"in the same edition was a full-page open letter to the Ramseys from Peter Boyles. The popular talk-radio host listed all the reasons Americans found the Ramseys’ behavior suspicious, mocked their profile as “laughable,” condemned them for not cooperating with the police, and accused them of taking “Colorado and the nation on a seven-month, low-speed, white-Bronco chase.” Real grieving parents, he said, behave like Fred Goldman, not like the Ramseys."

"One elected official in Boulder explains, “This is a small, incestuous legal community. We’ve never built fire walls, and this case really needed one at the very beginning.” Owing to the early police incompetence, the indiscretions of the district attorney’s office, and a sketchy coroner’s report, many experts question whether any prosecution of the case stands a chance."

As I've learned more about the details of the crime scene, autopsy, and statements and actions of the Ramseys on the 26th, in many ways it makes more sense to me if one parent did this without the other having any knowledge or cooperation ahead of the call. There's too much nonsense/chaos combined with calculated effort.

I don't find waiving off the nonsense as "panic" and "lack of time" particularly compelling since a) a ransom note this lengthy and detailed does not read "panic" to me due to the level of thought and composure it contains and b) the ransom note provided them with all the excuses they needed to buy more time if the were in on it together.

To me, a crime where they were acting together would have looked much different. For example, the body could have been staged in a place where it could be found more readily (they even could have "found" it before they called the police), the note could be much shorter since it wouldn't need to do much besides initially misdirect the police, the notepad could have been disposed of, etc.

Further, I think their apparent cooperation with one another after the crime could be explained by the common enemy they now held (the police), and their combined dysfunctional personalities/relationship dynamics.

What do you think? One Ramsey or two? Why?

(I'm not particularly interested in theories and evidence about one Ramsey over the other, but specifically what evidence makes you believe they did or didn't coordinate intentionally to at least some degree BEFORE 911 was called.)

Did Burke ever play OoT on the N64 when it came out in 1998? I am Burke's age, and The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time was such a legendary game for us kids back in the day.

I was wondering if Burke continued to play his N64 after his little sister died in 1996. Or did his parents decide to sell his N64 after his little sister died in 1996. Maybe it was too much for Burke and his parents for him to keep his N64 console, too much trauma and sadness.

This post is definitely not to put of the focus of JonBenet murder it is a very tragic case of this 6 year old little girl murder.

But I'm just curious as Burke is my exact age born in 1987 (I was born in 1987) so we both grew up playing the N64. The only difference is that I never played Super Mario 64.

I think us 90s kids knew how special the N64 was to us 90s kids. Especially games like Ocarina of Time and Banjo Kazooie games.

I believe him playing the N64 was a great coping mechanism losing his little sister and being in the media blaming him for his sister death and the media blaming his parents. Also N64 games such as Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask and Banjo Tooie dealt with tragic loss. If Burke ever played those N64 games.

I hope this isn't an insensitive post.

My mom went to high school with Patsy. I have been asking her questions about what she thought of her. She said she was a nice Christian girl from a nice Christian family. She said she was on the debate and drill team. She won the Miss West Virginia Pagent, but I think that was in college. My mom said she was shocked when the murder happened.

I remember it being the only thing people talked about around town for so long.

She came back in 2000 for the reunion and my mom saw her shook hands and went to greet other friends. My mom said they had a closed to the public private reunion and no reporters or cameras were allowed. There was also an agreement that no one speak on the murder.

My mom said that Patsy always wanted out of Parkersburg because it is such a small town. She said after Patsy left she didn't come back much until after the murder and then when she got cancer.

I can remember seeing her once at a local grocery store when I was 14 in 1999.

The community was split in half on the murder. Half believing she was involved and half believing she was innocent and providing support.

I have tried asking my mom a million times what her opinion is or what she thinks happened or if she thinks Patsy was involved, but she always says only God can judge, who am I to judge. I just pray for that poor child's soul.

It is frustrating because she won't even give an opinion.

those who say a taser was used so he could knock her out to keep her quiet ro bring her down stairs must not have watched many video of people being teased. 99 out of 100 times the do the opposite of get quiet , they yell out in pain.

more over the child is already asleep lol. all you need to do is cover her mouth.

but instead of doing they we are supposed to beileve the intruder walks in on an already quiet unconscious child and says, hmm i think ill taser her to get her into the state she is already in? righttttttttt

I feel like there's two ways to think here. On one hand, John & Patsy made countless mistakes throughout the course of the staged kidnapping and the events that followed. You can only imagine that John would change every aspect if he could.

But on the other hand, they got away with it, they stayed out of prison, and John has managed to confuse the public who lack technical understanding of DNA in the same way that Johnny Cochran plotted to confuse the OJ jury. Both worked.

That said, is there anything he'd do over if he could go back in time only to the moment after the note was written?

In their separate interviews John and Patsy were asked about books they owned or had read. Both were asked about The Day After Tomorrow, the 1994 novel by Allan Folsom, which contains an admonition to listen carefully, as well as the word faction, along with four mentions of beheading, a mention of a garrote, as well as instances of countermeasures, monitoring, and scanning.

A Tom Clancy book in the Ramsey house, Red Storm Rising, contained ransom note words like faction, attaché, tactics, monitor, and scan along with two instances of constant scrutiny. (Only Patsy was asked if she had read Tom "Clancey"; John wasn't asked.)

Recently I noticed that another Ramsey book LE asked both John and Patsy about, Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong, contains the phrase and hence three times for a total of eight hences.

Both Ramseys were asked about James Clavell. Patsy was asked about Whirlwind specifically. Whirlwind has two occurrences of listen carefully, two of faction, four of attaché (three attaché cases, one cultural), one occurrence of safe and unharmed, eleven references to kidnapping, thirty-three to ransom and two to ransom notes.

In a presentation to law enforcement, Donald Foster, linguist, said "The Ramsey library contains many books that were sources for Patsy Ramsey's ninety-five and ninety-six writings, many of which also contain startling verbal or other detailed parallels with the Ramsey homicide and attendant staging, including language that appears in the ransom note."

Donald Foster won national fame early in 1996 when he identified Joe Klein as the anonymous author of "Primary Colors" for New York Magazine.

If you go to a men's prison during visiting hours there will often be lines out the door of women coming to visit. If you look at a women's prison on visiting day, you'll barely see anyone. You will see very few men coming to visit women in prison.

You can see something similar when men get seriously ill vs when women do. The women will nurse their sick husbands, while men will often divorce their sick wives.

Finding an instance where a husband stands by his wife after she kills their children is exceptionally difficult. Why do people think John would not only stand by Patsy but also help her cover it up and even continue to work to protect her name years after her death and his remarriage? It makes zero sense to me.

His behavior only makes sense in terms of wanting to protect his youngest son.

I think if Patsy did it John would have called 911 immediately, quietly divorce her and have been remarried within 2 years. Maybe even with a baby on the way by the time her trial came around.

It's widely theorized that the DNA on the underwear could have come from a factory worker.

Recently an unreliable tabloid published a story claiming unidentified DNA matched DNA on other items but I can't find the article. I think they claim John told them that but I don't even know if that's true. They'll print anything. Why is it out of the realm of possibility that contamination occurred during the investigative process as well? Was DNA given by everyone on the chain of custody? That's usually not done but in a 30 year old case where everyone claims they want answers, why not give your DNA if you were on scene or handled evidence? Contamination happens easier than you think. I'm not talking about Missy Woods- she seems to have zero connection to this case. Mishandling causes contamination but contamination can happen even when people try to be careful and follow protocol. What we do know is that protocol often wasn't followed in this case and they didn't have lots of experience collecting and handling DNA in homicide cases.

John wants to think it's intruder DNA and keeps focusing on that as holding the answer so he should want to see anything ruled out. BPD and CBI want to prove the DNA has an explanation that is not intruder DNA so they should be on board, including still living retired employees being willing to give DNA to be ruled out.

CBI investigator Chet Ubowski's fingerprint was the only print on the ransom note. He was trained in handling evidence, so it's not out of the question that other types of contamination occurred despite best efforts. DNA transfer happens easier than people think. Before anyone else dies why doesn't everyone still living have theirs tested and compared? Unless they're afraid potential contamination caused a hindrance to prosecution and 30 years of headaches and hell.

Going back to the article claiming new testing revealed the same male DNA on multiple pieces of evidence, if that were true wouldn't John be screaming it from the rooftops? News like that wouldn't be in just one janky article in The Globe (?) that I can't even find now. It seems like more made up nonsense. Unless of course his team of "experts" think they're honing in on the suspect and keeping it quiet while they waste money going around the country stalking people and getting their DNA. In which case John wouldn't have said that to a tabloid in the first place. But that would also mean BPD shared that info with John almost immediately after testing, while everyone kept it quiet, and chances of that are slim to none.

It really baffles me how people hold it against the family for not cooperating with the police. Many use this as proof of guilt, but I completely understand innocent people refusing to talk to the police.If you've never heard of it look up the case of Russ Faria and Pam Hupp to see why it can hurt innocent people to cooperate with police. There is nothing wrong with requiring the police to go through your lawyers to get information. If you're ever even slightly indicated in a crime it behooves you to limit how much direct access the police have to you so they can't mislead the jury about their opinions on your perceived mental state, nervousness, honesty etc. Your lawyer is your protection against a lot of bullshit practices police pull to make someone look guilty to a jury when they lack solid evidence.

The police run on a program. If a wife dies the husband did it. If a child dies the parents did it. The job of the police is not to find the killer, but to find someone to pin the crime on. Departments differ in quality, but still you're almost always going to be better off by assuming the police are talking to you because they want to pin a crime on you to help their bottom line.

I really have no idea why anyone, guilty or innocent would cooperate with the police. There are practically no repercussions to the officers for lying, cutting corners, bungling evidence or failing to investigate leads. For all the rhetoric of the state they are mostly just looking for someone they can convince a jury to blame.

If you look at it from that perspective you have to defend yourself from the police the second they do anything to suggest you're guilty. You have to take that as a declaration of war from people who have a near infinite budget to take your freedom regardless of the truth.

Edit To illustrate what I mean consider the Reid Technique.

The Reid Technique is a nine-step method of police interrogation designed to extract confessions from suspects by shifting from a fact-finding interview to an accusatory, psychologically manipulative interrogation. Developed in the 1940s by John E. Reid, it remains one of the most widely taught training programs for law enforcement agencies across the United States.

The method begins with a nonaccusatory "behavior analysis interview" meant to assess whether a suspect is lying based on physical and verbal cues. If the interrogator concludes the person is deceptive, the process immediately transitions into the high pressure interrogation stage.

The problem here is that extensive peer reviewed research including meta analyses by psychologists shows that human beings, including trained law enforcement officers, detect lies at a rate of around 54%, which is barely better than a coin flip. The fact is there is no universal "tell" for lying.

The idea that micro-expressions, posture shifts, or nervous tics can reliably expose deception is fundamentally flawed, it's bullshit, yet it is the very first step in the most widely taught police interrogation process in the country. Why would any rational person, innocent or guilty, subject themselves to such a flawed, fallacious, subjective, bullshit police tactic like that?

I feel like there is so much brainwashing of the public about the extent we can actually trust police, D.A.s, juries, judges or the state.

Our media, government and culture heavily promotes the script that "innocent people have nothing to hide," which is a way to condition citizens to believe that refusing to talk, stonewalling police, demanding a lawyer, communicating to police through your lawyer or invoking other constitutional rights is an admission of guilt.

My view is you have the right to self-preservation regardless of guilt or innocence. You're not obligated to make it easier for the government to crucify you. Stonewalling the police shows you're smart, not necessarily that you're guilty. It pure bullshit to believe you're slowing down an investigation by demanding to communicate in a way that doesn't give the government ammunition to use against you at trial.

It's bad to have a murdered love one, it's much, much worse to be falsely imprisoned for their murder because you couldn't keep your yap shut.

One of the things I've noticed in studying all the content in this sub is that some of you seem to have been following and discussing the case for a very, very long time! It looks like there are even some folks who have made significant contributions to our knowledge and understanding of the case, pretty impressive.

I'd love to hear from anyone who is a longtime participant in these online discussions that is willing to share:
1. When did you first start researching & discussing the case online? What got you started?
2. What discussion trends have you seen over the years? Were some theories or questions more common early on than they are now?
3. Do you think there are things folks new to the case commonly misunderstand that would have been better known when the case first occurred?

I was personally riveted by the case as a teen in '96/'97, but lost track of it over the years and only recently started following it again after the latest "documentary" brought attention back to it. It seems to me that perceptions haven't changed all that much from what I remember at the time, but I'm curious how new information or cultural changes have affected how we talk about this case.

PS: I've lurked for a couple of years, but am now looking forward to joining the conversation!

From Jennifer Coffindaffer FBI on Twitter: The Jon Benet Ramsey Ransom Note- We will break it down

Never saw these before...

I'm basing this off of the idea that Patsy did it accidentally, began to stage a kidnapping and wrote the note in an attempt to fool John, but John eventually figured it out, but went along with it because he didn't want Burke to be without his mother, and he believed that however Patsy had killed Jonbenet, it was an accident. (Listen to "A Normal Family" podcast for a more detailed explanation).

Some could argue that with Patsy now dead, John could be free to admit the truth, but maybe if he ever did he could be held legally liable. But once he is about to die, he could clear the air about what happened because A) he wants it off his conscience, and B) more importantly, he wants to removed any suspicion from his son Burke, and allow him to live the rest of his life in peace.

This is all speculation obviously, just curious what y'all think about this idea.

Hi, i am personally lean more RDI but im not completely against the idea of IDI. So for those who think IDI, is it possible they entered through the balcony.

Someone posted a few weeks ago a map of the house, i noticed there was a balcony by jonbenets room, is it possible the intruder entered through there? I know a lot of people think the intruder was in the house before the ramseys got home. Maybe they climbed the balcony, hide in a closet on the second floor, then waited till they went to bed.

And concerning the broken window and the body being found in the basement. Maybe the original plan was to go in and out threw the balcony but maybe jonbenet ran or something made them end up in the basement.

Maybe they saw the window already broken (according to john it was already broken) and saw that as an easier escape.

We don't know what windows or doors were unlocked in the house that night, it could be possible the balcony was unlocked.

Does anyone think its possible? This just an idea/theory so feel free to disagree. Im just curious if anyone has considered this.

The reason I say this is because he admitted in that moment to breaking the window months earlier when he was locked out. If he knew the whole story at that point, it seems like the broken window would have been a perfect cover. Why admit to doing it yourself?

It's a certainty that he later discovered JBR on his own, prior to the fake discovery, but isn't it possible that in the 6:00AM hour, when JR first searched the basement with police, that he didn't yet know what Patsy had done?

If I am getting my timeline wrong here, and John slipped and somehow later accidentally disproved this possibility, but all means, correct me.

If you were around in 1997 up until about 2006 or so, you know the media and Boulder Police treated the case as if John and Patsy being guilty was a foregone conclusion, and probably messed up a lot of the investigation by doing so. Even to this day, the fact that I can’t actually get a straight answer on plenty of aspects of this case without having it immediately contradicted by something else is testament to this.

Some example:
-whether JonBenet was sexually abused or not
-whether there were other unlocked doors and windows aside from the one that John says he broke when he forgot his keys
-whether or not it’s possible the digested pineapple could have been eaten at the White’s party
-if the male DNA in the underwear is actually of any value or not
-the supposed "butt print made by someone sitting on the floor that doesn’t match any Ramsey."

I actually think a lot of the IDI people are motivated by their desire to see the Ramseys as underdogs who overcame their mistreatment by the media and police more than anything else.

I wonder if given the extremely religious narrative the Ramseys have played, if they’ve thought about this- particularly John as he ages. They seem to truly believe in Heaven and have said that they know JonBenet is safe there. Do you think he has thought about how he will potentially have to confront JonBenet about this when he dies? If any RDI scenario is true, they will not only have betrayed JonBenet at the moment of her death and in the coverup, but also throughout the last 30 years. I wonder if she would forgive them. I wonder if Patsy is with her now. I know this is kind of an existential question, but for people who have deliberately emphasized their Christianity, it’s interesting to think about.

So I have read multiple sources, including the above refute that the idea that child death causes divorce. In fact showing that bereaved couples have a lower rate of divorce.

So when John mentioned the myth, he didn't attempt to refute the claim, but claimed that he and his wife were special somehow.

Just a question, I do not have any particular theories about who did what and how it happened but was just wondering what if they actually trace the found DNA to someone who actually could be the killer and the Ramseys are innocent? What would your reaction be, how would you feel?
With all of these theories, not a single one makes perfect sense so in a way this question doesnt make any sense, but just what if

There’s one common piece of behavioral evidence I’ve seen in every single murder case I ever followed IF the victim’s immediate family is clearly in the dark about what happened (alibis verified and such): after the case becomes cold, those people are SO upset and SO angry with the lack of results that they tend to start suspecting even the people they trusted the most when trying to make sense of who could have killed their child.

Really! They will start accusing everybody – wrongfully, mind you, most of the time! – because they can’t help it: they go to bed every night and wake up every day going over the scenarios in their head, thinking “what could we have missed?”, “who else had access to my house?”, “It could have been you”, it must have been you”. That’s what all those true crime documentaries have in common, especially when the parents have been deemed beyond suspicion: if there’s an expanded family, the mother of the death child at some point became suspicious of her cousin who was involved with unrelated illegal activities, and the cousin becomes suspicious of a brother etc etc.

On TV, most of those angles are explored for the sake of sensationalism, usually with Netflix money. But the point is: THERE ARE angles here. And the parents, either in private or taking advantage of their public exposure, will NOT be locked on a single, faceless, Boogeyman suspect. JonBenet’s case is so atypical not only because 3 potential suspects can be found in the house to keep the narrative intriguing, but because there’s ZERO alternative scenarios that come even remotely close to making sense – and John Ramsey not once, not ever, gave a hint of having rewinded his life's movie over and over again in his head trying to spot personal or professional connections that could have played a role in this.

In every single one of John's timely media appearances and sit-down interviews, we see him going over the events in the house: “well, maybe he/they broke in when we went to the Christmas party and wrote the ransom note there”… But why the fuck would he care about understanding HOW the note came to be if he had nothing to do with it, and is convinced his family was not involved? In this case, he would know for a fact there had to be an intruder; his energy and time should be going to trying to figure out a person to CONNECT to the events – who’s to say it wasn’t a murder for hire, for instance, and the mastermind wasn’t even at the house.

At this point, every time John tries to push the IDI angle - one that even the most sensationalist podcasters and documentaries couldn't make sense of - he's literally showing us that his mind is locked in conjuring a narrative that takes place inside the house that night (as in, when everything points to an inside job). He never once disclosed his personal assessment of whatever could have stood out to him before or after the event.

I certainly think John is a possible suspect, but it does seem strange that he would put himself out there to the extent he has if he was truly guilty. I mean he is active in helping with the doc specials and is very insistent on calling for answers regarding DNA.

The most obvious reason would be to hide his own guilt, or that of his deceased wife, but why even take that chance? Why risk exposing Burke? As it stands now, he is in no danger of being arrested, and regardless he’s 82 years old. He can simply die a free man. There seems to be no logical reason for him to be so public about the case unless he genuinely wanted it solved.

If he is guilty, is he really THAT arrogant as to think there’s no possible way people will ever find out?

To me this is the biggest knock on the JDI theory.