Posted on 08/19/2006 9:22:16 AM PDT by beaversmom
HAMILTON, Ala. - Tara Estes was almost breathless with excitement because she thought one of the more mysterious elements of the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note finally had been revealed.
She climbed the steps to Jeff Brown's rickety porch, brushed aside an orange wasp and sat down on a dirty ice cooler.
"Shall be the conqueror," she said Friday afternoon to a couple of quizzical looks. "S.B.T.C."
Ah, yes. The ransom note that asked John Ramsey to turn over $118,000 for the safe return of 6-year-old JonBenet has been analyzed over and over for nearly a decade.
The long, rambling ransom note ends with the word, "Victory!" and then "S.B.T.C" below it.
But no one knows what the initials mean.
Estes had just gotten off the phone with a friend in South Carolina who was a classmate of John Mark Karr, the man who has said he killed JonBenet on Dec. 26, 1996.
The friend had her yearbook from the early 1980s, and in it Karr signed a lengthy missive filled with the usual teenage angst.
Teresa Alligood had been watching the arrest this week of Karr on television in South Carolina and decided to do a little Googling with her yearbook near the computer. She stumbled on the page Karr had signed and stared at the message.
Alligood then tracked down the ransom note on the Internet and saw "S.B.T.C" at the bottom. She looked back at the yearbook and saw one of the last parts Karr had written:
"Sometimes, so blurred by my own eyes, I've seen the best things come and go simultaneously; Though deep in the future, maybe I shall be the conquerer (sic) and live in multiple peace."
Alligood said she called her family immediately. She also called Fox News and the Boulder district attorney's office Wednesday to alert them. The next day, she talked at length with a Boulder investigator. He assured her they were taking it seriously. However, they hadn't requested her yearbook yet.
Boulder County officials could not be reached for comment Friday.
Estes said the revelation was enough to convince her that Karr did what he said he did. But sitting on Brown's porch, childhood friend Gary Spear had a tougher time reconciling that idea.
Spear, nicknamed "Wolfman," leaned back in his chair and said he couldn't imagine Karr doing anything like that. Back then, he said, Karr was interested in his music - even having a sound studio inside the home where he lived with his grandmother.
Spear said that Karr was smart, generous and easy to get along with - especially because he had the only red DeLorean sports car around. He painted it.
"Nobody had a DeLorean," he said. "But he said he was going to get one after seeing Back to the Future. And damn if he didn't."
Brown, also a high school friend, thought it was a stretch to think that Karr could have killed JonBenet. Brown said Karr was friendly, funny and had instant popularity when he got the sports car.
So neither seemed to be enthralled with the "S.B.T.C" explanation - although in deference to Estes, Brown appeared interested in the theory.
For almost 10 years, there have been theories on what those initials meant. Some said it was "Saved by the Cross," a reference to the Ramsey's Christian faith. Others have suggested it references the Subic Bay Training Center where Ramsey served at the U.S. Naval base in the Philippines.
But on the porch, on this hot, muggy Friday, Alligood's theory was new. Fresh. And after two days of speculation - something people here seemed weary of - it was something to talk about.
Do you know what his mother died from?
John Z. Delorean. Sufferer of the World's Worst mid-life crisis.
Have no idea what his mother died from.
They were cheaper about 10 years ago...
Why would the Ramseys write that?
The above story makes a lot more sense.
Why would the Ramseys write that?
The above story makes a lot more sense.
Before everyone gets into a tizzy about one interpretation over another, ie saved by the cross of shall be the conquerer. It is not a stretch that the man took a common phrase and created his own private meaning for it.
Perhaps Walsh came close to catching Karr in another Cold Case. The letter is a taunt in many ways. Perhaps the part that says "Don't try to grow a brain, John" is really directed to Walsh? (Now that sounds a bit far fetched but a twisted mind does funny things.)
Where was Walsh from?
What is a scaft?
They were living in Florida when the crime happened.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/17/cnn25.tan.walsh/index.html
Could be she had cancer or died of some other natural cause. But we don't seem to know at this point.
What if it was accidental overdose, or self-inflicted or some harm was done to her? Might, and I say might, give us some insight into this case. In addition to other possible insights...Karr himself claims she raised him like a girl. Hmmmmm.
I'm not saying it was from any of those causes...I don't know.
I do know that a lot of times in a story it will be included WHAT the person who died "out of phase", so to speak, died from.
Makes me wonder, that's all, if there's something there of significance that hasn't been told.
It looks like they're taking him to California first.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/19/ramsey.arrest/index.html
ping
Who's in a tizzy?
Some are noting the strangeness of Karr making such a point of predicting in A HS yearbook that one day maybe I (S)HALL (B)E (T)HE (C)ONQUEROR, then years later confessing to a heinous crime that had the letters signed like this at the end of a "ransom note" in which he taunted the Ramseys...
Victory
S.B.T.C.
No one I know is saying those letters couldn't stand for any number of things, taken in isolation from these particular facts that include the yearbook signing and the ransom note signing and the confession by Karr.
New York.
At least he was when his son was abducted and murdered.
I'm not sure where he was born but I can google.
I think a key to the SBTC notation might well be--is this a phrase he's used fairly often? Did he make similar comments when signing other yearbooks?
I googled and found in Wikipedia that he was born in Auburn, New York (whereever Auburn NY is...).
Now when I had my accident in it, I was driving along at 55 and some gal with a MADD sticker on her car was arguing with her kid and pulled out right in front of me. That almost totalled it but I got the parts myself and made out great on the insurance again. I think I had about 10G left over after getting the parts and having the whole car repainted. I didn't see any markings as to what color it was painted but it was done locally in Bend at Dudes Body Shop who knew just how to paint it and it came out great. I originally traded a 928 Porsche I had just bought for 15G for this DeLorean that had a window sticker of 34G because they weren't able to sell it.
That would be interesting to know if he did it more than once. But if he only did it ONCE, to me that's very odd to put on a HS yearbook signing page (SHALL BE THE CONQUEROR), and then to have those exact letters show up as the signature (S.B.T.C.) on the "ransom note" in a murder case to which he later confesses...
My bad...he was indeed living in FL not NY when his son disappeared. But I am correct that he was originally from NY. But in the mind of someone who tries to make something out of the fact that a person has a southern heritage, the fact is FL is a southern state.
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