# Jon Benet Ramsey murder **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 2, 2006, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071 "2006-05-02T06:33:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/21 "2006-05-02T19:26:38Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Calling a six-year old “evil” is ridiculous. So is assuming that they’re all innocent. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/22 "2006-05-02T19:41:47Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > I remember that the parents’ behavior after the incident was odd. You’d expect that the parents would be fully cooperative with the police in an attempt to find the suspect. But they clammed up and hid behind a lawyer almost immediately. And the whole thing where the body was not found in the first search of the house. Missed body aside, _fuck that_. The parents are always the first suspects. Any smart lawyer would tell you to keep your mouth shut, and it’s probably the best advice you’ll ever get. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/23 "2006-05-02T20:13:48Z")
> [@Wee Bairn](#): > > I HATE the way the media likes to put their little dramtic spin on things. It doesn’t matter if a murdered child had no ambitions and would have become a crackhead, it is bad enough without adding the melodrama, and reeks of exploitation as well. Report the news, don’t subject us to the pathos filled ramblings of a local newscaster who thinks reports like these are going to get him a job at a big city affiliate. You can un-pit the media on this one. Almost everyone I talk to occasionally sticks on a judgmental adjective to dramatize what they are saying. In this particular case, it was a poster on a web board, not someone angling for a job with an affiliate. I commonly hear “innocent” used by conservative types to deplore things like abortion. They’re not media, they’re salt-of-the-earth churchgoing Americans. Pit me, pit the OP, pit yourself for adding “value” words or spin or whatever term you favor – this is one problem vastly larger than “the media”, however much fun it is to demonize them. Sailboat, innocently ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/24 "2006-05-02T20:22:46Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Missed body aside, _fuck that_. The parents are always the first suspects. Any smart lawyer would tell you to keep your mouth shut, and it’s probably the best advice you’ll ever get. Yes, but assuming that the parents are innocent, I’d think they would want to provide any information (noises they heard that night, names of anyone with a grudge against the family, names of those who have been in the house recently, etc) that might lead to the suspect. My impression at the time was that they said almost nothing to the police. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/25 "2006-05-02T20:28:18Z")
It’s been just long enough since I thought about this to have it take a second before I recalled who JBR even was. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/26 "2006-05-02T20:29:14Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > Yes, but assuming that the parents are innocent, I’d think they would want to provide any information (noises they heard that night, names of anyone with a grudge against the family, names of those who have been in the house recently, etc) that might lead to the suspect. My impression at the time was that they said almost nothing to the police. NOTHING without an ok from the attorneys. You need to resist heartfelt urges and use your head. ---
**Author:** ![A.R.Cane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@A.R.Cane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.R.Cane)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/27 "2006-05-02T20:34:00Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > Yes, but assuming that the parents are innocent, I’d think they would want to provide any information (noises they heard that night, names of anyone with a grudge against the family, names of those who have been in the house recently, etc) that might lead to the suspect. My impression at the time was that they said almost nothing to the police. If you’d ever been a suspect in a serious criminal investigation, which I have, I think you would see things differently. Too often police conclude that they have the perpetrator and then work at making a case, rather than conducting an objective investigation. While most homicides are solved quickly and the offender is obvious, it isn’t always the case and a good investigator doesn’t jump to conclusions, but considers all the evidence and follows where it leads. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/28 "2006-05-02T20:37:48Z")
This case, and many others like it in recent American history only show how hypocritical and ridiculous the outcry against Aruba is for their “failure” to solve their high profile case. Sometimes you just don’t find the killer. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/29 "2006-05-02T21:08:36Z")
> [@Wee Bairn](#): > > This case, and many others like it in recent American history only show how hypocritical and ridiculous the outcry against Aruba is for their “failure” to solve their high profile case. Sometimes you just don’t find the killer. Not to mention that there are plenty of unsolved murders of black women and children which don’t get that kind of outcry. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/30 "2006-05-02T21:19:11Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > So is assuming that they’re all innocent. What are any of them they guilty of? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/31 "2006-05-02T21:27:23Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > What are any of them they guilty of? Being a sociopath. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/32 "2006-05-02T22:20:49Z")
Regardless of the existence of “evil children”, the point I was making is that the word “innocent” serves no legitimate purpose in the OP’s sentence because it has nothing to do with the crime. Suppose the crime had been armed robbery, and the victim a corrupt Senator’s aide. The lack of overall pristine innocence of the Senator’s aide has no bearing on the armed robbery (or so we shall assume in this example, at any rate). One would not say “The non-innocent Senator’s aide Joe Blow was a victim of armed robbery last night”, nor would one speak of a _different_ victim, let’s say the non-corrupt aide to the Senator next door, as “Innocent Jack Smith, aide to Senator Smith, was a victim of armed robbery last night”. Now, if corrupt Senator’s aide Joe Blow gets whacked by Tony Soprano for trying to double-dip into the proceeds of the corrpution in which he was engaged, then I suppose a comment on his innocence (or, rather, lack thereof) might be apropos. But minus insinuations to the contrary, we don’t say a crime victim is “innocent” because it’s the default assumption. Insofar as no one is alleging that Jon Benet Ramsey was offing Boulderites as a bloody hobby and perhaps had her knives out for her killer when the tables were turned upon her, no one without serious personality disorders is claiming “she had it comin’, she did”. And the obsession with the “innocence and purity of children”, if that’s the intended implication here, is indeed creepy. It superficially values children but it does so by putting them on a purity pedestal, imposing on them the expectation and implicit demand that they be and remain pure and different from non-innocents (adults). And the thing about pedestals of that nature is that individuals can fall from them. For failing to meet a standard of “innocence” that adults are not held to, individual kids may be subject to scorn, disgust, and worse things. And for failure to embody the “innocent” ideal that some innocent-child fetishist expects of kids — umm, perhaps for dressing in sexualized clothes and makeup for instance? —perhaps a kid gets to experience some very much off-the-pedestal hateful mistreatment. I said creepy and I meant it. I said lascivious and I meant that, too. I would not be at all surprised if the person who killed her did not ascribe to the belief that children were innocents. Or supposed to be. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Rogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@Buck\_Rogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Rogers)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/33 "2006-05-02T22:47:33Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Regardless of the existence of “evil children”, the point I was making is that the word “innocent” serves no legitimate purpose in the OP’s sentence because it has nothing to do with the crime. . My usage of the word “innocent” was for purposes to describe the lack of guilt of the individual, with respect to a crime. If the word “innocent” does not apply then it would imply she was guilty of something. Children by nature are innocent. Does it have anything to do with the crime? I think being innocent makes the crime all the more heinous. If the murder would had happened to a serial killer such has John Wayne Gasey I don’t think it would of received near the publicity or attention. I “innocently” see nothing with the usage of the word “innocent” describing the child. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/34 "2006-05-02T22:59:46Z")
> [@Buck Rogers](#): > > Innocent Jon Benet Ramsey would have been 16 years old this August 2006. DNA has been out for 15 years now. You would think this day in age they could catch the murderer(s). Obviously the Denver police does not watch CSI. > > I bet you guys came up with a good assumption, who was it? The Denver police have no interest in the case whatsoever because JonBenet Ramsey was killed in her home in Boulder, about 30 miles northeast of Denver. I was a reporter with the Longmont, Colo., Times-Call at the time (Longmont is only 12 miles from Boulder, and in Boulder County) and as I understand it, the Boulder P.D. used the Colorado Bureau of Investigation lab for all forensic work. The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and Boulder Daily Camera have worked as hard on covering the case as the Boulder PD and DA’s office did in trying to solve it, and overall come to two conclusions: 1. Someone in the Ramsey household or closely connected to it killed JonBenet, and her parents know who that someone is but are protecting the killer because, well, loyalty to loved ones is greater than loyalty to the local law enforcement establishment. 2. The Boulder PD and DA’s office not only didn’t follow the nearly impossible crime scene investigation protocols portrayed nowadays on crime shows, they didn’t even follow their own protocols at the time. Police detectives working the case in the first few hours came to immediate and opposing conclusions and worked at cross purposes trying to prove their own theories and disprove each other’s. JonBenet’s murder will never be solved, but look at the bright side – the weekly tabloids will have their second-rate writers employed for decades to come trying to solve the case! ---
**Author:** ![DxZero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DxZero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DxZero)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/35 "2006-05-02T23:13:23Z")
> [@Buck Rogers](#): > > My usage of the word “innocent” was for purposes to describe the lack of guilt of the individual, with respect to a crime. > > If the word “innocent” does not apply then it would imply she was guilty of something. Children by nature are innocent. Does it have anything to do with the crime? I think being innocent makes the crime all the more heinous. If the murder would had happened to a serial killer such has John Wayne Gasey I don’t think it would of received near the publicity or attention. > > I “innocently” see nothing with the usage of the word “innocent” describing the child. Well, it is a little redundant, if nothing else. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/36 "2006-05-02T23:22:46Z")
> [@jeffrice](#): > > … in Boulder, about 30 miles northeast of Denver. Northwest. (Ah, I feel better. The interns did everything right today - I’ve been craving something to nit-pick.) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/37 "2006-05-02T23:40:51Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > Being a sociopath. 😉 Which is, as I’m sure you’re aware, a mental disorder known as Anti-social Personality Disorder. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/38 "2006-05-03T00:11:08Z")
I’m also pretty sure it can’t be diagnosed in a six-year old. Not that a diagnosis, in itself, would make somebody evil. A lot of socipothaths can be perfectly functional. law abiding people. Look at Congress. I still say it’s ridiculous to call a six year old “evil.” They simply don’t have the cognitive or emotional faculties to appreciate the consequences of their actions. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/39 "2006-05-03T00:22:24Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I’m also pretty sure it can’t be diagnosed in a six-year old. Not that a diagnosis, in itself, would make somebody evil. A lot of socipothaths can be perfectly functional. law abiding people. Look at Congress. > > I still say it’s ridiculous to call a six year old “evil.” They simply don’t have the cognitive or emotional faculties to appreciate the consequences of their actions. It may not be the most reliable source, but Wiki said someone has to be at least fifteen to be diagnosed. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071/40 "2006-05-03T00:36:14Z")
**AHunter3** , it is like you are in my head, putting into word things I cannot…now \*\*that \*\* is creepy 🙂 Doesn’t Wacko Jacko always refer to children as “pure” and “innocent”? And isn’t it creepy when he does? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-benet-ramsey-murder/355071.md?page=3)