Missing the point, the links showed how partial or degraded DNA is useful. Specially for identifying the possible family connections, a big part of the reason why the authorities dropped the Ramseys as suspects.
Mary Lacey clearing them is laughable- remember she also brought Karr back from Thailand on the flimsiest of reasons. She had her own agenda and it was highly inappropriate for her to “clear” anyone in an ongoing investigation.
The current DA, Stan Garnett has reassigned the case to the Boulder PD. He has also appointed a special task force to re-look at the case, and will not confirm that the Ramsey’s are considered “cleared.” He has, however, said that they will follow the evidence wherever it leads them.
Link:
Referring to Lacy’s exoneration of the Ramseys, Garnett said, “As I have said before, the exoneration speaks for itself. But all that matters to me as district attorney is the evidence, and where it leads. We’ll follow the evidence wherever it leads us.”
Wise and Grant both question the validity of Lacy’s exoneration, and they say Garnett – and his successors – are not bound by it.
“It’s more inappropriate than anything else,” Grant said. “It’s not a prosecutorial duty to exonerate people. It’s a prosecutorial duty to seek justice and to prosecute the bad guys. If you don’t have a bad guy to prosecute, don’t exonerate people who are at least peripherally under suspicion. I didn’t think it was appropriate at all.”
Missing the point again, I’m not defending the decision to exonerate, only that there is plenty of past use of partial and DNA to support investigations of other suspects the DNA points to, and in this case, the Ramseys were not pointed at by the DNA.
Incidentally the DNA test that allowed Lacy to do that was made in 2008, not really much support the **opinion **of Wise and Grant.
Looking at past uses of the partial DNA it is really a stretch to assume that he would dismiss the DNA evidence. In fact nothing like that was suggested in the article.
Missed the edit, what I was supposed to say was:
Incidentally the DNA test that allowed Lacy to do that was made in 2008, not really much there to support the **opinion **of Wise and Grant. And if it had been available back at the time of the vote to indict, it is not likely that jurors would had voted that way.
Looking at past uses of the partial DNA it is really a stretch to assume that the current prosecutor would dismiss the DNA evidence. In fact nothing like that was suggested in the article.
Lou is on a documentary personally climbing in and out of that window to demonstrate how the intruder would have done it. It looked very logical and possible to me. Have you seen it?
I have seen several professionals analysize Patsy in interviews and say she is being honest. The fact is some do, some don’t. It isn’t a “hard science.”
If you go with the family, you have to come up with wacky theories. No theory about the family makes sense… How and Why did they kill her?
The Intruder Theory at least makes sense. Sure some of the specifics sound convoluted (grabbing a notepad days in advance, etc) but any leap to how and why the family did it is pretty wild too. This is when people bring in The Burke Theory, John Molester Theory, Wetting the Bed Theory, etc. These are all ridiculous, with no evidence. You have to make up a story from scratch. If John had a history of something or Patsy had been known to hit JonBenet, etc it would make alot of sense and I would be on board.
And the point of my posting the article wasn’t that the new DA would dismiss the DNA evidence, but that they are committed to following the evidence wherever it leads them. That the Ramsey’s are not considered cleared by the people who have the case now. And that it was inappropriate for Mary Lacy to do so at the time.
I’m not sure we can say that about the Grand Jury, since we don’t know what evidence was presented to them. We do not know what they know.
But as far as the DNA being presented to them? ALL of the evidence would have been presented, don’t you agree? And what that means (and Lacy knew this at the time) is that there were 6 partial profiles developed from the body/clothing.
So what does that tell us? If each piece came from a single donor then it doesn’t match the Ramsey’s. But are we to now believe there were 5 men and 1 woman involved? Or is it more likely that it is secondary transfer? The touch DNA especially.
And, Lacy herself says the DNA could be artifact and that it’s not necessarily the killer’s. You can hear this for yourself at 4:30 of her news conference:
In my opinion, you can’t hang your hat on the DNA evidence in this case. Now, that being said - if they can solve this crime through the DNA, I hereby swear on all that is holy to me that I will come back here and admit I was wrong. I don’t care if I’m wrong. What I care about is finding out who committed this crime.
I did see that video, tomcar. And while I’m here, I’d like to correct something I posted earlier.
** It’s Lou Smit, not Schmidt as I wrote earlier. ** Apparently, if you have the same name as one of my friends, you must spell it the same. 
The problem with the video is that anyone coming in the way he did would have cleared the sill - but the sill wasn’t clear, it had debris on it.
Also, the suitcase originally wasn’t in that position. Fleet White said that he moved it.
There’s a video recently released that the police took around midnight on the 26th. It clearly shows spiderwebs on the window itself, and a piece of glass on the sill. That window was broken by John earlier in the year and never replaced.
ETA video
I’m at the point now where it’s the intruder theory that makes wild leaps and wacky theories. But if you can come up with one that works, PLEASE do so! Seriously. Because no matter what angle I attempt, none of the ones I’ve come up with make sense. This is based on the information I have seen. I’ve always held out hope that there’s more out there that we don’t know about.
The site has great footage but no audio. Nothing about that window looks like it couldn’t have been entered. The webs were ripped and billowing, not well formed and maintained.
I have no trouble believeing a man entered that window.
Maybe it was too hard getting her body back through the window and thats why she was left there. Plus maybe they heard someone walking around so they just scrambled. It really isn’t far fetched.
Maybe they were gonna walk out the door, but someone woke up so they went back to the basement room, abandoned the body because it was a pain getting out the window and left the house.
Coming up with a reason why John or Patty killed based on the evidence and history we know is not possible is it? We have to start writing fiction. What do we know about this family that would lead us to this?
They do not say that, read it again.
The important bit is indeed the state of the evidence, this is really just a straw being grasped, nowhere it is mentioned that they are going against what the DNA reported, to the contrary, they are implying that the evidence is not dropped, and the only way to get to the Ramseys is to get more evidence that imply them. As pointed before, what they are leading them can return to the Ramseys if something new is found, but so far the implication is that the leads are pointing elsewhere.
As for the video this is even more straw grasping, the context is clearly the dismissal of the testimony of a confessed killer that was not the one, that fake killer was by the way exonerated in part thanks to the partial DNA.
There was a man who had broken into another house near the Ramsay’s and molested a girl in the house, he did not kill her. The boulder police in fact knew that at the time of Jon Benet’s killing. It appears they didn’t work too hard at finding that man. It was just easier to assume the parents did it.
The parents “lawyered up”, because a friend who was with them suggested they were going to need a lawyer. And they certainly did need a lawyer with the cops leaking so called information all over the place, one cop went so far as to say on TV that she “looked into Johns eyes and saw that he killed the child.”. I find that appalling, I look into peoples eyes and I see …eyes.
This is true, and I’m a “Burke did it” theorist.
It’s obvious to me that there was no intruder, and that the PCR’d up DNA is not exculpatory. The ridiculous ransom note, with its inside knowledge of John’s bonus, is obviously authored by Patsy. So it was someone in the family.
Burke did it because neither Patsy nor John were the culprits. It’s inconceivable they murdered her. Burke had motive. The murder was amateurish. The fatal injuries fit with a theory of strangulation, being dragged down stairs, and plopped onto a concrete floor. Patsy covered for her boy; all she had left.
There really isn’t much evidence that could be indicting for Burke, short of an admission. And his parents wanted to cover for him.
But it is technically correct that there is no evidence for Burke’s guilt. And since he was underage at the time, maybe it should stay that way. I think that’s what the authorities thought–at least the brighter ones.
I just finished reading Foreign Faction - Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? by A. James Kolar. While it is the only book I have read on this case, I believe the author was very thorough and objective in his analysis of the evidence.
To cut to the chase, the probability of an intruder sneaking in to the house and murdering JB is slim to none. It was almost certainly a story invented by John and Patsy Ramsey. As for “who done it,” it is hard to say, but the most likely suspect is Burke. He killed JB, either by accident or purposely, and his parents covered for him. John and Patsy Ramsey were also very wealthy and influential, and had the DA’s office in their back pocket and used the media to their advantage.
Sadly, there is no direct evidence or proof that John, Patsy, and Burke Ramsey were complicit in the crime. Unless John or Burke confesses, it is doubtful a conviction will ever materialize.
Let me ask this of those who follow the case better than I have: what is your opinion of the parents in termed of the smarts it would take to pull off a faked intruder? I know something like this would take more than book smarts but basic common sense like not using the EXACT amount of the bonus, making it look like a break in, having the police find the body, etc. In other words, do you think that if the family wanted to fake it, that they would have done a better job of it or was it panic (like covering up for the brother) or are they just not clever enough to pull it off?
Just not clever enough under the cirmcumstances.
The circumstances are an unexpected horrible death and a worse realization that the son you have left is about to be taken away as well, for killing a sister.
Amateurish and poorly thought out, all in a panic.
It’s hard to ask for basic common sense in the middle of that sort of turmoil.
There is a large difference between a faked premeditated murder and a faked coverup of an accidental death (or unexpected “murder”) by a sibling.
And in some ways, it actually worked. Read over the dozens of posts here to see how many people bought into this totally half-assed cover-up. It may sit deeply buried in Burke’s psyche somewhere, but even he did not go through life so far as JB’s murderer, and most people who don’t really dig into the details will buy the cover up story and silly but incorrect “exculpatory proof” such as the DNA.
Understandably, the physical cover-up that occurred immediately after her murder was hastily performed; John and Patsy were highly anguished and under extreme duress. They made *many *mistakes. And they made many more mistakes during their subsequent interviews.
I can understand how someone would subscribe to the “intruder” theory if their only source of information is the media outlets. But there is no excuse for believing in the intruder theory after evaluating all the evidence, including police interviews, expert opinions (e.g. handwriting experts), and crime scene photographs & videos.
Is this new or old news? Apologies if it’s old.
Panel voted in '99 to indict parents of JonBenet Ramsey, DA didn’t sign on.
Old. Post 417. It’s what jumpstarted this thread after three years.
A word to the wise for conspiracy theorists: Somebody ALWAYS talks.
She was kidnapped, raped then killed… simple
A thorough & objective review of all the evidence strongly suggests she was not kidnapped by an intruder. The evidence strongly suggests each family member was at least complicit in the crime, and at least one family member was responsible for the crime.