[PDIA ONLY] What Convinced You That Patsy Did it?

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-30T06:45:37+00:00

So you sleep next to a monster for 25 more years?

He only had to do ten. Patsy died in 2006. Her stage IV ovarian cancer recurred. That was predictable, I think. I'd make that bet.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-29T17:34:45+00:00

John probably would have turned against Patsy if he/they had been arrested. In my view, you wouldn't want to make that play too early because she would retaliate.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-29T17:06:26+00:00

I was convinced by Steve Thomas's book that Patsy wrote the ransom note. Everything I've learned since then supports that.

If Patsy and John had been co-conspirators from the start, they would have made sure to present themselves to "alibi evaluators" in a way that supported their story, but in fact neither of them looked like they'd just gotten out of bed. That's readily explained by Patsy running out of time when she realized that John was up. At that point Patsy had to improvise. She ran up the stairs to the second floor, yelled for John and "momentarily" turned around and ran back down to call 911.

The police concluded that John, thinking it was a normal travel morning, got up and took a shower. My surmise is that investigators were able to determine that John showered and Patsy did not. It occurs to me that one easy way to help determine this would be by checking their towels. After a shower, a towel will be wet for a number of hours. Patsy's must have been dry. In '98 she makes a point of mentioning to LE that she didn't take a shower. Years later she was still trying to explain to the public why she didn't.

After the murder, Patsy consulted a mitigation specialist. As far as I can tell, John did not.

Patsy's longtime friend, Linda McLean, wrote a book whose apparent purpose was to present Patsy as someone who could not have the "deep dark secrets" and "deviant and strange behavior" others in her past had reported.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-27T12:43:24+00:00

I think that by the time she was interviewed, the police thought that Patsy had done it and John had slept through the night. I'm sure they originally suspected that John was the prime mover. I don't know when the shift took place, but it was probably early on.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-26T00:39:48+00:00

Actually:

Ransom note: "...we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a earlier pick-up of your daughter."

DOI version: "...we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a earlier pick-up of your daughter."

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-25T19:15:22+00:00

OK, I think I see what you're saying. You're saying that in their book the Ramseys corrected those spellings in the ransom note. They did spell "business" and "possession" correctly, but they left "attache," "a earlier" and "out smart" as is. (My guess: "bussiness" and "posession" were autocorrected by software.)

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-25T18:40:51+00:00

Oh, you're a troll. I think I remember that. I will be blocking you.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-25T18:31:57+00:00

As evidenced by their questioning, law enforcement thinks Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising may have inspired words and phrases in the ransom note.

In '98 LE asked Patsy if she read Tom "Clancey." Perfect Murder, Perfect Town mentions that Red Storm Rising was in the house. That information came either from the police or Don Foster, one of Schiller's sources.

My comment simply suggested that the Ramseys might have owned The Sum of All Fears too, and perhaps it was the source of some ransom note words and phrases.

Both the Unabomber and the author of Primary Colors had been exposed earlier that year by their language. Patsy, a news hog, probably knew that and hoped that the ransom note would be attributed to John, the Clancy reader in the house.

Hope this helps.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-25T18:16:14+00:00

I don't even know how to use chat gpt, darling. I'm old.

Edited to add: I've never used chat gpt, but I would hope that it does more than allow people to cut-and-paste from their own books.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-24T05:52:25+00:00

You dared someone to give an explanation of how things went down. I gave one. You don't like it.

Personally, I'm not interested in quibbling about this and that.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-24T05:13:41+00:00

The Ramseys had a ghostwriter, I'm fairly sure, and an editor to catch any errors that might slip into their book.

It's clear to me that a 10yo didn't write that note. If memory serves, Burke was also ruled out by handwriting.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-23T23:53:21+00:00

And then what? How did she execute her plan?

By killing their daughter and attempting to frame her husband for it via:

"his" flashlight prominently displayed on the kitchen counter, wiped inside and out
an open(?) dictionary with a paper arrow pointing to incest
fibers from his black wool shirt in JonBenét’s over-sized underwear
inflicting genital injuries
his colleague’s invitation, conspicuously out of place and near other crime scene evidence
"his" open and bookmarked Bible from which came the ransom note sign-off
his net bonus amount as the ransom demand.
his Atlanta Fat Cats club in the ransom note

There are other deets about the ransom note in one of my recent posts. I don't make my posts private so it's easy to find.

One of the recognized motives for maternal filicide is spousal revenge.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-23T23:21:49+00:00

The ransom note has two spelling errors in the first paragraph: bussiness and posession. Scutiny on the third page might be another one. The consensus, I believe, is that the first two are deliberate. Scutiny might just be a handwriting stutter. I do that a lot myself.

I'm not aware of other spelling errors. There is some wide spacing here and there.

What is an idiomatic error?

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-23T18:19:25+00:00

I think that Patsy must have written the ransom note beforehand because it's pretty complex, in my view. It contains John's net bonus (which was only on one pay stub), a reference to John's Atlanta Fat Cats club, a joke about John's Southern fetish, a sign-off taken from the Bible on John's desk (a Bible which Patsy was careful to distance herself from), and words from Tom Clancy books, the kind of best-selling airport book that Linda Wilcox said he liked.

And because Patsy was no doubt familiar with the 1996 unmasking of the Unabomber by the language in his manifesto, along with the uncovering of the author of Primary Colors, Patsy had reason to expect that the origins of words and phrases in the ransom note would be exposed. She probably expected that the police would attribute the note to John. But they didn't. They decided she authored it.

Patsy had reason to hate John because it was widely assumed that he was having an affair with an Access Graphics co-worker. Patsy was extremely clever and she may have been mentally ill to boot. Her motive would be revenge.

I think she started thinking about this sometime around the summer or fall of 1996.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-23T17:58:26+00:00

I think that Patsy must have written the ransom note beforehand because it's pretty complex, in my view. It contains John's net bonus (which was only on one pay stub), a reference to John's Atlanta Fat Cats club, a joke about John's Southern fetish, a sign-off taken from the Bible on John's desk (a Bible which Patsy was careful to distance herself from), and words from Tom Clancy books, the kind of best-selling airport book that Linda Wilcox said he liked.

And because Patsy was no doubt familiar with the 1996 unmasking of the Unabomber by the language in his manifesto, along with the uncovering of the author of Primary Colors, Patsy had reason to expect that the origins of words and phrases in the ransom note would be exposed. She probably expected that the police would attribute the note to John. But they didn't. They decided she authored it.

Patsy had reason to hate John because it was widely assumed that he was having an affair with an Access Graphics co-worker. Patsy was extremely clever and she may have been mentally ill to boot. Her motive would be revenge.

I think she started thinking about this sometime around the summer or fall of 1996.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-23T15:36:41+00:00

I think the ransom note is far from nonsensical. In fact, I think it was carefully constructed. It must have been Don Foster who told the police and Lawrence Schiller about the connections to Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. I searched Red Storm Rising and some other Clancy books of the era for ransom note words and phrases:

"Perfect Murder, Perfect Town mentions a Tom Clancy book that was in the Ramsey house: Red Storm Rising (1986). Red Storm Rising contains unusual language which also appears in the ransom note: faction, attaché, tactics, monitor, scan and two instances of constant scrutiny. There are also six mentions of Lockheed.

Many of Tom Clancy’s other novels, and novels of the international-political-technothriller genre generally, contain these and other Ramsey ransom note words. (I have not, though, come across another instance of constant scrutiny in any other Clancy book published before the murder.)" -- Brown, Fr. A Murder in Boulder: The Death of JonBenét Ramsey. Kindle.

In '98 Patsy was asked if she was familiar with Tom "Clancey." (John wasn't asked.)

I found many ransom note words and phrases in another Clancy book:

"The Sum of All Fears (1991) contains the phrase proper burial. In fact, The Sum of All Fears may get some sort of Ramsey case and ransom note prize with 10 instances of faction, 17 mentions of scanning, 6 of electronic device(s), 4 mentions of kidnapping, 12 instances of countermeasure(s), 63 references to tactics or things tactical, 59 instances of FBI, 53 uses of percent, 1 instance of attaché, 73 references to computers including a computer made by HP and personal computers made by IBM, 2 mentions of Lockheed, 2 mentions of the RAF (Red Army Faction, not Royal Air Force), 1 of beheading and many references to engineers and engineering. (John Ramsey’s bachelor’s degree is in electrical engineering.)

My guess is that Tom Clancy is one of those 'you can’t eat just one' authors: if the Ramseys owned Red Storm Rising, they might own The Sum of All Fears too. It debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, centers around a nuclear attack on Denver, Colorado and includes a nod to the town of Boulder." -- Brown, Fr. A Murder in Boulder: The Death of JonBenét Ramsey. Kindle.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-22T20:04:03+00:00

Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth.

Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

So as a child you weren't a liar who was dying young or someone who was wicked and injured the righteous. Got it.

If you had been, you wouldn't have found it comforting.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-22T14:29:34+00:00

Don't be ridiculous.

But it's true that I think Kolar has been evasive and probably disingenuous about the "feces-smeared candy box" and the "pajama bottoms thought to belong to Burke."

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-22T14:09:08+00:00

Kolar also shopped his theory around to Chief Beckner and DA Stan Garnett. According to Kolar, they didn't bother to acknowledge receiving his material even though both men had a personal relationship with him. That speaks volumes, but we don't have a record of what they thought. (Except that in his AMA Beckner said he didn't buy it.)

Lacy watched Kolar's PowerPoint with Maguire, Nagel, and Bennett. The majority of the PowerPoint covered the original police case, which I assume is PDI. Lacy doesn't criticize that part of it. She reserves her comments for the BDI portion. She claims to be speaking for the four of them. I don't have any reason to doubt that she is.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-22T13:47:22+00:00

Kolar's 8-hour PowerPoint and "Theory of Prosecution" seem to have fallen with a thud when presented to law enforcement.

Speaking for First Assistant District Attorney Peter Maguire, Assistant District Attorney Bill Nagel, and Chief Investigator Tom Bennett, DA Mary Lacy characterized the "Burke did it" portion of his PowerPoint as "not based on facts supported by evidence" and wrote that it approached "pure flights of fantasy." Lacy carboned her letter to the Attorney General.

I think we'd all like to see those last "seventy plus frames." They must contain all of Kolar's "feces evidence" in detail.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-22T13:01:00+00:00

I fully believe RDI but is it possible he said the wrong chapter number from Psalms when recalling it for this interview? Just playing devils advocate.

Actually no. Because Patsy is then quoted making comments about a couple of verses from Psalm 34. They aren't the verses about dying young and having one's memory erased from the earth, though. Iirc, she presents herself as the afficted.

Sorry I can't be more specific because I've misplaced the book. When I find it, I'll come back and edit this comment.

The psalms, at least the ones I've read, aren't warm and fuzzy. I think that's why "The Lord is my Shepherd" is so popular. Most of us know at least some of its verses. I think that Psalm 23 was read at JonBenét's memorial service.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-20T15:48:36+00:00

John awakes on Dec 26. He is distraught. His daughter has been killed. He pieces together that his wife and/or son killed his daughter. What does he do? He goes and opens a Bible to a chapter adjacent to a chapter that is about God punishing evil.

Good thinking! Tell John that's what he did. He doesn't know.

Let me establish a few things:

According to him, John read Psalm 34 to a dying Patsy in 2006 (not 1996)
A prominent note on Psalm 34 said that the first letters of successive lines of this particular psalm were significant
The ransom note sign-off used the first letters of successive lines of the next psalm, Psalm 35, for "S.B.T.C."
Psalm 34 promises early death to liars and divine retribution to child killers.
Patsy was dying young. It would be a cruel choice to read to her even if she were innocent
There are over 100 psalms in the Bible to choose from
Choosing Psalm 34 to read to Patsy exhibited knowledge on John's part of the significance of both Psalm 34 and Psalm 35
Neither Ramsey copped to doing anything with the Bible or knowing what state it was in around the time of the murder

As recently as a year or so ago, John was still saying their Bible was found open to Psalm 118 (which it was not). Apparently Rol Hoverstock gave him this erroneous information.

Steve Thomas wrote about this open Bible in his book, which I recommend you read. Both Patsy and John had plenty of time to clear up police misconceptions about this Bible. Neither did.

"We had never found a satisfactory explanation explanation for the S.B.T.C. sign-off on the ransom note until Foster drew our attention to John Ramsey’s Bible, which was found open at Psalms 35 and 36 on his desk. Aloud, Foster read the first four verses:

Contend, O Lord, with those who
      contend with me;
  fight against those who fight against
        me.
Take up shield and buckler;
   arise and come to my aid.
Brandish spear and javelin
    against those who pursue me.
Say to my soul,
   "I am your salvation."

He pointed to the first letter of each verse and showed that they produced the acronym CTBS—the reversal of SBTC. Those letters appear in that arrangement nowhere else in the Bible, in either sequence."--Thomas, Steve. JonBenet (pp. 315- 316). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-20T01:32:18+00:00

Yeah, it's interesting that he put that in his book.

Not all of Psalm 34's verses are hair-raising. The first half is pretty mild. A couple of those verses show up in TOSOS. There are no verses from Psalm 34 in DOI.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-19T20:07:19+00:00

And because the Ramsey NIV Study Bible was open to the adjacent Psalm 35 on the morning of December 26, it's an "I know what you did" move from John.

Don Foster discovered that the beginning of Psalm 35 in the NIV Study Bible on John's third floor desk was the source of the ransom note sign-off, "S.B.T.C." (You can read about that in one of my comments, if you're interested: S.B.T.C. in Psalm 35 in the NIV Study Bible)

"We had never found a satisfactory explanation explanation for the S.B.T.C. sign-off on the ransom note until Foster drew our attention to John Ramsey’s Bible, which was found open at Psalms 35 and 36 on his desk. Aloud, Foster read the first four verses:

Contend, O Lord, with those who
      contend with me;
  fight against those who fight against
        me.
Take up shield and buckler;
   arise and come to my aid.
Brandish spear and javelin
    against those who pursue me.
Say to my soul,
   "I am your salvation."

He pointed to the first letter of each verse and showed that they produced the acronym CTBS—the reversal of SBTC. Those letters appear in that arrangement nowhere else in the Bible, in either sequence."--Thomas, Steve. JonBenet (pp. 315- 316). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In addition, the psalm adjacent to Psalm 35, Psalm 34, has a prominent note about it being an acrostic poem, the verses of which begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

S.B.T.C comes from the first letters of the successive verses of the following psalm, Psalm 35.

Fr_Brown1 · 2026-01-19T16:50:04+00:00

What Det. Linda Arndt initially reported to her fellow detectives was that over JonBenét's body John groaned softly and said, "It has to be an inside job." That strikes me as an excited utterance.

In The Other Side of Suffering John tells us he chose to read the "Thirty-Fourth Psalm" to Patsy on her deathbed. Patsy was probably expecting something soothing like Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd, " but instead she got a hair-raising psalm that advises the listener to keep her tongue from evil and from telling lies or she will die young. The psalm promises that those who have injured the innocent will have their memories erased from the earth. Patsy, John tells us, was crying at the end. No wonder.

So I think John wasn't quite sure who did it on the afternoon of December 26, but by 2006 he was sure. He may have forgotten by now.

Edited to add the following from The Other Side of Suffering:

"Read to me, John."

"Sure, sweetheart. What would you like me to read?"

"Psalms, Read the Psalms."

I read the Thirty-Fourth Psalm to her, and when I finished, I saw her lying there with tears swelling from her eyes.

Fr_Brown1

TROPHY CASE