Did Jon-Benet Ramsay's brother kill her?

[Segnosaur]

But, on average action movies tend to appeal to a different demographic than John and Patsy....if the ransom note referenced action movies, a 20 year old male would be the more likely suspect.

So you think the intruder who had a personal vendetta against John Ramsey was a 20 year old?

I cannot say 20 is the exact age, but I suspect somewhere between late teens and late 20s/early 30s. I base that on 2 factors:
- That is the age that would be most likely to know the movie references that appear to have been used in the ransom note
- The type of sexual molestation appears to be more of a curiosity/experimental thing

I also want to point out that I have no idea of the reason for the vendetta someone like that may have had against the Ramseys. Perhaps a former worker who was fired, perhaps someone jealous of his wealth. It doesn't necessarily mean the Ramseys did anything to him, only that he thinks he was wronged by them.

 

[WayneK]

WayneK,

Some of the DNA is probably unrelated to the crime. That is why I have been focusing on the DNA underneath the fingernails; there is data which suggests that DNA transfer does not happen there frequently. I also think that the DNA in the blood drop is worth examining because we have a probable source for this DNA.

The following info is from the Kolar book, which I happen to be re-reading. The DNA from her fingernails belonged to two males and one female subject. The amounts were too small to determine the type of source (eg blood vs skin cells). They were also too small to enter into national databases for comparison.

It was conjectured that the DNA came from cross-contamination since the examiner failed to use sterile clippers. They took DNA samples from the eight previous autopsy exams but failed to match the DNA. So at this point, the source remains unknown.

I agree that the DNA evidence is important but not in isolation. The amounts are so tiny that they could easily be from innocent sources. Or, they could be from the killer. They only become important when combined with other evidence.

For example, if you develop a suspect through other evidence, then find that his DNA matches the DNA collected from her body, then you have a solid, meaningful link.

Edit: Patsy's sister Pam told Steve Thomas that JonBenet played hard, always had dirt under her fingernails, and wouldn't let you trim them. That makes it even less surprising that she would have collected random DNA under her fingernails.

 

[WayneK]

Indeed, why write a ransom note at all? It wouldn't make sense for an intruder to write a ransom note to make it seem like there had been an intruder.

I agree that it seems illogical to leave a ransom note after killing JonBenet. How are you going to collect a ransom when you've left your only leverage in the house? Even if the murder happened in some unplanned way, why not take the body with you and still try to collect the ransom?

Like many lines of argument in this case, though, it's possible to spin things a different way, even if it seems farfetched. It's been suggested that the ransom note plus murder was a deliberate attempt to further torture John Ramsey by first raising his hopes to recover his daughter safely, only to find out later that she's dead after all.

 

[Segnosaur]

Hitting someone in the head so hard as to render them unconscious seems like a very bizarre thing to do if the object was to torture them to death. Sticking around to torture an unconscious person seems like a very bizarre thing to do. One would think that the killer would have realized after around 10 minutes that JBR had been gravely injured. Going to the trouble of fashioning a garotte to strangle someone who is unconscious and near death seems like a very bizarre thing to do.

You used the word 'bizarre'. I am starting to think you really don't understand what that word actually means.

I doubt very much that whomever the killer was had any sort of medical training. As such, I doubt very much whether they'd be able to recognize when someone was gravely injured. If they could detect a heart beat (probably pretty simple for most people to do) then they would have a reason to think she might wake up.

Indeed, why write a ransom note at all?

Perhaps because the intruder saw it as a way to further hurt the Ramseys. (Even if he planned to kill her right from the start once he got her out of the house, having the Ramseys run around to get the ransom money would cause further distress for them.)

Or perhaps he thought it would be an added bonus... both hurt the Ramseys by depriving them of their daughter, AND get some money out of it.

 

[Segnosaur]

I agree that it seems illogical to leave a ransom note after killing JonBenet. How are you going to collect a ransom when you've left your only leverage in the house?

Simple... The note was written and left on the stairs before JonBenet was killed.

The initial plan was likely to take her from the house. Why he didn't so so is unknown (maybe she struggled more than he was expecting.) Whatever happened, his plans changed. He decided to take her to the basement to kill her. Once done, his main mission would have been accomplished. Going back and picking up the note would have been a waste of time (even if he had thought of it).

Even if the murder happened in some unplanned way, why not take the body with you and still try to collect the ransom?

The intruder was probably not some sophisticated criminal. The death probably would have put him on edge, or left him agitated. In that state he probably wasn't thinking about ransom demands.

Or perhaps he thought it was just too risky to be seen carrying a body though the neighborhood.

Like many lines of argument in this case, though, it's possible to spin things a different way, even if it seems farfetched. It's been suggested that the ransom note plus murder was a deliberate attempt to further torture John Ramsey by first raising his hopes to recover his daughter safely, only to find out later that she's dead after all.

Which makes perfect sense.

 

[Segnosaur]

You don't have to know someone very close to know what they're doing for christmas. I talk about that sort of thing all the time to friends and coworkers. "Hey, you sticking around for christmas? Nah, I'm going to visit parents". Many people aren't really that secretive.

There's a difference between knowing that someone is going to visit someone else on Christmas and knowing what time they are going to return.

You have this very strange infatuation with the idea that everybody in the world leads these secret lives, when in reality many people are quite open with their plans. I doubt very much that the party they were going to was secret, and the fact that the Ramseys had children was a pretty good indicator that they would be home before midnight.

Seriously, this is kind of like the choice of staircase to put the ransom note on... something must be selected, so picking one day over another doesn't really prove/disprove anything.

It does lend credence to the belief that the killer knew the Ramseys very well.

Not really. You don't have to know a person very well to overhear "The Ramseys are gonig to a party tonight".

But can you cite a case in which the killer wouldn't have known what time they would return?

Uhhh... yeah. BTK.

You really are infatuated with the whole "don't know return time" argument, aren't you, despite the fact that it means absolutely nothing.

And how many were similar - spending a minimum of 45 minutes to kill a child while the parents slept?

And how many criminals stab women and dissect them on the street, leaving themselves open for discovering? But there you have Jack the Ripper.

That a crime has some unique elements does not mean that the crime is impossible. It could just mean that there were unique events that preceded the crime.

Except of course nobody (and especially not you) has ever given any sort of narration that would justify any of those other explanations.

Do you seriously believe this?

Well, if someone HAS come up with a plausible storyline about how it could be an inside story, nobody has ever mentioned it here, nor in anything I've read, nor documentaries I've watched.

I see no explanations that favor the intruder theory. Only your belief that parents would never kill their own children.

At no point did I ever say "parents would never kill their own children".

What I said was that in this particular case, for us to assume the parents killed one of their children would be to require rather severe changes in the personalities of the people involved.... such severe changes as to make the likelyhood of an inside job minisule.

This is a discussion forum. Its expected for posters to state things in their own words.

No, we are free to cite other's statements as long as we attribute them.

All you said i your previous post was: "There have been a number of ideas posted in books and on the Internet about how the murder could have been accomplished". That's not "citing other's statements". You're not even giving a reference to a particular source.

In a discussion forum like this, whomever makes a claim is responsible for providing supporting evidence. You have not done that. Just saying 'there are books/internet sites" is not "supporting evidence"

I don't have a theory.

You should have that tattooed on the inside of your eyelids.

If you can't come up with a plausible narrative how something could have happened (such as how 9/11 was an inside job, or one of the Ramseys killed JonBenet) then by default you should accept the alternative (that an intruder was involved), regardless of whatever biases you might have.

Re: reference to an article which supposedly provides a narrative to events...

Furthermore, the article makes rather bizarre leaps of logic...
- the tombsone says "december 25" so they must know when she was killed... Uh, no. They probably felt it necessary to put some date on there, and might as well pick the day when you last saw her (and the day she would be happy at christmas)

Which doesn't change the fact that the author's theory is consistent with the evidence.

First of all, I notice that you ignored the part where I pointed out at least one thing that was ignored in that particular narrative... namely the missing tape.

Secondly, that's not the only thing that that particular article left out or got wrong... It didn't explain where the marks on JonBenet came from. It also suggested that she was injured in a fall or when pushed into a "hard blunt surface" like a door frame, which is inconsistent with the autopsy report which suggests an object like the flashlight or baseball bat that were found in or around the house.

So no, the account provided in that article is not "consistent with the evidence".

Lastly, if a source makes one stupid statement (such as "they put a date on the tombstone so obvously they must know when they were killed") then I think anything else that that source says should be viewed with a little more skepticism.

Its the killer's tape. Why not take it?

Evidence that it was the killer's tape?

Really not sure what your point is.

The main thing is, the tape was removed from the house. That means either:
- The tape was taken by the intruder, who would have had no reason to leave it behind

or:

- The Ramseys, after carefully staging the crime, decided "Hey, lets get rid of the tape (but not the flashlight or pad of paper for some reason)" and decide to walk or drive around hoping to find a spot to dump the roll, even though being seen wandering around trying to find a spot to leave it might arouse suspicions.

Given the 2 options, I'd say the first option makes the most sense.

It was the house the Ramseys lived in. Why wouldn't you expect to fibers from other household members around?

We are to surmise that the killer carried the tape around in his hands and put it down here and there, and at least 1 place where there were fibers from PR's jacket?

And why not? Or alternatively JonBenet might have had fibers on her body (or on her hair) from when she was brought in from the car.

Overall though, I'm not sure how the presence of fibers is supposed to help those believing in the "inside theory". After all, how were the fibers supposed to get there? Was patsy cold when molesting her daughter and decided to thrown on her jacket?

Exactly when did these "multiple days of intensive interviews" happen?

On the day of the kidnapping/murder the Ramseys answered all the questions asked by the police. And while they did restrict their participation (largely after the police became hostile) they still talked with certain officers that they trusted.

Furthermore, while it may have been over a year after the murder, they were still questioned for (I think) 3 days each.

Yet despite all the chances for one of them to 'slip up' (on the day of the murder, or the later interviews, or when talking to one of the officers they actually did trust) neither of them did.

Even the BTK killer left traces of his presence, both DNA and evidence of break-ins. It was only because the police didn't have a DNA sample from him that it took so long to catch him.

BTK was captured because he sent a computer disk to the police, not realizing that there was information on the disk that could be traced back to the computer it was written on.

Not really sure how that statement helps your argument. BTK killed many people and the cops couldn't catch him. Its reasonable that another killer (who also "invaded" the home of JonBenet) was able to do so and not get caught. If anything, referring to the inability to catch BTK actually supports the invader theory.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the first law of DNA profiling

The following info is from the Kolar book, which I happen to be re-reading. The DNA from her fingernails belonged to two males and one female subject. The amounts were too small to determine the type of source (eg blood vs skin cells). They were also too small to enter into national databases for comparison.

It was conjectured that the DNA came from cross-contamination since the examiner failed to use sterile clippers. They took DNA samples from the eight previous autopsy exams but failed to match the DNA. So at this point, the source remains unknown.

I agree that the DNA evidence is important but not in isolation. The amounts are so tiny that they could easily be from innocent sources. Or, they could be from the killer. They only become important when combined with other evidence.

For example, if you develop a suspect through other evidence, then find that his DNA matches the DNA collected from her body, then you have a solid, meaningful link.

Edit: Patsy's sister Pam told Steve Thomas that JonBenet played hard, always had dirt under her fingernails, and wouldn't let you trim them. That makes it even less surprising that she would have collected random DNA under her fingernails.

WayneK,

It is almost an axiom of DNA forensics that the mere existence of DNA does not tell you when or how the DNA arrived on any given item. This works both ways: one cannot be sure it got there during the commission of the crime, but one cannot be sure it got there via contamination or other innocent means. With respect to the clippers, I cited once case upthread where this kind of contamination did indeed happen. However, given that none of the previous eight autopsied individuals donated the DNA, contamination by this route looks less likely than if they had not performed this step.

 

[Hard Cheese]

Well, if someone HAS come up with a plausible storyline about how it could be an inside story, nobody has ever mentioned it here, nor in anything I've read, nor documentaries I've watched.

So you didn't watch the current CBS documentary? That presents a very plausible explanation of an inside job, with testimony from experts in their field. There are certain parts that I don't find overly convincing, but it at least fits in with the evidence. It's certainly more plausible than invoking a disgruntled 20-30 year old glove-wearing movie buff employee who needs 1,000,000 Mexican Pesos in a hurry, and who doesn't seem to know whether he's a killer or a kidnapper.

If you can't come up with a plausible narrative how something could have happened (such as how 9/11 was an inside job, or one of the Ramseys killed JonBenet) then by default you should accept the alternative (that an intruder was involved), regardless of whatever biases you might have.

CBS have provided the current narrative that triggered this thread (Burke did it), so I don't think every poster needs to regurgitate the content of that documentary and attach their own name to it. I largely subscribe to that is how it *could* have happened, but *your* alternative isn't very convincing at all. There are too many if's, maybe's, and supposition pulled out of thin air for me to buy it.

First of all, I notice that you ignored the part where I pointed out at least one thing that was ignored in that particular narrative... namely the missing tape.

Not sure why the missing tape is such a big issue, John had plenty of opportunity to dispose of it. I live in a suburban area. If you gave me half an hour to walk out my front door and dispose of a roll of duct tape where it wouldn't be found, I bet I could do a pretty good job of it. How far did the police go to try to locate the tape - or did they just search the Ramseys' property?

- The Ramseys, after carefully staging the crime, decided "Hey, lets get rid of the tape (but not the flashlight or pad of paper for some reason)" and decide to walk or drive around hoping to find a spot to dump the roll, even though being seen wandering around trying to find a spot to leave it might arouse suspicions.

Come on, the 911 call was made at 5:45 am, they would have had the cover of some darkness if JBR had been killed earlier that morning. It's not like they have to do it in broad daylight. Get in the car, drive for 10 minutes, drop it into a trash can somewhere, and it would quickly be in the landfill, never to be found.

Why not the pad and the flashlight? If they had used the pad anywhere else around the house, they couldn't get rid of it. How would they explain to police that they had the exact same note paper their supposed "intruder" used for the ransom note he brought with him? Perhaps it was just they didn't think there was anything unusual about an intruder borrowing their target's stationery to write their ransom note, so didn't think it worth disposing of. There are plenty of statistics about criminal behaviour that people have wrong - possibly skewed by watching a lot of movies.

If they knew that the flashlight was the murder weapon, then, yes, I would have expected them to dispose of it. Perhaps Burke just told them that he hit her over the head and they didn't think to ask him "with what?" in time for them to get rid of it...leading to the denial of owning the flashlight later on. Whether it was the Ramseys or an intruder, whoever wrote the ransom note was not thinking very clearly.

Overall though, I'm not sure how the presence of fibers is supposed to help those believing in the "inside theory". After all, how were the fibers supposed to get there? Was patsy cold when molesting her daughter and decided to thrown on her jacket?

It points to the Ramseys *owning* the duct tape roll rather than an intruder bringing it with him...after all, if it belonged to the intruder, how could the fibers from Patsy's jacket have possibly got there? And if the roll is missing, that indicates that it was the Ramseys who disposed of it, rather than the intruder taking it away with him.

To me, the fibers indicate that the duct tape had been owned by the Ramseys for some time, rather than the scenario where Patsy has to be wearing her jacket to stage the crime. I would imagine that the gluey side edges of the roll pick up all sorts of loose material.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

I doubt very much that whomever the killer was had any sort of medical training. As such, I doubt very much whether they'd be able to recognize when someone was gravely injured. If they could detect a heart beat (probably pretty simple for most people to do) then they would have a reason to think she might wake up.

I don't think that it requires medical training to figure out that someone who remains unconscious for more than a few minutes has suffered a serious injury. Anyway, if the purpose was to torture and then kill her, smacking her extremely hard on the head with a hard object doesn't fit.

Perhaps because the intruder saw it as a way to further hurt the Ramseys. (Even if he planned to kill her right from the start once he got her out of the house, having the Ramseys run around to get the ransom money would cause further distress for them.)

Leaving the body in the house doesn't fit. It's hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't thoroughly search their house immediately upon reading a note saying that their kid had been kidnapped.

Or perhaps he thought it would be an added bonus... both hurt the Ramseys by depriving them of their daughter, AND get some money out of it.

Leaving the body in the house argues against this explanation.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

I found a website that lists historical exchange rates. According to it, the exchange rate in the second half of December 1996 hovered around 7.85 pesos to the dollar. At that rate, $118,000 would be about 926,300 pesos. It wasn't until 1998 that the exchange rate hit the level that would make $118,000 equal to 1,000,000 pesos.

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/fedny/day-fxmx2us

 

[Henri McPhee]

So you see, as speculation that one or both of the Fleets were involved repeatedly becomes rampant, the public needs to be reminded that they were investigated and cleared.

All of this:

Was because they were trying to get the grand jury indictments released.

Leads and suspects, like the Whites, in the JonBenet case were disregarded. It was never a complete investigation. Fleet White has always been very keen to get the Ramseys prosecuted because it deflects attention from the fact that he did it. Fleet White has always refused to answer questions when properly called upon to do so. Beckner should have been fired years ago. Beckner is idle and incompetent. A proper murder squad, like perhaps the Toronto Homicide Squad ,would have solved the JonBenet case years ago, and the Jeffrey MacDonald gross miscarriage of justice case.

 

[Henri McPhee]

It points to the Ramseys *owning* the duct tape roll rather than an intruder bringing it with him...after all, if it belonged to the intruder, how could the fibers from Patsy's jacket have possibly got there? And if the roll is missing, that indicates that it was the Ramseys who disposed of it, rather than the intruder taking it away with him.

To me, the fibers indicate that the duct tape had been owned by the Ramseys for some time, rather than the scenario where Patsy has to be wearing her jacket to stage the crime. I would imagine that the gluey side edges of the roll pick up all sorts of loose material.

I posted this about the matter of the fibers in 2007:

I don't think you can say with reasonable medical certainty that those red fibers did "match" Patsy's clothes. There are millions of red fibers in this world. Some red fibers come from Santa suits. Some from a scarf. Or dare I say some of Priscilla White's clothes might have similar, or consistent, or grossly similar red fibers to the JonBenet crime scene red fibers.

Nobody on this forum has ever seen any forensic reports about the matter.

This matter was discussed at the Steve Thomas deposition in 2001 with Ramsey lawyer Lin Wood:

18 Q. I think I understand you. The

19 red fibers, we're talking about the red

20 fibers off the duct tape, right, the ones

21 that Mr. Hoffman asked you about?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. That were consistent or a likely

24 match with Patsy Ramsey's jacket?

25 A. Yes.

251

1 Q. That was the red and black and

2 gray jacket that she was wearing?

3 A. I've always heard it referred to

4 as a red and black jacket, yes.

5 Q. It's the one in the photograph,

6 though, that was produced where they went

7 back a year afterwards and tried to find what

8 they were wearing, right?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Were you aware of the fact that

11 Priscilla White owned an identical jacket,

12 that in fact Patsy Ramsey bought her jacket

13 because she liked Priscilla White's so much?

14 A. Until you told me that right now,

15 no.

16 Q. So I assume that no request, that

17 you're aware of, was ever made for the Whites

18 to give articles of clothing with respect to

19 this investigation?

20 A. They may have been asked to give

21 clothing; I'm unaware of that.

22 Q. There were no black fibers that

23 were found on the duct tape that were said

24 to be consistent with the fibers on Patsy

25 Ramsey's red and black jacket, were there?

252

1 A. It's my understanding that the

2 four fibers were red in color.
I

 

[Segnosaur]

Well, if someone HAS come up with a plausible storyline about how it could be an inside story, nobody has ever mentioned it here, nor in anything I've read, nor documentaries I've watched.

So you didn't watch the current CBS documentary?

No I didn't.

As I have mentioned before, the documentary was several hours long, which is quite a time commitment, especially for something that has been criticized heavily for the quality of its investigation.

While there may be nothing wrong with using a documentary as a reference source (along the lines of "The documentary stated X"), expecting someone to sit though a documentary just to get answers is generally frowned upon. It would be like someone saying "9/11 was an inside job! Just sit through Loose Change".

That presents a very plausible explanation of an inside job, with testimony from experts in their field.

Experts like the 911 operator who claimed the call from the Ramseys "sounded fake"? (I wonder how many kidnapping calls she actually has to deal with on a yearly basis. If she had more than 1 in her career.)

Experts like Dr. Spitz, who seems to have testified for the defense in the Phil Spector trial (which rather implies he's a "gun for hire")

CBS have provided the current narrative that triggered this thread...

Although the CBS documentary triggered the thread, the title of the thread was a generic "Did brother kill her". As such, it is a thread discussing the case in general, rather than one specifically about the documentary.

(Burke did it)

That's not a narrative. That's a simple statement of belief.

A complete narrative would be "Burke was in room X with JonBenet. He was motivated by Y. He did Z. Parents then did A, B and C".

...so I don't think every poster needs to regurgitate the content of that documentary and attach their own name to it.

Nobody said every poster needs to regurgitate the content of the documentary. But if its so convincing, at least one should. In more detail than just "Burke did it".

I largely subscribe to that is how it *could* have happened, but *your* alternative isn't very convincing at all. There are too many if's, maybe's, and supposition pulled out of thin air for me to buy it.

Yes, there are a lot of "ifs" and supposition in my narrative. That's because I've attempted to give a complete description from start to end. I haven't just said "An outside intruder did it. End of story".

I suspect that if a complete narrative of the Brother Did It theory was put together, it would have just as many ifs and supposition . In fact, in what I've read about it, they state that the fight was either over a toy or pineapple.

Not sure why the missing tape is such a big issue, John had plenty of opportunity to dispose of it. I live in a suburban area. If you gave me half an hour to walk out my front door and dispose of a roll of duct tape where it wouldn't be found

I have no doubt that, had the Ramseys wanted to dispose of the tape roll, they could have. But that would mean going out of the house which, even at night, would mean they'd risk being seen. Seems like a rather strange risk to take when they could have just said "We don't recognize that roll of tape" like they did with the flashlight.

Why not the pad and the flashlight? If they had used the pad anywhere else around the house, they couldn't get rid of it. How would they explain to police that they had the exact same note paper their supposed "intruder" used for the ransom note he brought with him?

They could claim "its common paper". Or claim "The intruder must have used our pad of paper and taken it with him".

There are plenty of statistics about criminal behaviour that people have wrong - possibly skewed by watching a lot of movies.

Yes, and the statistics favor the fact that it was an intruder.

If they knew that the flashlight was the murder weapon, then, yes, I would have expected them to dispose of it. Perhaps Burke just told them that he hit her over the head and they didn't think to ask him "with what?" in time for them to get rid of it...leading to the denial of owning the flashlight later on. Whether it was the Ramseys or an intruder, whoever wrote the ransom note was not thinking very clearly.

Lots of "ifs" and supposition there. I thought I was the only one that was supposed to be guilty of that.

Re: Fibers on the roll of duct tape

It points to the Ramseys *owning* the duct tape roll rather than an intruder bringing it with him...after all, if it belonged to the intruder, how could the fibers from Patsy's jacket have possibly got there?

Fibers get transferred. Patsy was carrying JonBenet while wearing the jacket. Or the tape gets put down on a surface that had the fibers.

Nobody has established that the Ramseys owned or purchased duct tape.

And if the roll is missing, that indicates that it was the Ramseys who disposed of it, rather than the intruder taking it away with him.

Nope, it implies the intruder, who brought the tape with him in the first place, thought "I'm going to take this on my way out the door".

 

[Henri McPhee]

There is an interesting newspaper article about Fleet White on the internet:

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

"Fleet White : Although never a suspect in JonBenet's murder, White is the only person at the murder scene who has spent time in jail stemming from the case.
Fleet White cares a heck of a lot about every leak of his testimony in this case, and even sued Lacy (then Keenan) over leaks of his grand jury testimony:

White turns his focus to Keenan

By Travis Henry

The Daily Times-Call

BOULDER - Relentless is the word that best describes Boulder businessman and peripheral Ramsey character Fleet White Jr.

The tall, silver-haired former best friend of John Ramsey often can be seen poring over court documents in the Boulder County Clerk's Office as he pursues whatever particular legal action he is working on at the moment.

White's latest crusade is aimed at District Attorney Mary Keenan, who, he claims, has failed to prosecute whoever leaked information from grand jury proceedings in the summer of 1999 that centered around JonBenet Ramsey's murder on Dec. 25, 1996.

Along with his wife, Priscilla, the 54-year-old White filed a motion earlier this month demanding a court hearing at which Keenan would have to explain why she refused to prosecute or cite any person who violated grand jury secrecy laws. On Tuesday, Judge Dan Hale told White that he must serve Keenan with the complaint and that she will have 20 days to respond.

White wouldn't specify the violation out of fear he would be releasing grand jury information himself, he said in an affidavit.

Keenan shook her head Tuesday when hearing about the latest court action filed by White and said she forwards most of his court proceedings to Assistant District Attorney Bill Nagel, who has become the pointman on all things Ramsey.

"If we were convinced there was a violation of grand jury secrecy, we would follow up on it," Keenan said. "That is our job."

Nagel said he would file a response but also would need to be vague in order to not divulge any testimony that came out in the grand jury proceedings.

White has been involved in the Ramsey case since day one. He was with John Ramsey when JonBenet's body was found in the wine cellar of the Ramseys' home, and at first he supported John and Patsy Ramsey's claims of innocence.

At some point, White became convinced of their guilt and started a campaign to have the governor remove former District Attorney Alex Hunter and appoint an independent prosecutor to the case. White also was a big supporter of former Boulder police Detective Steve Thomas, who wrote a book claiming Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter.

In 2000, White's name surfaced again when a California woman came forward with allegations of ritualistic sexual abuse by a group that included people associated with the murder case, including Fleet White.

Since that woman's claims were discredited, White has been on a rampage against the media, seeking criminal libel charges against outlets who told the woman's story.

Two special prosecutors were appointed in the case, but neither filed charges.

In February, El Paso County Deputy District Attorney Robert Harward, who was assigned to look into the allegations, notified Boulder County Chief District Judge Roxanne Bailin that he was declining to file charges.

"The published material, on its face, does not support charges of criminal libel under the Colorado libel statute," Harward's report said.

After White failed to show up for a hearing he had demanded regarding the reasoning behind the special prosecutor's decision, Bailin closed the case.

Last week, White petitioned the Boulder District Court to turn over records of court proceedings in the investigation as he appeals the special prosecutor's decision. The appeal process is the only way he can go, since time has run out for any law enforcement agency to file criminal libel charges.

Keenan was the driving force behind having a special prosecutor appointed after White complained loudly when the first one was dismissed.

"We tried to do what we could to help him within the statute of limitations," Keenan said.
Although never a suspect in JonBenet's murder, White is the only person at the murder scene who has spent time in jail stemming from the case.

In October 2001, White was sentenced to 30 days in jail after he ignored two subpoenas in a Ramsey-related trial.

White was subpoenaed in May and June 2001 to appear as a witness in a criminal bribery trial.

He said he chose not to appear because he didn't think he had any relevant testimony to give.
The case involved lawyer Thomas Miller, who was accused of trying to buy a copy of the ransom note found in the house. Miller was acquitted.

White refuses to talk to reporters.

And several people in law enforcement and the media have wondered aloud why a man obsessed with punishing news outlets for publicizing his name keeps himself in the spotlight.
www.longmontfyi.com

 

[Segnosaur]

I doubt very much that whomever the killer was had any sort of medical training. As such, I doubt very much whether they'd be able to recognize when someone was gravely injured. If they could detect a heart beat (probably pretty simple for most people to do) then they would have a reason to think she might wake up.

I don't think that it requires medical training to figure out that someone who remains unconscious for more than a few minutes has suffered a serious injury. Anyway, if the purpose was to torture and then kill her, smacking her extremely hard on the head with a hard object doesn't fit.

The idea of someone getting a head wound and "waking up" hours later is extremely common in popular culture (even though it is not medically accurate). I can probably point to a dozen TV shows/movies that had characters knocked out, and a few hours later are walking around with nothing worse than a headache.

Once again, you seem to be falsely taking your own experiences/opinions, and extending them to include other people. The fact that you recognize that being knocked out for hours is usually fatal doesn't mean that others don't think differently.

Re: The ransom note...

Perhaps because the intruder saw it as a way to further hurt the Ramseys. (Even if he planned to kill her right from the start once he got her out of the house, having the Ramseys run around to get the ransom money would cause further distress for them.)
...
Or perhaps he thought it would be an added bonus... both hurt the Ramseys by depriving them of their daughter, AND get some money out of it.

Leaving the body in the house doesn't fit. It's hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't thoroughly search their house immediately upon reading a note saying that their kid had been kidnapped.

You have a very bad habit of building strawmen. You take what I post, mangle it badly, ignore sections, and then claim that your distorted version of what I wrote is somehow wrong.

The ransom note was written and left before the murder, and before the abduction. The original plan in my narrative was to remove JonBenet from the house. In such a scenario, a search of the house would have turned up nothing. The decision to kill JonBenet in the house was a change in plans. And after the murder, going back to pick up the ransom note may not have occurred to the killer, or he may not have cared.

This has been explained multiple times.

At no point did the killer think "I'll leave the corpse in the basement, and then write a ransom note and they'll never notice the body!".

 

[Henri McPhee]

It's not just me who thinks Fleet White is a suspicious character. This is what Holly posted about Fleet White on the now defunct Justice Watch forum in 2000:

"Why White?"
Posted by Holly on 06:42:40 7/24/2000
From the start FW has been integral to this case. The self-described star
witness. PMPT, DOI, INSIDE THE INVESTIGATION, the Lee Hill deposition,
and the Singular book have all detailed FW's odd (at least to me) behavior.
Beckner's statements, Hofstrom, Hunter and even a cop in Roswell GA and
others tell me this guy is not operating with a full deck. And I want to know
why.

While many feel FW has deported himself with dignity and compassion and
most of all a dedication to justice for JB, I disagree.

Long before MW surfaced, I was trying to figure White out. His letters were
over the top missives that seemed more focused on politics and Hunter than
anything else. His controlling intensity bothered me. He scribbled notes on
12/26, hustled Burke out of the house, claims to have looked in the
windowless room and seen nothing, violated a direct order from a law
enforcement officer, went back to the crime scene and touched the
blanket, tape, shadowed Patsy, bickered and insulted Ramsey friends and
relatives in Atlanta, his behavior merited a 911 call from Roswell, he openly
argued with JR about CNN, but their accounts are poles apart, he broke into
Hoverstock's office with a note from a tab reporter, hounded the BPD over
and over and over.

He refused to testify before the Grand Jury. He wanted transcripts of his
earlier statements. Why? He obstructed justice according to Beckner. He
required kid glove treatment. Hours and days of reasoning finally got him in
front of the Grand Jury. I would have RUN to the Grand Jury. But did he take
a polygraph, give DNA?

His daughter had been reported missing the previous October and found
hiding in a cupboard. The NUDE information was provided by another poster
via email, who heard it from a good source. But it's unconfirmed.

He admits to having direct contact with JB by changing her panties on at
least two occasions and wiping her in the bathroom. Sorry. I don't like
that. You might. I don't.

For months I have tried to confirm that White owns or works for Fleet Oil or
any oil/gas company, is a champion sailor, a millionaire, an advocate. He
does, however, share the same SS# with someone else. That's weird.


There is not confirmation of anything except some address hits. But I am
still trying. There is no website, no email addie, no internet info on White
except relating to JB.

Does this mean anything? Not really. Just deepens the mystery and intrigues
the hell out of me and others.

With the arrival of MW, the FW behavior finally seemed to make sense. But
without s full investigation of this woman's claims, they are just data and
not facts -- yet.

For those who want heroes, I hope White is one. But for now, based on my
experience and several decades on this planet, many inter-actions with all
kinds of people, some hiding dark secrets, some pushing private agendas,
Fleet White makes me uncomfortable.

I say this to myself every day. "Look with better eyes. The truth to this
horrible crime is there."

 

[Cat Not Included]

I'd caution the people saying "But that would be bizarre behavior" to keep in mind that we're talking about the murder of a child and a lot of really strange things done in connection with it; the entire situation is bizarre, so any behavior leading to it is very likely to be bizarre as well.

In the same vein, a very probable answer to any of the "why did they do X, but not Y" is simply that they weren't thinking very clearly. People in stressful situations - and even in normal situations - do silly things all the time. It is quite common for a person to become focused on one aspect of something while ignoring others, or to stress about minor details while ignoring major ones. There is nothing remotely unusual about that as human behavior.

==============================

If you can't come up with a plausible narrative how something could have happened (such as how 9/11 was an inside job, or one of the Ramseys killed JonBenet) then by default you should accept the alternative (that an intruder was involved), regardless of whatever biases you might have.

I disagree very strongly with that; you seem to be saying "If you don't know, then you must accept any alternative explanation". That's the whole foundation of a lot of really bad thinking. "I don't know what caused the noise, therefore ghost".

When going counter to a widely understood and accepted explanation, I think there's some obligation to provide a plausible narrative. But not so much when no one else knows exactly what happened either.

And on a side note, is it actually hard to come up with a plausible narrative? I don't have any opinion on the case either way, but it doesn't seem terribly implausible. Let's say...kid's mother loses it at her and bashes her/throws her, something. Panics, thinks kid is dead and stashes the kid in the basement. Decides to try to make it look like a kidnapping. Writes note. Tries to make it look like kid was deliberately murdered/kidnapped. Makes a quick run outside to throw away tape somewhere.

Likely? Eh, beats me. Rational? Probably not particularly, but again, neither is killing a kid in the first place. Plausible? I think it probably is.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

If they knew that the flashlight was the murder weapon, then, yes, I would have expected them to dispose of it. Perhaps Burke just told them that he hit her over the head and they didn't think to ask him "with what?" in time for them to get rid of it...leading to the denial of owning the flashlight later on. Whether it was the Ramseys or an intruder, whoever wrote the ransom note was not thinking very clearly.

It isn't even known for sure whether that flashlight was used in the crime.

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

That a crime has some unique elements does not mean that the crime is impossible. It could just mean that there were unique events that preceded the crime.

Likewise when a crime has so many indicators pointing to an inside job, it could just mean it was an inside job.

Secondly, that's not the only thing that that particular article left out or got wrong... It didn't explain where the marks on JonBenet came from. It also suggested that she was injured in a fall or when pushed into a "hard blunt surface" like a door frame, which is inconsistent with the autopsy report which suggests an object like the flashlight or baseball bat that were found in or around the house.

Do you have a cite? The autopsy report I have does not say any such thing. The ME does not speculate what might have caused the injury, AFAIK.

Overall though, I'm not sure how the presence of fibers is supposed to help those believing in the "inside theory". After all, how were the fibers supposed to get there? Was patsy cold when molesting her daughter and decided to thrown on her jacket?

You should probably familiarize yourself with the RDI theories before you dismiss them so readily. It is thought that Patsy did not change her clothes from the night before, because she was busy dealing with the tragedy that had occurred overnight. The fibers from her jacket were on the tape because she was involved.

On the day of the kidnapping/murder the Ramseys answered all the questions asked by the police. And while they did restrict their participation (largely after the police became hostile) they still talked with certain officers that they trusted.

There were hardly any police available on the day of the murder, with whom did they sit down and answer questions?
Lin Wood was hired early on and the Ramseys would only answer questions if the police sent them to their lawyer in writing. Would you do this if that had been your daughter? As of 1/4/1997 when they went on CNN, they had not sat down with the police for formal interviews. They insulated themselves with lawyers.

Who are the police officers they spoke with and when was it?

 

[Desert Fox]

Lin Wood was hired early on and the Ramseys would only answer questions if the police sent them to their lawyer in writing. Would you do this if that had been your daughter? As of 1/4/1997 when they went on CNN, they had not sat down with the police for formal interviews. They insulated themselves with lawyers.

If they understood the way the legal system works, I don't blame them for insulating themselves with lawyers whether guilty or innocent. Cops can often get a person to make incriminating statements even when innocent.
Edit: I am not passing judgement in this post if they are innocent or guilty, just addressing one point.