The Cases That Haunt Us

by Mark Olshaker

  Many have suggested that the $118,000 figure was such an inside piece of information that the note had to have been written by one of the Ramseys. I must admit, I don’t get this at all. If one or both of the Ramseys were using this note to stage an apparent kidnapping, why would they purposely point the finger at themselves by using inside information? If John Ramsey knew he wasn’t going to have to pay the ransom anyway, why not ask for $5 million and make it look more legitimate?

  The only scenario that might make some logical sense in which one of the Ramseys came up with the figure would be if Patsy wanted to stick it to John through the note; that is, if she were trying to give him a message. This could also account for such phrases as “You are not the only fat cat around so don’t think that killing will be difficult,” “Don’t underestimate us John,” and “Use that good southern common sense of yours. It is up to you now John!”

  But if that were the case, Patsy would have found ways to continue revealing herself and sticking it to John after the fact, and she did not. In fact, the police were monitoring all of their interactions with each other that first day at the Fernies’ house, and there was no evidence of her trying to get back at him or punish him in any way. To me, the $118,000 figure points away from the Ramseys but toward someone who knew them or had observed personal details of their lives.

  There are quite a few movie references in the note. “You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the authorities. Don’t try to grow a brain, John” corresponds to “You know that I’m on top of you. Do not attempt to grow a brain,” lines delivered by the Dennis Hopper extortionist character in Speed, which was out on video at the time of the murder.

  “Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B.I., etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded” corresponds to “Do not involve the police or the FBI. If you do, I will kill him,” from Ransom.

  “If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies” sounds like “If I even think you’re being followed, the girl dies,” and “That’s the end of the game. The girl dies,” from the Clint Eastwood hit Dirty Harry.

  The phrases “Now listen to me carefully” and “Now listen. Listen very carefully” also come from Dirty Harry, as does “It sounds like you had a good rest. You’ll need it.” Compare that to the note’s “The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested.”

  That’s a lot of very similar material to be merely coincidental, and it is difficult to conceive of Patsy sitting alone in the kitchen writing out a fake ransom note after she’s killed her daughter and coming up with all these movie phrases. If Patsy could recall any movie lines, they’d likely either be favorites from her childhood or current children’s movies. Even John would not know the kinds of references found in the note. To me, that sounds more like the conception of a teenager or young adult.

  So does the phrase “we are familiar with Law enforcement counter-measures and tactics.” So does “will result in your daughter being beheaded.” Who uses words like beheaded these days? People who play Dungeons & Dragons type games and watch Hercules or Xena: Warrior Princess on television, I should think. I was told that beheadings were a key element of the Highlander TV series.

  The point is, I can’t be certain from the note who wrote it and who killed JonBenet, but from the psycholinguistic analysis, it does not appear to have been written by a forty-year-old woman panic-stricken over having just accidentally killed her daughter.

  The transcript of Patsy’s 911 call is also instructive here. Toward the end of the conversation, the dispatcher asks, “Does it say who took her?” At first Patsy doesn’t understand the question and it has to be repeated.

  Finally, she says, “It says ‘S.B.T.C. Victory.’ Please . . .” If she had written the note herself, I think she would have answered with something like “No, it doesn’t say. But someone’s got my baby . . .” Instead, I visualize her leafing through the note looking for the answer to the question. The only thing she can find is what is written at the end. So she mentions “S.B.T.C.,” which in itself doesn’t really answer the question, so she moves one line up, to “Victory,” which also doesn’t help. But this strikes me as someone who is unfamiliar with the note and desperate to find out who has taken her daughter.

  What does “S.B.T.C.” mean? Who knows? We’ve heard everything from “Saved by the Cross” to “Santa Barbara Tennis Club.” One of the early interpretations was “Subic Bay Training Center,” since John Ramsey had served at Subic Bay in the Philippines while in the service. The problem with that one is that there was no such training center there. I have often found when interviewing violent offenders after they’ve been convicted and incarcerated that they come up with obscure references that mean something only to them. This was certainly the case with the interlocking circles and punched holes in the Lindbergh notes.

  With respect to the Ramsey ransom note, an inevitable question arises: If this really was a kidnapping or an attempt to extort money or get back at John Ramsey for some reason, why wouldn’t the offender bring the note with him, rather than count on being able to write it at the house?

  I don’t know.

  I can suggest several possibilities: he was disorganized enough that he forgot the note at home or didn’t think about it until he got there; he didn’t want to risk leaving a note on his own paper for fear of being linked; he had enough time alone in the house to write a “better” one than the one he brought with him or intended to send after taking the child; and he wanted to implicate the Ramseys by tying the note to them. But these are only possibilities. There are almost always aspects of a case you can’t work out, such as the absence of fingerprints in the Lindbergh nursery or why the Ripper used a different weapon in the first killing on the night of the “double event,” or the odd costume the Zodiac wore at Lake Berryessa. But I don’t have an explanation I’m completely satisfied with.

  A lot of information has come out about how the experts have not been able to “rule out” Patsy Ramsey as the writer of the note. While this is apparently true, it is misleading, like so much of the reporting of this case. At least four highly reputable handwriting experts were called both by the police and the defense (probably a lot more), and the consensus was that while Patsy’s handwriting could not be ruled out, the similarities were at the very lowest end of the spectrum. In other words, many, many people would “qualify” or fail to be ruled out under this criterion.

  From a behavioral perspective, I have to question whether, if Patsy had written the note, she would have so willingly submitted to so many handwriting tests and given up so many previous handwriting exemplars. Even if she were purposely trying to disguise her penmanship, handwriting analysis was a field she knew nothing about, so would she have believed she could fool the experts, particularly with three pages of evidence?

  One of the most interesting analyses of the ransom note came from Vassar literature professor Donald Foster, who has made quite a reputation for himself as a literary sleuth. He stunned the academic world by proving through textual analysis that a 578-line poem he had found on microfilm in the archives of the UCLA library had actually been written by William Shakespeare. This was the first discovery of a previously unknown Shakespearean work in 112 years. Using a similar technique, comparing the work to known examples of the author’s writings, he unmasked Newsweek columnist Joe Klein as the anonymous author of the best-selling political novel Primary Colors.

  In 1998, Foster announced he had determined that Patsy Ramsey had written the ransom note, which sounded pretty compelling coming from such an established expert, and Steve Thomas has written that he placed great weight on Foster’s analysis. But then it came out that in the spring of 1997, he had written to Patsy Ramsey at the Charlevoix, Michigan, house to offer his condolences, encouragement, and the statement “I know you are innocent—know it, absolutely and unequivocally.
I will stake my professional reputation on it.”

  He had also stated that he believed John Ramsey’s son John Andrew had been posting on the Internet under the code name “jameson,” and that this jameson was the actual killer. When it turned out that jameson was, in fact, not a twenty-year-old male college student named John Andrew Ramsey but a forty-five-year-old North Carolina housewife named Susan Bennett who had merely developed a tremendous fascination with the case, Foster’s analyses with regard to the Ramsey case were severely called into question.

  The fact is, no one has, or will, come by the whole truth from a single clue or piece of evidence.

  POSTOFFENSE BEHAVIOR

  A significant aspect of the consulting services we provided at Quantico was to describe an UNSUB’s expected pre- and postoffense behavior. In this way, it might be possible for someone who recognizes this behavior to come forward and aid the investigation. Likewise, we can use analysis of pre- and postoffense behavior to help rule out suspects. We’ve already talked about the behavior of the Ramseys leading up to JonBenet’s murder. Now let’s look briefly at their behavior afterward.

  One of the greatest raps against them is that they didn’t behave like people who were innocently bereaved. One component of this was their supposed emotional reaction to their daughter’s death, and I think we have effectively dealt with that. Another is the fact that they lawyered up right afterward, though saying they did not cooperate with the police is another entire area of misleading reporting.

  We have shown how they did answer all police questions on the day of the discovery of JonBenet’s body. We have shown how they agreed to give all the physical and handwriting samples they were asked for. And it is well documented that their attorneys made numerous offers to have them speak with the police, but the two sides could never get together over the rules until June of 1998, when they submitted to three days of interviews.

  One reason for the Ramseys’ attitude toward the police was the police’s attitude toward them, and this can be explained whether they are innocent or guilty. As I travel around the country giving presentations, one of the laments I hear over and over again from members of victims’ rights groups is that the police were not forthcoming with information, did not keep them in the loop, did not make them part of the search for the killer of their loved one. Some departments are sensitive on this issue and some are not. But the problem is certainly compounded if the cops come in with the attitude that the bereaved are also the criminals.

  Once the Ramseys realized the police were holding up turning over their daughter’s body for burial until the Ramseys agreed to the interrogation under the conditions the police dictated, they realized they were in an adversarial relationship with the investigators and had to protect themselves. I don’t find this behaviorally indicative of guilt.

  More to the point, both John and Patsy spoke regularly with law enforcement officials they trusted. In the first several weeks, Patsy communicated repeatedly with Linda Arndt, they both communicated with members of the district attorney’s staff, and once he came onto the case, they communicated regularly with Lou Smit.

  They cooperated with the people they trusted. This is totally consistent behavior.

  They also allowed me to fly to Atlanta at my own expense (I had long since stopped being paid on this case at my own request) and talk to them extensively over a three-day period in March 1999. There were no ground rules and no lawyers present.

  Did they agree to speak with Smit and me because we believed they were innocent? Sure. But they also knew that each of us had been roundly criticized for our opinions and for being taken in by this couple. And they were smart enough to know that Smit and I would each jump at the chance to solve the case, and who the perpetrator was would be immaterial. We would give either of them up in a heartbeat if we could show he or she had killed their daughter.

  Did they think they were so clever that they could go mano a mano with either of us and not slip up? That shows incredible arrogance or incredible criminal sophistication. And here lies the crux of the postoffense behavioral issue.

  My analysis is that though there were organized and planned elements, this crime was basically criminally unsophisticated in its conception and perpetration. If the Ramseys were involved, then their postoffense behavior has been criminally sophisticated in the extreme. They are both master criminals and sociopaths who sprang full-blown into that position without any preparation or practice. They were so confident that they felt they could take on their accusers such as Steve Thomas on live national television (Larry King Live CNN, May 31, 2000) where one slipup would give them away.

  If John thought Patsy had done it and that she was mentally unbalanced, would he let her out of his sight? Would he let her make numerous trips on her own without fear she would inadvertently spill the beans and sink them both? Most important, would he let her continue to care for his son?

  If they both thought their son Burke knew or suspected anything or had ever overheard them saying one word about having been involved in JonBenet’s death, would they let him go off to school on his own, let alone sending him off to the Whites the very morning after the crime? Who would trust a ten-year-old never to say anything he knew? Not me, and I’ve had three of them.

  Most people have been looking at the surface behavior, but not thinking about the truly indicative stuff.

  THE GRAND JURY

  Moving into 1998, little demonstrable progress was being made on the case. Trying to move forward, Boulder PD had been lobbying for a grand jury investigation, figuring that such an entity could compel testimony that they could not. On March 22, a grand jury of four women and eight men was impaneled. It began its work on September 15. By that time, though the case had not progressed, there was a major development on the personnel front.

  On August 6, Steve Thomas submitted a letter of resignation to Chief Beckner, complaining about the handling of the investigation by the police and the interference by the DA’s office in not charging the Ramseys. He doubted that justice would ever be done for JonBenet.

  On September 20, Lou Smit submitted his own letter of resignation to District Attorney Hunter, stating, “I cannot in good conscience be a part of the persecution of innocent people. It would be highly improper and unethical for me to stay when I so strongly believe this.”

  The second anniversary of the murder came and went without any suspects being identified. John Ramsey had lost his job with Access Graphics. He believed it was because he was perceived as a corporate liability because of all the negative publicity. He was probably right.

  On March 19, 1999, Detective Linda Arndt resigned from the department. To me, this represented just one more example of an investigation in disarray. Arndt described how she had looked into John Ramsey’s eyes and knew what had happened. The inference most people drew from her statement was that John was the killer. Steve Thomas, having access to the same evidence that Arndt had available, concluded that Patsy had been the killer and that John wasn’t involved until the cover-up.

  The grand jury’s term was scheduled to expire on April 21, 1999. But on April 7, it was extended for another six months since its work was far from complete.

  I testified before the grand jury on April 26 and 27, 1999. Since their proceedings are secret, I’m not at liberty to reveal what I said. But some in the press have speculated that my testimony and Lou Smit’s created serious doubts in the grand jurors’ minds. I don’t know if this is true and I don’t know what Smit testified. I only know I told them what I believed and I’m sure he did the same.

  Prior to my testimony, Detective Sergeant Tom Wickman, who was now heading up the investigation for Boulder PD, introduced himself and told me he’d read all of my books and particularly admired the Crime Classification Manual. He thanked me for the work I’d done in the area of criminal profiling and what he considered its significant contribution to law enforcement. I was very appreciative of all of Wickman’s comments.

&nbs
p; On October 13, 1999, Alex Hunter and the grand jury announced that it had found insufficient evidence to indict anyone in the JonBenet Ramsey case. Some speculated that the final decision might have been Hunter’s, because under Colorado law, both the grand jury foreman and the district attorney must sign a true bill of indictment for it to take effect.

  Steve Thomas condemned Hunter for not indicting the Ramseys and letting a jury decide the truth. Attorney and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz declared Hunter a “constitutional hero” for taking all the barbs and not bringing a case to trial that he did not feel could be supported. This was just one more example of the huge and seemingly unbridgeable divisions this case has engendered.

  LOOSE ENDS

  There is no way to be exhaustive on a case of this scope, and anyone who studies it will have his own crucial element or piece of evidence. I’ve tried to present what I considered to be the important points. But items are always left over in any discussion, and we’ll try to deal with some of them here.

  1.If there was an intruder, why didn’t his footprints show up in the snow around the house?

  This is another of those greatly misreported “facts.” Contrary to what was originally reported, only a light dusting of snow was on the ground on the night in question, plus the walk had been shoveled. So even if the intruder had left through the window well, he would not necessarily have left tracks.

  2.How would an intruder get in?

  Smit believed he got in through the window well to the basement. This may well be the case. It is also possible that he gained access by using a key. At least twenty keys to the house were floating around that were not in the Ramseys’ possession. If the offender was someone who knew them well, or knew someone who had worked for them or had a key through some other legitimate reason, this is a likely possibility.