Evidence that point away from the Ramsey's

[julianne]

Here's a great floor plan of the whole house...

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/6502/primer2/primer10_blue.html

Just wanted to add to my post before this that I viewed the floorplan of the Ramsey house, and I see how doors on floorplans are drawn differently according to the direction in which they open.....BUT

I also just pulled out my floorplan of my house, and some of the doors that are displayed on my floorplan as opening toward the person, actually open AWAY from the person. And vice versa. There are 7 doors in my house that open in the opposite direction that the floorplan indicates. Wierd--I never noticed it before. However, my floorplan is a mass-produced advertising sheet from the Builder---no way indicative of what the actual floorplan is. But I do have access to the actual floorplan filed with the county, so I will be checking it out.

That's why I want to see a photo.

The Ramsey floorplan indicates that if someone was walking into the trainroom, the door opens AWAY from the person. So how would it be difficult to place objects in front of the door if you were already in the trainroom? If the floorplan is correct, it would only be difficult to place objects in front of the door if the door opened TOWARD someone in the hall, or toward someone wanting to enter the trainroom. However, the floorplan indicates that the door opens inward. To stack items in front of the door if you were already in the trainroom would take no difficulty. You would just need the door to be opened, and you could simply close it afterward.

 

[Nuisanceposter]

Here's a photo for you. It looks like the door opens into the room.

http://www.acandyrose.com/basement-doors.jpg

On the right is the train room doorway, and on the left is the doorway to the hall leading to the room JonBenet was found in.

There's an excerpt from the NE book on this page where Lou Smit and John Ramsey discuss the chair and the door, about halfway down.

http://www.acandyrose.com/crimescene-basement.htm

Personally, I think it's pretty obvious that no one came or went through that window that night, and discussion of this point with the door is moot. Why use a window to exit when there are that many doors to choose from? What about the spider, and the hose and the grill? Where is the fiber evidence - that window measures 18 by 30 inches - an adult is not going through it without some friction.

 

[TLynn]

Personally, I find it very difficult to find credible a neighbor who is not sure whether she heard an actual scream or felt energy. Sounds rather kooky.

It could be she didn't want to get involved as a witness, so she changed her story. What I remember is that when she heard the scream, she woke up her husband - who then heard the metal scraping against concrete (isn't that the description? It's been so long I forgot the exact words).

You don't wake up your husband because you felt energy...?

 

[Solace]

Here's a photo for you. It looks like the door opens into the room.

http://www.acandyrose.com/basement-doors.jpg

On the right is the train room doorway, and on the left is the doorway to the hall leading to the room JonBenet was found in.

There's an excerpt from the NE book on this page where Lou Smit and John Ramsey discuss the chair and the door, about halfway down.

http://www.acandyrose.com/crimescene-basement.htm

Personally, I think it's pretty obvious that no one came or went through that window that night, and discussion of this point with the door is moot. Why use a window to exit when there are that many doors to choose from? What about the spider, and the hose and the grill? Where is the fiber evidence - that window measures 18 by 30 inches - an adult is not going through it without some friction.

Hi NP,

Do you have an answer to my question posted about about why John closing the window in the basement implicates him. I am dying to find this out and I cannot get an answer from this board yet. Maybe you know. It is very interesting and if someone knows something about this that I am not seeing, I really want to know because it feels like you are all on to somehting. HELP.

 

[Nuisanceposter]

Hi Solace,

I'm thinking the deal with JR closing it is just too much - and it's undoing evidence.

If he found it open, WHY didn't he immediately yell up the stairs to the detective already in his house that he had found an open window? He was looking for something just like that, right? That's why he said he went off on his own and was down in the basement - he was searching for something that might help him figure out what happened. So according to him, he not only sees this window open and goes back upstairs and says nothing to anyone about it at all - not his wife, who he knows must be completely distraught, not Fleet White, his best friend, not even the detective who is there to help search for the kidnapper and get JonBenet back safely - but he also closes it? Undoing the evidence that could have been found, had the window been left open by the killer.

When asked why he didn't say anything to anyone, he answered, "I don't know."

That's just ridiculous. I can't believe he even tried to pass off such idiocy as truth, and I can't believe it worked as well from him as it did.

I simply can't understand not only seeing a window open while searching for clues as what happened to your missing 6 year old child but also closing it, and then going upstairs and sitting down and waiting around for another couple of hours without saying anything to anyone at all. I think he's lying about the whole thing.

 

[Solace]

Hi Solace,

I'm thinking the deal with JR closing it is just too much - and it's undoing evidence.

If he found it open, WHY didn't he immediately yell up the stairs to the detective already in his house that he had found an open window? He was looking for something just like that, right? That's why he said he went off on his own and was down in the basement - he was searching for something that might help him figure out what happened. So according to him, he not only sees this window open and goes back upstairs and says nothing to anyone about it at all - not his wife, who he knows must be completely distraught, not Fleet White, his best friend, not even the detective who is there to help search for the kidnapper and get JonBenet back safely - but he also closes it? Undoing the evidence that could have been found, had the window been left open by the killer.

When asked why he didn't say anything to anyone, he answered, "I don't know."

That's just ridiculous. I can't believe he even tried to pass off such idiocy as truth, and I can't believe it worked as well from him as it did.

I simply can't understand not only seeing a window open while searching for clues as what happened to your missing 6 year old child but also closing it, and then going upstairs and sitting down and waiting around for another couple of hours without saying anything to anyone at all. I think he's lying about the whole thing.

I agree with you.

NP: I know John lies about many things. I have seen him do it on TV. He lies about the FBI not being there; he lies about never being asked to take a poly, he lies about Berke being asleep that morning; he lies about hiring lawyers and says we not only hired lawyers, we hired the best minds in investigating that we could get. Please. And I have yet to see a reporter call him on that. They just go, oh I see.

I just don't know why he is lying about this one. It makes no sense to say you found the window open and then close it. If Fleet White did not see the window open at around 6:00 that morning and Det. French did not report seeing anything open that morning and that was the reason he went down there, then that window was not open.

So John is lying. But it makes no sense to me. Well, just now in thinking about it. He would say this to use it for the intruder theory. But then why close the window. Why did he not just leave it open (or open it) for someone else to find.

 

[BBB167893]

"So the crime scene photos were taken after Fleet White was in the basement and touched and moved the suitcase? I have never read this. Lou Smit uses the photo of the suitcase under the window in his presentation of how the killer got in and out. He believes the killer moved it there to boost himself up to get out. Also Smit shows the piece of glass on the suitcase circled in an enlargement of the suitcase. Is that just all error and misinterpretation on his part?"

One of MANY, I'm afraid.

"It has not been established as fact that the marks on JB are not from a stun gun."

I'm afraid it has, for all practical purposes.

"The Boulder ME states very clearly,
MIKE DOBERSEN - 'My experiments, and the observations that we made and all the work that's been done, I feel that I can testify to a reasonably degree of medical certainty that these are stun gun injuries.'"

As aslready shown, Doberson whored his expertise for anyone who asked. You must remember: Smit DECIDED that they were stun gun marks and then shopped around until he found an "expert" to agree with him. I know of at least one who turned him down.

"When you look at the injuries on the front of JonBenét's neck, you can see the amount of force that was exerted on that garrotte, that a man pulled that handle, because it abraded the skin all the way up into the furrow of that garrotte..."

And he can tell it was a man from that?

"But the most significant part of this particular photograph is that there's half moon abrasions direction above the ligature. These most likely are fingernail marks where JonBenét was trying to get the garrotte from her neck. She tried to save her own life. She tried everything she could to scream and to get away from that. And whoever did that to JonBenét had to see her doing this and feel her doing this to try to get that garrotte off of her neck. This is a very brutal killing. Nothing in the family background would indicate to me that they're this brutal a people at all, not even for one night."

Smit's completely wrong. There were NO indications of a struggle. She had NO scratch marks on her neck. What he saw are petechial hemorrhages. No tongue damage, not larnyx damage, no damage to the strap muscles of the neck. Yeah, it was REAL brutal to do that!

Plus, it was ONE solid furrow, not erratic from her pulling at it and flopping around.

"In addition, if JB had actually tried to remove the garrote from her neck, her own skin debris would have been found under her fingernails. But none of her skin was found there."

Nothing at all.

 

[IrishMist]

There were metal paint cans in the wine cellar and the floor was made of concrete... there's your metal-on-concrete noise.

The police also took a piece of black sheet metal from the wine cellar. I've often wondered if that had to be moved in order to place the body, and if that was the source of the metal-on-concrete noise.

 

[Jolynna]

Why do you feel his closing of the window implicates him. Please understand I feel Patsy did this thing and John abetted, but I do not see how his closing the window implicates him?

It doesn't.

BUT, by SAYING the window was OPEN, John Ramsey implicated an intruder. (or at least made the intruder theory more of a possibility by giving him an entryway)

Just because John Ramsey conveniently remembered that FOUR MONTHS ago he had closed an open window does not mean the window was ever open.

 

[Jolynna]

So John is lying. But it makes no sense to me. Well, just now in thinking about it. He would say this to use it for the intruder theory. But then why close the window. Why did he not just leave it open (or open it) for someone else to find.

THAT morning he didn't think to open the window for someone else to find.

FOUR MONTHS later JOHN RAMSEY remembered that the window being open and that HE had closed it. But, did anyone else remember seeing it open...Fleet, the policeman?

Why would the only person to have seen that open window be JR, who was promoting an intruder theory?

 

[julianne]

SleuthingSleuth found this link and posted it---a great find, I might add. I am posting it here because the similarities are uncanny, IMO

*Sexual Assault on a child in Boulder, in 1997
*Perp was an intruder
*Perp laid in wait in the house for 4 hours before assaulting victim
*Never caught
*No signs of forced entry
*As late as August 2000, many LE directly involved in the Ramsey investigation had never even heard of this!!!!!!!!!! WTF??
*Crime occurred some 2 miles away from Ramsey home.

http://hellpainter.tripod.com/jbr/14.htm

Thanks to SleuthingSleuth for digging this up----

 

[leighl]

Here is a preview of a report by Erin Moriarty on youtube.com.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nllcQW9QzC0

It talks about how the BPD DID NOT initially test BOTH droplets of blood on JB's panties. The droplet they initially tested did not yield a full DNA profile, the second droplet does, both match the DNA found under JB's fingernails.

The entire video is only about 5 min in length, the first part is about the DNA found on the panties,

The second bit talks about a Boulder crime in 1997. A little girl that took a dance class with JB was attacked by an intruder that was hiding in her home waiting. The BPD never followed this up despite there being evidence of the girl being assaulted in the same way JB was, never made a composite sketch despite the mother having confronted the intruder, etc.

Does anyone have the full story about this or know where to find the
full broadcast?, this particular youtube is just a preview, I would like to
hear the full Erin Moriarty report.

 

[julianne]

Does anyone have the full story about this or know where to find the
full broadcast?, this particular youtube is just a preview, I would like to
hear the full Erin Moriarty report.

Leighl...
Is this what you were looking for?

http://hellpainter.tripod.com/jbr/48hours100402.htm

Scroll down, and there are transcripts from Erin Moriarty

 

[Cypros]

No, you don't understand. The only way to get into the part of the basement where JBR was found is either from the floor above and going through the door with the chair in front of it or through the window that they're talking about the possibility of an entrance/exit point. If you got into the house through that window you'd have to open that door to go up to the next floor but the chair blocking the door was on the OPPOSITE side of the door if you are already in the part of the basement where JBR was found.

I don't think you understand the layout of the basement. Do you have a copy of PMPT? There is a floor plan of the house, including the basement, at the back of the book, and it makes it quite clear. At the bottom of the basement stairs is the landing. From there you can go in three different directions. #1 You can turn right and go into the laundry room and on into a connecting storage room. OR #2 you can go straight to the door to the train/hobby room -- the door that was blocked and through which you find the broken window. OR #3 you can go a little to your left and straight through the boiler room to the wine cellar where JBR's body was found. JBR was found in a DIFFERENT part of the basement from the train room and the broken window. From the stairs, you do NOT go through the train room (the blocked door) to get to the wine cellar. From the window, you would HAVE to go though the blocked doorway to get to the landing and then turn to go through the boiler room to the wine cellar. If you have PMPT look at the floor plan.

Imagine yourself standing at a closed door and there is a chair you can't see is there on the opposite side. You couldn't use that window as the exit point because you can't put the chair BACK in front of that door when you're already on the other side of it. JR said there was also boxes and other things he had to move as well as the chair. JR's excuse for all that stuff being back in front of that door if an intruder used that window is basically "magic"... he has no explanation because it couldn't have been done.

Ocean Eyes made a good point about the WAY the door opens. Actually, according to the floor plan, the door connecting the landing to the train room opens inward. In other words, if you were in the train room and wanted to exit to, say, go upstairs, you would pull the doors towards you and the chair and boxes blocking the doorway would be sitting there blocking your exit. You would probably have to move some of those things (based on JR's dscription) to get through the doorway. Then let's say that you want to go back into the train room and you want to replace the blocking items. You COULd simply step back into the room, turn around and pull the chair and boxes back into place and THEN close the door and escape out the window. This COULD have been done but WHY would an intruder feel the need to put the chair and boxes back in front of the doorway? I can't think of a logical reason to do that and so believe that JR was the only person moving boxes that night/morning.

OOPs!! I posted all this before seeing that someone posted a link to a floor plan of the house. It is the same floor pan as in PMPT and is a great resource. Personally, I can't imagine tryng to understand this crime without studying a floor plan of the house.

 

[Cypros]

I thought the window with the grate was the room adjacent to the one where her body was found.

The rooms are adjacent, but not connecting. You have to go to the landing at the bottom of the staircase to get from one to the other.

 

[Jolynna]

This COULD have been done but WHY would an intruder feel the need to put the chair and boxes back in front of the doorway? I can't think of a logical reason to do that and so believe that JR was the only person moving boxes that night/morning.

Excellent post, Cypros.

Your reasoning and conclusion make sense.

 

[julianne]

Thanks, Cypros. Great post, hopefully it'll clear this up for those that don't understand the layout as it is. Great points!!!

 

[aussiesheila]

The ONLY evidence that bothers me in this case and doesn’t point to the Ramsey’s is:

1.) The broken glass on top of the suitcase. I have a hard time imagining that either parent would be thinking straight enough to have staged that. The suitcase was said to have been stored under the stairs according to the Ramsey’s and if it had been left out under the window it would have had more dust and debris on it. (I would like to know if Linda Hoffman Pugh testified to this as well)

The presence of glass on the top of the suitcase fits with the suggestion that an intruder moved the case to the position it was found in under the window and used it to stand on to exit through the window, knocking down some of the broken glass that had been left lying on the window sill since the previous summer when John was locked out of the house and broke the window to allow himself in.

2.) The metal grating sound heard shortly after a child’s scream by Melodie Stanton (Again another person I would love to hear from) Originally she said perhaps she heard/felt JB’s energy, but later said it was indeed a child’s scream. Does anyone have her statement anywhere? I would like to re-read that. Again I have a hard time thinking that the parents ‘staged’ this sound. There has been speculation that perhaps Patsy tried to hide JB behind the freezer in the basement. But I wonder if that sound would have made it over to the Stanton house?

Tests were done and it was concluded that sound could carry from the basement to her house because the street was narrow and the houses quite close together. No-one has explained why Melody Stanton heard the scream and neither John nor Patsy apparently did. I believe that John slept through it. A lot of people sleep very soundly and I personally have been in a situation where a loud alarm (specifically designed to wake sleeping night staff) rang for half a minute, waking me instantly, yet the two people who were also within range of the alarm slept blissfully on and said in the morning they didn't hear a thing. However, when Patsy said she slept through the night and didn't hear a thing, I think she was lying. I think she was dozing in the living room on the sofa and woke immediately at the sound of the scream.

Apart from agreeing with you that Patsy wrote the note, don't agree with any of your explanations for the other pieces of evidence, but I found your description of the Boulder area interesting, and thank you.

Does anyone have any other evidence that points away from the Ramsey's

I am an IDI so most of my posts deal with evidence that points away from the Ramseys, if you care to wade through them. I had my theory posted on Members' Theories but that thread seems to have disappeared.

 

[aussiesheila]

The window, the glass, and the suitcase have nothing to do with the murder of JonBenet. Remember that the door to the train room was blocked by a chair and boxes according to John Ramsey who said that he had to move these things before entering the train room when he first checked the basement on the morning of the 26th. Therefore the intruder COULD NOT have left the house through that window because he would not have been able to block the outside of the train room door from inside the room.

Cypros, I think that, along with a lot of others you have misunderstood the situation wrt "the chair blocking the door".

If you look at the plans of the basement you will see that the door swings inwards to the trainroom, so the intruder could have piled the chair and boxes up behind the closed door before exiting through the window of the trainroom. If that was the case John would have had to push on the door and the chair and boxes piled behind it to make his way into the room. John did not say this in his interviews, which makes me think there was no chair or boxes blocking the door because the door was never shut. I think door was always open and the chair and boxes were only blocking the doorWAY. If this was the case then the intruder could also have left through the trainroom window.

 

[azwriter]

In my mind, there are only three ways that "garotte" could have functioned as Smit wants us to believe it had -

1. By twisting the handle to take up slack in the rope and pinch the cord tighter around the neck. The seventeen inches of length between the knot and the handle make this near impossible. You'd want only a few inches maximum for this to be effective as a stragulation device, and you'd use a noose knot that would keep slipping down tighter as you twisted.

2. By grabbing the handle and yanking, pulling the cord tighter against the throat. Again, the amount of length makes this choice sound implausible, and since it was a fixed knot and not a slider, all yanking would have done is lifted JB up off the ground, not pulled the knot tighter.

3. By inserting the paintbrush between the skin and the cord, and twisting the handle to crank the cord ever tighter around the neck. We know this didn't happen because the evidence doesn't support it.

The person who tied the cord around JonBenet's neck had no idea how to create a truly functional garotte. There was nothing elaborate or complex about that knot, it was not a sliding noose knot, and any one of us on this board could have done it ourselves. There is very little damage to the interior of JB's neck, indicating she was not struggling against her attacker. She did not claw at her neck, and if she had, as rashomon said, there would be definite evidence in the form of her own skin under her nails.

You're right on about the garotte. Nothing perfect about those knots. And yet both John and Smith kept calling this item a "professsional garotte."
Since I've been a Burke Did It from the very beginning, I view this garotte something a kid, who maybe was a scout, put together. I've always suspected this so called garotte was around the house and Burke had made it. I think he had used it once before on his sister in a game and his parents caught him and forbid him to use it again. I can almost hear Patsy yelling "OH God John Burke's done it again with that thing." Not knowing their son was too young to be charged with murder (even if it was an accident) that was the reason enough for Mom and Dad to take measures to cover up the incident. JMO