JonBenet Television "Reinvestigations"

by Sheila Berry, Executive Director
Truth in Justice

In the span of two weeks, NBC, Investigation Discovery and CBS have given us heavily publicized "reinvestigations" of the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, CO on December 26, 1996.  Of these, the first two were pedestrian rehashes, but the CBS 2-part special can only be accurately described in three words:  What a crock.

Lets review the "experts" involved in this article: The team consisted of a man accused by a judge of hiding and/or destroying evidence, a former FBI profiler, a chief investigator, a forensic pathologist, a former linguistic profiler, a criminal behavior analyst, and a former statement analyst. Aside from the investigator and pathologist, none of the disciplines these people represent are based in any hard science. We are in the day and age where fingerprints, firearms, shoeprints and DNA are all being challenged as being unreliable.

Funny, it wasn't too long ago that in the Phil Spector murder trial, Henry Lee was identified as part of a serious problem.  http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/12/11/court.archive.spector4/index.html?iref=nextin  The judge in that case concluded that Lee hid or destroyed evidence from the scene of an actress's death, evidence that the prosecution contends was potentially damaging to the music producer's case

Ghost Hunters shows greater objectivity trying to understand EVPs than these “experts” did in reviewing the 911 call. “Might be” becomes “definitely is” and then it “changes everything.” Their “analysis” of the ransom note is nothing more than hocus pocus in a lab coat.

They know that handwriting comparison cannot be done when the questioned writing is made with felt tip pen, because it is impossible to discern the pressure used and hesitation marks that are key to identifying authors. No matter. They forge ahead and declare a woman wrote it. I’ve seen their work before, finding innocent people guilty because their handwritten statements don’t fit the experts’ preconceived notions.

So brand new underpants could contain DNA from someone on the assembly line when they were made. Was JonBenet wearing new underpants? Who knows? Who cares? Score another one for the experts.

How about the male DNA under her fingernails? Doesn’t fit the theory so they have to leave it out. Same with the black duct tape over her mouth, never found in the Ramsey house, although evidence suggested "it came from a roll of tape that had been used before." Nothing in the Ramsey home matched dark animal hairs found on the duct tape and JonBenét's hands. Just leave that out, too. Leave out the pubic hair found on the blanket in which she was wrapped, unless the claim is that her 9-year-old brother was sexually precocious and fully developed. A baseball bat found outside the house with fibers consistent with fibers found on the carpet in the basement where JonBenét's body was found did not belong to the Ramseys. Brown cotton fibers found on JonBenét's body, the paintbrush used as a garrote, the duct tape and the ligature around her neck did not match anything in the Ramsey home. Forget all of that. It's all very interesting, but they have a suspect, and it just doesn't fit.

There was a lawsuit 16 years ago, filed by Robert Christian Wolf against John and Patsy Ramsey. Wolf was a Boulder, CO journalist who was questioned by police as a possible suspect in the case. He sued the Ramseys, claiming they defamed him by naming him as a suspect in their book, "The Death of Innocence: The Untold Story of JonBenet's Murder and How Exploitation Compromised the Pursuit of Truth." (Nothing has changed in that department.) U.S. District Judge Julie E. Carnes granted summary judgment in favor of the Ramseys and against Wolf, and in her 93-page dismissal order, reviewed all of the evidence pertaining to JonBenet's murder. A 2003 report from the Fulton County Reporter is at http://truthinjustice.org/ramsey.htm. and Judge Carnes' dismissal order can be downloaded via Pacer.

Salacious speculation and innuendo, the contemporary version of spectral evidence, are all it takes to point the finger at a 9-year-old kid. I used to wonder what the term “media whore” meant. Now I know.