don't understand. The details aren't simple but they are available if you want to do the research. They've been listed before, but I don't know if the changes in DNA technology over the Ramsey years have been logged and presented in on simple report to explain what was believed in the 2000s and what is now understood in the 2020s.

There's also a gross assumption that the investigators on the Ramsey case didn't want to find an intruder. I don't know of one investigator who wouldn't have been thrilled to find 1 person outside of the house that produced enough evidence for consideration. These investigators were working 24/7 to the point of burn-out. The investigators also sometimes followed leads out of state searching for that one person who may have any evidence. If anyone may have had 1 piece of evidence, the investigators would have been thrilled; instead, they had to face continuous disappointment. Had Lou Smit presented one viable suspect, the investigators would have listened. They wanted desperately to solve this case. Unfortunately, the evidence kept pointing back to no intruder.

I personally believe, Lou Smit was trying to relive one of his greatest cases that cleared some other falsy accused parents. This was a case where a member of Lou Smit's team finally found a fingerprint on a screen door that had been overlooked. Lou took credit because he was in charge of the case. He wanted to relive this glory through the Ramsey case but was never able to find that overlooked fingerprint. Unfortunately, it may be that there was no overlooked fingerprint in this case. That leaves Lou's epitaph, a very sad one. He either couldn't solve the case or allowed a guilty person to evade justice. That's just sad.

 

[ReconDoc83]

Why? Because of foreign dna? That dna from saliva which contains skin cells could've been left on a cloth napkin by one of the Ramseys' male guests who was at their Xmas party on 23 Dec. That dna could've gotten to where it was found via secondary transfer.

i am asking again.....

how would anyone’s saliva, other than an assailant, be found INSIDE the panties of a 5 year old child...panties she was still wearing?

how many people do you let put their napkins, hands, down the pants of your child?

the difference between “touch” DNA as would be described in collecting evidence from the ransom note, or the garot....is NOT the same DNA that was recovered from INSIDE that child’s underwear! That wasn’t touch DNA; it was a bodily fluid sample, a sample that generated, as was stated in numerous programs a FULL DNA profile. DNA that DID NOT match ANY Ramsey family member.

also, as I said previously....the “bodily fluids” sample has NOT been identified as saliva, saliva alone, semen, semen alone, or a mixture...it is identified as bodily fluids and “foreign DNA, NOT related to ANY Ramsey family member”.

also, the ideas about JBR being a victim of repeated sexual assaults....the autopsy of the child notes an INTACT hymen; meaning she had not been a victim of any prior penetrating sexual intercourse.

again, as hard as the Bolder PD tried to hang this on the Ramsey family: if there were evidence of prior sexual abuse; and if the bodily fluids in her underwear had been DNA matched to JR or PR....they would have buried both of them UNDER the jail.

there was also no mention by any previous interviews of law enforcement, grand jurors, or documents that mention ANY evidence of prior, or ongoing sexual abuse of that child.

I just don’t understand why people continue to imply that this is a motive.

 

[icedtea4me]

Just curious. Do you begrudge the Ramsey family of wanting to find the murderer of JonBenet?

No, I don't. If I could, I'd ask John "Did JonBenet ever say and/or do anything to provoke you and/or Patsy?".

 

[searchinGirl]

No, I don't. If I could, I'd ask John "Did JonBenet ever say and/or do anything to provoke you and/or Patsy?".

Provoke them into hating her enough to harm her? They had no history of harming their children. It just doesn’t fly with me. Why would they be trying so hard to get Boulder Justice to do a genealogy search now if they were guilty? There has been an injustice in this case and I for one as a Boulder County resident would love to see it rectified after almost a quarter century of wanting to know what really happened.

 

[icedtea4me]

i am asking again.....

how would anyone’s saliva, other than an assailant, be found INSIDE the panties of a 5 year old child...panties she was still wearing?

how many people do you let put their napkins, hands, down the pants of your child?

the difference between “touch” DNA as would be described in collecting evidence from the ransom note, or the garot....is NOT the same DNA that was recovered from INSIDE that child’s underwear! That wasn’t touch DNA; it was a bodily fluid sample, a sample that generated, as was stated in numerous programs a FULL DNA profile. DNA that DID NOT match ANY Ramsey family member.

also, as I said previously....the “bodily fluids” sample has NOT been identified as saliva, saliva alone, semen, semen alone, or a mixture...it is identified as bodily fluids and “foreign DNA, NOT related to ANY Ramsey family member”.

also, the ideas about JBR being a victim of repeated sexual assaults....the autopsy of the child notes an INTACT hymen; meaning she had not been a victim of any prior penetrating sexual intercourse.

again, as hard as the Bolder PD tried to hang this on the Ramsey family: if there were evidence of prior sexual abuse; and if the bodily fluids in her underwear had been DNA matched to JR or PR....they would have buried both of them UNDER the jail.

there was also no mention by any previous interviews of law enforcement, grand jurors, or documents that mention ANY evidence of prior, or ongoing sexual abuse of that child.

I just don’t understand why people continue to imply that this is a motive.

No, Pythagoras. I do not think that Patsy nor John let people put their hands down JonBenet's pants. I think Patsy got the used cloth napkin from the basement laundry room, dampened it in the sink, and used it to wipe JonBenet not knowing there was dried saliva in its fibers.

 

[icedtea4me]

Provoke them into hating her enough to harm her? They had no history of harming their children. It just doesn’t fly with me. Why would they be trying so hard to get Boulder Justice to do a genealogy search now if they were guilty? There has been an injustice in this case and I for one as a Boulder County resident would love to see it rectified after almost a quarter century of wanting to know what really happened.

All it takes is a first time under chaotic circumstances for it to happen.

 

[searchinGirl]

All it takes is a first time under chaotic circumstances for it to happen.

Why then wouldn’t the Ramseys just let it be if they have gotten away with murder?

 

[searchinGirl]

7) DNA evidence. Too many details to go over the DNA evidence. It also needs to presented as to what was known during the evolution of DNA evidence during the Ramsey years. The answers to why this case isn't going to be solved by the DNA evidence needs to be explained in more detail than I'm willing to go into here. If you think it's a DNA case, then I'm sorry for what you don't understand. The details aren't simple but they are available if you want to do the research. They've been listed before, but I don't know if the changes in DNA technology over the Ramsey years have been logged and presented in on simple report to explain what was believed in the 2000s and what is now understood in the 2020s.

Did Bode miss it totally in their analysis of the DNA evidence they analyzed? I have summarized their findings in tabular format at www.searchingirl.com.

Seems to me the Grand Jury didn’t see/foresee enough of the DNA evidence to find it convincing but as it turns out it is not nothing.

 

[icedtea4me]

Why then wouldn’t the Ramseys just let it be if they have gotten away with murder?

Because their subconscious mind will not allow them to do so.

 

[searchinGirl]

Because their subconscious mind will not allow them to do so.

Ok. But aren’t they essentially poking the bear? I mean it would seem in everyone’s best interests to find the identity of the DNA profile. Then we would know if indeed it belongs to an intruder or if he has an innocent explanation for his DNA being found only in two JB blood drops on the panties, and on the front sides of the waistband of the longJohns. I’m pretty sure secondary transfer has been ruled out. And I can’t think of an innocent explanation.

 

[fr brown]

Not exactly. The partial matching in CODIS might produce a relative of the suspect and from there they would do the same kind of genetic rundown through public records like marriage, birth and death certificates as they do with genetic genealogy. This is how they solved the 1984 Bennett Family Murders only a few years ago. http://jonbenetramsey.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/128406174/1984 Aurora hammer killer evolved into predator, FBI profiler s.pdf

Unlike you I am not at all convinced Patsy wrote the ransom note. But in your scenario above, how likely is it that the DNA would be transferred to only the places on the panties where the blood drops fell?

Maybe they only swabbed the blood drop(s) in the underpants and likely places to have been touched like the waistband. I don't know.

But I think my "foreign saliva on glove which holds and breaks paintbrush" scenario would account for it.

 

[fr brown]

I’ll say again....the intruder didn’t enter via the window, they left via the window.

Uh, OK. It's Lou Smit who said the intruder went in and out the window. That's what I was talking about.

 

[searchinGirl]

Maybe they only swabbed the blood drop(s) in the underpants and other likely places like the waistband. I don't know. But I think my "foreign saliva on glove which holds and breaks paintbrush" scenario would account for it.

Bode tested additional areas on the crotch of the panties and found only JonBenet’s profile. And remember the DNA found in the panties was a bodily fluid whereas on the longJohns it was skin cells. If there was no intruder then the blood drops would not have contained the profile of an unknown male, the electropherogram would have looked just like the additional tests they did on the panties.

ETA the electropherograms of Bode testing of the panties and the longJohns. http://jonbenetramsey.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/130877799/20080108-dnaPeakDiagrams.pdf