The Ramseys' own words

[michelle]

I agree with your opinion that Patsy isn't a brilliant mind; for if she were a brilliant mind, she certainly would have written a better ransom note and not such an absurdly ridiculous concoction.

LOL, I have to laugh at that even though I dont think she wrote it that was quick witted....

 

[ISPTRAX]

Is Patsy still alive? Last I heard she was on death's door and that was well over a year ago!

 

[michelle]

Is Patsy still alive? Last I heard she was on death's door and that was well over a year ago!

Yes she is still alive.

 

[tezi]

See I dont think patsy is the killer, but I have always been open to the fact that they possibly covered it up for someone, burke maybe? I dont know, I sort of think he was too young to do this crime but we know how cruel kids can be....

My personal feeling is this was an accident that became a murder when all of the staging took place. Heck, she wouldn't have done any time anyway. You go to prison longer in Boulder for stealing a bike than you do for murder!!!!!!

 

[sissi]

Is Patsy still alive? Last I heard she was on death's door and that was well over a year ago!

Case aside for a minute..can I buy a puppy? A nice female about three years old?

 

[rashomon]

Is Patsy still alive? Last I heard she was on death's door and that was well over a year ago!

Patsy's cancer has returned for the fourth time a year ago? That woman must be quite a medical miracle regarding the fact that ovarian cancer is among the deadliest and most rapidly fatal cancers.

 

[sharpar]

She has embellished again - she never had stage IV cancer, by her own description and descriptions in medical text . Certainly any of her doctors know the difference .

Dont know why, added drama and sympathy perhaps having it at any stage is bad enough but why the need to make it worse than it was. If you cant tell the truth about your own illness, doesnt give you much credibility.

Everytime I see the statement that she would be joining JB soon makes the hair on my neck stand up for surely if there is justice Patsy will never be with that
innocent child.

 

[Nuisanceposter]

Drawing off of the thread title, I saw this and had to post it.

From ST's book hb pg 138

In a telephone interview, Stewart Long, the boyfriend of John Ramsey's daughter Melinda, recounted for me the sudden rush to reach Colorado that he, Melinda, and her brother, John Andrew, had made on the morning of December 26th. When they arrived at the Ramsey home at about 1 p.m., they were unaware of anything more than that JonBenet had been kidnapped.

Long said that John Ramsey climbed into a van with him and John Andrew and told them that JonBenet "was with Beth now." The father and son broke down in tears as John Ramsey described how he had discovered the body around eleven o'clock that morning.

I almost dropped the telephone as I reached to make sure the "record" button was pressed on my tape recorder. "When you say eleven o'clock that morning, are you assuming that was Mountain time or Eastern time?"

"I'm assuming that was Mountain time. He said eleven o'clock, so I'm assuming he was speaking of his own time reference."

I was blown away. We had just found a credible witness who heard John Ramsey say he'd discovered the body two hours earlier than we previously believed. That punched a big hole in the generally accepted timeline. Eleven o'clock would have been just about the time John Ramsey temporarily vanished from the sight of Detective Arndt, when she thought he had gone out to get the mail. I recalled how Arndt described the marked change in his behavior after he came back, silent, brooding, and nervous.

Under those circumstances, any investigator would have to consider the possibilit that Ramsey might have found the body on his private walk through his home and not when he and Fleet White went to the basement a few hours later.


In DOI pb pg 20 John is speaking

I pace back and forth in front of the telephone, desperately wanting it to ring. But it doesn't. Ten o'clock comes and goes. Nothing. The note says the kidnapper will call "tomorrow." I suddenly realize I don't know when the note was written, so I don't know for sure whether "tomorrow" means the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh.

snip

Sometime that morning, I remember a day back in the summer when I had left my keys inside and was locked out of the house. To get in, I broke one of the panes in a basement window; then reached in and released the latch, so I could climb inside I think about the basement now. I jump up and hurry down there.

that entry place needs to be looked at, I tell myself. I move down the basement hall and find the window. The pane is still broken, and the window is open, with a large Samsonite suitcase right under it. Odd, I think. This doesn't look right. This suitcase is not normally kept here.

Maybe this is how the kidnapper got in and out of our house. The window ledge is about five feet off the ground, so a person would need something to stand on in order to get up and out.

I don't look further after finding the open window, but I carefully close it before going back upstairs.


*Now here John has admitted that he was downstairs in the basement after ten o'clock but still during the morning. This is when Det. Arndt noticed him missing. If he thought about that window, and checked it and thought that suitcase's location was odd, why in God's name didn't he say anything to Det Arndt upon returning upstairs? Why didn't he mention remembering the window to Det Arndt before he went down and checked it? Something's not adding up here. I think this is when John went down and either found JonBenet or moved JonBenet to the wine cellar where she was discovered at 1 p.m. - but according to Stewart Long, JR said he discovered the child dead at 11 a.m.

So what was really going on?

 

[Toltec]

ISPTRAX....are these dogs living under one roof??? Heavens to mercetroid! I have two Jack Russell Terriors and they are a handful.

 

[Seeker]

John and Patsy Ramsey have made quite a few statements which are very revealing.
I recently read this one from Patsy which almost made me fall off my chair:
Ramseys' press conference May 1, 1997:

Patsy: "We feel there are at least two people on the face of this earth that know who did this: and that is the killer, and someone that that person may have confided in."

I think this extremely odd statement is a bombshell. Things which stand out:

- by saying that, Patsy indirectly admits that she knows the ransom note was faked.

I would disagree with that. "We feel there are at least two people."

I'll break it down using the bolded text to show why I feel there is another way to interpret what she said.

"We feel i.e. we believe, we think, but NOT we "know"...

there are at least two people, NOT that there weren't more, but there were at the very least two.

Now IMO it's very conceiveable that in retrospect Patsy as well as John knew the ransom note was faked when they called the police and all their friends over. They simply didn't believe the note/letter or they probably would have followed the instructions set forth in it.
Or she knew it was a fake when John brought JonBenet's body up from the basement and her daughter had not been beheaded, or even removed from the house and because someone would have seen, or heard "a group" of people leaving the house and area. I'm sure all the experts and the BPD themselves clued the Ramseys in that it was probably just one person, not several as there would have been more forensic evidence of "intruders" vs "intruder" plus the potential for being discovered/caught would have been greater for a group (min 3) people vs one person alone.

I try to look at things from every angle, not just one. There are a lot of variables and ways to decipher the evidence and statements.

 

[Rupert]

Drawing off of the thread title, I saw this and had to post it.

From ST's book hb pg 138
*Now here John has admitted that he was downstairs in the basement after ten o'clock but still during the morning. This is when Det. Arndt noticed him missing. If he thought about that window, and checked it and thought that suitcase's location was odd, why in God's name didn't he say anything to Det Arndt upon returning upstairs? Why didn't he mention remembering the window to Det Arndt before he went down and checked it? Something's not adding up here. I think this is when John went down and either found JonBenet or moved JonBenet to the wine cellar where she was discovered at 1 p.m. - but according to Stewart Long, JR said he discovered the child dead at 11 a.m.

So what was really going on?

I never read ST's book. Indeed, why on earth didn't John report this to Detective Arndt? They were there to help find JonBenet. So why not immediately tell them where the point of entry/exit might be? Such clues might lead to tire tracks.

Just too much keeps adding up to a cover up.

 

[rashomon]

I would disagree with that. "We feel there are at least two people."

I'll break it down using the bolded text to show why I feel there is another way to interpret what she said.

"We feel i.e. we believe, we think, but NOT we "know"...

there are at least two people, NOT that there weren't more, but there were at the very least two.

Now IMO it's very conceiveable that in retrospect Patsy as well as John knew the ransom note was faked when they called the police and all their friends over. They simply didn't believe the note/letter or they probably would have followed the instructions set forth in it.
Or she knew it was a fake when John brought JonBenet's body up from the basement and her daughter had not been beheaded, or even removed from the house and because someone would have seen, or heard "a group" of people leaving the house and area. I'm sure all the experts and the BPD themselves clued the Ramseys in that it was probably just one person, not several as there would have been more forensic evidence of "intruders" vs "intruder" plus the potential for being discovered/caught would have been greater for a group (min 3) people vs one person alone.

I try to look at things from every angle, not just one. There are a lot of variables and ways to decipher the evidence and statements.

But why should the killer have confided in 'at least' one person? I'm sure there exist many murderers who haven't confided in anyone.
And, jmo, but I don't believe that (suppose she was innocent), Patsy Ramsey would instantly have recognized the ransom note as being faked, not in the state of turmoil she must have been in.
Also when John carried JB up the stairs, I don't think Patsy's mind would have functioned like that of a crime scene investigator, concluding at once that the note must have been faked. Patsy would have been in a state of total shock, and people in shock can't think clearly.

Have the Ramseys ever said in public that they believe the note was faked? That would interest me very much.

And notice how John keeps flip-flopping in regards to the number of the murderers. In one interview (LKL), he said (I'm paraphrasing) 'the killer is an evil person', which evokes a lone killer, but when interviewed by Lou Smit, he spoke of 'they":
I wondered whether the head injury didn't kill her and after that they strangled her" (Journey Beyond Reason, p. 119).

That statement is also very revealing in another respect, for what John said here did not fit Lou Smit's own intruder theory at all, which is also why Smit quickly changed the subject.
For it doesn't make sense for killers to strangle an already dead child. It doesn't make sense to put wrist ligatures on an already dead body. It doesn't make sense to put duct tape on a dead child's mouth.

I believe that without being aware of it, JR spoke of what had indeed happened: the head injury had come first. Both Ramseys believed JB was already dead, and Patsy (helped by John who wanted to cover up for her) tied the knot around her neck and staged the rest of the scene to make it look like a sexual pervert had committed the crime.

 

[Toltec]

This confession by John finding JonBenet at 11am must have bothered Stewart Long so much that he must have had doubts about the Ramsey innocence. Why would he call out of the blue and make that statement to a Detective?

My belief is that a head bash came first. The "strangulation" came next. If you look at the autopsy photos, JonBenet's hair and necklace is tangled in with the cord. Any woman who's ever had hairs around the nape of the neck pulled would let out a scream. JonBenet was already unconcious when she had the cord wrapped around her neck. The swelling from the head blow caused the cord to become embedded in her.

Like the cords around her wrists, the cord around her neck was not placed as tightly as it looked when found. Her neck swelled to the point where the cord became embedded.

 

[Paradox]

My belief is that a head bash came first. The "strangulation" came next. If you look at the autopsy photos, JonBenet's hair and necklace is tangled in with the cord. Any woman who's ever had hairs around the nape of the neck pulled would let out a scream. JonBenet was already unconcious when she had the cord wrapped around her neck. The swelling from the head blow caused the cord to become embedded in her.

Like the cords around her wrists, the cord around her neck was not placed as tightly as it looked when found. Her neck swelled to the point where the cord became embedded.

There is no "swelling" of the neck observed or reported. There is also no swelling of the skin on the head where the blow occured.

The final position of the cord on the neck may have had nothing to do with strangulation. That may have come before the cord was postioned on the neck.

Overall, the autopsy report indicates strangulation first head blow second.

 

[rashomon]

There is no "swelling" of the neck observed or reported. There is also no swelling of the skin on the head where the blow occured.

The final position of the cord on the neck may have had nothing to do with strangulation. That may have come before the cord was postioned on the neck.

Overall, the autopsy report indicates strangulation first head blow second.

S. Thomas, p. 43:

"Meyer concluded that JonBenet was still alive at the time her head was struck and was still alive when she was choked. Either attack would have been fatal, but he officially called it asphyxia due to strangulation associated with massive head trauma."

Just because Meyer named asphyxia first doesn't necessarily mean that the strangulation came first imo. 'Associated with' is also a vague expression which does not imply a time line.

And if JonBenet was still alive when the head blow was struck, and still alive when choked, then from the point of logic, the head blow must have come first.
For if a person is strangled, the result is death. Therefore she couldn't have been alive anymore when the head blow was struck.
But with the head blow coming first, it is different: a head blow (unlike strangulation) doesn't automatically have death as a result. So JB could have been in a coma but still alive when she was finally strangled.

 

[Paradox]

S. Thomas, p. 43:

"Meyer concluded that JonBenet was still alive at the time her head was struck and was still alive when she was choked. Either attack would have been fatal, but he officially called it asphyxia due to strangulation associated with massive head trauma."

Just because Meyer named asphyxia first doesn't necessarily mean that the strangulation came first imo. 'Associated with' is also a vague expression which does not imply a time line.

And if JonBenet was still alive when the head blow was struck, and still alive when choked, then from the point of logic, the head blow must have come first.
For if a person is strangled, the result is death. Therefore she couldn't have been alive anymore when the head blow was struck.
But with the head blow coming first, it is different: a head blow (unlike strangulation) doesn't automatically have death as a result. So JB could have been in a coma but still alive when she was finally strangled.

Thomas took some liberties there: he cites Meyer but that info doesn't appear in the autopsy report, the bleeding wasn't massive, the skull wasn't caved in, the entire right side hadn't been rushed.

I know for a fact that Thomas had difficulty even considering an intentional initial strangulation.

 

[rashomon]

Thomas took some liberties there: he cites Meyer but that info doesn't appear in the autopsy report, the bleeding wasn't massive, the skull wasn't caved in, the entire right side hadn't been rushed.
I know for a fact that Thomas had difficulty even considering an intentional initial strangulation.

The problem with all that is that neither of us here seems to be a medical expert.
Which is why I would like to know (from a reliable medical source): how heavy can e.g. 'subdural bleedings'. or 'subarachnoid' bleedings become at all? Could it be that bleedings in these locations aren't massive even if a heavy blow is struck, etc.

Where did S. Thomas say that he didn't believe in intentional initial strangulation? Do you infer this because according to Thomas' theory, Patsy wanted to punish JB for bedwetting by inflicting the wounds to her vagina to her?
It would also interest me where in Thomas' time line the head bash came in.

 

[Toltec]

Strangulation causes blood supply to be cut off....so why the extensive bleeding from the brain?

 

[concernedperson]

The problem with all that is that neither of us here seems to be a medical expert.
Which is why I would like to know (from a reliable medical source): how heavy can e.g. 'subdural bleedings'. or 'subarachnoid' bleedings become at all? Could it be that bleedings in these locations aren't massive even if a heavy blow is struck, etc.

Where did S. Thomas say that he didn't believe in intentional initial strangulation? Do you infer this because according to Thomas' theory, Patsy wanted to punish JB for bedwetting by inflicting the wounds to her vagina to her?
It would also interest me where in Thomas' time line the head bash came in.

I am not a medical expert but my sister has recently been a victim of subdural bleeding. She had no trauma. The bleeding occurred in her spine and caused massive headaches, nausea, vomiting, loss of dexterity in her extremities, scrambled memory etc.The hemotoma was a fluke according to the neurologist.

 

[Paradox]

The problem with all that is that neither of us here seems to be a medical expert.
Which is why I would like to know (from a reliable medical source): how heavy can e.g. 'subdural bleedings'. or 'subarachnoid' bleedings become at all? Could it be that bleedings in these locations aren't massive even if a heavy blow is struck, etc.

Where did S. Thomas say that he didn't believe in intentional initial strangulation? Do you infer this because according to Thomas' theory, Patsy wanted to punish JB for bedwetting by inflicting the wounds to her vagina to her?
It would also interest me where in Thomas' time line the head bash came in.

I talked to him on the phone. His timeline can be found on pages 286, 287 and 288 of his book.

We don't need to be a medical expert to see from the autopsy photos that there was bruising on the neck below the final position of the garotte. This suggests an initial strangulation preceding the placement or repositioning of the cord. The initial strangulation could have caused unconsciousness only, not death. The head blow could have followed leaving the evidence of bleeding in the skull. The final position of the garotte may or may not have had anything to do with causing death.