If whoever killed the child intended for it to be a kidnapping, and the kidnapping went wrong, why do any of the other things? Why not just take the child's body anyway, send a ransom note, and try to collect some money?
Or, if the killer panicked when the child died, why not just leave her body where it was and flee? Why hang around, all the while inviting the possibility of being caught? Why go to all the trouble of making a garrot, strangling her, putting a heart on one of her hands, wrapping the end of the rope from the garrot around her wrist, placing her body in the basement, covering it, and so on?
Nothing, but nothing about the known hard facts of the case makes sense if this started out as a kidnapping by a stranger.
I mean, apply a little cold logic to the known facts. Say the killer was a total stranger. Maybe he was looking for a victim and spotted JonBenet someplace; a pagent, perhaps, or at a shopping center. So he finds out where she lives, cases the place, and comes up with a plan to snatch her. Maybe he wants to snatch her for sexual reasons, or for money, or both. But the first thing on his agenda would be the snatch and then to make a getaway.
So what happens? He gets in the house OK, makes his way to her bedroom, and grabs her. Maybe uses a stun gun (evidence disputed). Maybe when he grabs her, she struggles, hits her head and is knocked out. Maybe the killer thinks she's dead. So what would virtually all such criminals do next? Run, with or without the body? Or take the time to bring the girl down to the basement and rig some peculiar scene?
If what happened in the basement was some kind of psychopathic ritual, the killer could just as easily have done it elsewhere than in the house with the parents and brother upstairs.
Say everything Karr claims about attending a Christmas party in the house is true. How likely would it have been to be able to explore the whole house, top to bottom, find the girl's bedroom, find that basement storeroom, etc., with family, friends, and media in the house? If the Ramseys gave a tour, would it have included a cluttered basement? If so, it defies logic and human nature.
So I say again, Karr may have done the crime, but if so, he is one of the most unique criminals ever.
I think your analysis makes the most sense of any I've heard so far. Did you see the 15 or so questions I raised on this forum? Given that many inconsistencies it seems the evidence for an intruder would have to be remarkable.
All good points Wolfstar and I agree with everyone of them...this case just boggles my mind...nothing makes sense.
It's grown to 16 and I've added some counter points for each.
16 questions that remain unanswered. Could it all be unfortunate coincidence?
1.) Patsy and Burke's fingerprints were all over the bowl of pineapple which we know was the last thing Jonbenet ate. The bowl was taken down from a high shelf. If not taken down by Patsy or the intruder, then who? [pineapple was the last food she ate, according to pathologists and only Patsy's and Burkes fingerprints were on the bowl]
[Maybe the killer wore gloves for at least part of the crime sequence, got the bowl down and served Jonbenet pineapple]
2.) How did Patsy's jacket fibers end up entwined in the ligature, on the inside of the tape that covered jonbenet's mouth, and ALSO in the paint tray from which the stick to make the ligature was used? She said she never wore that jacket down there.
[Perhaps the tray, tape and rope were all contaminated by the fibers indirectly by simply being in that house. If the killer were rummaging through the house while the Ramseys were gone, maybe he contaminated the rope, tray and tape himself]
3.) Why, according to pathologists, was the tape put over Jonbenet's mouth AFTER she died? [According to pathologists, there are characteristic indications on the inside of the tape when a person is still alive]
[This may have been a replacement tape put on after the girl managed to remove the first one by herself; it could have even been an n’th replacement. In addition, that last piece of tape may have been placed on her mouth AFTER a fatal head blow but before the killer knew she was deceased]
4.) Why were both Patsy and John apparently wearing the same clothes they had on the night before? Patsy said she got dressed BEFORE she found the note, so would a hurried dressing explain that?
[Maybe Patsy, being unlucky, decided to do something weird on the wrong day]
5.) Why did Patsy claim that Burke was asleep during the morning of the discovery of the ransom note when he was clearly heard on the 911 tape? What did he mean by saying "but what did I do" and "but what did you find"? Why did she then let him sleep until 9 that morning in his own bed, when they had planned to all be up by 6, on such a traumatic day? Was Burke really, really tired?
[This is the hardest evidence to ignore - maybe the tape didn’t really record that. There may be some controversy about how clear the voices really were. A copy of that tape would be useful. As for the late sleep-in, maybe the Ramseys just didn’t want their 9 year old son in the middle of such a traumatic event]
6.) Why was a 45 lb. girl dragged?
[Maybe Burke or neighborhood bullies did it 2 or 3 days before the murder]
7.) The coroner pinned her time of death very close to 10 p.m. How did an intruder, by virtue of the theory, botch a kidnapping (and thus write a long, 3 page rambling note), THEN kill her all between about 10:30 and 11 p.m. that night? By all appearances of forensics, the note was written after she died, not before. That defies the intruder theory. Even if he was already in the house when they got home he would have had to kill jonbenet at about the same time they walked in the door.
[The death, given the inherent limitations of time of death estimates, could have occurred as late as midnight. The ransom note, including many other preparations, could have been done before the Ramseys got home]
8.) What type of blow to the head would an intruder likely put on the child's head that would not create a laceration? An intruder in the bathtub? Why?
[A blow to the head by violent ramming into a concrete floor with a down comforter to cushion the blow and prevent laceration could explain that]
9.) Why was the fact that Burke and his friend both testified that Burke owned a pair of Hi-Tec boots never given any play in the MSM? Why did Patsy and John deny that he owned them, only to confess that he did when confronted with Burke's testimony (actually, "affiant")?
[Maybe he did, but Hi-Tec boots were popular at the time. Maybe the parents didn’t really know what shoes their son had - material excess could explain that]
10.) When were the supposed stun gun marks made on Jonbenet's body? Do we really know if they were delivered on the night she was murdered? How would we? Were they really stun gun marks? [They never made a positive determination because they didn't investigate that at autopsy].
[So, the killer could have in fact stunned her]
11.) Who called 911 from the Ramsey home 3 days before her murder then didn't speak and hung up? Why did a return call 6 minutes later result in an answering machine response? Why were the police told when they responded that all was well?
[Fleet White claimed he did]
12.) Why did both the flashlight, which was sitting prominently on the kitchen island, and the baseball bat have no fingerprints on them whatever? Did any of the Ramseys ever touch either?
[Sometimes prints don’t show up after a while - maybe neither was touched in some time]
13.) Why was a swiss army knife, one hidden in the linen closet near Jonbenet's bedroom by the housekeeper (she took it from Burke and hid it there), found in the basement near the body? Who else but Patsy would have known the knife was hidden in bed sheets in the linen closet? [The housekeeper testified to the Grand Jury that only she herself knew about the knife]. Could this knife had been used to cut the ligature rope?
[The knife was placed in the “cupboard” about 1 month before the murder. Anyone could have found it and taken it to the basement]
14.) Why was a barbie doll nightgown still clinging to the sheet wrapped around Jonbenet's body, if it hadn't just been removed from the dryer? Who else but Patsy would have known it was there?
[Perhaps it wasn’t static cling but just present for some other reason]
15.) Why were the normal linens used on Jonbenet's bed ('normal' in the sense that the Ramsey housekeeper knew them to be) in the dryer the morning of the ransom note? Why was Jonbenet's bed made up with alternate bedding?
[Maybe it was laundry day]
16.) Why was Patsy the only person to leave fingerprints on the note pad from which the ransom note was written?
[Maybe the killer was wearing gloves for a portion of the crime sequence. He may have taken the paper elsewhere - like the basement - and wrote the note. In particular, he may have worn gloves whenever he ventured out of the basement.]
If a stun gun was used, who is to say that he used it on her in her room. He simply could have picked her up and carried her while she slept all the way to the basement stairs. Maybe as he was making his way down the final stairs to the basement the child woke up while he had her in his arms and maybe he had to hit her with the stun gun with one hand while cradling her in his other arm against his body. The jolt of the stun gun could have caused him to partially drop her and she hit her head hard on something while he was trying to catch her before she hit the floor. (yeah I know... it seems wild, but you have a big house here with parents and a brother who probably sleep like a rock.)
Just for the record, from me, no matter what Karr says or others say, I don't believe he ever intended to kidnap her in the strictest sense we understand that word. Certainly not for ransom. The note was a joke if all it was was a ransom note.
There is tremendous hostility and taunting in the note towards John Ramsey.
He did indeed want to be alone with her. Whether he did it for real or only in his mind. So he did get her apart from everyone else, or believes he did so.
Sacajaweau doesn't buy the "love for JonBenet" as motive for what happened. She thinks whoever did this did it to hurt the rich and the famous by killing their great love...their daughter.
Not subscribing to that as sole motive yet, as this guy is a pedophile and I think Schizophrenic as well. But the element does seem to be present, both in the crime and ransom note.