The Boulder police weren’t as crazy and “Fifeish” as the Ramseys’ massive PR spin.
The Ramseys book implicated various people that ended up suing them, also.
Look, the police weren’t answering all call at the trailer park bar…they thought carefully about who was really in their ‘umbrella’.
They also know they better have every detail perfect, every ‘i’ dotted…because they knew they would be locking horns with quite possibly the best legal defense team ever assembled…and then some.
They’re not morons…they’re the Bolder, Co. police, consulting with the FBI. For the first SEVERAL hours, the crime scene was orchastrated by The Ramsy’s discovery of the ransom note, and the investigation was already blown. But if anything, it was their rush to judgement BELIEVING THE RAMSEYS, that the scene was real that cost them the investigation.
Lest we need to be reminded, DNA is interpreted by hugely fallible humans. Considering all the other mistakes I’ve heard in the investigation of this case, why should this area be so reliable?
The cord on the garrotte did not match any from the house.
No-one has mentioned here (IIRC) that a pubic hair was found on the blanket in which JonBenet’s body was wrapped. It did NOT match either of her parents’. In addition to that unexplained, and highly suggestive, finding, a number of other seemingly important clues would seem to exculpate the Ramseys.
the DNA under her fingernails (as Dio has mentioned once or twice ;))
marks c/w a stun gun firing on her body
an unidentified palm print found on the cellar door,
footprint of a Hi-Tec hiking boot found near her body
leaves and other matter near an open basement window AND also in the room where she was found (i.e. possibly tracked in by the perp)
the pubic hair (as noted above)
I’ll also note that the Ramseys’ use of lawyer so soon after the crime was done at the behest and strong urging of a friend. It was NOT their idea to “hide” behind a lawyer so early.
Finally, the Ramseys repeatedly volunteered to take lie detector tests. They repeatedly asked the police to interview them (early on, at least). Not even requesting a search warrant, they also repeatedly volunteered to open their house to the police, for a search, on several occasions.
All of this is well documented in the Crime Library site as noted by UTejas above.
In the scenario in which JonBenet was murdered by someone who was known to her (but apparently not a DNA match to anyone who as been tested so far), it doesn’t make sense that the crime was a kidnapping gone bad. If JonBenet knew the person, she would have been able to identify the kidnapper after the fact.
ETA: Unless the kidnapper intended to try to collect the money and then kill her rather than returning her.
Big smiles and slaps on shoulders as he met people. It was more like a wedding than a funeral.
The lovely thing about internet message boards is that we are not governed by the same rules as in a court of law. OTOH, on this board we are governed by rules of common courtesy and I apologize to my friend Dio.
I just don’t see the smiling/shoulder slapping as an indicator of anything.
Some people behave that way but they’re crying on the inside. It’s their way of whistling in the dark, I guess. Other people shut down entirely. It may not be tasteful, but when you’ve gone through something this traumatic that most people should never have to deal with, is there a correct way to act?
ETA: There may be a socially sanctioned way to act, yeah–we’d sympathize more if he were crying. But as another poster pointed out, when her daughter was ill she was making jokes with her husband just to deal and the nurse on duty probably thought this was odd. I don’t think we should hold people going through a traumatic experience to the same standards, though.
Television also has a way of cherry picking isolated moments from what could be hours of actual footage. The parents could have been sitting somberly for most of three hours, and the media vultures were only interested in the few seconds of lightness and levity they could capture.
I have seen people laugh and smile at funerals. I have seen parents laugh at the funerals of their children. The range of emotions people go through is so un-anchored and rudderless and unpredictable that you just can’t impose any normal expectations of it. People’s brains go haywire. The needle spins in circles. They can go from laughing to sobbing to rage in the space of like 15 seconds.
Not in a court of law, but in the “court of public opinion” it’s how you get people wondering if there is more to the story. Not fair? Nope, but it’s how people are wired.
News cameras were not allowed in the church. They shot what they could outside.
For those of us trying to follow along, what exactly is “CYA”? (I hate it when people throw around abbreviations without explanation.)
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My opinion of this case is that it’s a lot like case of the American girl recently convicted in Italy–the public jumped to a conclusion because the accused did not act the way the public thought appropriate. To me, that sort of behavior has no weight in convincing me the person is guilty. I’ve known too many weird people to expect any particular response for any circumstance.