Jon Benet

 

It's 2am and I'm finally getting sleepy but will write a bit about the unsolved case of Jon Benet Ramsey. I just watched a YouTube video hosted by a "behavioral analyst" which is a made up job. He analyzes body language and usually talks about infamous criminals and their crimes, all naturally after the fact so he can make conclusions already uh, concluded. He had a guest on who is also well known for his made up job. I write in snark because one, I'm tired, and two, they never came to any conclusion or even a guess as to who killed six year old Jon Benet. They did talk about Jon Benet's parents police interviews and noted a few red flags. Then they discussed the ransom note, a three page letter where the paper and pen were taken from Patsy's pad. Three pages. Look at Patsy's e's on her grocery list and the e's from the ransom note, yet six handwriting experts could not say with certainty that Patsy wrote the letter. What kidnapper/killer takes the time to write a letter? A drama queen, that's who. Patsy was one of those Southern Belle types who performed in pageants and did some acting. Drama. John Ramsey was the complete opposite. He has the emotional range of a stick. Body language can be useful, after the fact in most cases. You can watch a police interrogation and analyze what you see as tells or giveaways. A big one is when the killer takes a nap while the detectives are away. They are either so confident they can get away with murder or they're just tired from the used up adrenaline, idk, but it does seem to be a legit pattern. So, let's just stick with the evidence as meager as it is because of the absolute ineptness of everyone involved. 

The ransom letter in my opinion is the biggest evidence against the parents. The amount being demanded was a meager $118,000 which coincidentally was the amount of John's bonus that year. Who the hell asks for $118,000!? The Ramsey's had money. I'm sure they could have come up with at least $250,000. The length of the letter is absolutely ridiculous. In the letter it said to not call the police yet it's the first thing they do. 

The body. For hours people are traipsing inside the house, waiting for the kidnappers to call. Neighbors, friends, investigators all walking around, contaminating evidence, if there was any. A police detective tells John to look around the house which is an odd thing to suggest. He goes straight to the basement, straight to the door where she is behind. She's been dead for hours, yet he picks her up and carries her to the kitchen. She has a head fracture and a garrot around her neck. She had marks of a stun gun being used as well. And she was sexually assaulted with the paintbrush that was used to strangle her afterwards. The eventual cause of death was strangulation. 

So, the unsub comes in through a basement window where he manages to bypass cobwebs, then he goes upstairs, maybe he sees the flashlight on the kitchen table and takes that with him- apparently unprepared by not bringing his own devices. He finds Jon Benet's bedroom through the labyrinth, uses the stun gun, maybe bashes her head in, carries her downstairs as she's covered with her blankets. She struggles so he finds a rope and one of Patsy's paintbrushes to make a garrot. She's now dead in the basement, covered with her blankets. Now would be the time to leave, yet he sticks around to write a long letter with information only the Ramsey's would know. 

It makes no sense unless you were trying to cover up a crime by someone in the house. There were four people in the house that night. Jon Benet, Patsy, John and nine year old, Burke. Burke who was supposedly asleep but could be heard during the 911 call asking, "What did you find?" Even more chilling was Patsy's question to him. "What did you do? Help me, Jesus."

Speculation was that an intruder came in through a basement window although both windows still had cobwebs on them. John also made sure to let everyone know he was the one who broke the window the previous year when he was locked out. What a weird thing to mention. Why would he bring that up unless he was planning questions like, "Why are your fingerprints all over the window?" They had to make it look like someone came in that way, and someone climbed out that way by using a suitcase because the window was fairly high up, but the suitcase wasn't flush against the wall and it was perpendicular to the wall. As if it was all a set up and not thought out. If Jon Benet was killed around midnight and Patsy didn't call 911 until after five, there was time to plan.

And the flashlight which sits on the kitchen table, no prints found, which allegedly matched the head wound. A good weapon for a nine year old to play with. Sometime during the investigation the flashlight was moved to a drawer. 

There were so many screw ups in this case we will never learn the truth unless the murderer confesses. He's still alive. He's weird, but he also likes to sue if you suggest he may have been the one. And yet, it's the only thing that makes any sense. A neighbor hears a scream or screams coming from the house, yet no one in the house claims to have heard it. Another neighbor saw lights in the kitchen around the time Jon Benet was killed. Let's go through it again. The house was a big, rambling place with stairs and hallways and doors, so this intruder enters from downstairs, heads right to Jon Benet's bedroom, then what? He stuns her, smashes her head with the conveniently found flashlight, carries her downstairs, corrupts the body, strangles her, then dumps her behind a door, go back upstairs, writes a long, rambling three page letter, goes back downstairs and climbs out the window from a suitcase that is oddly placed, where he again manages to avoid disturbing the cobwebs. Wow. A ghost. An acrobatic, dramatic, murdering ghost. 

Even authorities couldn't agree on whether to prosecute the Ramsey's for covering up a crime so they just let the case linger in limbo where it still resides. DNA is brought up and there is one DNA sample that has never been matched to anyone which means zilch considering the appalling lack of containment during the "investigation." The Ramsey's, by everyone who knew them say they loved their children. Well, Patsy did. It's hard to see John feeling anything, he truly is a cold man with a robotic demeanor. Patsy would likely do anything to protect them, even the one she loved less than her darling Jon Benet. 

 My guess is that Burke and Jon Benet were in the kitchen, eating pineapple, her last meal, and Burke got angry with Jon Benet or he was playing with his toy (flashlight) where he swings hard enough to knock her out. He probably then runs to hide somewhere. Patsy walks in, sees her unconscious daughter and this is when she starts screaming. Thinking Jon Benet is dead, they make up the story about the intruder. Patsy and John carry Jon Benet downstairs, and in my opinion it was Patsy's idea to sexually abuse the child using one of her paint brushes, then the brush was used as part of the garrot. It was Patsy's plan the whole way through. They then went upstairs where she wrote the ransom letter. Burke was in the kitchen by then because he can be heard during the 911 call. Watching Burke twenty years later talking with Dr. Phil, I can only think, 'what a fucking weird person.' He smiles a creepy smile throughout the interview. The morning when all hell is breaking loose, Burke stays in bed. He never ventures out to see what's going on or seems the least bit curious - perhaps because he already knew what he had done to Jon Benet was bad. I doubt he knew she was dead or that his parents tried to (allegedly) cover up his attack. I cannot imagine living in that house afterwards. Patsy was already dealing with ovarian cancer and died in 2006. Burke now leads a quiet life, refusing anymore interviews after the 2016 interview with Dr. Phil. John still talks about it, but it's all by rote. He sticks to the plotline.

This is all speculation because there is little hope Jon Benet will receive justice. Patsy is dead. John is the same cold fish, just much so older that he is hardly recognizable. Patsy wanted to protect her son that night, yet, what if instead she had called an ambulance right away? Jon Benet didn't die from the skull fracture but from the ligature squeezed around her neck by one of her parents, most likely, Patsy. Maybe Jon Benet would be walking around, taking her children to kiddie pageants. Maybe Burke could have gotten the mental healthcare he definitely needed. A lot of maybes. 

Thirty years on and still more questions than answers. Perhaps one day, one day, Jon Benet, someone will be there for you. 

* I must add this is pure speculation and a lot of allegedly, perhaps and what ifs. It's also nearly twelve hours later and I'm still working on this. I got about four hours sleep and haven't eaten yet, but will soon after I dot the I's and cross the T's. It's a fascinating subject and one that needs closure.

*Update: This is fascinating. A real doctor watching the videos of when nine year old Burke was interviewed.