[graciegirl]

It has been twenty years since the little girls death in Boulder, Colorado and there is much attention being given to this murder again. Many Television programs revisiting the murder and the family.

The surviving son, Burke Ramsey has granted a public interview on Dr. Phil for the first time. His behavior is unusual at times in this interview and makes me think perhaps he has Aspergers Syndrome, a form of Autism.

I have seen now an interview with Patsy Ramsey where she is very angry for being asked if she is involved and says things like " I don't care a flip what you think" to the police.

The ransom note didn't and doesn't make sense to me.

Any thoughts to share?

[Mudder]

I don't know who did it but am wondering why it is all over the media again. Yes, I know it has not been solved but really to start asking her brother who was 9 years old at the time why he stayed in bed, etc... is a bit much. To ask him questions that relate to something that happened 20 years ago when he was a child seems unfair to him. He appears extremely awkward but perhaps it's the situation that makes him appear that way.

[Madelaine Amee]

I watched some of this interview during my "down time" of the day. I was left with the feeling that the brother had been paid a HUGE amount of money to sit there and go over this again, and I wondered to myself whether the half smile on his face was almost derision for the stupidity of the interview.

I put Dr. Phil's show into the "reality show" category and on the occasion when I do watch him, I want to see really really over the top dysfunctional happenings so that I can walk away and say "wow" crazy people out there!!!

[westcoast]

This looked like tabloid journalism, sensationalizing past events with no new evidence. This was very poorly done and I lost some respect for Dr. Phil

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by Mudder

I don't know who did it but am wondering why it is all over the media again.

It's all over the media again because it's an unsolved brutal murder of a beautiful little girl.
And because sensationalism attracts people to buy newspapers and watch television.
Jon Benet would be 26 if she had lived, very sad.
Patsy Ramsy died of cancer, poor woman, and her husband remarried. I doubt the truth will ever be discovered.
It doesn't surprise me that Dr. Phil is interviewing Burke Ramsey, anything to bump up his ratings.

[Mudder]

Yep, I confess, I watched the Dr Phil interviews. He seemed to be almost badgering Burke.
Think Dr Phil has had his 15 minutes of fame, he's gone from actually trying to help people to trying to exploit and sensationalize. The promos for the next few days shows are ridiculous! It's my down time too, will I watch??? Maybe........

[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by Mudder

Yep, I confess, I watched the Dr Phil interviews. He seemed to be almost badgering Burke.
Think Dr Phil has had his 15 minutes of fame, he's gone from actually trying to help people to trying to exploit and sensationalize. The promos for the next few days shows are ridiculous! It's my down time too, will I watch??? Maybe........

I refer to this as "Oprahfication", the same thing happened to Dr. Oz

[rubicon]

It has been my personal view from day one when Dr. Phil began his show that he is little more than a Jerry Springer with a PHD.

It is also my view that replaying stories such as this that have nothing additional to add and meant only to sensationalize past events demonstrate how desperate television is for anything that will fill in their 24/7 time slots


Indeed experts are correct in claiming television viewing would be bad for the brain, a tool by the way if used wisely could have just the opposite effect

[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by rubicon

It has been my personal view from day one when Dr. Phil began his show that he is little more than a Jerry Springer with a PHD.

It is also my view that replaying stories such as this that have nothing additional to add and meant only to sensationalize past events demonstrate how desperate television is for anything that will fill in their 24/7 time slots


Indeed experts are correct in claiming television viewing would be bad for the brain, a tool by the way if used wisely could have just the opposite effect

Do you have an opinion on who killed JonBenet?

I think that her mother may have been on drugs given the serious diagnosis of very progressed ovarian cancer.

Two things that may seem silly to a man but Patsy Ramsey was very interested in her own appearance and that of her children, yet she had on the same clothes that she had worn the day before when the police and her friends came to the home.

JonBenet continued to wet the bed and Patsy would change her sheets and clothes nightly. Had her mother been either drinking heavily or was sedated from opioids and struck her in a drug induced fury?
Then did the other things to her body to cover up what happened?

[John_W]

I don't know who did it but am wondering why it is all over the media again. Yes, I know it has not been solved but really to start asking her brother who was 9 years old at the time why he stayed in bed, etc... is a bit much.

After seeing a brief highlight on the Today Show of Dr. Phil, I realized there is nothing new from his interviews, so I haven't watched. It was much more interesting to see the Burke interviews at age 9, right after the crime. Those were shown on one of the network news magazines last week.

For the poster wondering why all the hoopla about this old crime. We have one whole network, the ID Network that runs true crime shows 24/7 and TLC and OWN Networks also run Dateline, 48 Hours and 20/20 reruns in various times of the day, plus how can we not forget Nancy Grace. The old Courtv anchor who has had her own show on HLN for a dozen years and was impersonated in a satrical way in the movie "Gone Girl" and considered that flattering. Anyway, she's retiring in October. True Crime is big business, and documentary shows are the cheapest to make when compared to scripted network drama and sitcoms with high price actors.

The current 3 part series running on ID Channel this week has been good for the most part, the last part will be on tonight at 10pm but mostly deals with the fellow from Thailand who gave a phony confession to the crime. I don't think that will be as good as the first two parts, which you can probably see in reruns. Two network shows last week, one that I mentioned above about Burke and another one that dealt mostly with the Grand Jury testimony and the DA Alex Hunter and the friction with the police department and the lack of experience with the detectives. One of the shows covered a lot of the info gained by the outside detective Lou Smit brought in by DA Alex Hunter. Lou passed away in 2010 but at the time he was a seasoned homicide detective and worked outside the scope of the local police. He came to the conclusion that it was an intruder that killed JonBenet. He also demonstrated that even at his age in the 70's, he had no problem removing the metal grate and hoping down into window portico and entering the basement.

I've always heard that Patsy Ramsey could not be excluded as the ransom letter writer. However, after watching a handwriting expert this week go into detail with showing the characteristics of each matching letter, it is very hard not to believe Patsy Ramsey did not write the letter. The first page of the letter you could tell the writer was trying to squiggle the writing, but by page 2 and 3 they probably had tired and wrote in their natural style. Combine that with the letter paper came from the home and her pad and it was written with her ink pen.

On the otherhand, Lou Smit found the broken window in the basement, the ground ruffled outside the window, the suitcase inside below the window and a scuff mark on the wall. Combine that with unknown DNA found on JonBenet's underwear, all leads to his conclusion that an outside intruder killed JonBenet. The suitcase could of been either used to step up into the window, or was intended to put JonBenet's body in for transport from the home. Lou Smit said it would of been probably too heavy to lift a loaded suitcase up into the window and for it to make the necessary turns up through the window portico. He feels that when the intruder realized he wasn't going to be able to remove her from the home, he went ahead and killed her in the basement.

Going with Lou Smit's theory of an outsider, it had to be someone familiar with the family and the home. The note was left on the back staircase so it could be found easily, not every knows they use the back staircase regularly. The basement so called wine cellar room was not a room familiar by most, even the police and John Ramsey missed it on their intial search. The ransom amount of $118,000 was the exact amount of John Ramsey's bonus. What was odd, was a bowl of pineapple was found in the kitchen. Patsy said JonBenet went straight to bed when they arrived home on Christmas Eve. However, when an autopsy was performed, pineapple was found in her stomach. On the kitchen table was found a bowl of pineapple with a spoon. Patsy said she didn't prepare that, even though the only fingerprints found were hers and Burke's.

I do wish they would go into more detail on Bill McReynolds who played Santa Claus at a Christmas party 2 days earlier. JonBenet when talking to the mother of a neighborhood playmate and discussing Santa at the mall said, Santa Claus was at our party the other night and he promised that he would make a secret visit after Christmas.' the neighbor thought she was confused. 'Christmas is tonight,' I told her. 'And Santa will be coming tonight.' 'No, no,' JonBenet insisted. 'He said this would be after Christmas. And it's a secret.' " Bill McReynolds own daughter was kidnapped 22 years earlier on the exact night.



Bill McReynolds

[Jima64]

Rich family with a lot of influence to cover it up.

[Stdole]

The Ramsey's will not allow anyone to question them separately.. bad ring to that!! that is the prime way to eliminate family members... the whole investigation has bad rings to it.... you can be assured the police still know anywhere from one to several things about the investigation we will never be made aware of... this is the reason they were able to eliminate that former creep that came forward and took credit for the murder... they simply ask him several known facts about the crime which he either answered wrong or did not know the answers ... on these crimes only the killer knows these answers along with the Investigators.. I can say without much doubt even if
a sworn statement comes forth or DNA is identified... the investigation has so so many holes by the DA and Police, a conviction would be nearly impossible. Costs would be extremely expensive for the residents of Boulder. This is a dead case in more ways than one... but remember this.... 89% of the time the killer is known to the victim.....That brings it very close to the family in my opinion in this case... With Patsy deceased so is the case! Apparently...to protect myself!

[Loudoll]

Burke reminds me of a young woman who many years ago smiled like that as she told me how her mother left her and her two little brothers on Christmas eve. They woke up to find that not only had Santa not come but their mother was gone and they were alone in the apartment. She never saw her mother again. I can still feel the chill that her expression did not fit the horror story of her childhood.
Burke also reminds me of a person I know with schizophrenia, inappropriately smiling at no one, in a dream world or his own private place. I can't even talk about Jonbennet without choking up but no one in that family ever chokes up.
Patsy actually cursed on the footage they showed of the police interrogation. Cursed.

[Loudoll]

He is getting to be another Jerry Springer and you are probably right that they paid a lot to get Burke on TV. New information has been published now that they kept hidden from us for some reason; the 911 call, for instance where there is another voice on the phone after Patsy thinks they've been disconnected.

[Loudoll]

The ransom note is beyond crazy and another thing that bugs me is why their basement window was never repaired after John claims that he broke into his own house a few weeks earlier because he forgot his keys. Is this the way rich, responsible people live? I don't think so. I think that window would have been repaired pronto. Another thing that strikes me as weird is the Ramsey's over-the-top involvement with "friends". Blaming friends for advising them to do this or that. Calling their friends in when their child is missing. No relatives- friends.