JonBenet Ramsey Case Insights: #1 Burke’s Knife

Why we believe this line of evidence is important: 

We believe Burke’s knife is the most compelling evidence connecting him [let’s say possibly connecting him] to the murder of his sister.

The knife isn’t the murder weapon, however it’s possibly directly linked to the manufacture and assembly of weapons used to subdue, suppress and strangle JonBenét.

paint-brush-2

anatomycoldcase088

What’s also very suspicious to us is when Burke is asked an open-ended question two weeks after JonBenét’s murder by Dr. Bernhard about what he thinks happened to JonBenét, the first weapon Burke mentions is a knife**.

One of the two murder weapons – the Garrotte – appears to be assembled in situ near Patsy’s paint tray on the floor in the corridor opposite the boiler room and leading to the wine cellar.  A urine stain was also discovered here.

carpet-removed-in-front-of-wine-room

This is the spot where the paint caddy was found [the wine cellar doorway is to the right] – the urine stained carpet was cut out and collected for testing.

The question we ought to be asking is: which is more likely, that an unarmed intruder would break in and use all the materials inside the Ramsey home to execute his crime, and then fail to execute it [he didn’t kidnap JonBenét], or that someone in the Ramsey home, someone familiar with the home and all things inside it, used what they usually used in what eventually escalated into the murder of a child?

The distinctive white camping cord could also be traced [theoretically] to a nearby camping store for which the Ramseys held receipts.

We must also utilize the benefit of hindsight and ponder: if the Grand Jury felt the Ramsey parents [both parents] were deserving of indictments on charges of child abuse and neglect, and if the third party they had aided and abetted in the commission of the crime was Burke, we can also see the possible neglect and recklessness in not confiscating a weapon, especially given it may ultimately have been used to kill JonBenét.

Prior instances of injury to JonBenét by Burke*** ought to have necessitated at least the removal of objects, items and weapons that could be [and perhaps were] used to injure her.

  1. FACT: Burke had his own Swiss army knife, and it has his name on it. [The Ramseys concede in their book that Burke owned at least one knife, and the housekeeper, Linda Hoffman-Pugh does too. In his own testimony, during a 1998 interview with Detective Dan Schuler, Burke conceded he had two knives.] SMF/PSMF
  2. FORENSIC: The paintbrush used as a garrotte appears to be whittled. A fragment consistent with the paintbrush [of whittled wood] was found in JonBenét’s genitalia, described in her autopsy as birefringent material. One [Swiss] red pocket knife was listed in an evidence list dated December 26 [page 10] as 42KKY.
  3. TESTIMONIAL: Housekeeper witnesses Burke whittling; confiscates Burke’s knife

Source: Charlie Brennan, Denver Rocky Mountain News, August 2nd 1999:

Hoffmann-Pugh made good on her threat. [According to Hoffman-Pugh she] “got tired of laundry-area-outside-jonbenet-bedroomcleaning [the wood shavings] up… [Burke had] been asked to do it over paper or a bag or something. So, I just put the knife up one day, in a cupboard over the sink in that area outside of JonBenét’s room” on the home’s second level, an area that also had a microwave and laundry facilities. Hoffman-Pugh said she didn’t tell JonBenét’s parents where she stowed Burke’s knife.

[Although] Hoffmann-Pugh never saw the knife again… it resurfaced [in the evidence inventory] following the 10-day police search [of the Ramsey home]…Specifically, Detective Kerry Yamaguchi discovered Burke’s knife on a countertop near a sink just down a basement corridor from the [wine cellar] where JonBenét’s body was found.

  1. CIRCUMSTANTIAL: Burke’s knife was found in close proximity in the basement to JonBenét’s corpse in the basement wine cellar, in the region of a couple of metres.
  2.  INFERENCE: Besides the whittling of the garrotte itself, a sharp knife was used to cut the lengths of cord used to tie JonBenét’s wrists and fashion the garrotte.

Burke used his knives for scouts and camping. Two principal tasks scouts must learn file-nov-21-10-28-55-aminclude whittling/kindling wood and the mastery of cords, rope and knots.

An intruder may have armed himself with Burke’s knife, though if he wrote and left the ransom note in the kitchen, why not use a kitchen knife or his own knife?

Conversely, Burke may have used the knife as he habitually did.  Whether it was Burke or an intruder, whoever whittled the garrotte, was the same individual who placed the birefringent wood fragment inside JonBenét’s genitalia.  What we know for sure though, at least if Hoffman-Pugh’s testimony is reliable, is that Burke whittled often.  This seems to skew the likelihood towards Burke using his own knife, and fashioning a garrotte, and tying the sort of knot scouts needed to know about, rather than a random intruder with a very spontaneous and haphazard approach to kidnapping and murder.

6.  TESTIMONY: Burke admits owning a knife, admits it has his name on it, admits using it to tie knots and that his mother Patsy gave it to him.

From the National Enquirer October 3, 2016 article – (these are portions of Burke’s 1998 interview with Detective Dan Schuler):

SCHULER: You have two knives?

BURKE: I have one that says my name on it – it has Switzerland on it.

SCHULER: Uh-huh.

BURKE: That one has a big knife, small knife, saw, corkscrew, screwdriver, flat head screwdriver, toothpick and tweezers. And I think that’s it. And then I have another one that has a saw, scissors, it’s got this little hook thing that you tie knots better with. Um, I said saw? A cork opener.

SCHULER: Both of those Swiss Army knives?

BURKE: One knife is smaller.

SCHULER: Where do you normally keep those? In your scouting stuff?

BURKE: I think I like (inaudible) and I have a little place for them in my room.

SCHULER: Did you take them both camping with you?

BURKE: I just took the —

SCHULER: The one with your name on it?

BURKE: No.

SCHULER: Oh, okay. So somebody must have given you that one, for a special occasion?

BURKE: My mom.

7. INTERROGATION/Confirmation [December 11, 2001 Patsy Ramsey Deposition Wolf vs Ramsey]

HOFFMAN: One of the most controversial pieces of evidence is a red Boy Scout knife or a whittling knife. I don’t know if it is a Swiss Army knife. Do you know whether or not Burke owned a red knife at any time?

PATSY: He had a couple of them.

HOFFMAN: He had more than one?

PATSY:  I believe so.

HOFFMAN:  Do you know if he had more than one at one time?

PATSY:  Yes.

8. DISPUTE [June 1998 Patsy Ramsey Interrogated by Detectives Thomas Haney and Trip DeMuth]

Not surprisingly, Patsy denies seeing Burke whittle during an interrogation in June 1998, but concedes she’s seen whittle wood in the play room. The denial is reinforced in the Ramsey’s book Death of Innocence**** published in March 2000, approximately six months after their “official exoneration” by the Boulder D.A. Alex Hunter.  In June 1998 Patsy appears to reveal crucial information but also withhold crucial information about Burke.

DEMUTH: Patsy, I read somewhere that Burke would walk through the house whittling sometimes, whittle in the house; is that true?

PATSY:  I never saw him walk through the house whittling. Now I did, on occasion, in the play room see little whittling like wood, kind of whittles, you know.

DEMUTH: You did ever see [Burke] whittle?

PATSY: No, No, I didn’t.

DEMUTH: Is there any reason why Burke would have a knife like this.

PATSY: No. Huh-uh.

But didn’t Burke say Patsy had given him the knives?

9. Additional Points

  1. According to some sources, Burke may have been given a scouting book for Christmas in 1996 which contained, amongst other things, a how-to-guide for making the knot found on the garrotte. This book was not part of the evidence list. We know that on December 28th Pam Paugh, Patsy’s sister, removed a trunk load of items from the Ramsey residence as per Patsy’s directions.
  2. The garrotte knot is known as a prusik hitch, a typical boy scouts or camping knot.
  3. The Bonita Papers also note the location of Burke’s Swiss army knife to JonBenét’, however the wording implies the knife was found in the same room*****.

*Insights are based on research documented in The Craven Silence and The Day After Christmas trilogies, both published between September and December 2016.

**BURKE:  I think that someone took her very quietly and tip-toed down the basement, then, then they took a knife out and [motions with arm]…like that.

***We know for a fact that Burke hit his sister in the face in August 1994, shortly after her fourth birthday.  Was this an isolated incident? In JonBenét’s medical records there are also instances of her bruising her nose after falling on her face on May 8th 1995, another fall and a cut above her left eye in December 1995, in May 1996 JonBenét hurt her fourth finger of her left hand in another fall,.a bloody bowel movement on November  1st, 1994, repeated instances of rashes, inflammation and vaginitis and “trouble sleeping”. On  August 27, 1996  Patsy reported to JonBenét’s  pediatrician that JonBenét had been asking about sex roles and reproduction.

**** Death of Innocence Page 321: “I wondered if, as they walked through the basement, any of the jurors brought up the issue of Burke’s red Swiss army knife, which according to the media had been found on the countertop near a sink, just a short distance from where JonBenét’s body was found. The implication was that the killer could have used the knife to cut the nylon cord used to tied (sic) JonBenét’s wrists together. The cord was also used to make the garrote placed around her neck, which ultimately resulted in her death by strangulation. Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, our cleaning lady, had said on a TV talk show that she thought the issue of the knife was relevant to the murder.

Patsy and I never quite understood why she’d made those statements except that we knew she was mistaken about a number of other issues when she spoke on national television. The truth was that we had no idea where someone might find Burke’s knife at any given time; he has a tendency to leave things lying around when he loses interest in them. The knife could have been anywhere in the house. And we had no idea if the knife had any relationship to anything that happened in the crime.”

1999 February 18 – Lawrence Schillers book “Perfect Murder, Perfect Town

Page 181:

“Burke had this red Scout knife and always whittled. He’d never use a BAG or paper to catch the shavings. He’d whittle all over the place. I asked Patsy to have a talk with him. She answered, “Well I don’t know what to do other than take the knife away from him….After Thanksgiving I took that knife away from him and hid it in the cupboard just outside JonBenét’s room. That’s how that problem was solved….” – Linda Hoffman-Pugh

*****From The Bonita Papers:  A red Swiss army knife was also found lying in the corner of the room away from the blanket. On the floor outside the door to the cellar was a paint tray and acrylic painting supplies. One of the detectives observed a wooden handle to a paint brush, the type used by artists, which appeared to be broken and a piece missing. The floor of the wine cellar was vacuumed to collect any trace evidence. The black duct tape, blanket, nightgown, knife, broken paint brush and paint tray, and vacuumed particles were all collected and logged into evidence.

shakedowntitle.com

The Craven Silence and The Day After Christmas

books are available on Amazon

The Day After Christmas 3 is due out mid-December

jonbenet

Who Broke the Basement Window?

Fairly early on in researching the JonBenet case, Nick and I suspected something was really off with the broken window story.

img_5850At first, the window was no big deal to John.  He didn’t seem to want to draw attention to it. If you want to make the case that someone came in from the outside of the house and broke in, wouldn’t you be cheerleading a broken window as prima facie, bona fide whoopdedoo evidence?  So why does John not even mention it to the cops that morning?  As a concerned parent he should be waving a great big flag at it.  So why doesn’t he?

The police aren’t sure whether there’s been any break in anywhere, and what’s more, are mumbling about no footprints in snow.  But the broken window is John’s big opportunity to say – wow, this is how and where they could have gotten in.  Except John didn’t seem to be thinking that.  Besides this, why is it that the window was broken months ago?

What we want to know is:

  1. Why are there inconsistencies around the window [and what are they exactly?]
  2. If John didn’t break the window, who did?
  3. Was it broken 4-5 months earlier, or on the night of the murder?
  4. If it was broken on the night of the murder, who broke it, how, why and what does this mean?

Late on December 27th, the police first discussed the broken window with John.  It’s 9:30pm and Linda Arndt and Larry Mason are at the Fernie’s house where the Ramseys are staying…

Linda Arndt’s report dated Jan 8, 1997:

John was told that there was a broken window located in the basement of his home.  [In response] John told us that he had broken out a basement window approx. 4 to 5 months ago.  This window was located in the room where the Christmas decorations were kept.  The grate covering the file-nov-29-11-52-31-pmwindow well to this window was not secured.  John had been locked out of the house.  John told us he removed the grate, kicked in the basement window, and gained entrance to the house from this window.  John told us he had not re-secured the window nor had he fixed the window which he had broken.

Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario.  John and/or Patsy intentionally break the glass on Dec 25/25 as part of a staging.  Again, we’re stuck with the quandary of why not bring it to the attention of the police?  Plus, why didn’t they leave the glass on the ground?  If you’re creating the illusion that somebody forced their way in, then leave the evidence and make sure somebody sees it.  They didn’t do that either.

There’s also the possibility that John really did break the window that summer because he was locked out, therefore he really didn’t think it was suspicious when he saw it on December 26.  Nevertheless, a broken window that could be opened from the outside would still be a point of entry/exit, so why not tell the police that?  Why did Patsy say she told the housekeeper about the broken window but the housekeeper, Linda Hoffman Pugh, knew nothing about it from Patsy, let alone saw that it was broken?

In our book The Day After Christmas 2, the plot thickens. We interrogate the statements of John, Patsy and Burke on the broken window.  Who was there when it was broken, when was it broken and how?  Do you think the three offer three consistent statements or do you think all three statements contradict one another?…

Part 2 of The Day After Christmas trilogy is available now, exclusively on Amazon.  Be on the lookout for Part 3 in December.

shakedowntitle.com

christmas-1996

“Allergic to Nonsense”

Review of…


The Day After Christmas:  JonBenet Ramsey

Pick The Day After Christmas!  by Katharine Polenberg   

In this first installment of their next trilogy (about the unprosecuted murder of JonBenet Ramsey) the authors have raised the bar for true crime. Like the difference between porn and erotica in art, the difference between sensationalist crime writing and this new book is in its effect on the consumer and genre: the higher art and written word must be seen as elevating and honoring its subject.

This is what I see: there is real literary prose here. There is autobiographical analogy from van der Leek that stands alone as haunting short story; there is anthropological and psychological foundation in the cited research for the sense they make of the sensational. 
I like this team.

As I read this book I was reminded of the scene in the film “Infamous” in which Harper Lee and Truman Capote go over their notes and Lee corrects Capote’s recollection of a local’s description of Bonnie Clutter: “If you ever DID see her- not if you ever saw her.” “Good catch” he responds. Capote and Lee were hearing the home-grown vocabulary around the crime scene in the Clutter household. In this series of books we have the benefit of these authors’ equally sharp ears, and their ability to tell us what they think and why. Wilson and van der Leek share a thought process that is clear, instructive and humorously allergic to nonsense.

The Day After Christmas is available exclusively on Amazon

1-fullscreen-capture-20160927-045543-pm

shakedowntitle.com

The Reviews are in for The Craven Silence Trilogy

We’re thrilled that our books on JonBenet have expanded the minds of so many and have inspired our readers to further the conversation.  Here’s the latest…


From Katharine Polenberg

Read the 3 installments on Kindle, and I think you brought an intuitive, intelligent enthusiasm to img_5628-2the interrogation via the psychology of the children.  It’s underestimated how much damage the sibling rivalry and parental short-sightedness does to the child’s personality (and the adults who go with the flow!)  It’s so clear, in this telling of yours, that there were always two “only child” offspring in the house:  first a son who is the only child until a sister comes along.  He becomes the “other” child while she is given the turn at being the “only.”  If only the father had adopted his own boy as fiercely as she sank her teeth into her girl.  There’d still have been damaged young people growing up – but they’d at least have grown up physically together and possibly lived equally long lives.

 

The Craven Silence trilogy can be found exclusively on Amazon

 

www.shakedowntitle.com

Excerpt from The Craven Silence 3 #JonBenetRamsey

From the chapter

Wanted: missing photos, video, rope, duct tape, piece of paintbrush…


“Both ends of the duct tape found on her were torn, indicating that it came from a roll of tape that had been used before.” — Plaintiff’s Statement Disputing Material Fact [PSDMF]

I want to get back to Steve Thomas’ reconstruction, but whoever is guilty of murder, we’re still not clear on what happened to missing pieces of evidence. Were these various items evanescent?  Where is the rest of the rope used to tie and strangle JonBenét? Where is the original roll of duct tape?  What happened to the other piece of the broken paintbrush? Did they disappear into Boulder’s thin, cold Christmassy air?  We believe that’s exactly what happened.

Let’s address just one of these objects before moving on.  The duct tape across JonBenét’s mouth was similar to duct tape that had been used to fix two painted canvasses to their frames.  One of these paintings was hung in JonBenét’s bedroom.

 Patsy was an amateur painter and John was a man who habitually engaged in remodelling. Duct tape can also be used to protect surfaces from being contaminated by paint splatter, such as window and door frames. 

Since my own brother is a professional artist, and since I also have canvasses prepared for photographic printing, I know how often duct tape is used in mounting canvasses onto frames. For this reason I’m inclined to think the duct tape belonged to or was bought by Patsy.  If that’s the case it may explain why red fibers from her outfit worn on Christmas night were found on the discarded duct tape in the basement.  If the duct tape was Patsy’s, she knew where it was and she retrieved it.  Did she apply it to her daughter’s mouth?  Unknown.  

What’s interesting is that the duct tape found was torn on either end, which proves it was used.  This suggests at least the possibility that it came from the home.  If so, what happened to it?  What happened to the other end of the paintbrush and the nylon rope?  I believe they were burned.  At Christmas it’s not unusual to have a fire going.  Of course one of the first things that sticks out when looking at the Ramsey residence is the enormous chimney.

Some of the best footage we have of the fireplace is…

The Craven Silence 3 is available exclusively on Amazon Kindle

1-fullscreen-capture-20160903-033548-am-001-2

www.shakedowntitle.com

Beth Karas on what should have happened – legally speaking – in the #JonBenetRamsey case

“You gotta take the tough cases to trial.  Sometimes you just have to do it and let the jurors decide because it is the right thing to do.” – Beth Karas

Last month, Investigation Discovery aired their special on JonBenet Ramsey titled An American Murder Mystery.  Beth Karas was a featured legal analyst on the program and offered insights on the suspects, including Mark Karr.

This week, she joined Nick and I for a discussion on numerous aspects of the case spanning the 20 years that have passed since the murder of JonBenet.

We delve into Alex Hunter.  Were his investigative choices strategic?  Should the Grand Jury indictment have been filed?  What about Lou Smit; were his findings objective?    We also touch on Linda Arndt, Steve Thomas, Ollie Gray… and many more.  And of course, we discuss the Ramseys.

“Mark Klaas, I have read, whose daughter Polly Klaas was kidnapped and murdered right from her home in a pajama party she’s having with girlfriends when she was about 13, begged them [John and Patsy] to cooperate with the police.  Work with the police.  Act like parents who have had their daughter senselessly, brutally murdered.” – Beth Karas

Watch the full discussion here…

For more on the JonBenet case, read The Craven Silence, parts 1 and 2, available on Amazon Kindle.

Beth Karas will be featured on the Reelz Channel program Hollywood Homicide Uncovered offering her expertise on the Phil Spector case.

www.shakedowntitle.com

www.karasoncrime.com

beth-6

 

 

 

 

Excerpt from The Craven Silence 2 #JonBenetRamsey

From the chapter…


Playing Chess with Polygraphs

BYNUM: Oh, that’s – that’s ouija board science, number one. And I will also tell you, to my knowledge, that request has not been made of John and Patsy. Diane Sawyer ABC PrimeTime September 10 1997
 
The craziest thing about the “Polygraph narrative” is its gargantuan scale; it’s a complete narrative entirely on its own.  One could devote a book exclusively to rollercoastering through that farce.
 
At this point we’re going to take you through the highlights, but at the end of the day, the polygraphs are a lot like the police co-operation mirage.  The Ramseys can retrospectively claim that they did [eventually] speak to police.  Ditto they can retrospectively claim they did [eventually] take a polygraph or ten.
 
When we poke thoroughly through the Scalextric of this case, when we descend through the clunky depths of Lego strata, when we plumb the basement level of a SuperMario game, we eventually reach a dark obscurity with a clue twinkling in the midst of it.  john-and-patsy-3
 
On the 17th of March 2000, John and Patsy Ramsey were interviewed on ABC News 20/20 by Barbara Walters.  It wasn’t so much an interview at all as PR for the release of their book Death of Innocence.  
 
Their book was released a little more than two weeks prior to the Walters interview on March 1, 2000. Curiously, Amazon currently shows the release of the mass-market paperback as January 1, 2001.  You can say what you like about this “discrepancy”, the dailycamera.com published excerpts out of their book on March 15, 2000.  In other words, a local Boulder newspaper had seen their book two days prior to the Ramsey’s interview with a sub-par Barbara Walters. Ten days after hitting ABC the Ramseys gave Larry King a double dose on CNN.     
 
Let’s go to Larry and then boomerang back to Barbara.
 
From cnn.com [March 27, 2000]:
 
KING: Good evening. It’s a great pleasure to welcome the Ramseys to this edition of LARRY KING LIVE. It is a live appearance. Their book is “The Death of Innocence,” just published. They are the co-authors. They will also be with us tomorrow night. There’s the cover of the book.
 
This will be a two-night appearance, both evenings live… We’re going to get the whole story, as much as we can cover in two nights of programming. We hope to cover as much of it as we can. First on, something directly current… You had said recently in an interview that you were willing to take a lie detector test, and apparently the Boulder police are now saying let’s set it up.
 
Will you do it?
 
By “recent interview” Larry’s talking about their interview with Barbara Walters two weeks prior.  It’s important to stress though that having written a book, by March 2000 more than three years after JonBenét’s death they haven’t even taken a lie-detector test.  If they’re innocent, what’s the problem?
 
 Now notice how John answers…

The Craven Silence 2, the sequel to the bestselling The Craven Silence is available on Amazon Kindle

1-fullscreen-capture-20160903-033321-am

www.shakedowntitle.com

The Craven Silence Featured on Australian News

A week ago on Sunday, Nick and I Skyped with Sydney-based journalist, Emma Reynolds, to share our take on the Ramsey case.  Emma works for news.com.au, which according to Nielsen Online Ratings, was Australia’s most popular news website as of January 2015.

On the day we spoke, September 25, the CBS program The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey had already aired, but that was a week after our book The Craven Silence was published. A point Emma was keen not to miss.

We weren’t entirely surprised, however, when she wanted to get to our theory of the murder quickly.  For us, the story isn’t as simple as identifying the murder weapon.  The real story of JonBenet is rooted deeply in the maddening obstruction of justice.  How and why did so many people stand in the way of getting answers for a murdered little girl?  Once you begin to understand that, the details of the murder start to fall into place.  Regardless, when the article published yesterday, the headline’s focus was, of course, on the weapon used.

australia-1australia-2australia-3australia-4australia-5australia-6australia-7

australia-8

Up to this point, the article does a nice job of capturing some of the observations we expressed were relevant to this case. Where the article strays from what we discussed is the assertion that we believe Burke used “a pair of bats” to bash his sister.  Although we brought attention to the two bats found outside the home, we never claimed both were used in the commission of the crime.  We believe one may be a decoy, being placed outside to suggest an intruder dropped it on his way out.  We believe the same possibility exists with the golf clubs seen stashed in a small cubicle closet off the train room where Burke frequently played.

australia-9australia-10

Another element we feel may have been over-simplified in this article is the reasoning behind the theorized cover-up by the Ramseys.  The article states it was “a plan to protect their only remaining child.”  While we believe that is a part of the reason, there are other factors at play in the need to cover-up that are examined thoroughly in our book.

One other detail to rectify is the use of “middle-class mansion” to describe the Ramseys and their home.  In actuality, the Ramseys were an upper class, affluent family, and their home certainly reflected their wealth.

australia-11australia-12australia-13

best2

An area that we would have liked to discuss in more detail, had time allowed, was the psychology of the Ramseys, particularly Burke.  It’s a topic we cover extensively in The Craven Silence 2, our follow up book due out next week.

KIIS 101.1 a radio station in Melbourne, has also picked up our story as part of their promotion for an interview they’re airing with John Ramsey over the next 3 days.  So much for Dr. Phil being his “last” interview.

We will be conducting additional interviews in the weeks ahead to share more discoveries and insights on this case.  Stay tuned for those times and dates.

If you’d like to read The Craven Silence, it’s currently available exclusively on Amazon Kindle.

Our full discussion with Emma Reynolds can be heard below at the SoundCloud link.

www.shakedowntitle.com

#Shakedown Stirs Up Old Insights Into JonBenet Ramsey, America’s Most Famous Cold Case, Part 2

What people chose to lie about says a lot.  It offers great insight into their vulnerabilities, their fears and motivations.  There are a number of inconsistencies in the Ramsey’s statements, but let’s focus on just one.  What’s the significance of the bikes?

JB on christmas

While Lou Smit is interviewing John, he asks him how they prepared for Christmas in 1996.  Where were the gifts kept and when did they open them?

From John Ramsey’s Interview with police in 1998:

SMIT: Okay. Did you go to the Barnhill’s to pick up a bike?

JOHN: Yeah, Christmas Eve. We’d given JonBenet a bike; we got Patsy a bike. We were giving Burke a bike but not that year.

This is a specific detail that John remembers and offers up without prompting – they had made a decision that Burke wasn’t getting a bike that year.

JOHN:  Anyway, there was a bike that we put in their basement, and I gone over after the kids mr-barnhill-with-jbs-dogwent to bed to get it to put it under the tree. And Joe went down to the garage and went down to get it and brought it up. I offered to go get it and he said no, he’d go get it himself. I don’t know where it specifically was, whether it was actually in his garage or his basement.

From Websleuths, taken from the Daily Camera on Dec 28, 1996:

“I didn’t see a lot of people over there Christmas Day,” said Barnhill, who had hidden until Christmas Eve the bicycle JonBenet’s father had bought his daughter. “I didn’t see JonBenet with her bike, but I did see (her 10-year-old brother) Burke ride his bike down the lawn there.”

Burke was three years older than JonBenet, and likely had a bike of his own at that stage.  But did he want a new one too?  More importantly, did he want the attention that big gifts tend to bring.  Nobody gushes over a kid opening a random toy.  Who knows, maybe he was even playing with JonBenet’s bike outside.

From John Ramsey’s Interview with police in 1998:

SMIT: You know, I’ve looked at a lot of pictures in regards to this particular case and I can’t remember seeing any bikes. What happened to the bikes?

JOHN: Well, they were in the garage, I guess. JonBenet rode her bike for a moment outside before we went to the White’s; just round the patio. I’m sure that went back in the garage. Patsy’s bike, I don’t know, it could have gone in the garage. I don’t remember.

SMIT: Have you seen it since, Patsy’s bike?

JOHN: Yeah. We have it.

SMIT: (INAUDIBLE) took it?

JOHN: No. We gave, Jonbenet’s bike, we gave away. Patsy’s bike we haven’t (INAUDIBLE).

Now, take note, this whole conversation has been about two bikes.  JonBenet’s and Patsy’s.  John doesn’t pipe in and say if Burke had a bike or where that bike might be.  And Smit had no reason to ask John about Burke’s bike because John told him, Burke didn’t get a bike that year.  Smit moves on to other questioning, but eventually returns to the topic of Christmas Eve, gifts and bikes.  Why?  Because this crime happened on Christmas night.  There’s a good chance the holiday had relevance.  But how?

From John Ramsey’s Interview with police in 1998:

JOHN: Yeah. I don’t remember exactly.  But it was dark, I remember that. Because the lights were on and I remember the starlight. So if we went to five o’clock church that would have been over at six or so. Then we went to dinner and (INAUDIBLE) somewhere around there. I don’t specifically remember the kids going to bed, but I’m sure they went to bed fairly early because they wanted to get up at the crack of dawn. You know, the normal routine was (INAUDIBLE) was as soon as we thought the kids were asleep we got Christmas organized.

SMIT: And how would you do that? What would you do to organize Christmas?

JOHN: Well, we’d get up, haul the presents and put them under the tree. And a lot of the things were not wrapped so the kids had the surprise when they came down. And we put those out and we got the bike.

SMIT: Where would you keep these bikes?

JOHN: They were usually in the basement. That was Patsy’s department. But I think she kept them in that cellar room. We usually kept all of Christmas stuff in there. Our Christmas trees and lights and that stuff, the trim.

SMIT: So you think that somebody would have gone down to get those? Did you go down there?

JOHN: I don’t remember specifically. I mean —

SMIT: Kind of think about that because that’s kind of important. Who was in the basement close to the time of Christmas?

JOHN: Well certainly we both would have been because Patsy did most of her wrapping down there. And that’s where all the present stuff was stored. So in the process of getting ready for Christmas that would certainly have been down there and been in there. The only thing I remember is going over to Joe’s and getting the bike out of his garage. And then after Patsy went upstairs, I had her bike in our garage and I got that out and put it by the tree. And then I went upstairs.

John is still crystal clear with his memory of only two bikes.  He remembers exactly where they hid JonBenet’s, as well as Patsy’s, prior to Christmas day.  If they had gotten a bike for Burke, wouldn’t they have hidden that at the Barnhill’s too?

SMIT: So both bikes then were at the tree. You just took the one from Joe Barnhill and put it by the tree?

JOHN: And brought Patsy’s in from the garage.

SMIT: I was just wondering, like when you brought the bikes back in and Patsy was already in bed and then —

JOHN: Yeah.

A little bit later in the interview, Smit brings up Christmas day again.  For some reason, John’s story suddenly changes.  Unfortunately, Smit, being too smitten with John, doesn’t notice there’s now three bikes, not two.

From John Ramsey’s Interview with police in 1998:

SMIT: Do you remember kind of what the kids got? What she [JonBenet] got?

JOHN: Well JonBenet got a bike. I think Burke got a bike too. It seems like we had three bikes there. JonBenet, I think she got a little doll that was one of these look-a-like dolls that was supposed to look like her. I remember her looking at it and saying, this doesn’t look like me.

SMIT: Was that made specially in a certain spot?

JOHN: Supposedly, I guess. Yeah. That’s a good question. Patsy would know. She got it. It’s one of these – it’s supposed to be a doll that’s made to look like the child.

SMIT: So it’s a specially made item then from a certain kind of store.

JOHN: I believe so, yeah. Patsy, I’m sure, would know specifically where it came from, the details on that. But I seemed to remember her holding it up saying this doesn’t look like me. And she didn’t.

SMIT: And she held it up for you?

JOHN: She did.

SMIT: And can you think of anything else?

JOHN: They always get so much stuff. I guess I don’t remember. It’s always kind of a little bit overloaded with so many things. I remember she did a little (INAUDIBLE) that night and a little jewelry maker wrapped up in little strips of paper and little beads. I remember specifically playing that with her that evening, Christmas day evening.

John peppers his answers with the phrase, I don’t remember, yet he seems to remember a fair amount of details about what JonBenet got for Christmas that year, as well as her reactions.  He even wrote about it in their book The Death of Innocence.

From acandyrose:

“The kids screamed and cheered as they realized that Santa had brought just about everything in their lists.  JonBenet wanted to take her new bike outside for a spin, but Burke suggested, “Let’s get all the other gifts opened first.”  Ah, the wise and experienced big brother.  JonBenet agreed.  They quickly busied themselves playing Santa’s elves and distributing the beautifully wrapped gifts.  JonBenet asked for Burke’s assistance with the name tags since he could read and she couldn’t.  It was the most fun in the world, doling out the gifts and seeing whose pile would become the biggest.”

Once again, we have reference to only JonBenet getting a bike.  Interestingly enough, John mentions Burke’s reaction to JonBenet wanting to take her new toy outside – Burke didn’t want to do that, he wanted to stay in and open other presents… presumably, because he didn’t get a bike too.

Also, isn’t it odd that JonBenet couldn’t read names at the age of six?

img_3140Their book goes on to describe how Patsy doted over JonBenet that morning.  They made a big deal about how they presented the doll to JonBenet.

From acandyrose:

“Patsy rearranged the gifts in JonBenet’s stack so that a very special box would be opened last.  Inside was a My Twinn doll, fashioned to look like JonBenet from pictures Patsy had furnished the dollmaker, with a couple matching outfits so JonBenet and the doll would dress alike.

JonBenet opened the box and examined the doll with a look of curiosity.  “Well, now doesn’t she look like you?” Patsy asked.

JonBenet held the doll at arm’s length and tilted her head slightly.  “I really don’t think she looks that much like me,” she concluded and laid the doll to one side.  She quickly returned to a jewelry craft set, which she had previously opened.  Patsy looked at me, raised her eyebrows, and gave a disappointed shrug.  Sometimes the big gift you had in mind for your kids really wasn’t the hit you had expected.”

Meanwhile, I wonder what Burke is doing on the sidelines while his parents are making a big to-do over a doll and shiny new bike.  I came across an obscure, but very interesting, quote from Joe Barnhill that he gave to a local reporter.

From Websleuths, from the Irish Times 1997:

“It would be heartbreaking if that family was involved. They worshipped her almost as if she were Jesus Christ. The parents are good Christian people. They’re members down at St John’s Episcopalian Church,” Mr Barnhill said, before he excused himself and went back to his mowing.

Fast forward 20 years, and Burke Ramsey just completed a series of interviews for Dr. Phil.  One of the many questions asked was “did you get what you wanted for Christmas?”  Burke doesn’t reply yes or no.  He simply answers “a Nintendo 64.”  That’s the same game Burke grabs on his way out the door on the morning of December 26, when John and Fleet White shuffle him out of the house.   Dr. Phil asks Burke what JonBenet got.  He answers, a big dollhouse, and… “we both got bikes.

img_4123

 

For more of #Shakedown’s insights on this case, get a copy of

The Craven Silence.  Available exclusively on Amazon.

The Craven Silence 2 coming in October.

best2

www.shakedowntitle.com

 

Lin Wood’s Twitter Meltdown

Patsy Ramsey called Wood three years after JonBenet’s death, in the fall of 1999. A grand jury was investigating the parents, and tabloids screamed accusations.  The grand jury ended its work without an indictment, and the Ramseys started suing.

Forums for Justice, Boulder Daily Camera

“Lin Wood is guilty of the same thing that he is laying at the feet of his adversaries, and that is that he’s editing the material for the public,” [Lawrence] Schiller said.

“He is in essence a public-relations expert.”

Lin Wood’s response to the CBS series The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey…

“He knows how to play the game, and the media allows him to play the game,” [Andrew] Cohen [legal analyst for CBS] said.

Wood is an aggressive and zealous attorney, but his efforts are all “window dressing,” “spin” and “pizzazz,” Cohen said before stopping abruptly.

“I better be careful what I say,” he said. “I don’t want him to sue me for libel.” – Forums for Justice, Boulder Daily Camera

29

“I have a big ego,” Wood admitted. “A lot of lawyers do.”

– Forums for Justice, Boulder Daily Camera

wood

“I’ve had failures,” Wood said. “I didn’t get married four times because I was good at it.”

He hasn’t had many failures in the Ramsey case.

“So far in a court of law, I’ve won every case,” Wood says. “And I’m not worried about losing in the future.”  – Forums for Justice, Boulder Daily Camera

The million dollar question these past two weeks has been… why the hell, after 20 years, did Burke Ramsey come out from under his rock to do an interview?  Let’s be honest, Burke doesn’t exactly present himself as a full deck of cards.  Something everybody close to him is obviously aware of.  So why do it, and why now?  Nick and I have a few of our own opinions regarding that question, which we’ll get to in due time, but as far as why Burke chose Dr. Phil of all people to present his “narrative” to the world… I think the answer to that has become blindingly apparent…

From law.com [July 2016]:

Atlanta libel attorney Lin Wood—who filed the defamation suit last week on behalf of [Dr. Phil] McGraw and his wife, Robin, in Palm Beach County Circuit Court in Florida—says the Enquirer, the Star and other publications of Florida-based American Media Inc. knowingly printed “outrageous lies” about the McGraws, their marriage and their character, and that constitutional press freedom privileges offer “no safe harbor for publishing statements known to be false or manufactured by paid sources.”

Sound familiar?

Among other false claims, Wood said several stories alleged the couple is planning to divorce. “It is these types of lies that the National Enquirer and American Media have been publishing for years while making millions of dollars in the process of so doing,” he said. “The McGraws are determined to stop these lies and the business practice of libel for profit.”

No surprise, in episode 3 of Dr. Phil’s series with Burke, he defends the Ramsey’s decision to hire lawyers rather than work with the police.

www.shakedowntitle.com