We Have Your Daughter Page 34

  Patsy then collected some of her daughter’s belongings, including a duvet cover. Prior to putting everything in a suitcase often used by another family member, she returned to the storage room to rub the duvet cover on her daughter’s clothed body in order to leave fabric evidence behind on both JonBenét’s clothing and on the duvet. This, she must have theorized, would indicate that the kidnapper had planned to take her daughter away inside the suitcase.1 The duvet placed in the suitcase with other items, Patsy then moved the suitcase next to the broken basement window in the train room.

  Patsy would have had to make a long scuff mark on the basement wall underneath the broken window and scatter pieces of window glass and outside debris on top of the suitcase to add credibility. She also moved material from the window well into the storage room and into the northeast basement bathroom.

  Back upstairs, this theory continues, Patsy washed the wet sheets on JonBenét’s bed and put them in the dryer. She then remade JonBenét’s bed with new sheets, carefully pulling the covers back halfway and throwing her daughter’s pillow onto the end of the bed to disguise the scene. She also somehow made sure to leave fiber evidence from JonBenét’s clothing on the clean changed sheets she’d just put on the bed. She left the washed sheets in the dryer. The sheets in the dryer would become possible evidence of Patsy’s assumed motive for attacking and killing her daughter because JonBenét had wet her bed. While some would speculate that fiber evidence on the bed indicated the sheets hadn’t been changed, others would insist the evidence showed the sheets had been very cleverly manipulated.

  Eventually, the theory continues, Patsy realized she had to get rid of some of what she had used to kill her daughter: the rope, the duct tape, part of the paintbrush, anything she could think to grab. Or maybe she was methodical enough to see what she had left in the basement, and that’s what she took. She had to have left home to go somewhere, unseen, through the dark cold of the frigid December night, in order to get rid of at least part of the evidence. How did she decide what to take out of her home? Where did she dump it? Did she use a car, go down the alley or go down the front walk?

  Soon, her adrenaline waning, Patsy must have realized she was exhausted. Though she was also aware that she had just brutally tortured and murdered her daughter, Patsy maintained her determined detachment that wouldn’t let reality in, at least until she got up the next morning.

  Only then did Patsy Ramsey release her emotions over what she had done and begin to emerge back into her regular life, confident that she had, in her delusional mind, saved her family.

  This theory concludes by asserting that Patsy was so smart that— after finding the ransom note she’d planted on the back staircase of her home, screaming for her husband and checking on her son with him and then calling 911—she immediately called family friends to come to her house, not because she needed their emotional support, but in order to add to the confusion in the home.

  She also cleverly remained in character by telling police investigators some time later that “Whoever left the note knew I always came down those staircases in the morning.” (BPD Reports #5-402, #5-9999.)

  If Patsy killed her daughter, this theory holds that true evil exploded openly during those brief hours in the middle of the night between December 25 and December 26, 1996. Patsy Ramsey, a savage psychopath, during those hours was alternately enraged and cruelly detached. Only after returning to bed and finally getting some sleep did her “normality” surface at some point, returning her to her everyday persona, allowing her to hide in the open, her evil side never to appear again.

  SCENARIO #2

  JOHN HELPED PATSY KILL JONBENÉT

  In this slightly modified scenario, after Patsy hurt her daughter and began to believe she’d killed her, Patsy ran upstairs to her husband and frantically awakened him. Somehow he sorted through her incoherence, began to understand that Patsy was certain she had killed their daughter, and ran to JonBenét, finding that she was still alive. Instead of calling for an ambulance to help his daughter, however, he decided her condition was so devastating that she wouldn’t survive and it was more important to save his wife by killing his daughter and then helping Patsy cover up what she has done.

  How did they come up with a kidnapping scheme? John asked Patsy to write a ransom note, took JonBenét to the basement and destroyed her there, using sexually based acts as part of the kidnapper staging. John and Patsy did this solely to save their way of life. They rehearsed their story and finalized the staging during the rest of the night while their dead daughter lay on the concrete floor of a dingy basement room, arms above her head, a blanket casually covering part of her body.

  This theory was developed by some Boulder investigators shortly after the murder of JonBenét despite the fact that John Ramsey had discovered his daughter’s body, thereby ruining the staging he and his wife had supposedly so carefully devised. Why wouldn’t John have instead allowed his friend, who was with him during the search, discover JonBenét, thus not interfering with the elaborate staging he and Patsy had created? The two men were in close proximity to each other at that moment. John could have easily pointed his friend toward the storage room where he’d left his daughter’s body. Or would he have considered that action too contrived?

  What are the odds that two psychopaths who had been married for sixteen years suddenly had their perversions surface at the same time, leading them to brutally kill their daughter and then attempt to return to a normal life? Were they in strict survival mode? Where did they dispose of the items used in the murder that were never found? How did they decide to stage a kidnapping and then torture and murder their daughter? Those are just some of the considerations that must be successfully addressed in order for this theory to work.

  “Psychopaths are all about control and winning,” Eric Hickey, PhD, a criminology consultant and an expert in psychopathic personalities, has said. He was describing the personality of a psychopath without drawing any analogy to the Ramsey murder. “They are very good at manipulating. They are expert liars and charming. They are narcissistic and completely absorbed in themselves and satisfying their own needs. Psychopaths are users. They use people to gratify their personal needs and have no empathy, shame or remorse. Psychopaths don’t have fear and they have a higher intelligence. Ted Bundy was a classic psychopath.” A serial killer executed in Florida in January 1989, Ted Bundy raped and killed a twelve-year-old girl and killed two sorority sisters. He never confessed to the number of women he killed, but he was suspected of killing more than thirty in several states including Colorado, where he was jailed but eventually escaped.

  SCENARIO #3

  JOHN DISCOVERED PATSY HAD KILLED JONBENÉT AND COVERED FOR HER

  The day after Christmas, according to this theory, John realized Patsy had been involved in his daughter’s death. To save his wife and since his daughter was already dead, John decided to keep the terrible secret of what actually happened and to trade any justice for his daughter for his wife’s sake so together he and Patsy could continue on with their way of life. In this scenario, Patsy had tortured and killed JonBenét and completed all the staging herself.

  SCENARIO #4

  BURKE RAMSEY WAS INVOLVED IN HIS SISTER’S MURDER

  In this variation, Burke fatally hurt his sister in some kind of accident, and his parents decided they must ruthlessly cover up for him.

  Burke was nine years old when two Boulder Police Department detectives interviewed and tape-recorded him on the morning of JonBenét’s disappearance without his parent’s permission. That would not be an unusual procedure, according to one homicide expert who added that he would have insisted neither parent be present when the child was interviewed. A child psychologist representing the Boulder County Department of Social Services also interviewed Burke on January 8, 1997. A third interview occurred in Atlanta, when two detectives questioned Burke with his attorney present. All of these interviews were taped. None of his interrogators detected that Bur
ke might be lying about his sister’s death and his lack of involvement in it. The Boulder Department of Human Services (Social Services) went even further, stating in their March 1997 Evaluation of the Child report related to Burke Ramsey that, “From the interview it is clear that Burke was not a witness to JonBenét’s death.”

  The theory that Burke was involved was not considered seriously for very long, but talk radio speculated about it and tabloid headlines and bloggers advanced the idea enough for the rumor to spread internationally. Law enforcement leakers in Boulder did nothing to discourage such rumors, which continued to resurface for months on slower news days.

  SCENARIO #5

  AN INTRUDER KILLED JONBENÉT2

  When the Ramsey family came back the night of December 25, 1996 from their Christmas dinner at a friend’s home, an intruder was already hidden in the guest room next to JonBenét’s bedroom. Evidence has shown that unidentified rope left in a sack was found underneath the bed in that room.

  He had what he needed. He’d written the ransom note, made the garrote and left the suitcase in the basement, out of the way. Did the idea for the note come to him from watching action movies, most involving kidnappings? Had the language used in those movies matched the message he wanted to get across in his note? He had planned and prepared for weeks or months, and he’d been in the house before. He listened to John and Patsy put their daughter to bed. Patsy then went to the third floor master suite to bed, while John played with Burke for a few minutes on the other end of the house on the second floor.

  He was excited—thrilled, really. He waited until the home was quiet and everyone was asleep.

  Then he approached JonBenét’s bedroom on the thick plush carpet. His footsteps were silent. He used a stun gun to incapacitate his six-year-old victim and bound her mouth shut with duct tape. JonBenét had been so tired from days of Christmas excitement that she’d been sound asleep in her bed.

  He carried her downstairs to the basement. The suitcase, packed with a few items to help keep JonBenét comfortable, was ready to go. Perhaps he’d planned to take her out of the home inside the suitcase along with the duvet and other items. Or he’d known he was going to kill his victim in the basement and escape alone, and the suitcase was just staging.

  Whatever his original intentions, apparently something went wrong with his plan. Why else would he have struck JonBenét on the head so hard? If a stun gun was indeed used, why else would it have been used twice, leaving two sets of marks? Maybe JonBenét woke up and struggled, or her kidnapper couldn’t fit her in the suitcase. Either way, he struck her on the head with a weapon and knocked her out, and/or he shocked her again with the stun gun.

  Then he continued his rampage. He slipped the garrote over JonBenét’s head and pulled, choking her unconscious. He pulled down her long johns and assaulted her with part of a paintbrush handle. He tightened the garrote again. The little girl died from the combination of a blow to the head and strangulation, according to the coroner who did her autopsy.

  JonBenét’s killer left her body in a dark storage room. Her hands had landed above her head, or perhaps he’d posed her that way. He tossed the blanket over her and left her Barbie nightgown next to her on the floor. He paused over her body, and his weight sunk into the dirt and mold, leaving either a clear footprint or a partial one, or he had someone with him as the two separate footprints found in that room didn’t match. Would he have been clever enough to bring an extra unmatched shoe for that extra footprint? When did he take the time to leave a footprint on the basement bathroom toilet, or was that footprint made when he broke into the house through the bathroom?

  Finally, JonBenét’s killer pushed the makeshift door of the storage room open and then shut and dropped the latch above the door into place. He picked up what he wanted to take, left the ransom note on the circular staircase and left the house.

  In such a scenario, what might have been the motive? Why would someone do this?

  Retired detective Lou Smit, who considered pedophilia and psychopathic personality for a motive, has suggested that the killer likely watched JonBenét for months, and what he saw was not what anyone else saw. Others saw a cute little girl at school, playing, maybe in the neighborhood or in a pageant, maybe with her mother at the grocery store. He saw someone he had to have. He wouldn’t say no to his own addiction. He was angry, desperate and selfish. Society would label him a pedophile. In his world, he wanted children sexually, and didn’t care, really, whether it was considered right or wrong. He would find a way to have what he wanted. His need did not touch a conscience because he didn’t have one.

  Experts have also speculated that JonBenét Ramsey’s killer could have been a pedophile, a psychopath or both.

  Kidnapping from a home is rare but not without precedent: Many remember Elizabeth Smart of Salt Lake City. Elizabeth was fourteen years old on June 5, 2002, when she was abducted from her home at night. Elizabeth lived in a large home, like JonBenét. She was part of a loving family. Her mother, father and five siblings were in the home, asleep. Elizabeth and her younger sister slept in the same bedroom. Her kidnapper came into the home and forced Elizabeth to go with him. Her sister was too terrified to go for help for two hours.

  For nine months, Elizabeth Smart was assaulted and kept from her family while living with her kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell, and his wife, Wanda Barzee. The couple was homeless and panhandled and preached on the street. Mitchell had seen Elizabeth when he was hired off the street to do odd jobs around the Smart home. He came back six months later and kidnapped Elizabeth from her bed in the middle of the night.

  Elizabeth was effectively brainwashed with daily abuse and threats against her family. She was eventually rescued when a Good Samaritan reported seeing Mitchell, his wife and possibly Elizabeth, to the police.

  Mitchell had a history of sexual crime. He’s now serving life in prison. His wife plea bargained with federal prosecutors and got fifteen years in prison. The prosecutors said going into the Smart home was high-risk behavior. Like the Ramsey killer in the intruder theory, Mitchell cared about nothing except satisfying his own needs, according to Salt Lake City investigators.

  The kidnapping and murder of Heather Dawn Church in September 1991 showed pre-planning, surveillance and violence. Thirteen-year-old Heather lived near Colorado Springs in an area called Black Forest. She was babysitting her little brother that night when an intruder removed a screen in the home, entered through an open window and kidnapped her. Authorities had no leads for two years until her skull was discovered several miles from her home.

  Robert Charles Browne had lived just down the road from Heather Church and coveted and stalked her. He confessed to her murder in 1995, when a fingerprint from the window screen matched one taken after he was convicted on motor vehicle theft and burglary charges in Louisiana. That was the only physical evidence in the case. While Browne said he had strangled Heather or broken her neck, law enforcement never knew for sure how she died because the rest of her body was never found.

  Browne was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He later wrote to investigators that he had killed others. Detective Lou Smit was on the cold case team that finally solved Heather Dawn Church’s murder. Credit was given to Smit for finding her killer. Smit described Browne as a “violent sexual predator, pedophile and psychopath.”

  Thirteen-year-old Dylan Redwine disappeared November 19, 2012 from his father’s home in Vallecito, Colorado. He was staying with his father on a court-ordered visit. His mother and father were divorced. His father said he last saw Dylan at home while he went out to run errands. When he got home, he said, Dylan was gone. That was the Monday before Thanksgiving weekend. In June, 2013, parts of the boy’s remains were found in a high-mountain range near Vallecito by law enforcement officers involved in one of several searches. The parents blamed each other for Dylan’s death, but law enforcement officials as of this writing say they have no suspects.

  If the perpetrator in
the Ramsey murder case was not a pedophile, perhaps the motive to kill JonBenét was anger and jealousy of John Ramsey and his seemingly ideal life and family. Renowned former FBI profiler John Douglas suggested this possibility when he was first hired by the Ramsey team. Nowhere in the ransom note was JonBenét mentioned by name. The focus of the note was on John. So, an alternative motive could have been hatred or resentment of John. Perhaps the killer was someone who had suffered an imagined slight by Ramsey, someone who obsessed about such things and refused to forgive John. Seen in this light, the ransom note becomes a taunting puzzle. The writer of the note used it to build upon his outrage and continue to build upon his grievances enough to plot a complicated way to get his revenge. His resentment escalated, nourished by his sadistic plan to torment John Ramsey by attacking his beloved daughter.

  Douglas was criticized by some in the media who learned through law enforcement leaks that he’d made the decision that the Ramseys were not involved in their child’s murder after having only been briefed by the Ramsey attorneys. Yet, according to Douglas as well as the Ramsey attorneys and an attorney at the Boulder District Attorney’s Office, he had also talked with Boulder Police Department officials and with attorneys in the DA’s Office.

  Of course there is a third possible motivation for choosing the Ramsey family to victimize, and it’s possibly the most terrifying suggestion because it’s random. The killer may have chosen to break into the Ramsey family home and attack their daughter without knowing anything about them. Instead, he simply chose this family as his target because he wanted to assault and kill or needed a victim to kidnap.