What do you think the Ramsey's original plan was...

[kanzz]

Good gravy!! How terrifying. I'm so glad you are okay!! :loveyou:

You have SO much fascinating history. With this and Pretty Boy, you could write a book. I'd be the first to buy!

I am OK, Thanks everyone. This story was really just the tip of the iceberg.. so much else happened, and the whole thing left me with a diagnosis of PTSD w hypervigilance, but I function well.

And I did start a book. Had quite a bit of it written (by hand), but I had the notebooks in a box that was stolen from a storage facility (along with a few others boxes) after a move. It was therapeutic to write it, but I've never had a desire to start over. Plus, my kids were so hurt by all of what happened, I didn't really want them to have to re-live all of it. We rarely talk about it, it's such a sore spot.

 

[observation]

I am OK, Thanks everyone. This story was really just the tip of the iceberg.. so much else happened, and the whole thing left me with a diagnosis of PTSD w hypervigilance, but I function well.

And I did start a book. Had quite a bit of it written (by hand), but I had the notebooks in a box that was stolen from a storage facility (along with a few others boxes) after a move. It was therapeutic to write it, but I've never had a desire to start over. Plus, my kids were so hurt by all of what happened, I didn't really want them to have to re-live all of it. We rarely talk about it, it's such a sore spot.

((((((HUGS))))))


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[CircuitGuy]

Ever watched Hoarders?

I really don't understand. Can you send a link explaining the basics? Most of what I know comes from the pbworks page. When I read it I imagine a typical WI basement. Was there more to it?

 

[Ambitioned]

I really don't understand. Can you send a link explaining the basics? Most of what I know comes from the pbworks page. When I read it I imagine a typical WI basement. Was there more to it?

Ah you might have missed the crime scene Video

Be prepared to feel like Sheldon.

 

[Intheamadhouse]

I think there might have been two crime scenes, bedroom and basement.
I do think that Burke may have caused her head injury, but not in the kitchen. He's down there having snack, and here comes his sister, wanting some. Maybe he gives her a little, maybe she steals it. Whatever. He's irritated, or maybe he's fine with sharing. So he walks her back up to her bedroom. He's using the flashlight to navigate so as not to wake up his parents and get yelled at. He plays a little doctor with her, and this is where things go wrong.
Maybe she wants to follow him to his own bedroom and cuddle. He doesn't want this because she's a bedwetter. Or he wants to play with his new toys in privacy, without an annoying little sister getting in the way. Maybe she's just being loud and silly and he's worried that their parents will wake up and be angry. Maybe they get into a sibling spat over nothing. So he smacks her with the flashlight.
I keep coming back to Patsy in JBR's room, asking the detectives if they saw blood on the bed. Why would she worry about blood? Because that's where the original injury happened.
At this point, Burke either waits a bit, hoping that she will wake up and he is not in trouble, or he immediately runs for his parents. He confesses everything, including the doctor playing, and the cover up begins.
JBR is moved to the basement while they try to figure out what to do with her. Either Burke is forgotten in the panic, or he is told to stay out of the way and disobeys. At some point he pokes at her with the train track. Not out of meanness, but in a desperate attempt to revive her. Please, Sister, please wake up. I didn't mean to hurt you so badly.
At some point before the strangulation, he is sent back to bed, where he remains. When he is woken up in the morning by his parents peeking in, he is hopeful. Is his sister alright? Maybe it was all a bad dream, or JBR has woken up and is ok. He runs downstairs and asks what happened, but his mother is on the phone and quickly hushes him and sends him back to bed.
Before the police arrive, one or both parents come upstairs and impress on Burke how important it is to claim he was in bed the entire time. If anyone finds out the truth, they will take him away. He will be sent to a place for bad kids and they will hurt him there. He will never see his parents or be able to come home again.
I can see a 10 year old boy striking his sister in an act of rage. I hit my own sister at that age, though not with an object. I can not see a very sheltered 10 year old being able to perform any sort of cover up, nor do I see him strangling his sister.
Where I'm all getting to with this is that one parent is in the bedroom, looking for blood or any other signs of what has happened. That parent grabs the flashlight and takes it back to the kitchen, where they write the ransom note. The other parent is downstairs, assaulting and ultimately killing JBR.
They each have their own plan, and are on two different floors staging, which is why it looks so disjointed. By the time the realize this, it is either too late, or they can not agree on which plan to follow. So they call 911 and hope for the best.

 

[BBB167893]

Good gravy!! How terrifying. I'm so glad you are okay!! :loveyou:

You have SO much fascinating history. With this and Pretty Boy, you could write a book. I'd be the first to buy!

I second all of that. I'd third it if there were enough of me!

 

[CircuitGuy]

Ah you might have missed the crime scene Video

Wow. It's surprisingly disorderly, really odd for a family so into image. I have seen neat freaks' basements, with the finished part looking fancy and even the unfinished parts looking orderly. This looks like a disaster, at least compared to their image. If it were someone laid back, I'd just figure they put all their crap in their basement. That's very common in Wisconsin. People put stuff on pallets in case water comes in. But I would not expect people who are into fancy stuff to keep their basement like this. It's just like I wouldn't expect their main vehicle to be a 15 year-old clunker. It's inconsistent. It gave me a very weird vibe. If it were a $100k house in a working-class neighborhood, it would be normal. But it's bizarre for people who have a housekeeper and are into beauty pageants. It gives the feeling that the fancy stuff is just a facade, and when you dig down you see something that looks like a house in a rough neighborhood.

 

[TeaTime]

Wow. It's surprisingly disorderly, really odd for a family so into image. I have seen neat freaks' basements, with the finished part looking fancy and even the unfinished parts looking orderly. This looks like a disaster, at least compared to their image. If it were someone laid back, I'd just figure they put all their crap in their basement. That's very common in Wisconsin. People put stuff on pallets in case water comes in. But I would not expect people who are into fancy stuff to keep their basement like this. It's just like I wouldn't expect their main vehicle to be a 15 year-old clunker. It's inconsistent. It gave me a very weird vibe. If it were a $100k house in a working-class neighborhood, it would be normal. But it's bizarre for people who have a housekeeper and are into beauty pageants. It gives the feeling that the fancy stuff is just a facade, and when you dig down you see something that looks like a house in a rough neighborhood.

They had a Jaguar and a BMW. They are even more prestigious with age, because it means you made that choice a long time ago and could. Don't forget they owned 2 homes, 2 planes and 2 sailboats. When PR was 25 she had either a BMW or a Jaguar. Not bad.

The house was huge and full of 'dust catchers' and clutter. Even working everyday, 5 days a week a single housekeeper could not keep up with the Ramsey house. To keep that house clean and neat would be a full time job. 3 days a week would never cut it.

In her interview with BPD, PR identifies a photo taken of the house after JBR's body had been found and recognizes a basket by the front door that had flyers in it from the 1994 Christmas House Tour. Did that basket of old flyers sit there for 2 years or was this just PR showing off for the anticipated Charles Kurault?

I have been in houses of people who have small kids. MOST of the houses are a wreck. The only ones that aren't have moms who never stop cleaning the house - ever. PR was not a housekeeper but when you were Miss West Virginia, you don't have to be.

The basement was cluttered and piled with disorganized left over junk scattered everywhere. It was damp, there was a huge gaping hole in a window in the winter in Colorado and full of little maze-like nooks and crannies and dead ends. It would have made me nervous to be in it.

PR is lying when she says she thinks she asked FW to fetch some wine from the WC on the Dec. 13th party. He didn't know where the light switch was on the morning that he looked in there and did not see JBR. He had never been there before.

 

[CircuitGuy]

I have been in houses of people who have small kids. MOST of the houses are a wreck. The only ones that aren't have moms who never stop cleaning the house - ever. PR was not a housekeeper but when you were Miss West Virginia, you don't have to be.

The basement was cluttered and piled with disorganized left over junk scattered everywhere. It was damp, there was a huge gaping hole in a window in the winter in Colorado and full of little maze-like nooks and crannies and dead ends. It would have made me nervous to be in it.

All this is so different from my world that I just cannot relate. I cannot imagine being involved in beauty pageants or thinking it's the mom's job alone to clean up after kids. It seems like they lived in a different world from me. We try to get our kids to take some responsibility for controlling some of the chaos they create. My wife dialed back her legal practice when we had kids. We have no housekeeper, but we had a nanny when they were young and now have a stable of people we hire to be and extra set of hands around the house. Sometimes we have someone from work run household errands, not related to our businesses, so we can do those so-called “quality-time” things. We purposely avoid flashy stuff. It's sometimes looked down on in our industries, and we're just not into super fancy stuff. I find beauty pageants bizarre and offensive. I am not mad at them, but they're weird and I would struggle to relate to people who took them seriously. I think the Upper Midwest is just a radically different world from Boulder and West Virginia.

My point in all this is when I look at that world pageants and flashy sales stuff, with fancy cars and homes, I expect the basement to be at least somewhat fancy too. It's esp odd to have a gaping hole in a window in the dead of winter and not have it scheduled to be fixed. It's really weird. It just strikes me viscerally as the oddest thing about them.

 

[Miz Adventure]

The Ramseys were wealthy by most peoples' standards but I don't think they were HUGELY wealthy. Assets amounted to $6M and that included all their possessions. The house was only $800,000 which wouldn't even buy you a tiny Victorian terrace house in London which are currently going for over £1M - a nicer house is a lot more than that.

The Ramseys airplanes were leased from Lockheed-Martin and I think John only owned one of his boats. I don't know how much the Charlevoix house cost them.

As for the house being a mess, well it definitely was. It didn't seem to be anyone's job to clear up, not even the housekeeper's. Pants with feces still on them were allowed to lie on the bedroom floor (didn't Patsy say she "stepped over them"?).

It seems that with the Ramseys everything was for show - even her children - they all had to look outwardly perfect. What went on below is another matter entirely.

 

[HarmonyE.]

It seems that with the Ramseys everything was for show - even her children - they all had to look outwardly perfect. What went on below is another matter entirely.

Definitely, although they aren't the first nouveau riche couple to expend far more energy on appearances than they did on real life. I've known a few in my day. Patsy in particular seemed desperate to show off their perfect life, brag about and embellish their wealth, and pretend they had the most accomplished, well behaved children in history. If she had been born 20 years later, I can only imagine what her Facebook page would look like. But when you spend all that time, effort and energy on appearances, there must be little left in the tank for the mundane day-to-day tasks that need to be done to keep things actually functioning.

 

[andreww]

As far as cleaning the house goes, Patsy was a rich girl from the south, her ancestors likely owned slave and she now had maids. My guess is that LHP hadn't worked much after the Dec 23rd party and it was likely her job to have it cleaned up by the time they arrived back from Michigan. I think the attitude of the entire family, in the words of John Ramsey when asked if Patsy hung her clothes, "it stays where it lands", meaning she would throw her stuff on the ground expecting a servant to deal with it later.

 

[HarmonyE.]

As far as cleaning the house goes, Patsy was a rich girl from the south, her ancestors likely owned slave and she now had maids.

Patsy's father was an engineer at Union Carbide when she was growing up.. So maybe solidly middle class, but not rich. Don't know about the plantations....

Had Pats grown up wealthy, my bet is she wouldn't have felt so insecure that she needed to constantly boast about the Ramsey planes, trains, and automobiles.

 

[andreww]

Patsy's father was an engineer at Union Carbide when she was growing up.. So maybe solidly middle class, but not rich. Don't know about the plantations....

Had Pats grown up wealthy, my bet is she wouldn't have felt so insecure that she needed to constantly boast about the Ramsey planes, trains, and automobiles.

Patsy's dad had the money to finance John's business didn't he?

 

[TeaTime]

Patsy's dad had the money to finance John's business didn't he?

Yep, in about 1981-ish, Don had given JR and PR his life savings as working capital to get the business technology company off the ground. It was $120K, big money then and of course, Don had a retirement plan and SS income later in life.

 

[Cranberry]

was it $118,000?! SBTC

 

[Ambitioned]

Yep, in about 1981-ish, Don had given JR and PR his life savings as working capital to get the business technology company off the ground. It was $120K, big money then and of course, Don had a retirement plan and SS income later in life.

So it's true? JR wasn't the only fat cat around. :shocked2:

 

[RL2]

Wow. It's surprisingly disorderly, really odd for a family so into image. I have seen neat freaks' basements, with the finished part looking fancy and even the unfinished parts looking orderly. This looks like a disaster, at least compared to their image. If it were someone laid back, I'd just figure they put all their crap in their basement. That's very common in Wisconsin. People put stuff on pallets in case water comes in. But I would not expect people who are into fancy stuff to keep their basement like this. It's just like I wouldn't expect their main vehicle to be a 15 year-old clunker. It's inconsistent. It gave me a very weird vibe. If it were a $100k house in a working-class neighborhood, it would be normal. But it's bizarre for people who have a housekeeper and are into beauty pageants. It gives the feeling that the fancy stuff is just a facade, and when you dig down you see something that looks like a house in a rough neighborhood.

Has anyone ever addressed if there was a life insurance policy on Jonbenet?

Greedy people may also murder to cover for an accident rather than just call for help. ::bonus::

They've been raking in the $$$$ from JB's death for twenty years now..

 

[TeaTime]

So it's true? JR wasn't the only fat cat around. :shocked2:

I wouldn't call Don a Fat Cat. He and Nedra were coerced to finance JR and PR's entrepreneurial adventure with their life savings through PR's threats that they would never see the baby she was carrying - she wasn't pregnant - but it worked. I can only assume that the loan was repaid at some point when JR became successful but in the meanwhile JR paid the rental on the north Atlanta home where the Paughs lived. It was in somewhere off Sandy Springs Rd., but closer to Dunwoody than Sandy Springs. It was a rental which was in contravention to the homeowner's association rules and strictly forbidden.

Lucinda's niece was married to JR's nephew, Jeff Ramsey, but went by Paugh, which was pronounced Bourg at that time to pretend that the Paughs were just one family.

They were odd even then.

 

[SS 396 SS]

I think the Ramsey's original plan was to get thru Christmas, take their vacation, come home and get back to normal life. But somethin happened. The girls life ended and the other family members lives changed forever.
From what I gather, John Ramsey looks at this as a family matter and everyone else should just stay out of it.
Its a cryin shame. So unthankful for that beautiful little girl.