I've been thinking about how he could have possibly known enough about the family to have written the ransom note and asked for a ransom equal to the exact amount of the dad's bonus check. I came up with the possibility that he had been stalking the family, and possibly gained entrance to the home and spent some time there before the actual murder.
One thing that doesn't make sense is that they say that the murderer fed Jonbenet a bowl of fruit and drank a glass of ice tea, while she ate, before taking her to the basement to be murdered. That just doesn't jive with a kidnap attempt.
Pedophiles who murder aren't exactly known for making sense.
I came out to log onto my computer this morning and lying on my desk in plain sight was the top portion of a check of a refund from my escrow account. Looked around more and all sorts of financial records were lying out in the open which BTW are all now filed. If the perp used paper from the desk, he could have very easily seen the notification of the bonus of that amount of money.
That may be plausible, but there are other areas of the ransom note that need explanations, like the Ramsey's usage of the phrase "and hence" duplicated exactly in the ransom note.
More importantly, an examination of the author's writing style shows us that whatever comes before the phrase "and hence" comes after the phrase "and hence."
13. delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we
14. monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to
15. arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a earlier
16. delivery pickup of your daughter.
We see the same writing style in the Ramsey's Christmas message.
"Had there been no birth of Christ, there would be no hope of eternal life, and, hence, no hope of ever being with our loved ones again."
So, the Ramsey supporters would have us believe that the Ramseys not only adopted the word "hence" they also adopted the phrase "and hence" and they also adopted the killer's writing style! Possible but not probable.