Okay, then how many of those break-ins had a ransom note left behind? How many of those ransom notes knew the name of the head of the household or came up with an odd dollar figure that happened to match a significant about of money in the said head of household's life? How many ransom notes noted that the head of household was from the South?
If it was an intruder, this was not a random event. It was somebody that knew whose home he was in and what type of ransom demand to make. How many other instances can you cite of Helgoth doing that? How many other instances can you cite of any other intruders around Boulder in 1996 doing that?
Some people want to pooh-pooh the ransom note as somehow irrelevent because it doesn't fit their theory. I think it is the most important piece of the puzzle because it either means a) the intruder knew his victim - leading then to more questions about how and from where he knew the victim or b) that the Ramseys conspired to cover up the crime by turning a homicide into a faux kidnapping so as to steer investigators in the wrong direction.
One or the other is true. What you can't conclude is that a random stranger wandered into their home, killed the child, casually wrote a long note pretending to kidnap her - leaving behind additional evidence and increasing his risk of being caught - and then left yet has no connection at all to the Ramseys. IMO, you can't conclude that.
Somebody wanted JOHN RAMSEY to suffer, not the owner of the house on 15th street. To me, that's obvious unless you believe it was an inside job and the note was to throw off the investigation.
I think you are right about the note indicating it was a researched crime and not a random one.
The $118,000 was not a cash bonus, but a stock option that was given as a bonus 10 months prior. It's current value at the time of the murder was roughly rounded to $118,000.
Stock option bonuses are a matter of public record so this indicates someone with a desire to know about the Ramseys. If the Ramseys wrote the note to throw suspicion off themselves I think it would have been very short and generic instead of rambling, personal and strange.
Somebody knew exactly who they were targeting. No doubt whatever about that.
As to the ransom note being a cover for the Ramsey's guilt, I ask you, if you were trying to cover your guilt in the death of your child by pretending a kidnapper/sexual sadist/murderer had entered your home and done it, would YOU make a ransom demand for the exact amount of that year's bonus of one of the two of you???
I certainly would not.
How deliberate can you get. No one, not an intruder not the Ramseys could have accidentally grabbed that figure out of the air. To pin it on a kidnapper, just make the demand for a large sum of money. That's all you would have to do...not to raise all these suspicions against yourselves.
Some may think they were rattled and made a mistake in their plan to coverup. But no, it had to be a very deliberate choice to put that amount there. What did it get them, but more suspicion coming down on their own heads, because no one could figure out how a kidnapper would have known that to the dollar amount. If he was so close to them as to know down to the exact dollar, the cops could have zeroed in on such a person among those that they looked at.
I think, more likely, it is someone who should not have known because he was not really close enough to know, but somehow he found out. This fits Karr's MO, or if not Karr then somebody LIKE Karr.
I don't rule out the Ramseys until this case comes to court. But I don't see the dollar amount pointing to the Ramseys, just the opposite.
I don't mind if you see it differently. I don't fall out with anyone as long as non-hostile debate occurs.