It Was Just Like A Movie: How Patsy Ramsey Wrote the Ransom Note Without Recalling a Single Movie Scene and How it Thoroughly Implicates Her in JonBenét’s Murder

Introduction The ransom note has often been called both by people involved in the official investigation into the murder as well as by outsiders and casual observers (possibly) “the most important piece of evidence” in JonBenét’s murder. Of course, it’s not difficult to see why a message from the purported killer would be considered so important in a case filled with all kinds of minor pieces of evidence whose connection to the murder is far from clear. One thing that has certainly helped in drawing so much attention to the note is the apparent uniqueness of the kind of (fake) ransom note it is and the other circumstances of the crime that it accompanied. The nature of the item has also meant that the note has become cause for investigation and speculation on three different fronts: 1. as a physical piece of evidence like any other 2. as a handwritten text whose authorship might be determined through analysis of the handwriting 3. as a text containing content made up of words, phrases and concepts whose authorship might be determined through analysis of this content.

All three of these avenues have been considered from the start by investigators and all three have been thoroughly investigated by them, and the second and third aspect have also been scrutinized by outsiders ever since the note became public information. But I believe the third aspect, analysis of the contents of the note, despite the many, many opinions on and analyses of it (by people with varying knowledge of the facts of the case and with varying degrees of laying claim to being experts) and the note’s widespread notoriety and publicity, has not been looked into carefully enough. I think this aspect of the note has fallen victim to an over-saturation of opinions and clichés about the deceptive nature of the note and to the overgeneralized conclusion that such analysis is not a hard science and therefore not worth too much attention. I don’t want to defend the nature of this kind of forensic (professional or amateur) analysis as scientific per se. But I do want to emphasize very strongly that language use in a particular context can absolutely contain a lot of (hidden) information of various sorts and that a (semi-)systematic investigation of patterns found in linguistic data, in combination with comparing it to other case-related data, can bring about new important insights that are relevant to solving the crime. But, as in many fields of investigation, this is almost inherently a matter of probability, not a matter of infallible deduction. I think such a probabilistic nature is perfectly acceptable and normal when trying to solve crimes and prosecuting people who are suspected of having committed them. And, as I now have come to believe after looking into it very thoroughly, I believe JonBenét Ramsey’s murder is a case where it just so happens, due to some very specific circumstances peculiar to it, that analysis of linguistic behavior related to the case can absolutely lead to new insights which are highly relevant for drawing conclusions about major questions in the case.

Many people have analyzed the Ramsey note and have drawn conclusions about its inauthentic nature as a ransom note. Of the people who have familiarized themselves to a reasonable extent with the basic facts, evidence and history of the case, just about everyone agrees that it is obviously not written by an actual “group of individuals” from outside the home representing some kind of “faction”. Even the most staunch intruder theorists admit that the note is pretending to be something that it is not. Outside of these intruder theorists, most people also have no trouble arguing why the note was likely written by at least one of her parents. Especially once one knows about the evidence from handwriting analyses, most people also have no problem accepting that Patsy was responsible for writing down the actual letters onto the page. But once it comes to the question of how the ideas and words of the note actually came to be thought up, opinions start becoming much more divided.This is not just a minor detail about the nature of the parents’ deception about the crime and the method used for staging either: what one believes about how the note was written has a major effect on how one conceives of the logic underlying the crime and who was involved to what extent from what moment on. If you believe that John was involved in (helping with) writing or composing the note, for example, it means that when trying to understand what may have happened to cause the initial head blow that fractured JonBenét’s skull, among scenarios for this crucial moment you will include scenarios in which John may have been (indirectly) responsible or present for this event. The same goes for the fresh trauma to JonBenét’s genitals. If you believe John was involved in writing or composing the note, you will also include him in scenarios which try to explain how and why this vaginal trauma came about the night of JonBenét’s murder. But if he wasn’t involved in writing the note, there is much less reason to suspect that he was involved in either of the other two events, though technically it wouldn’t be impossible of course. But scenarios would then have to become much more contrived and complicated, which is usually a sign that a more simple event has been misunderstood and turned into something that it was not. The principle of Occam’s razor is generally accepted as a good criterion for solving crimes.

The second aspect of the note, its handwriting and questions regarding its authorship, has always heavily pointed to Patsy as the main suspect as she has been the only person among dozens of people who gave samples who couldn’t be ruled out based on her handwriting. The first aspect, the physical evidence of the note, has also tended to point to her because the note was determined to have been written on pages from her notepad and the pen used being put back in its place points to someone acting out of habit, which suggests that the use of the notepad was perhaps also a result of habit. So when analyzing the third aspect, the content of the note and questions regarding the method of composition, it is reasonable to start out thinking from a point of view where at least Patsy is involved in coming up with the words of the note until evidence is found which forces us to consider that John, Burke or possibly someone else was involved in the composition process. However, I can say upfront that on the basis of my findings I still believe Patsy wrote the note by herself. This was the starting point of my own inquiry into the content of the note. A second matter that had to be considered was the previous findings by other people who had come to believe that the ransom/Ramsey note contains references to or took inspiration from at least some (popular) movies. For people who also believe that at least one of the Ramsey parents was involved in writing the note, this influence of movies on the note is meant to have derived from (repeated) exposure to these movies and (either consciously or sub-consciously) recalling parts of them while composing the note. Some people believe it is just the general exposure to many movies by a movie buff that explains the note feeling like a movie using all the clichés from the crime genre. I loosely call the collection of all such theories—I will come back to the use of the word ‘theory’ in this case in another post—, in all their diversity, the movie buff theory. Again, as with beliefs about who was involved in composition of the note, this belief about the method of composition has consequences for how one conceives of other aspects of the crime, including the possible (sequence of) events that led to the circumstances in which JonBenét’s lifeless body was found. This will become clearer after I have detailed my own theory of the note and crime, because I claim that many aspects of the crime outside of the note were influenced by the same (kind of) sources that influenced the content inside the note. But such observations will be missed if one makes the wrong assumptions about where the inspiration for the note came from. As a result, all the evidence outside of the note that is interpreted without this knowledge of its origins, will lead to different conclusions about how the evidence came about and who was responsible for it. My analysis, for example, specifically points away from Burke being involved in the creation of certain pieces of evidence that are often associated by “BDI” believers with his supposed role in JonBenét’s death. Rather, I argue, these pieces of evidence again point straight to Patsy alone. The flaws of the movie buff theory Some of the movie buff theory’s main observations are actually really important for analyzing the note. I don’t want to suggest that this general line of thinking is without merit, quite the contrary. Indeed, my theory heavily relies on some of the movie buff theory’s initial observations and would never have come about without it. It is in many ways an extension, or remix if you will, of the theory. But the original movie buff theory has lacked in making its analysis more rigorous, which has led to conclusions which are overly generalized and which miss avenues for further investigation that lead to what I think is some of the most incriminating evidence that can be brought against the Ramseys.

Crucially, the movie buff theory has neglected to ask just how we are to explain the appearance of some of the clearest apparent movie influences, namely the similarities between parts of the note and material found in Dirty Harry, Speed and Ruthless People. I think these three movies have been named most often and most credibly and mention of their similarities to the Ramsey note have contributed most to the conviction that movies had an influence on its composition. Some other movies that are often mentioned, but which have much less convincingly been argued to have had an influence, are Ransom (playing in theaters in Boulder shortly before the murder), Nick of Time (on TV the night of the murder and apparently watched by some in the White home during their dinner party) and Ricochet (containing an image resembling the description of the article about the Esprit awards with a drawing of some sort of heart around John’s photo). The novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has also somewhat plausibly been pointed to as possibly influencing the misspelling of ‘possession’ as ‘posession’ in the note. Patsy used material from the novel for her dramatic performances in the talent portions of her pageantry contests and it has been noticed that pineapple as a snack with possible cream or milk added could have influenced Patsy in serving it as a regular snack for her children. However, it seems less clear how the novel may have influenced the ransom note and crime scene otherwise.

Because the similarities with the first three movies mentioned above are so striking, people have concluded that they must have been seen frequently or have been recalled from memory during composition of the note. But very rarely do these people describe exactly which words, phrases and ideas came from which line in which movie or how precisely these specific elements from these specific movies were selected by the note’s author. And where then did the other words and concepts, which are not found in these movies, come from? The answer to this usually seems to be that that is just not something that can be or needs to be explained because it’s just a peculiar, coincidental creative act on the author’s part. Words and ideas come to us all the time without us borrowing them from any identifiable source. The person just happened to be fond of or to remember those conceptual elements and some of the words as they were trying to think of any kind of scenario that could divert attention away from themselves. There is no further reason to be given. It’s just what happened to go on in the author’s mind and it is otherwise completely inaccessible to us. It would be inaccessible even if the author was right here in the present in front of our eyes, even if, let’s say she because it was Patsy, she was writing it while undergoing a fMRI scan. Words and ideas are just ethereal to some degree. The creative process is too quick, subtle and inaccessible for us to learn anything meaningful about its details. To claim otherwise is to claim to be able to read people’s minds which is just foolish or even delusional not to mention downright pedantic and pompous. I understand very well the reasons for being skeptical about any claims regarding what might have gone through the author’s mind while writing it, and admittedly, any such analysis is very prone to making many false claims and drawing the wrong conclusions. But I think some claims can be defended more plausibly than others, particularly when they are supported by relevant evidence and careful reasoning. And as a general counterargument against the claim that we cannot read minds: we actually do it all the time. In fact, communication of any kind between humans is inherently a matter of reading people’s minds to a significant extent. And in everyday communication too we do this to varying degrees of success and with varying degrees of sound strategy. Moreover, I would argue that claiming that the movie scenes and lines were obviously just remembered and came to the author’s mind as they did, is itself more of a mysterious mind-reading feat than my own analysis offers because the movie buff theory’s claims are based on considerably fewer data to come to their conclusions. This too will become clearer as I give my analysis.

My main reason for looking into the Ramsey note’s content as much as I have was that the recalled-from-long-term-memory interpretation did not seem cognitively plausible to me when looking at the details of the note and I couldn’t help but feel that somehow a better explanation and connection had to exist. Although the fact that a young child’s murder being unsolved, or at least justice not having been served in the case, apparently was partly due to questions around the note did play into my motivation for looking around, initially my efforts were for a large part motivated by intellectual curiosity about the mystery of the note. I had not yet read up on the case extensively and relied mostly on an overview of facts and history of the case as presented in Matt Orchard’s YouTube video on the case with some basic additional reading. Even with his thoughtful tribute to JonBenét as a person at the end of the video, she still seemed curiously inaccessible and the tragedy of the unresolved status of her senseless murder was for me still very much painted in the light of abstract injustice around a girl who paradoxically has become simultaneously the icon and secondary character of the mystery genre that is her own murder. I am thankful that over time she grew into a real human being—sadly robbed of her chance at living a wonderful life—in my perception of her and one whose soul is still waiting for redemption through any form of justice that the world she left behind can still give her. Like many, upon first learning about the case I was just irked by the apparently clear signs of deception on the Ramseys’ part and felt bad for the girl whose death seemed to have grown into something rather strange which had nothing to do with her as a person and human being. This sense of injustice was, as I said, still somewhat abstract as I didn’t understand a lot of the more intricate history and facts of the case as can be found in the major books on the case and the primary police sources. But already the idea was gnawing at me that possibly false conclusions were drawn about the ransom note and that perhaps more could be learned about its composition to somehow make a stronger case against whoever was responsible and to possibly shed at least a tiny bit more light on the events of the night. This was in part inspired by another of Matt Orchard’s videos, released a year after his JonBenét video, about the Scott Peterson case in which some of Peterson’s early statements to police about watching a TV show were used to make inferences about the timeline of events. This led me to consider whether something similar might be possible in the Ramsey case regarding TV programs and the ransom note. This, and a chance encounter of a line resembling a concept and word in the note in a Poirot episode (“The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly”), led me to look into possible sources for the note (I found later that others had noted and considered the similarity with the episode too). My initial inquiry was no more than just checking out some possibilities around TV programs and movies that may have contained some further concepts and/or words/phrases found in the note. Perhaps, I thought, one of these may have even contained references to some of the material in the movies Dirty Harry and Speed. The Poirot observation also made me look into a possible connection with the stories of Agatha Christie (books and adaptations) rather deeply—partly because the Ramseys had a poster of Death On The Nile in their home—and this too was a lot of time and effort spent on considering and interpreting curious similarities that I now believe are not likely to have played any role. On the one hand, it was a major waste of time and energy, but on the other hand it helped me appreciate the methodological difficulties, dangers and problems of trying to evaluate potential sources and drawing conclusions about whether they played a role in the staging of the Ramsey crime scene (inside or outside the note). Although not a hard science, as I mentioned, there seemed to me to be some methods that were definitely useful for making reasonable decisions about the plausibility of potential causal connections between possible sources and the Ramsey note. Some of these considerations shared some similarities to methods of textual criticism, which is a topic I had been interested in with regard to biblical scholarship. Although the Ramsey note’s composition is obviously a problem of a rather different kind and scope than the problems in that field, contemplating its methods led me to appreciate the possible value that Don Foster’s approach, as described in the books on the case and in his interviews, might have. Of course, his analysis and much of the materials and facts that it was based on were never made public. On top of that, his credibility and role in the investigation had been questioned and he apparently did not testify before the grand jury in the Ramsey case. He is also bound by agreement not to speak on the details of his work on the case. But according to Steve Thomas his analysis had turned up some interesting observations and rather persuasive points. Knowing what I know now, and basing myself on the limited information available about Foster’s method, materials and his findings, I believe I have uncovered new evidence that is relevant for understanding the composition of the Ramsey note and the crime and its staging more generally. Moreover, I suspect that some of this information, if not most of it, was not part of Don Foster’s findings and his presentation to BPD investigators.

After spending a lot of time trying to figure out what TV channels and programs might have been available to Boulder households shortly before the murder (closer than the early December 1996 showing of Dirty Harry in Boulder) and exploring their contents for every remotely possible connection to the crime, I became less and less convinced that this would lead to plausible or satisfying explanations. Although the possibility of rental or owned copies of videos (VHS) of the movies could not be ruled out, there was also no concrete evidence pointing to such a scenario having occurred. And I still had trouble seeing how the note could have come about even on the basis of viewing them. I hit a dead end. It was because, as I now believe, such connections with TV programs and viewings of movies were not in play during the staging part of the crime. Nor did previous (repeated) exposure to the suspected movies cause the relevant lines to become part of the Ramsey note. What my theory claims What I have found in my search for sources behind the note and what I have concluded on the basis of very carefully comparing possible sources with the note, is that the Ramsey note was not written by passively recalling lines from movies seen by Patsy or John but was written instead by actively skimming through books while looking for inspiration. Although Don Foster too is reported to have looked through the contents of the books that he was told were found in the Ramsey home, and he reportedly found some striking similarities between some passages and parts of the crime scene, it is important to note that much of his analysis seems to have been based on the idea that we incorporate linguistic elements of what we read into our utterances over a period of time. It is not clear to what extent he considered the possibility that Patsy actively used a stack of books that night to find inspiration and use some of the words and concepts. Still, if Patsy left behind some of the books that I claim she used, then it is likely that some of the more substantial overlap would already have been found by Foster, but perhaps not all. An extra pair of eyes is bound to pay attention to different things. Moreover, a major part of my analysis consists of comparing the material from the hypothesized sources with the Ramseys’ linguistic behavior close to the time of the murder and in later interviews. There is little indication that Foster did so to the extent that I have, and importantly, some of the interviews that I compare them with had not even taken place yet at the time Foster performed his analysis. So, if (some of) my claims and interpretations are correct, it is almost certain that much of the incriminating information that I have uncovered was not made available to police by Foster to bolster the case against the Ramseys. Another thing to consider is that it is entirely possible that some of the books used were taken out of the home or hidden before police arrived and could catalogue them. Some of them may have been taken out during Patsy’s sister’s infamous “raid” of the house. Some of them may have been hidden on Patsy’s body on the 26th. In that case, based on the limited information available about the precise method Foster used in this case, it is far less likely that he would have discovered the overlap with the missing books because it’s not clear that he compared the language of the note and concepts from the crime scene with a database of books containing books that were not on the list of those found in the Ramsey home.

In any case, the reason why my own theory and its claims are very incriminating, is because, I argue, much of the language used by the Ramseys close to the crime (Patsy on the 26th and before the CNN interview), and in their major interviews right after (John starting from the CNN interview) and even years after the crime, shows signs of also taking inspiration from some of the sources that I claim Patsy initially used for staging the night of the murder. So how did I come to these conclusions? I have detailed some of this more extensively already in my ‘M for Murder’ thread in the JonBenét forum over at Websleuths (see the resources page). In short, the main crucial insight is that the material previously believed to have derived from exposure to movies is also available, as I hinted at, in books. The Dirty Harry movie was also a novelization. The same goes for Ruthless People. And, surprisingly, even though the first Speed movie did not have a novelization, and the movie had been out for only two and a half years at the time of JonBenét’s murder, the particular line that the Ramsey note echoes was available in a book where it could be conveniently looked up and borrowed from. And careful consideration of these sources I believe convincingly shows that the books can explain the language of the Ramsey note better, as well as more of it, than their movie counterparts can. The Ramsey note uses material from the novelizations that is not present in their movie counterparts. What’s more, the books show some interesting patterns of relations between each other that can also explain more about how the Ramsey note came to be and about Patsy’s process in writing it. Indeed, the very idea of borrowing from a fictional crime book to write a real-life ransom note is explicitly described in one of the (non-fictional) sources used and the idea of borrowing from a non-fiction crime book to stage crime scene elements is described in one of the (fictional) sources! But that’s not all: knowing that this was the method used for coming up with these parts of the note, gives us a better idea of where to look for possible sources for the other parts of the note which are not explained by these first three sources. And that leads to extraordinary finds that can explain substantially more parts of the note (just about all of it actually). But incredibly, there are three sources that can plausibly explain a lot more about the crime scene outside of the note, which can tell us more about which parts were likely staged and what the thought behind it may have been. Interpreting all of this requires quite intensive reading of these stories and the Ramsey case facts, however, and a careful comparison of their elements must be made to be able to see what Patsy likely did and why. Practical information and an example finding All in all, this new approach opens up many new avenues for exploration and consideration, and that is why I created both the Websleuths thread and this website. There are many ideas and major as well as minor points to consider and discuss. You obviously don’t have to agree with any of my conclusions, but I strongly urge anyone who is caught up by the mysteries of this case to consider very carefully the sources that I claim were used in staging the crime and to try and read (relevant parts) of them from Patsy’s point of view the night of the murder, in a panic and desperate to borrow any element that might help her conceal what really happened to cause JonBenét’s death. This takes time and effort to do. I think it is impossible to look at a few lines and be able to evaluate definitively whether there may have been a causal connection to the note. One has to consider all the relevant connections and how they interconnect. This is partly an arduous task but at the same time can be very rewarding when progress is made and a new insight is gained about how parts of the note, crime scene and Ramsey behavior likely came to be. I will try to gradually post more in-depth posts about the specific sources that I claim were used for staging and how we can analyze them and come to interpretations. A lot of this content I have already posted in the ‘M for Murder’ thread at Websleuths which is linked on the Resources page. In that thread I also link to some materials with a lot of analysis and information. Some of those documents require substantial revision. In the link to materials on the Resources page, I link to another folder with some of the same but also some of the most recently updated documents. I will update and revise my posts here too, just be aware of that. I still have to look at how I’m going to incorporate comments/feedback here.

As an example of the sort of material that is to be discussed in the upcoming posts: Lethal Weapon novelization (pp. 162-163): “'Advise the Murtaughs that we are in possession of their daughter. She is alive and well at this time, but will remain so commensurate only to how her parents behave during this unfortunate incident. Sergeant Murtaugh is not to apprise his department or any allied law-enforcement agency, such as the FBI, of the abduction. Make it clear that this is not a kidnapping for ransom.' […] That will be revealed to him within twelve hours - unless it becomes evident that he has violated our instructions by revealing the abduction to the authorities. In that case, we shall mail him a map, indicating where he might find his daughter's body for purposes of Christian burial.”

(pp. 166-167) “Murtaugh could summon all the resources of one of the largest and most professional police organizations in the world—and they would do him no good in this situation.” (p. 180) “‘If I sound enthusiastic, it’s only because I believe this is going to work. I know we’ll get Rianne back. Unharmed.’” (p. 189) “‘I pray you've followed our instructions?' the Irishman asked." (p. 207) “[‘]It’s too late for this daughter. And you’re responsible, Murtaugh. You and your shucking and jiving. Now it's up to you if you want to save the rest of your family.'” (p. 232) “‘Bitch! Don’t think you’re safe now! Don’t think—!’” Ramsey note: “At this time we have your daughter in our posession. She is safe and unharmed […] if you want […] follow our instructions […] between 8 and 10 am tomorrow […] I advise you […] be denied her remains for proper burial […] about your situation […] such as police, F.B.I., etc. […] law enforcement […] your family […] the authorities […] don’t think […] It is up to you now John!” Practice note:“Mr. and Mrs | ” And as an example of how such findings can be used to further implicate Patsy, consider the following: the above first passage about the order to advise the Murtaughs that they have their daughter in their possession with the high degree of overlap with the Ramsey note, drags out a few more pages before Murtaugh actually gets that phone call with the message. We don’t get to read the conversation between them, only Murtaugh’s response by which he lets the others in the house know what is going on: (p. 165) “When it was finished, Murtaugh just let the receiver drop to the floor. His gaze floated around the foyer, then lit on Riggs’s stricken face. ‘They got my baby, Martin. The bastards got my baby.’” In the Alan Prendergast article “JonBenét Ramsey: How the Investigation Got Derailed —and Why It Still Matters” based on the Whites’ experiences in the case, it is suggested that one of them soon after arriving at the Ramsey home that morning heard Patsy saying something that is also quoted from a police report (presumably a statement by one of the Whites) in the Bonita papers. The Prendergast article says: “Fleet and Priscilla hurried to their friends' house. The police were already there, and more friends, summoned by Patsy, were on their way. But Patsy was inconsolable. She sat on the floor, clutching a crucifix and praying to Jesus. ‘They have my baby,’ she moaned.” The story in the Lethal Weapon novelization has one particular way of speaking for the bad guys and one particular way of speaking for the good guy/victim responding to them. The combination of these ways of speaking, united in a single scene/context, is even more idiosyncratic than its idiosyncratic parts are separately. The Ramsey note kidnapper’s message and threats resemble the idiosyncratic language found in the message and threats given by the bad guys in the story. Patsy Ramsey’s response to the message and threats in the Ramsey note is nearly verbatim the same as the response by the victim in the story in an apparently similar context of informing people in the home what is going on.

But, remarkably, Patsy isn’t the only one who uttered this response to the kidnappers’ threats that morning. Another source, Newsweek’s September 14 1997 article ‘A Case Forever Unraveling’, when speaking about John reports that “one of Ramsey's first calls that morning was to a longtime friend in Atlanta. The friend, who requested anonymity, is an investment banker who has known John Ramsey since they both lived in Atlanta in 1980. He says Ramsey called him that morning in tears. ‘ ‘They've got my baby,’ ’ he recalls Ramsey saying.”

This is an even closer verbatim match with Lethal Weapon’s passage than Patsy’s reported utterance, only adding the ‘ ’ve ’ after ‘I’. We now know that this anonymous longtime friend was Rod Westmoreland. He was not present in the home but only spoke with John on the phone. This means we have independent sources for each parent who say they heard them speak virtually the same response to the kidnapping that the characters do in a book which the ransom note clearly borrowed from. Both Patsy and John Ramsey echoed this response from an important source for the note before JonBenét’s body was even found.

As far as I know, this is the only time that John Ramsey showed possible guilty knowledge of the method of staging on the 26th, prior to his opportunity to speak with Patsy in private and get the whole story from her. So does this mean that John was in on it before Patsy called 911? No. Even though his reported phrase is the closer match with the Lethal Weapon passage, it is precisely because Patsy is also reported to have uttered a very closely matching version of this response that we can’t say for certain that John was exposed to the passage in the book. It’s possible that, as in Steve Thomas’s hypothesis, John picked up on Patsy’s involvement and tried to go along with her as the morning unfolded. It could be that for this reason he was attuned to what Patsy was saying and doing and tried to go along with the theatrics by mimicking some of the things she was saying. It’s also important to keep in mind how the Prendergast article that reports Patsy’s utterance was written: it appears he had access to some of the police interviews (those with the Whites for example). So if this utterance by Patsy was found in, for example, the report of Priscilla White’s interview with BPD, then we have to remember that Priscilla may not have remembered or tried to report the utterance as perfectly verbatim as maybe Rod Westmoreland did. In other words, it’s conceivable that Patsy did say ‘They got my baby’ as in the book but that Priscilla was more focused on the dramatic nature of the utterance that made it stand out and when recalling it to BPD phrased it in a more formal register that she was more comfortable with and rendered it as ‘They’ve got my baby’. But perhaps John did echo the more literal version of Patsy’s phrase which could explain why his phrase was heard and reported as a more verbatim match with the passage than Patsy’s.

Although it’s probably impossible to know how this happened for certain now, we can take into account the timeline of the events that morning to decide on how likely it is that Patsy uttered the phrase first. Although the Prendergast article generally doesn’t try to give a minute-by-minute chronological account of events that morning on the basis of the police reports but rather gives a general impression with observations that jumped out to people, his article does seem to suggest that Patsy’s utterance was heard by one of the friends soon after arriving at the Ramsey home. The Whites arrived at the home shortly after John Fernie somewhere around 6:30 am. Linda Arndt in her police interview reports that a friend (with the name blanked out in the report) present in the home, who was later reported to be John Fernie, left the home to go to his bank to try to arrange the money after Linda Arndt arrived (she arrived approximately at 08:10) and returned prior to about 09:30. The Newsweek article which reported Westmoreland (anonymously) recalling John’s utterance in the article also reports, based on an unknown source or deduction but likely basing themselves on what Westmoreland said, that “[l]ater that morning, another Ramsey friend in Boulder went to the bank to make sure the bills were in order.” This is after John’s call with Westmoreland. Officer Rick French, who spent some time talking to John Ramsey after he was the first to arrive on the scene just before 06:00 and recalls some of the details, does not write in his available police report about John making the call to Westmoreland. This suggests that the conversation between John and Westmoreland took place somewhere between 06:30 and 08:10 am. The hypothesis that Patsy uttered her reported phrase first soon after the friends arrived at the home (based on Prendergast’s reporting of events from that morning) and that John mimicked her in an attempt to go along with what she was doing, perhaps when he heard her utter the phrase right before or as he was making the call, is at least consistent with this timeline.

Although of course it’s still possible that John did have knowledge of the passage as inspiration for the conveniently fitting phrase through assisting in the composition of the note, on the basis of all the other available evidence I believe it’s still more plausible to believe that Patsy was the only one who showed true guilty knowledge of the method of composition in the note in this instance and that Steve Thomas was correct in asserting that John only figured out what was going on as the morning unfolded. In that scenario, what this utterance by him would suggest is that in the very early stages of that morning he was taking clues from Patsy’s behavior to try to support the plausibility of an intruder scenario.

In any case, Patsy shows guilty knowledge of the sources and passages used for the words and concepts in the Ramsey note in other moments that morning—most notably in the 911 call—, as well as guilty knowledge of parts in those sources and passages that didn’t make it into the note. The phrase echoing the Lethal Weapon novelization is in this respect just another example of her guilty knowledge. This strongly suggests that she was the person going through the books looking for material to borrow from. She was not passively listening to John dictating the words to her as she wrote them down. Patsy Ramsey wrote and composed the note.

For now, thank you for your time reading this and for thinking about it. I hope the points I raise will help answer some of the questions that people have long sought answers to and that it may help inspire others to push with renewed effort for some form of justice for JonBenét.