The other day, a 3 year old boy went missing overnight here. Massive search effort all night long. Even though the boy is a special needs child that most likely wandered off - the police immediately separated the parents and took statements from them. From people I talked to who were involved in the search, it seemed to them that the parents were considered suspect just because that’s the first thought authorities have.
PS: Found safe and sound in the morning.
That would be a relevant point if the same DNA wasn’t also found mingled with blood inside the panties.
I agree the media were over zealous in their reporting on the case, but I don’t believe it was unreasonable at all for the parents to be the prime suspects. It is my understanding that the majority of manslaughters/murders are committed by someone known to the victim and the family would be the natural place to start asking questions.
A natural place to start, sure, but the media went a lot further than that. These parents – these victims – were basically smeared and convicted in the media with no evidence and spoken about for years as if their guilt was a forgone conclusion.
I agree - didn’t the parents behave in a suspicious manner right after the murder? John Ramsey claimed he’d searched the house, but when the cops arrived, he suddenly jumped up and led them to the storage room where her body was found? IIRC, the ransom note mentioned a specific amount of money, which exactly matched the Christmas bonus John Ramsey had just received, and no one outside the family should have known the amount.
No. He found the body after the police had left in a remote part of the house. I believe both he and the police had done a cursory serach of the house but in the first few hours, everyone thought she’d been kidnapped. It wasn’t until several hours later that John found the body.
As to the note, yeah, it demanded $118,000, which was the same as Ramsey’s Christmas bonus, but it didn’t say anything about the bonus and there’s no reason it couldn’t have been a coincidence. One thing’s for sure. It wasn’t his DNA in the panties or on the long johns.
Not correct. Patsy called police after finding the ransom note at 5:25 am. They arrived seven minutes later. Boulder police failed to conduct a thorough search of the house and failed to seal off the area. Later that afternoon, the police asked John and a family friend to search the basement again, and that was they discovered her body in a little-used room.
This is the part that has never rung true with me.
If my daughter was missing I would turn my house completely upside down looking for her. Crawlspaces, attics, EVERYWHERE would be thoroughly searched. I’m a bit incredulous that the house was so large, and spaces so seldomly used, that she wasn’t found earlier.
Yes, however the ransom note indicated there was a kidnapping, not a murder. No one thought she’d be found inside the house. It should have been the job of the Boulder PD to conduct a thorough search. The fact that they didn’t, and later asked the father to search the basement without them, was a huge error and no one’s fault but their own.
I understand, but imagine if you woke up and found your child gone and a ransom note on the kitchen counter. When the police arrive, they start asking you suspicious question.
Wouldn’t you go almost blind with rage? I mean, your little girl is out there in the hands of a kidnapper, and here are the police fucking around trying to find little inconsistencies in your story.
I guess the police have to cover their bases, but can you now understand why the Ramsey’s started to not cooperate after a few days? The cops were helping; all they wanted was to interview the parents separately when the Ramsey’s know that they are wasting time. It must be incredibly frustrating…
I happen to be in charge of Hell’s payroll, and Nancy does not work for the Son of the Morning Star or for any of his subsidiary companies; nor is she an independent contractor or subcontractor.
I checked with Big Red just to be sure, and he forbade me to mention that annoying harpy in his presence again upon pain of being forced to watch the entire oeuvre of Michael Bey until my brain melts. He also wanted me to pass on the following reminder to the rest of you: Satan’s female minions are all hot.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go call Campbell Brown again; she keeps forgetting to turn in her time sheets.
While the police are on their way to my house I am going to have turned it completely upside down looking for her. I’m not going to sit on my hands and wait for them to show up - I’m going to start looking in every room, broom closet, etc. to see what I can find.
They did search the house before the police showed up, and then the police searched it themselves. They missed the one remote storage room, and yes, the searches could have been more thorough, but at that time, both the Ramseys and the police thought she’d been kidnapped.
In The Cases That Haunt Us, John Douglas presented what I thought was a pretty compelling argument against the Ramseys’ guilt. I’m glad he turned out to be correct. Now maybe they can find some tiny bit of relief from the hell they have been through.
And maybe that DNA evidence can help in finding the real guilty party.
For those who think this is a rare occurrence (kid kidnapped by strangers, parents pilloried and labeled as “weird people, must be guilty” by the media and public) I would like to refer to you to the cases of Elizabeth Smart and Danielle Van Dam.
I am lucky that the first reaction in this country when a child gets hurt or killed is not to blame the parents. Not because parents are not capable of it, which they certainly might, but because nothing is gained from publicly condemning the guilty, and much is lost by maligning the innocent before Lady Justice has had her say. Our first reaction is of sympathy for the parents. I wonder why the difference in attitudes, and how it is in other countries I am no so familiar with.
I (previously) thought this, too. I didn’t think either of the parents would cover up for the other for long, but would protect their remaining child. Plus the ransom note being written in-house– that’s just too weird.
It’s a shame the mother died before this came to light.
Not really comparable cases. Both of these were actual kidnapping cases where the child was taken from the home. The Ramsey case involved the perpetrator (or accomplice) writing a long ransom note at the scene, then deciding instead to sexually assault and kill the child, and move her body to a storeage room so remote that the parents didn’t even think to look in it during their search.
This was either the perfect crime where dozens of seemingly impossible events must have occured flawlessly, or it was a huge coverup aided by incompetent policework. I go with the latter.
How about an ordinary crime abetted by incomepetent police work?
What do you think is being covered up and how do you explain away the DNA evidence?
All you have is ome unknown DNA on one of her outergarments. She had unknown DNA on her undergarments and that didn’t rule out anyone because it has been shown that that can come from the factory. Additionally, these two pieces of clothing were next to each other, touching. Transfer could easily have occured, especially since this new test finds miniscule amounts of DNA.
Why was there no similar DNA on the ranson note, the garotte, or the tape over her mouth?
It is a very unusual move for a DA to declare a person or persons innocent when they don’t have another suspect in custody.
The touch DNA on the outergarment matches liquid DNA material (not touch DNA) found inside the panties. The DNA in the panties did not get there from contact with the long johns. Transfer is not a possibility with touch DNA and the material of the DNA was different (skin cells on the outergarment, intermingled saliva with the victim’s blood inside the underwear). The saliva inside the panties did not get there from touch DNA on the outside of the long johns. It’s not a possibility that both sources of DNA came from a factory worker.