Law & Disorder

by Douglas, John

  As soon as it was explained to me, I disagreed. I was told that the amount had appeared on several documents, including a tax return that was in the house, and that a number of individuals at his company could have had knowledge. Even more to the point, learning that the Ramseys were not meticulous housekeepers and let all manner of things lie around, it is more than possible that anyone in the house could have seen a pay stub and concluded that he had at least this much in ready cash. The note didn’t just say to “bring us this much money.” It directed Mr. Ramsey to “withdraw $118,000 from your account” (italics added for emphasis by author). Again, this underscores the possibility that the writer was someone with inside knowledge, either through the business or from simple observation.

  It is also possible, based on my experience, that the figure is a complete red herring, a coincidental number snatched out of the air—though I didn’t think so at the time and still do not. But the one thing it tells us for sure is that if this was either a criminal enterprise—in other words, a crime mainly for profit—or one staged to look like a kidnapping, then it was the work of a younger or criminally unsophisticated individual.

  The note itself confirms this for us. Remember what we said about modus operandi versus signature. To attempt to complete a successful criminal enterprise, all the kidnapper has to do is say how much he wants, what form he wants it in and how it is to be delivered. Then they add all of the window dressing about not contacting the police or FBI, and not having the drop site surveilled, which almost no one follows. Even the kidnappers don’t expect you to comply with this part.

  The same ambiguity attaches to the signature: S.B.T.C. Some suggested it was an inside reference to John Ramsey’s naval service in the Philippines and stood for “Subic Bay Training Center,” even though there is no entity with that specific name. Others, citing Patsy’s religiosity, thought it stood for “Saved By the Cross,” and referred to her cancer remission. “Victory” meant victory over Satan. This would be difficult to square with the supposed staging of another crime, unless it was some sort of ritual sacrifice on Patsy’s part. To believe this, though, you would have to suppose that she was out-and-out crazy, a hypothesis for which there is absolutely no evidence.

  Who knows what S.B.T.C. means? It would certainly be nice to know, but ultimately, it may not matter. In any complex case, there are always anomalies that don’t add up. People have spent endless hours debating this point, and we may never know.

  But there is a lot more to this note. Putting things into the plural is standard form; you want to make your victims feel you are larger and more powerful than you are. Declaring yourselves a “foreign faction” makes you even scarier and more mysterious.

  As we have said, the note gave all of the standard warnings, but did so in a taunting, repetitive style apparently intended to raise John Ramsey’s level of anguish as high as possible. Also, note the unintentional switch from plural to singular in these remarks:

  Any deviation of my instruction will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B.I., etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. 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. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies.

  The writer goes on to say: Don’t try to grow a brain John. You are not the only fat cat around so don’t think that killing will be difficult. Do not underestimate us John. Use that good southern common sense of yours.

  This reference to John’s Southern origins also points to someone who either knew him well or knew a good deal about him.

  There are a number of contemporary movie references, such as “Don’t try to grow a brain John.” This seems to have been taken from Speed, the Sandra Bullock–Keanu Reeves thriller then out on video, in which extortionist Dennis Hopper says, “You know that I’m on top of you. Do not attempt to grow a brain.”

  “Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B.I., etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded,” could have come from the Mel Gibson–Renee Russo film Ransom, then in theaters. Kidnapper and rogue cop Gary Sinise warns, “Do not involve the police or the FBI. If you do, I will kill him.”

  And then there is the opening of the note: “Listen carefully!” That easily could have come from Clint Eastwood’s immortal Dirty Harry.

  Maybe they’re all coincidences, but three phrases like that start to look like a pattern to me. I didn’t think John or Patsy would necessarily know these references; and if they were sitting down under extreme stress trying to come up with what they thought a ransom note should look like, they were not the things I would expect them to call to mind. So this also made me think about a younger offender.

  There is one thing about which I felt absolutely sure as soon as I saw the note and learned of its circumstances. The note was written before the murder, not, as some have suggested, afterward as a hasty and desperate attempt to stage the crime. No one would have that kind of patience, boldness and presence of mind to sit down and write it in the house afterward. The language seems more fitting to a male than a female offender.

  I’ve seen a lot of ransom notes in my time, and this one clearly falls into one of two possible categories. The first possibility is that it was an actual ransom note with the intention of extorting money out of John Ramsey. The second is that it was part of an elaborate staging to mislead investigators from the actual intended crime, which was murder of the child for whatever reason.

  If we assume the first intention, then we must conclude that the murder was unintended, at least initially. And then we can go on to conclude either that it turned out to be harder to control a six-year-old than anticipated and she was accidentally killed in trying to deal with her, or that some sexual perversity or paraphilia led the UNSUB into some signature-type behavior—autoerotic asphyxiation, for example—that ended in the death of the victim.

  If we assume the second scenario, what are the possible reasons for a staging? The only logical ones have to do with trying to make the death of this child look like it happened for reasons other than the actual ones. Who would have a motive to do that?

  We can come up with numerous far-fetched scenarios in which an intruder might stage a crime to look like one thing, when it is actually another. Mystery writers and crime shows love this kind of exercise. But this is not what happens in real life. Practically speaking, if this were staged to appear to be a kidnapping attempt, when it was actually something else, this would almost have to involve the parents or someone inside the house. No one else would have a reasonable motive to deflect the investigation into this other direction.

  But the psycholinguistics point away from the mother. A mother under this kind of stress wouldn’t think of her daughter’s death as an “execution.” If she had been trying to send a message to John—in other words, to “stick it to him” for some real or imagined domestic offense—it is conceivable she might have threatened him with the death of his beloved child. It is nearly inconceivable that she could talk about denying her remains a proper burial. It would be just too painful for her to think about.

  I feel the same way about words such as “beheaded.” No matter their motives, it seems highly unlikely that the parents could conceive of cutting their child’s head off, or even using such a relatively archaic term. When Mark and I discussed the note with some of the Ramsey-hired investigators, he suggested it sounded like what a teen would take away from watching Hercules or Xena, Warrior Princess or playing Dungeons & Dragons, again pointing to a younger offender.

  If Patsy were actually trying to get back at John in this note and in the crime itself, we would have expected her behavior to be consistent in various ways postoffense. But there i
s absolutely no evidence that she did this, either in word or dead. Yes, we could speculate that the actual murder had shocked her out of this mode of thinking and made her fear for her own safety, but now we’re jumping through those logical hoops again.

  I also find it significant that as vicious and specific as the note is, with frequent references to all of the horrible things the writer wants to do to this little girl, nowhere is she mentioned by name. Perhaps the writer didn’t know her name, or didn’t know the unusual spelling, based on her father’s names.

  If either of the parents had killed the child, either purposefully or by accident, it would make sense for them to stage the scene to deflect attention away from themselves. We see this frequently in domestic homicides. But the question remains: Why?

  It soon became clear where the material for the ransom note had come from. On the afternoon of the murder, Detective Thomas Trujillo came over with a consent-to-search form. John signed it without question. The police asked the Ramseys to submit blood, hair and biological samples. They complied willingly. They were also asked for exemplars of their handwriting to match up against the ransom note. John gave them two white lined pads. One was from the kitchen countertop and contained Patsy’s notes, shopping lists and some doodles. The other was on a hallway table near the spiral staircase and had pages written by John. Sergeant Robert Whitson marked them “John” and “Patsy” and submitted them to Detective Jeff Kithcart, the department’s forgery and fraud expert.

  As he was examining the pads, Kithcart noticed some writing toward the middle of Patsy’s tablet. At the top of the page, in the same black felt-tip marker someone had written “Mr. and Mrs.” And then a downstroke line could have been the beginning of a capital R, had it been completed. He concluded that this was a first draft of the ransom note and that the writer had then decided to address it to Mr. Ramsey only.

  This was a critically important discovery. It meant either that the intruder or intruders had been in the house for some considerable period of time, or that JonBenét had been killed by someone known to be in the house—her mother, her father or her nine-year-old brother, Burke.

  The inevitable question arises: If it wasn’t someone who lived in the house, why would an intruder wait to write the convoluted note in the house and on paper he found there? I don’t think we have a perfect answer. It makes no more sense than the ransom note itself. We could speculate that the intruder was young and unsophisticated and so did not think to bring a note with him. He may have had one, but in his time alone in the house decided to write a better one with materials readily at hand. It may be he wanted to implicate the parents by using their own pad. Or he may have wanted to show how bold he was. Or it may have been none of these. But does that make it any more likely that either John or Patsy wrote the note?

  Boulder PD brought in four experts to examine the note and match it against handwriting exemplars from both John and Patsy. All four eliminated John as the author. Three out of the four eliminated Patsy; the fourth said he did not think she was, but he could not tell for sure. This was the origin of the story that Patsy’s handwriting had matched up to the note.

  The note told me that whether it started out as a kidnapping for ransom, or the communication was merely to deflect attention from the actual purpose, the UNSUB planned to remove the victim from the house. There would be no point to this elaborate note if it was intended that anyone in the house should find the body in the basement.

  Again, we come back to the question: Why would Patsy do it?

  Another popular movie out at the time was Jerry Maguire. Most of us remember the classic line in which Cuba Gooding Jr. tells Tom Cruise, “Show me the money!”

  We operate on a similar mantra: Show me the motive! Keep all of the other facts and pieces of evidence in mind as we search for the fulfillment of that demand.

  The People in the House

  As soon as word got out that JonBenét was missing, friends and supporters started arriving at the house, along with a growing law enforcement contingent. In addition to Officer Rick French and the Ramseys’ friends Fleet and Priscilla White and John and Barbara Fernie, Sergeant Paul Reichenbach showed up. He got the telephone company to set up a trap and trace on the Ramseys’ line and put out an order to cease all police radio traffic on the crime, in case the kidnapper was listening to a police scanner. These were both good moves.

  Fleet White wanted to help out, so he started out on his own search throughout the house. In the basement, he discovered a small broken window. If John Ramsey wanted to divert attention away from him and Patsy, this would have been a perfect opportunity. Instead, he explained that he had arrived home several months ago without his key and had broken the window himself to gain entry.

  Sometime before 8:00 A.M., Burke woke up. John and Patsy told him his sister was missing, got him dressed, and then had him taken over to the Whites’ house to remove him from the tense scene. Right after this, Sergeant Whitson contacted John Eller, the head of the police department’s detective division. Eller was on vacation in Florida with his family, but Detectives Linda Arndt and Fred Patterson soon arrived on the scene, having been brought up to speed on the details of the case thus far.

  Arndt tried to be as reassuring as she could to Patsy and everyone at the scene. Accounts say that she treated both parents with great compassion. She rehearsed with John what he should do if and when a call came in from the kidnapper. Most important was to keep the kidnapper on the phone as long as possible so that the call could be traced.

  By this point, without anyone intending to do anything wrong, the investigation already had been compromised to a critical degree. As far as the police could tell, this was a kidnapping, and so the entire house was a crime scene. And yet, here they had all these people in the house, wandering all over, searching on their own, trampling any evidence that might have proven useful in identifying the intruder or intruders. The police had not focused on John and Patsy yet. Once the crime scene has been disturbed, the fine and subtle evidence is gone for good.

  While I’m sure the police had the same interests as the Ramseys in not subjecting Burke to any more stress and anguish than necessary, letting Burke leave the house for an unprotected location, when no UNSUBs had been identified, was bad practice. One can figure that if the kidnapper did not get him to begin with, perhaps he was not a target and therefore safe, but that is not a decision I would have wanted to make as a police officer.

  By noon, no call had come from the kidnapper. The various police personnel and victim advocates departed, leaving Linda Arndt as the only police official on scene, along with the Ramseys, the Fernies, the Whites, who had returned after bringing Burke to their house to be watched, and the Ramseys’ Episcopal pastor, Reverend Rol Hoverstock.

  Around one o’clock, possibly to give John something to do as they waited in vain for the phone call, Arndt suggested that he take another look through the house to see if he could find anything that had been overlooked that might be helpful. He agreed and took Fleet White with him. That was when he found JonBenét’s rigid body in the basement wine cellar.

  Now comes one of the strangest incidents in the case, at least from one perspective. No one disputes Arndt’s kindness and sensitive treatment of both Ramseys. In the following days, in fact, several other detectives were annoyed that Arndt was the only detective Patsy would talk to, because she felt a strong sense of trust. Yet, three years after the murder, and after she had left Boulder PD, Arndt appeared on a national television program and described the moment when she and John were kneeling over the body. She had searched in vain for a pulse in JonBenét and had to tell John that his daughter was dead. John groaned in anguish.

  “And as we looked at each other,” she recalled, “and I wore a shoulder holster, tucking my gun right next to me and consciously counting, ‘I’ve got eighteen bullets,’ because I didn’t know if we’d all be alive when people showed up.”

  She further clarified, “Everyth
ing made sense in that instance. And I knew what happened.”

  What did she mean by that? Clearly, she thought that John Ramsey was capable of murder, and either had killed his daughter by himself or with the help of his wife. But why? What about the look in his eyes told her that? And what’s this about eighteen bullets? Was he going to try to kill her right then and there? With what—his bare hands? Was he that dangerous that it was going to take an entire clip of bullets to neutralize him? Or did she think everyone else in the room was in on it with him and would have to be shot as well? It just doesn’t make any sense and, I’m afraid, points up the confusion and lack of proper control that the Boulder PD exhibited during this case. Was she just stressed out as a result of having the body found in the house by civilians after the police had failed to find it? Was she disturbed that her kidnapping scene had turned into a murder? Her comments are particularly strange, given that all reports at the time peg Detective Arndt’s behavior as exemplary toward the Ramseys.

  The incident points up a fundamental rift—a divergence in focus and perspective—that would soon emerge within the Boulder PD. The police department and, to a certain extent, the district attorney’s office believed that the parents were culpable in JonBenét’s death.

  But they couldn’t decide which one!

  Linda Arndt evidently considered John the dangerous one, while Detective Steve Thomas, who ultimately took over the case, believed it was Patsy. The tensions that this must have produced within the investigation would have made this an extremely difficult case to prosecute. And as far as I could see, there was no hard evidence supporting any of the assumptions about either parent. The closest to actual evidence connecting the Ramseys was the fact that the ransom note was written on Patsy’s pad. But handwriting experts eliminated John as the author and only found the most tangential possibility that Patsy could have written it.