r/JonBenetRamsey

One of the biggest contradictions in this case is John Ramsey’s attitude toward evidence that JonBenét may have been sexually abused before the night she was murdered.

This was not an internet theory. Dr John Meyer, Dr Andrew Sirotnak, Dr John McCann, Dr James Monteleone, Dr Valerie Rao, Dr Robert Kirschner and Dr Cyril Wecht were among the experts who identified prior genital trauma or concluded that the findings were consistent with previous molestation.

Sure, there were differing views. Differing vies is what defines this case. But when that many qualified experts find evidence pointing in the same direction, it should have become an enormous investigative lead.

John could know that he had never abused JonBenét. What he could not possibly know was that nobody else had.

Yet when prior molestation was raised publicly, John responded-“JonBenét and I had a very close relationship.”

Why does he make it about him?

Especially when, regarding the murder, John later said-“We have become suspicious of everyone.”

He was willing to consider people such as the Whites, Jeff Merrick and Bill McReynolds as possible suspects, people who already knew the family and had prior contact with JonBenét.

So which is it? For the murder- suspect everyone. For prior sexual abuse-why are you accusing me?

If he believes that these people were capable of entering the house and sexually assaulting and murdering JonBenét on Christmas night, why was John seemingly so certain none of them could have abused her before Christmas night?

That makes no sense.

And there is another revealing contrast.

John has kept the stun-gun theory alive for decades despite substantial disagreement over whether a stun gun caused the marks on JonBenét.

Fair enough. Disputed evidence can still be worth pursuing. But then why treat disagreement among experts as a reason to dismiss the evidence of prior sexual abuse?

That starts to look like a remarkable bait-and-switch.

He didn't have to believe the doctors. He only had to consider that they might be right.

An innocent parent would simply say-

“I hope they're wrong. But if they're right, find out who had access to her. It could identify her killer.”

Instead, this particular subject seems almost uniquely off limits.

John will discuss intruders, broken windows, suspicious friends, Santa Claus, pageant predators, stun guns and virtually every other theory pointing outside the house.

But evidence that JonBenét may have been sexually abused before the night of the murder?

That is the lead he seems least willing to entertain or discuss.

That matters, because prior sexual abuse is also one of the few possibilities that could help explain why such extraordinary staging may have been necessary in the first place.

Why was this the lead John seemingly didn’t want anyone to follow or talk about?

I came across this topic from awhile back that is important.

https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/comments/1h0x4h4/so_no_one_ever_actually_saw_john_go_to_sleep_on/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1

I've been surprised to see how many people here believe that John strangled JonBenét or dealt the blow to her head.

We have two plausible theories published by members of law enforcement: Thomas believes Patsy did everything; Kolar believes that Burke hit JonBenét and that Patsy staged the scene. Neither Thomas nor Kolar believe John was involved in a cover-up until sometime on the morning of December 26, after the police arrived.

With all that in mind, if you're adamantly JDI, what evidence is the basis of that belief? I'm genuinely curious.

I have never been able to wrap my head around Patsy or John strangling JonBenet and the use of the garrote. But I have always believed that Patsy wrote the ransom note.

Following then Lindsay Clancy trial - a previously loving mother manually strangled all 3 of her kids with exercise bands. This has changed my perspective and i now believe that Patsy could have murdered/strangled and staged then scene.

Hi Gang

I was just curious what you fellow non "IDIs" think on the real purpose of the note. I mean "to fake a kidnapper...fool cops...get away with it, etc" are obvious and correct in many respects, of course.

I was thinking more of the "why". In terms of its length and stupidity.

Instead of being written to excuse/cover up what happened that night/early AM, I'm feeling it was written to excuse/cover up what they THOUGHT they'd be doing during the 26th. Like an alibi for the coming day that they expected. THEN, something changed. An audible/s was called or John made her call the cops (if he wasn't in on it yet), and so much in the note was then unnecessary.

Things the thought they'd need to do, like -

Cancelling the flight and trip

Being dodgy with the pilot and their expecting family as they cancelled in a quick, cryptic call/message.

Maybe if seen by a friend or camera while creeping around town - weird areas, weird times (body dumping...maybe with an "adequate size attaché" and hence, JB's body. I mean, for all we know, they could have planned to have John find her AFTER dumping her - act like he went to the drop and find her, ruin more evidence, etc. Not saying this is correct, just possible they were thinking of weird shit that was later abandoned. Even the small ransom - maybe he was gonna ditch it? 118k is not much money if it gets them out of this jam.

Or - To answer to being out of the house first thing in the morning to take advantage of the kidnapper's Express Shipping option mentioned. Remember, they just needed to be "monitored" trying to get the money early to get her back quicker - WHO could say no to that option...especially during the Holiday week? Maybe John was gonna scout drop locations?

It just seems that this note was to wave in the face of the cops, family, everybody after the 26th had gotten much later or even passed.

Why didn't you call cops/notify anybody? Why were you seen creeping around this park or wooded area? - They say - "We were gonna be scanned for electronic devices; these guys are pros lol and they're monitoring us - We were SURE it was one of John's disgruntled work associates as they knew John's bonus so it spooked us, etc - We couldn't risk cops"

Just seems a guilty, racing mind with only self-preservation mattering wrote this pile of dogshit. Makes me think that the plan was changed for some reason - maybe "Hey, we dont have a plan on a fake kidnapper calling with instructions, so it shows on the bill, unless I run out to a pay phone and call you but what if somebody sees me at McDonald's, etc ?" Or, "She doesn't fit in the suitcase" or "This is really fucking stupid"

The plan could have been changed a few times before being cancelled by calling the cops. So the note had all this alibi that they ended up not needing.

Last, the killer line in the note for me is the getting her back early if monitored. That just reeks of a thought popping in the mind while writing and thinking of a future alibi needed at the same time.

I tend to be PDI/RDI and this seems to fit several scenarios. It's possible that Patsy wrote it alone to get John out of the house OR Patsy and John worked it together. Patsy is such a sperg, I tend to blame her for the dumber things.

So we are stuck with a note providing alibis for things they didn't do and answers to questions that they weren't asked. Is that the simple secret to the length and weirdness? I mean, as you guys see it? You guys are way ahead of me on this case and I'd love to hear if you think that's the key to the stranger parts of the note.

PS - My obligatory pre-apology if this has been covered explicitly..OK? I did try to check but I'm not the best at finding stuff here.

Patsy SAID she saw the note on the rung of the stairs but how do we KNOW it's actually true? Considering John never said he saw it there, and even if she did, he could be making it up too. Where's the proof?

So I am new to this I don’t have all the details but I want to let you in on what comes to the mind of someone who doesn’t know as much.

For some reason this reminds me of the girl from Poltergeist - Heather something and it reminds me of Maddie McCann.

Who also have abuse rumours like that around them.

So is there any possibility she got s0domised and went into anaphylactic Schock from that or died while being abused (just like two women who were on an island allegedly) and the hit in the head only happened when they were already trying to get rid of her ? Maybe dropped her or something ?

And couldn’t it be that the whole feces in the bed and grapefrui sized poop was due to rectal abuse ? :(

As I said I have not looked into this closely these are basically my first thoughts looking at the bigger picture and the pattern repetition.

And do you think who ever did it is reading this forum ?

I thought the maid was involved if not Patsy but came to the conclusion that the maid Linda had a 7th grade education and could not have spelled adequate attaché , nor know what adequate sized attaché means. The note was written by a college graduate. Linda’s entire family was uneducated and illiterate.

I feel this murder was done by a woman because JB was not R***D. No one brings this up. The staging really factors in here that she was not. And no one ever asks the parents this.

I always think the best information from witnesses is given in the first statements. This doesn't mean those statements are true, but there is some kind of originality you will not find in later interviews.

The first interview with B. has taken place in the White's house at 02:17 p.m. Interviewer was Sgt. Patterson.

B. said they drove directly home after they left the Christmas Party in the White's house. This is not consistent with the statement of P. and J. who said they made stops at the Walkers and Stines.

Also, he said he slept until around seven o'clock. This is not even consistent with the statement he made later in 1998.

Though I do not believe much in the P. & J. statements I guess the story with the two stops is correct since it can be easily verified. And it also seems that B.'s statement about the sleeping time is not correct in the first interview.

I'm searching for a reason why the statements in the first interview are obviously wrong. This is something that surprises me. If he just slept and heard nothing, why didn't he tell the truth?

(Note: The body was found at 01:05 p.m. Patterson was directly informed that it now was a murder case. With this information he made the interview. And in this context he posed an interesting question, he wanted to know where the kids hang out when being in the house. B. said it is the 1st and 2nd floor. He didn't mention the basement.)

I have read a bit about this sad case. I am Burke's age born in 1987, when i was 9 years old in 1996 the N64 was a big thing for us kids back then. Me and my brother got the n64 a bit later in 1998 and i remember playing Banjo Kazooie, Ocarina of Time etc and we would play it every change we could get. I'm from Australia and it was very big here.

Anyway i heard that Burke was more interested in another toy which i do find it odd as the N64 was so amazing to us kids back in the 90s when it came out. It was hardly talked about in interviews and crime scene photos.

Rumours have been going that Burke was angry at his little sister JonBenet and killed her and his N64 console or controller was the item he accidentally killed her with it. Maybe JonBenet wanted to play his N64 so badly and Burke got frustrated as he was playing or she might have deleted his save game file and Burke went insane. Trust me I have experienced this myself, my brother who is one year older then me got so angry that i accidentally erased his game file he went completely insane at me, and i had a friend in Primary School in which i accidentally erased his save game file and he also wanted to hurt me so badly. Some kids can't control their emotions well, i was a different kid who was more calm about things.

Do you think that is why Burke or his family never mentions his N64? if this is true his parents must be protecting him.

I’ve always heard of the controversy around this statement, especially since it was very soon after Diana died. Does anyone have a link to or recording of it?

As of right now, I’m leaning somewhere around 45% PDI, 35% BDI, 20% IDI. It seems that all of the evidence for JDI and of John being a chomo comes from Linda Arndt having a "gut feeling." I’m under the impression that the evidence that JonBenet was even abused at all when she was alive is dubious.

I don’t know, I feel like I never really heard much about Burke possibly killing JBR until 2012. Prior to that it was always a toss up between the parents and an intruder. This was also right around the time Reddit seemed to blow up, and to give a better idea, it would have been contemporaneous with the whole Boston Marathon bombing Reddit sleuthing. It’s like the Reddit of 2012 was a perfect environment for a guerilla marketing campaign to push an “um actually, it not what everyone else thinks, it’s actually this third option that you need to be a really smart super sleuth to understand" narrative and have it take off.

A. Something happened.

B. John & Patsy, justifiably or unjustifiably panicked, rushed to obfuscate, contaminate the scene, obstruct justice, compose a Tolstoy of Ransom Notes that would make the Unabomber seethe with jealousy, and proceeded to construct and continue building the remainder of their unprecedented level of diversified staging, sewing seeds of sheer shock and horror, including their own interwoven ball of disentangled intertwinements, constructing the most contorted and distorted misdirection of narratives, along with making contradictory shit up on the fly, both when caught in the moment - AND HENCE - every time asked unanticipated questions lobbed at them from left field, all - and especially - in the wee early years, while overcome with one twisted combobulation interwoven into a complex ball of profound devastation, grief, terrorizing fear and the unrelenting distress stemming from frantic juggling balls on all sides, at times, when the prognosis appeared sunnier and to their favor - leading to fleeting spurts of smug confidence - and at other times, when ominously dark threatening clouds loomed overhead: but never, ever, with the genuine peace that stems from the unperturbed internal noise of unqualified tranquility.

C. The rest is a tangled web of melded thoughts, emotions, and actions, both self-preserving, as well as self-destructive, due to a complex mixture of intentionality, juxtaposed and intermingled w true, apprehensive, and neverending, lifelong, perpetual jitteriness.

D. John always pauses and shifts when confronted and required to respond to groundbreaking, unforseen and/or blusteringly dismantling questions.

This is just my own theory as I have pieced it together. It's super long, but not a thesis, so I didn't cite anything, My information is based on the available documents and books written about the case. I know it's a bit disjointed, but I welcome your input.

The Ramseys pick up Doug Stine on the way home from the Whites.

Everyone was awake.

JonBenet changes into her Barbie nightgown. 

Burke and Doug play with Legos in the basement.

Patsy has some tea and pineapple at the table. The bowl of pineapple was leftover from breakfast. They used crystal glasses and silver dinnerware at breakfast. You can see it left on the table. (Crystal and silver don’t go in the dishwasher and are left out for the maid to take care of.) JonBenet comes by and has a bite of pineapple. 

JonBenet goes to the basement with Burke and Doug. The boys engage in inappropriate behavior with JonBenet. JonBenet screams. She is hit over the head, with a flashlight, in a panicked or angry outburst. A boy scout toggle is used on JonBenet’s neck and she is jabbed with something. 

Doug Stine is sent home on Burke’s new bike. Cars cannot be used and there can’t be Doug’s footprints outside anywhere. All the photo evidence of the bike is hidden and the Ramseys deny there was any new bike. Later, Burke admits he got a bike for Christmas.

The Ramseys and the Stines work together over cellphones to stage the crime. Prior knowledge of the sexual abuse is the motive. The records from John’s cell phone are wiped for that time frame. He claims he “lost” his phone for a while and that’s why there are no records for that time frame.  

Prior to the murder, a call is made to 911 during a Christmas party being held at the Ramsey house on the 23rd. Doug and Susan Stine are there. When the police show up, it is Susan Stine who answers the door and will not let the police in. She makes an excuse about someone mistakenly dialing 911. This possibly implicates Doug as the abuser. Doug is later questioned by the grand jury. 

Susan Stine is a major player, who largely becomes overlooked. At the time of the crime, Susan  Stine worked as the Director of Planning art the University of Colorado Boulder. Her husband, Glen Stine, was the Vice President of Budget and Finance at the same school. Susan Stine possessed the operational and organizational skills necessary to manage a crisis. 

She became the “gatekeeper” and was nicknamed the “Pit Bull”. She shielded the Ramseys from the press and handled media narratives. She impersonated Boulder Police chief Mark Beckner by email. 

The Stines were the only friends not called to the Ramsey house the morning after the murder. Although John Ramsey said they were not good friends, after the murder, the Ramseys moved into the Stine house for months. Prior to the murder, Patsy had played on a softball team with Susan. 

Shortly after the murder, in Atlanta, Mary Kaempfer and her son Anthony were keeping Burke company while the Ramseys handled things. Anthony was Burke’s classmate. Anthony told his mother that Burke was acting like “he kind of knew what happened and trusted that people would find out.” Anthony also said that Burke appeared confused, but not scared or upset, and never saw Burke cry. 

In response, Susan Stine told Mary that she overheard Burke and Doug impersonally discussing the details of the manual strangulation and how it was like the boys were talking about a TV show. Susan Stine was doing damage control by preemptively framing the boy’s knowledge as not knowing for sure what happened. That’s the only motive for “repeating” a conversation where the boys sound like they are casually discussing strangulation. 

So Susan Stine was doing damage control just days after the murder.

The Stines eventually uprooted their lives, left their lucrative university positions, and moved to Atlanta with the Ramseys. Glen Stine went to work directly for John Ramsey. 

Jonbenet is discovered and thought to be dead. The parents begin staging the murder. The motive is covering up the knowledge of prior sexual abuse and the shame to the families. Susan Stine shows later, by impersonating a police chief, that she was psychologically capable of masking a crime scene. 

But Susan Stine must have gone through background checks for her position at the university. Why would she suddenly become so willing to lie and break laws? It’s because she was protecting her own son.

Doug Stine is sent home on Burke’s bike and the legos are cleaned up and stashed in the cellar. Instructions for that Lego set are seen in crime scene photos laying on the basement floor - they were forgotten. John changes his story later on, to say that he and Burke stayed up to play with a building toy (I suspect John cleaned up the Legos. If Patsy had picked them up, she would have been the one to help Burke assemble the toy). He changes the type of toy each time he tells the story, but never says Legos. Christmas gifts from the bag upstairs are grabbed and placed in front of the lego set. They are hastily ripped open to make sure the gifts were for Burke. The Ramseys claim they left that open Lego set and ripped open Christmas gifts in a dank cellar for Burke’s upcoming birthday. Why hide the Legos? Were they ever checked for prints?

JonBenet’s Barbie nightgown has her blood on it. Burke and Patsy’s DNA is on the nightgown, as well as the long johns.  

The nightgown is removed. She is wiped down. The paintbrush handle is used to clean her internally and mask previous injury.

The paintbrush is broken and part of it is used to create the fake “garrote”. The tip of the paintbrush is never found. The paintbrush belongs to Patsy. Fibers from her jacket are found in the garrote, the paint tote, and underneath the duct tape that was on JonBenet's face.

A fake “garrote” is fashioned and used to disguise previous rope marks on JonBenet’s neck. The original rope is cut, because it was too long to look like a garrote, and the other end is loosely placed around JonBenet’s wrists - over her white shirt. The knots on each wrist are different from each other - they were tied at separate times, by different people. The wrist “bindings” were placed on her after she was redressed. 

JonBenet’s white shirt had been placed back on her, to make it look like she was carried upstairs asleep. Did John and Patsy originally think the red turtleneck would be sufficient at hiding her neck? Maybe that’s why Patsy originally said JonBenet was last wearing a red turtleneck - not the white shirt she was found in. Who dresses a sleeping kid in a turtleneck? Boy’s long johns are placed on her, even though her wardrobe is extremely feminine. Even though her pink pajamas from Christmas ever were placed under her pillow - Patsy mentions this routine during an interview. In the crime scene video, it looks like a pillow fell behind the bed, possibly with the pink pajama bottoms. The pink top is sitting in the middle of her mattress. Her bed looks like someone grabbed bedding and just pulled it down. Just like John and Patsy’s bed upstairs.

DNA evidence from Burke and Patsy was found on the Barbie nightgown and the long johns. There was also foreign DNA on the long johns. I believe the long johns belonged to Doug. They were way too small for Burke. The parents obviously understood forensic evidence. They cleaned the body. Patsy wore the same clothes. John showered. They wiped off fingerprints, wore gloves and invited over lots of people to muddy the crime scene. They also basically rubbed themselves on JonBenet after they brought up the body. The boy’s long john were purposely used. Was Doug’s DNA checked against the foreign DNA “mixture”?

As far as the foreign DNA in the bloomies, from what I read, the “foreign” signals in the early system were below the detection reliability of modern STR testing — either because they were artifacts, contamination, or degraded fragments that didn’t survive. The foreign DNA in the underwear was never replicated. 

“Wednesday” bloomies were place on JonBenet, because John and Patsy wanted to show they last saw her on Wednesday, when they put her to bed in her Wednesday clothing. The bloomies were brand new and several sizes too big. 

Patsy claims to have dyed her hair at home the day before, Christmas day. Home dye kits contain plastic gloves. 

The drawer in the second floor bathroom is open. Patsy kept her injections in that drawer. With injections, you have alcohol wipes. There may have been some medical gloves in there as well.

John showers. His robe is left in his office. 

All the  beds look like somebody grabbed the corner and pulled the blankets down. 

A ransom note is written.

The movie Ransom had just been released. There are nods from several other movies in the note as well.

The Mind Hunter novel was sitting in John and Patsy’s bedroom.

You have four intelligent people working on staging a murder.

The ransom note is written Patsy’s handwriting. It’s fake, on the Ramsey’s legal notepad, written with the Ramsey’s marker. It says it’s from a “small foreign faction”. It uses movie quotes - the note is someone’s imagined idea of what a ransom note looks like. Ideas borrowed from movies and books. The note provides a distraction for the police, but also provides the means for JonBenet’s supposed murder. If the Ramseys notify anyone, “they” kill JonBenet. The Ramseys notified everybody.

John himself hands that specific notepad to the police. It was another part of the plan, mostly geared towards framing the housekeeper. They made it look like the killer had a key, access and knowledge to the whole house, and time to practice a note. They included personal knowledge in the note, from Johns paychecks left around. There is also a part in the Mind Hunter novel where they are able to see a phone number imprint from previous pages on a legal pad. That legal pad changes locations through the morning until John offers it to the police. 

That's why John originally doesn't focus on the basement window - they wanted the killer to appear to be an "inside job". That's why he originally said he checked the house the night before and it was secured.

The ransom note is signed Victory! S.B.T.C. This is another nod to the Mind Hunter novel where a killer spoke excessively about God, and how God would forgive him. Saved By the Cross. The same killer also put duct tape over his victim’s mouth.

A flashlight is wiped down inside and out. It is found on the kitchen counter. The dimensions of the flashlight match the injury on JonBenet’s head. The Ramseys originally deny the flashlight belongs to them. It was a gift from John’s older son. 

Patsy calls 911. The 911 operator thinks the call sounded fabricated. Patsy says she “found” a ransom note. Burke is heard in the background saying, “What did you find?” Patsy hangs up on the 911 operator, which is not normal, and proceeds to call everyone but the Stines.

There is no sign of forced entry. 

Burke is supposedly upstairs asleep. Later, it’s revealed he was not sleeping. Even though his mother runs in screaming, “Where is my baby?”, Burke says he just stayed in bed. 

Burke was questioned about this in the Dr. Phil interview. He has no compelling recount of this timeframe. His explanation sounds rehearsed, yet awkward, at the same time. Later, it is discovered that the Ramseys and Dr. Phil share the same attorney. Dr. Phil also has a second business that prepares clients for court testimony. Burke’s CBS case was soon happening - was Burke a client of Dr. Phil? Is that how the interview came about? Dr. Phil’s interview is bad, but we do learn about the bike and Burke being up and awake Christmas night. And that he had hiking shoes with a compass on them.

After the 911 call, Patsy calls several friends, their minister, and JonBenet’s pediatrician to the house immediately. JonBenet had had 33 appointments with the pediatrician in the last three years. Yet the pediatrician had no concerns. He also gave Patsy tranquilizers and later told the police she was in no condition to be interviewed.

In the book Mind Hunter, found in John and Patsy’s bedroom, the author wrote, “Another problem was all the people who had been at the house helping the couple move. That was a lot of potential fresh latent fingerprints legitimately at the scene. Selecting out others would be difficult if not impossible.” The Ramseys were trying to muddy the crime scene. 

That morning a police officer says Patsy was trying to gauge his response by looking through her fingers at him. John was randomly disappearing and Linda Arndt thought his behavior was odd. Burke was whisked off away from the crime scene. Neither one of the parents noticed the ransom call timeframe had passed. They knew it was never coming.  

While “waiting” John and Patsy try to implicate as many people as they can, especially their housekeeper. They bring her up as many times as they can. Even Patsy’s mother calls and speaks to the minister about the housekeeper and wants him to relay the message to the police. 

It’s John who “finds” JonBenet’s body. He removes duck tape from her mouth. He carries her upstairs holding her away from his body. He yells that it’s an “inside job”, as if that’s the important thing to worry about after finding his dead daughter. He and Patsy both oddly lay on Jonbenet once people are there to witness it.

There is a large attache found in the basement. It was John’s oldest son’s and probably kept under his bed. Retrieving it would disturb the dust ruffle. The Ramsey say they think someone might have been under the bed waiting. Patsy said she was in that room packing for the upcoming cruise. The ransom note specifies bringing a large attache to the bank. It's not a coincidence - they were going to put JonBenet in there and dispose of her.

There is a High-tech boot print found by JonBenet’s body. The Ramseys deny owning any. The grand jury discovers this is a lie. Burke had been in that cellar, not surprisingly, yet the Ramseys felt the need to lie about it.

There is a palm print on the cellar door. It is discovered to belong John Ramsey’s eldest daughter. John Ramsey presently continues to misrepresent this print as being unidentified. 

John tries to make flight arrangements to flee to Atlanta. The police tell him that they can no longer leave. It’s now a homicide investigation. John immediately gets legal representation and no longer willingly work with the police.

I'm sure this has been talked to death but I got to thinking about rigor and how it works today. While Nysten's Rule depends on various factors, it's agreed that most often, rigor starts with the heart, works it's way up to the face/head, then the upper extremities, trunk, and finally lower extremities.

Looking at JB's autopsy report, they noted livor along her back and right side of her face. They also noted that rigor is mild in the elbows and shoulders, but more advanced in the lower extremities. This contradicts Nysten's rule, and while there are various environmental factors to take into consideration, is it unreasonable to consider this discrepancy supportive of the staging of her tied hands *after* her death? Or could it simply be the position of her arms above her head changing the expected progression of rigor? I was unable to determine definitively if livor was present in her arms, but should you expect a difference of livor in those limbs between above head vs at her side, or would it all just pool to her back regardless since she's lying on it?

There's so many wonderful people here who are far better informed/experienced than me, and since I have no one to obsess over this irl, I am hoping to hear your thoughts on this!