Okay. You got lawyers flinging Terms of Art and Innuendo at each other.
You got Biological Parents doing the TV circuit and saying Give Money, Plant Flowers and Wear Bracelets, but above all else Give Money. (The public seems to view this as admirable).
You got StepMother and Friend saying Go Talk To My Lawyer And Leave Me Alone. (The public seems to view this as evil, vile and proof of guilt).
So what's new?
There are rumors of cell phone PINGS that are in conflict with StepMother's oral statements as to her whereabouts but all we have are rumors, no data as to how likely any such pings might be technologically plausible and still have the StepMother's oral statements as to here whereabouts be essentially truthful.
There are rumors of hit men but such hit men seemed rather reticent to report the overtures to the police.
The StepMother's friend is condemned for escorting her to a lawyer's office since apparently friends are not supposed to think anything about innocent until proven guilty. At least it seems that paparazzi prefer only such fair weather friends.
Divorce proceeding are initiated but such proceedings and paper blizzards from motion-happy lawyers are really just one side which is tapped into the police information pipeline trying to wear down the other side that has not benefited from the investigatory pipeline. As in any war, truth is the first casualty.
From time to time there are modest call-outs of mounted search parties, from time to time budget notices are submitted. Hot air is generated. Media crews run up bar tabs all over town, microphones get stuck in people's faces, nobody says anything worthwhile though.
The fact remains: the police seem obsessed with the step-mother, Terri Horman. She left the school at what appears to have been a time when other parents would be in the area and might have taken particular notice of her. She drove a road that while not exactly heavily trafficked is by no means certain to be deserted. She could not be sure that there would not be people observing her such as hikers, campers, or passersby in other vehicles that might suddenly appear on the road. She arrived at a Fred Meyer store within a reasonable time and did not appear to be nervous or distraught such as might be expected if she had just killed her step-son or just handed him over to a trusted friend who was to kill him. Later travel to Sauvie Island is thought by some to be for corpse disposal purposes but the island is by no means deserted since hikers, cyclists and berry pickers abound. There is really no evidence which indicates the police are the least bit justified in their obsessive focus on the step mother.
On-Edit: It now appears that certain email text can be considered to reflect an attitude of depression or despair and an externally placed blame for her decisions to allow her family life to have depleted her savings. This is not necessarily sufficient motive for killing the kid but it at least provides some understanding of the emotions that were at work. I've no idea if her prior body building involved the use of drugs such as might induce "roid rage" and I've certainly no information as to how long ago she took drugs of any sort. Its always been unlikely that a stranger wandered into the school at such a busy time and snatched a kid. However, that is by no means impossible.
On-Edit: As is always the case, the local law enforcement agency may be inexperienced but it is difficult to get a case taken away from them. The sheriff is in control of this missing persons case and the county sheriff mainly does prisoner custody work with very little patrol and very little investigative work.
Monday, October 25, 2010
What a waste of life
It appears that at age 19 a young lady who had achieved some prior notoriety for incessant hiccups is charged with murder after a robbery that netted the three participants less than a total of fifty dollars.
Friday, October 22, 2010
A New Generation
In order to spark interest in the forensic sciences in youth attending the Science and Engineering Expo in Washington, DC this weekend (23rd-24th October) one researcher will transmit her intellectual curiosity via paintings made by maggots.
Maggot Monets - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences
http://www.the-scientist.com
Maggot Monets - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences
http://www.the-scientist.com
Kyron Horman update from Seattle University
>It was the biggest news story from the Pacific Northwest all year:
Yes, once a media frenzy begins it just snowballs. Doesn't make it all that much different from similar cases getting less media scrutiny.
>He is still listed as missing and endangered.
Judge Crater is still listed as missing. In a tourist area a swimmer is often listed as missing so as to keep crime statistics low and shark attack statistics out of the newspapers. Crime statistics are often misleading.
>detectives have received more than 4,000 leads,
Most of them probably from people who have had "visions of a body being found near water". Well, most people rarely get pretty far from water so that information just isn't helpful and in the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest its real hard to get far from water.
>He emphasized repeatedly that they were “not scaling back,”
Which of course is proof positive that they were scaling back!
>Public outrage at the disappearance focused first on the school district,
Why? People disappear from stores, malls, sidewalks. Do reporters encourage anger at malls if some disappears in a parking lot?
>not a single security camera was present at the rural school.
Security cameras often provide no assistance whatsoever and are of little deterrent value. A rural school with no history of crime would be unlikely to have cameras as such funds would be more wisely spent in urban area schools with high crime problems and high population density.
>many became frustrated that the police weren’t releasing enough information.
That is universally the situation. Reporters were claiming that cell phone signals were received at a different tower than would have been likely had her description of her travels been truthful but we don't have details as to times, signal strength or local terrain that might make such spurious signals not at all suspicious.
>Terri Horman, the last person to see Kyron,
Oh!!! The last person to see Kyron??? Well, each and every school day mothers drop their kids off at school and therefore may become the last person to see them. Should we ban this practice?
>a person many now call ‘Stepmonster‘.
A sobriquet invented by some reporter, no doubt.
>Within a few days she posted about going to the gym,
Guilty! String her up on the spot!! No one ever goes to a gym to work off frustration or because the walls are closing in on them and the police are not helpful to them.
>Kyron’s father shockingly divorced Terri, filing a restraining order.
I wonder how many divorces were filed in Oregon that year? And I don't know why the reporter described the husband's actions as shocking.
>Terri Horman had allegedly hired her landscaper to kill Kaine Horman,
Allegedly. I believe he did not report the plot promptly to police and wonder therefore what his thoughts and intentions might have been.
>A string of public appearances made Kyron’s biological parents national news
Well is it better to appear on Good Morning America than to go to your local gym?
>identifying her as the mastermind behind their son’s disappearance
Identifying does not mean they provided supporting evidence.
>Terri is not a suspect in the case,
Look Jack, if the cops are repeatedly calling you, having you take polygraphs, putting your image and your vehicle description onto flyers, trying to find people who saw you and reporters are following you wherever you go, you are indeed a suspect!
>spreading Kyron’s picture around the country,
They think perhaps he might be in Palm Beach?
>and each of them held a birthday party for Kyron in early September
I would think it less strange if they had simply gone to the gym!
>Students have left a desk vacant for their classmate Kyron,
Yep, those schools generally are not known for sensible actions or turning out kids who are realistic.
Yes, once a media frenzy begins it just snowballs. Doesn't make it all that much different from similar cases getting less media scrutiny.
>He is still listed as missing and endangered.
Judge Crater is still listed as missing. In a tourist area a swimmer is often listed as missing so as to keep crime statistics low and shark attack statistics out of the newspapers. Crime statistics are often misleading.
>detectives have received more than 4,000 leads,
Most of them probably from people who have had "visions of a body being found near water". Well, most people rarely get pretty far from water so that information just isn't helpful and in the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest its real hard to get far from water.
>He emphasized repeatedly that they were “not scaling back,”
Which of course is proof positive that they were scaling back!
>Public outrage at the disappearance focused first on the school district,
Why? People disappear from stores, malls, sidewalks. Do reporters encourage anger at malls if some disappears in a parking lot?
>not a single security camera was present at the rural school.
Security cameras often provide no assistance whatsoever and are of little deterrent value. A rural school with no history of crime would be unlikely to have cameras as such funds would be more wisely spent in urban area schools with high crime problems and high population density.
>many became frustrated that the police weren’t releasing enough information.
That is universally the situation. Reporters were claiming that cell phone signals were received at a different tower than would have been likely had her description of her travels been truthful but we don't have details as to times, signal strength or local terrain that might make such spurious signals not at all suspicious.
>Terri Horman, the last person to see Kyron,
Oh!!! The last person to see Kyron??? Well, each and every school day mothers drop their kids off at school and therefore may become the last person to see them. Should we ban this practice?
>a person many now call ‘Stepmonster‘.
A sobriquet invented by some reporter, no doubt.
>Within a few days she posted about going to the gym,
Guilty! String her up on the spot!! No one ever goes to a gym to work off frustration or because the walls are closing in on them and the police are not helpful to them.
>Kyron’s father shockingly divorced Terri, filing a restraining order.
I wonder how many divorces were filed in Oregon that year? And I don't know why the reporter described the husband's actions as shocking.
>Terri Horman had allegedly hired her landscaper to kill Kaine Horman,
Allegedly. I believe he did not report the plot promptly to police and wonder therefore what his thoughts and intentions might have been.
>A string of public appearances made Kyron’s biological parents national news
Well is it better to appear on Good Morning America than to go to your local gym?
>identifying her as the mastermind behind their son’s disappearance
Identifying does not mean they provided supporting evidence.
>Terri is not a suspect in the case,
Look Jack, if the cops are repeatedly calling you, having you take polygraphs, putting your image and your vehicle description onto flyers, trying to find people who saw you and reporters are following you wherever you go, you are indeed a suspect!
>spreading Kyron’s picture around the country,
They think perhaps he might be in Palm Beach?
>and each of them held a birthday party for Kyron in early September
I would think it less strange if they had simply gone to the gym!
>Students have left a desk vacant for their classmate Kyron,
Yep, those schools generally are not known for sensible actions or turning out kids who are realistic.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Mad Goat Disease and Mad Hikers
The Olympia National Forest has suffered its first fatality involving an attack by a mountain goat which was one of eight aggressive goats that were being monitored for a number of years in the 300 goat herd.
The male hiker defended his two female companions but in attempting to leave after having successfully confronted the aggressive goat he may have turned his back to walk away rather than backing up while facing the goat.
Although an experienced hiker, he would not have known that there were eight aggressive goats who were being treated by the rangers with bean bag guns and noise makers but were apparently not responding well to their ongoing therapy. Firearms are not permitted in National Parks. Hikers are not given notice of aggressive mountain goats.
On-Edit: Nope. Sorry. This has nothing to do with prion diseases in goat brains. I've no idea if Alzheimer's Disease is prion induced or not. If it is, we are lucky its so slow as opposed to other species wherein it seems to progress faster. This is solely about a fatal goat attack on a recreational hiker in the Pacific Northwest.
The male hiker defended his two female companions but in attempting to leave after having successfully confronted the aggressive goat he may have turned his back to walk away rather than backing up while facing the goat.
Although an experienced hiker, he would not have known that there were eight aggressive goats who were being treated by the rangers with bean bag guns and noise makers but were apparently not responding well to their ongoing therapy. Firearms are not permitted in National Parks. Hikers are not given notice of aggressive mountain goats.
On-Edit: Nope. Sorry. This has nothing to do with prion diseases in goat brains. I've no idea if Alzheimer's Disease is prion induced or not. If it is, we are lucky its so slow as opposed to other species wherein it seems to progress faster. This is solely about a fatal goat attack on a recreational hiker in the Pacific Northwest.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Boulder Police Continue Intimidation By Media
>Police in Boulder, Colorado, want to talk to the older brother of JonBenet Ramsey,
No they don't. They know he is represented by counsel. If they wanted to talk to him they would have contacted his attorney and asked for a meeting to be set up.
All that happened was the BPD sent some officers to a college campus and pretended to just happen to give Burke Ramsey their business card on the assumption that a college senior might not know how to operate a telephone.
>Supporters of the family call it harassment.
It is harassment! And reporters should not be so afraid to call it harassment.
>And yet the mere hint of activity in one of the nation's most famous cold cases has headlines swirling.
Swirling headlines was the goal of the BPD who follow a simple recipe: Add innuendo and let the tabloids do the swirling.
>all the hours of investigation,
There was no investigation. There was only a police orchestrated campaign of harassment by the media.
>but the death of JonBenet was little more than a tragic local news story that holiday season
That's odd. A Harvard law professor was in Israel at the time and reported that the story was the third item on their news.
> until her parents appeared on CNN.
With the police not investigating the case, what else could they do?
>The interview unleashed the now famous pageant video
No, those pageant videos were purchased, against the family's wishes, by the media from a parent who had filmed the event.
>The early evidence seemed to point toward the parents.
No. No evidence pointed to the parents.
>There was no sign of forced entry into the Ramsey home,
Not true at all. There were marks near one lock and one door was found unlocked. There was a trail of debris from a window well and the access grate was found with fresh foliage under it showing that the grate had recently been placed atop the foliage.
>no footprints in the snow surrounding it.
There was snow on the grass but all the sidewalks, alley way and driveway were totally clear of snow so anyone approaching the house after the snow started would not have been likely to leave footprints. There is considerable evidence to indicate the intruder entered the home before any snow fell.
>The rope used to choke JonBenet was tightened with a paintbrush from her mother's hobby kit.
Intruders are not permitted to utilize implements found inside the home?
>An alleged ransom note was written on a pad of paper from inside the house,
A pad kept in plain sight on the kitchen table near the phone. Hardly evidence of parental involvement.
>and some investigators thought the handwriting looked like Patsy's.
That's strange. Not one single solitary expert has said that it looked like Patsy's handwriting.
>It contained details about the family's past and finances that few outside their close circle could have known.
Absolute total rubbish. Nothing at all in the note was limited to only a few people and much in the note was absurd and totally inapplicable to the Ramsey family.
>And the body was found in a little-used basement room that police didn't even notice at first.
Utter rubbish. The police found the room quite promptly, it is not at all difficult to find, they even photographed the area outside the doorway hours before discovery of the corpse, they just never opened the door but they certainly noticed it on the very first trip to the basement. It would be impossible not to notice it.
>Was it an intruder?
DNA of a non-Ramsey male was found in her panties, so why is there continued questioning of the existence of an intruder?
>how could somebody do that to their own child?
Well, there was nothing interesting on TV that night and perhaps Patsy Ramsey simply wanted her husband to lose his job, wanted to lose her health insurance even though she was a cancer patient and wanted to spend all their money on lawyers?
>The Ramseys ramped up public suspicion,
Oh, so the parents are responsible for the police leaks to the media?
>when they hired lawyers and a publicist.
You fault them for hiring lawyers? I refer you to John Ramsey's own words: When you are guilty you need a lawyer, when you are innocent, you need a good lawyer.
Oh and it was the law firm that hired the publicist due to the firm's phones ringing off the hook.
> Their relationship with investigators grew noticeably strained.
That is the fault of the investigators. Can you imagine trying to hold the corpse as ransom! That is what happened.
>Yet here investigators are, once again, knocking on Burke Ramsey's door.
It is nothing but a continuation of a campaign of police orchestrated harassment in retaliation for the parents having failed to kowtow to the BPD and instead having gone on CNN.
>Robinson doubts the killing will ever be solved.
With reporters such as you on the job, he may be right!
Is Robinson aware of a man who harbored an intense hatred for John Ramsey, who made repeated statements in chat rooms prior to the murder vilifying John Ramsey, who made death threats in that chat room and to whom the figure 118,000 held special meaning? This person, referred to as GamePlayer to protect him from the media, had a history of deep depression, cranial injury, personality problems, poor social skills and employment difficulties. His pre-1996 writings evidence a belief in such actions as murder which he terms "justified self defense" in reaction to being "attacked" in relation to his narrow obsession which gave the figure 118,000 a special significance to him.
"The colder the case gets, the colder the trail gets."
It is a pity the police did not bear that in mind when they refused to investigate the homicide instead of simply conducting a witch hunt subjecting the parents to great expense and intense frustration.
No they don't. They know he is represented by counsel. If they wanted to talk to him they would have contacted his attorney and asked for a meeting to be set up.
All that happened was the BPD sent some officers to a college campus and pretended to just happen to give Burke Ramsey their business card on the assumption that a college senior might not know how to operate a telephone.
>Supporters of the family call it harassment.
It is harassment! And reporters should not be so afraid to call it harassment.
>And yet the mere hint of activity in one of the nation's most famous cold cases has headlines swirling.
Swirling headlines was the goal of the BPD who follow a simple recipe: Add innuendo and let the tabloids do the swirling.
>all the hours of investigation,
There was no investigation. There was only a police orchestrated campaign of harassment by the media.
>but the death of JonBenet was little more than a tragic local news story that holiday season
That's odd. A Harvard law professor was in Israel at the time and reported that the story was the third item on their news.
> until her parents appeared on CNN.
With the police not investigating the case, what else could they do?
>The interview unleashed the now famous pageant video
No, those pageant videos were purchased, against the family's wishes, by the media from a parent who had filmed the event.
>The early evidence seemed to point toward the parents.
No. No evidence pointed to the parents.
>There was no sign of forced entry into the Ramsey home,
Not true at all. There were marks near one lock and one door was found unlocked. There was a trail of debris from a window well and the access grate was found with fresh foliage under it showing that the grate had recently been placed atop the foliage.
>no footprints in the snow surrounding it.
There was snow on the grass but all the sidewalks, alley way and driveway were totally clear of snow so anyone approaching the house after the snow started would not have been likely to leave footprints. There is considerable evidence to indicate the intruder entered the home before any snow fell.
>The rope used to choke JonBenet was tightened with a paintbrush from her mother's hobby kit.
Intruders are not permitted to utilize implements found inside the home?
>An alleged ransom note was written on a pad of paper from inside the house,
A pad kept in plain sight on the kitchen table near the phone. Hardly evidence of parental involvement.
>and some investigators thought the handwriting looked like Patsy's.
That's strange. Not one single solitary expert has said that it looked like Patsy's handwriting.
>It contained details about the family's past and finances that few outside their close circle could have known.
Absolute total rubbish. Nothing at all in the note was limited to only a few people and much in the note was absurd and totally inapplicable to the Ramsey family.
>And the body was found in a little-used basement room that police didn't even notice at first.
Utter rubbish. The police found the room quite promptly, it is not at all difficult to find, they even photographed the area outside the doorway hours before discovery of the corpse, they just never opened the door but they certainly noticed it on the very first trip to the basement. It would be impossible not to notice it.
>Was it an intruder?
DNA of a non-Ramsey male was found in her panties, so why is there continued questioning of the existence of an intruder?
>how could somebody do that to their own child?
Well, there was nothing interesting on TV that night and perhaps Patsy Ramsey simply wanted her husband to lose his job, wanted to lose her health insurance even though she was a cancer patient and wanted to spend all their money on lawyers?
>The Ramseys ramped up public suspicion,
Oh, so the parents are responsible for the police leaks to the media?
>when they hired lawyers and a publicist.
You fault them for hiring lawyers? I refer you to John Ramsey's own words: When you are guilty you need a lawyer, when you are innocent, you need a good lawyer.
Oh and it was the law firm that hired the publicist due to the firm's phones ringing off the hook.
> Their relationship with investigators grew noticeably strained.
That is the fault of the investigators. Can you imagine trying to hold the corpse as ransom! That is what happened.
>Yet here investigators are, once again, knocking on Burke Ramsey's door.
It is nothing but a continuation of a campaign of police orchestrated harassment in retaliation for the parents having failed to kowtow to the BPD and instead having gone on CNN.
>Robinson doubts the killing will ever be solved.
With reporters such as you on the job, he may be right!
Is Robinson aware of a man who harbored an intense hatred for John Ramsey, who made repeated statements in chat rooms prior to the murder vilifying John Ramsey, who made death threats in that chat room and to whom the figure 118,000 held special meaning? This person, referred to as GamePlayer to protect him from the media, had a history of deep depression, cranial injury, personality problems, poor social skills and employment difficulties. His pre-1996 writings evidence a belief in such actions as murder which he terms "justified self defense" in reaction to being "attacked" in relation to his narrow obsession which gave the figure 118,000 a special significance to him.
"The colder the case gets, the colder the trail gets."
It is a pity the police did not bear that in mind when they refused to investigate the homicide instead of simply conducting a witch hunt subjecting the parents to great expense and intense frustration.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Politics, Funding and Publicity
Guidelines should be based on science, not economics and vested interests.
Concerning: A Workshop on the Critical Needs and Gaps in Understanding Prevention, Amelioration, and Resolution of Lyme and Other Tick-borne Diseases: the Short-Term and Long-Term Outcomes October 11, 2010 - October 12, 2010.
"As Lyme disease experts gather for a two-day scientific workshop a trio of disease advocacy groups have withdrawn their participation, claiming that the meeting is biased.
Time for Lyme, the Lyme Disease Association and the California Lyme Disease Association decided to walk away from the meeting, arguing that organizers are not presenting enough information about the possibility that the disease can be chronic, and requires a long-term regimen of antibiotic drugs."
As usual it appears the patient advocacy groups although excessive in their endorsement of long-term treatment are likely correct about the existence of a chronic condition and the conflicts of interest present in those who develop and enshrine the various guidelines.
While walking out of conference is regrettable I do think the fault lies with the scientists who are too close to financial issues. Guidelines should embody the state of the knowledge and should be an indication of the return on investment of steps to be taken, guidelines should not freeze out valid viewpoints with substantial supporting evidence simply because they are so unpopular. This issue was explored a few years ago by the Attorney General of Connecticut issuing a subpoena for records relating to the exclusion of unpopular viewpoints from the guidelines. It would seem strange to see a state attorney-general involved in the issue and it would seem strange to hinge the investigation on antitrust law but for Lyme Disease what state is more relevant than Connecticut?
The science is established. Just as L-forms persist but are often ignored by medicine, it seems that persistent spirochetes exist after antibiotic treatment of mice. Ticks raised in a laboratory and free of the spirochete will acquire an infection after they have feasted on mice that have completed a lengthy course of antibiotic treatment and have tested negative for the spirochete. Such xenodiagnosis is an established technique of immunology.
Concerning: A Workshop on the Critical Needs and Gaps in Understanding Prevention, Amelioration, and Resolution of Lyme and Other Tick-borne Diseases: the Short-Term and Long-Term Outcomes October 11, 2010 - October 12, 2010.
"As Lyme disease experts gather for a two-day scientific workshop a trio of disease advocacy groups have withdrawn their participation, claiming that the meeting is biased.
Time for Lyme, the Lyme Disease Association and the California Lyme Disease Association decided to walk away from the meeting, arguing that organizers are not presenting enough information about the possibility that the disease can be chronic, and requires a long-term regimen of antibiotic drugs."
As usual it appears the patient advocacy groups although excessive in their endorsement of long-term treatment are likely correct about the existence of a chronic condition and the conflicts of interest present in those who develop and enshrine the various guidelines.
While walking out of conference is regrettable I do think the fault lies with the scientists who are too close to financial issues. Guidelines should embody the state of the knowledge and should be an indication of the return on investment of steps to be taken, guidelines should not freeze out valid viewpoints with substantial supporting evidence simply because they are so unpopular. This issue was explored a few years ago by the Attorney General of Connecticut issuing a subpoena for records relating to the exclusion of unpopular viewpoints from the guidelines. It would seem strange to see a state attorney-general involved in the issue and it would seem strange to hinge the investigation on antitrust law but for Lyme Disease what state is more relevant than Connecticut?
The science is established. Just as L-forms persist but are often ignored by medicine, it seems that persistent spirochetes exist after antibiotic treatment of mice. Ticks raised in a laboratory and free of the spirochete will acquire an infection after they have feasted on mice that have completed a lengthy course of antibiotic treatment and have tested negative for the spirochete. Such xenodiagnosis is an established technique of immunology.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
However measured and far away.
Investigators who insist upon marching to the beat of a different drum:
We all celebrate when a dissident investigator proves himself to have been right. That lone voice at the end of the table who sees a case in a very different manner than the others see it is much admired when he is finally shown to be correct in his views, but what about the time that really matters: before the case is solved. The FBI steadfastly ignored the agent who kept telling them that the Unabomber was a "monk on a mountaintop in Montana" and thereby wasted countless man-years and untold millions looking solely at well-educated, wealthy engineers.
Recently a news item contained the following snippet:
>Did not want to investigate child abuse and child pornography that went outside the Ramsey family..."
Well, there was no child abuse or child pornography inside the Ramsey family and I see no reason to investigate child abuse or child pornography outside the Ramsey family and call it trying to solve a homicide. Some broad inquiry into alcoholism in Colorado does not belong as part of a homicide investigation just because some tabloid editors think the perpetrator might be an alcoholic. I'm much more interested in the unsociable man who made vitriolic threats against John Ramsey prior to the murder than in some broad inquiry into child abuse in Colorado. Its a homicide investigation, not a sociological study. The suspect to which I refer had a brain injury and episodes of deep depression, that doesn't mean you conduct a study of minimal brain damage or a study of depression. Its a homicide investigation, not a socio-medical inquiry into US society. A broad study of pornography is meaningless when the only nude photographs ever taken of the victim were taken by the medical examiner.
The rejoinder was:
Whoa--if there are legitimate reasons Singular is privy to that you might not be that give him reason to explore the world of CP and its consumers, then don't you think that should be ruled out? Its not like the decedent wasn't molested and sexually-sadistically tortured - chronic pedophile or situational molester might be a debatable question.
And my response focused on not so much as it being a logically incorrect association but more that it was incorrect as an investigative goal since it was more an unnecessary detour than anything else. Oh sure, any door may be the right one. We all hope that surely the BPD has by now learned to do such things as open doors.
Well, of course on that night a great many things took place, none of which we really want to dwell on beyond what is necessary for the investigation. A stun gun was used, it appears to have been experimental in nature rather than dedicated torture. Does that mean we should take a detour into a general investigation of sadism? Even if we attempt to limit our study to sadism in Colorado it seems to me to be a waste of investigative resources. Those who have perused the faux ransom note have often used the term "James Bondish" to indicate its style, does that mean we should assign Boulder detectives to read all the works of Ian Fleming? And watch all those silly movies?
In a Hit and Run investigation, do you focus on readers of Car and Driver magazine and elevate chronic possession of a driver's license to the status of a profound clue? It is, of course, entirely possible that the person who left the scene of an accident without rendering aid to the dying will indeed turn out to be a subscriber to Car and Driver and will be in general an aficionado of motor-cars. It is not however an excuse to go off on a tangent and devote resources to a field of inquiry that is more a general survey of sociology rather than a finely focused homicide investigation.
There are a great many allegations of investigators protecting powerful pedophiles. Probably some of these allegations are quite well founded. Chances are that by sheer percentage some of the allegations of Pedophile Rings in High Governmental Circles will turn out to be true, but so far I've seen no evidence that either pornography or child-pornography had the least bit to do with the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. So why are there persistent calls for investigative resources to be dedicated to such tangents which consist of low-grade ore? Oh, its not that we should be unwilling to mine low-grade ore, its simply that higher grade ore should be mined first.
I do not think the entire detective division of Boulder should hie away to foreign shores in search of that "small foreign faction". Its a false trail. One that was provided for a reason. Provided for an unknown reason and provided by a demented mind perhaps, but provided as an artificial construct. No time should be wasted and no funds should be expended sending detectives off on junkets to a variety of foreign shores in search of small foreign factions.
We all have information available to us about which we are uncertain. Uncertain as to its exact nature and uncertain as to its weight and uncertain as to the veracity of our informants. Life is uncertain. Death is certain, but a homicide investigation is a part of life, not death. One of my particularly uncertain sources has provided me with information which does not negate the possibility of a pedophile being involved but which does provide an aspect to the crime which casts serious doubt on the pedophilia aspects of the crime and also casts serious doubt on the torture aspects to the crime. This makes me hesitant to wander off on what I perceive to be a tangent. It is, however, a factor that is clouded by uncertainty. The trouble with the Boulder investigators has always been that they heard the music loud and clear, it is the bolder investigators who hear a different and more distant measure. Yet that does not mean that the famed distant drummer is playing the correct beat.
The stun gun use seems not only experimental but very perfunctory. Its as if it were almost two quick jolts and that's it for the stun gun. Did he stop because he discovered he did not enjoy it? Or perhaps is it that he stopped because he had left the sufficiently misleading clue? Its possible to view the molestation as consisting of largely perfunctory acts performed quickly rather than unspeakable acts performed with care and savored by a demented mind. We do not know for certain what was experienced or how long things took or how much they were enjoyed, but there is at least some body of evidence which supports a conclusion that irrespective of time of entry into the home, time of departure was quite prompt. Therefore if a reasonably intelligent intruder already lying in wait in the JBR/Guest room were to have waited until he felt the parents would be asleep and if the intruder did in fact depart prior to the 1:00am time constraint we have a very narrow time frame for taking his victim to the basement, applying a stun gun, applying a garrote, hiding the body and leaving. With a very narrow time frame comes the obvious question: if he did not linger and savor the events as they unfolded, then perhaps he was not really there for the purpose of enjoying them. Oh, he was clearly there to kill JonBenet Ramsey. Right from the start this was a murder and it was never any sort of kidnapping plot or some faux-kidnapping ploy to obtain a ransom payment. Its just that if the application of a stun gun to a six year old girl was performed so briefly then it is possible that the lack of a prolonged usage means that there was no great enjoyment. Perhaps it is equally true of the perversion: no great enjoyment and therefore not a pedophile and not likely to re-offend.
Normally one would expect any criminal to have a measure of goal directed action. We also expect a short order cook to have a measure of goal directed action. Some places serve fast food, not culinary masterpieces that take great time to prepare. Some people simply do not linger over a meal or linger over its preparation. If there was a failure to linger over a meal that does not mean that a person is necessarily not a gourmand. He may simply have been pressed for time and not been able to dally. So if the intruder who killed JonBenet Ramsey failed to extend the activities it does not necessarily mean that he was not a pedophile. He may have been desirous of limiting his exposure to danger, he may have become slightly concerned by the scream, any number of things may have happened but one thing is still possible: he simply had no interest in prolonging the events because he was no more interested in perversion than he was in foreign factions or ransom payments.
A weekly search of the CODIS database is hardly going to yield good results if the perpetrator is not likely to be a repeat offender. Now I do realize that there are a great many uncertainties in this. Was it a brief crime? Does such brevity actually indicate lack of intense sexual interest, does such lack of sexual interest mean he is not likely to be a repeat offender? These are all unknown imponderables that can be debated forever but meanwhile an investigation should be proceeding and if these musings are to be given any weight at all they should be given that weight now.
Addendum: Elsewhere these comments were posted with the following closing comments.
A police force bears the hallmarks of a paramilitary organization and there is less room for diversity of opinion amongst investigators. Recall perhaps The Caine Mutiny. The burden of command can be great but so to is the burden of subordination. Humphrey Bogart sitting there with his steel ball bearings and a demented conviction that there is a plot amongst his junior officers may make for an entertaining movie but Jose Ferrer’s character is the one who points out that the fault does indeed lie with the junior officers.
We on the internet are a bit more free to speculate about alternative case scenarios and alternative viewpoints. When a little girl is missing we tend to hope she is merely lost but we worry about some demented pervert as well as disorientation. When it is a kidnapping, we worry about a ransom demand but still also worry about a pervert even if the note and circumstances utterly convince us that the kidnappers are professional criminals whose only interest is financial. When a victim is found not only murdered, but brutally murdered and subjected to torture and unspeakable indignities we tend to focus largely on the perverted aspects of the crime. Perhaps that is the correct thing to do. It is certainly the most obvious path for an investigator to take. Yet when that path turns out to be unfruitful, perhaps it is time to reconsider the nature of our underlying assumptions about the crime. Perhaps investigators should consider a more distant drummer may indeed be playing an interesting measure.
We all celebrate when a dissident investigator proves himself to have been right. That lone voice at the end of the table who sees a case in a very different manner than the others see it is much admired when he is finally shown to be correct in his views, but what about the time that really matters: before the case is solved. The FBI steadfastly ignored the agent who kept telling them that the Unabomber was a "monk on a mountaintop in Montana" and thereby wasted countless man-years and untold millions looking solely at well-educated, wealthy engineers.
Recently a news item contained the following snippet:
>Did not want to investigate child abuse and child pornography that went outside the Ramsey family..."
Well, there was no child abuse or child pornography inside the Ramsey family and I see no reason to investigate child abuse or child pornography outside the Ramsey family and call it trying to solve a homicide. Some broad inquiry into alcoholism in Colorado does not belong as part of a homicide investigation just because some tabloid editors think the perpetrator might be an alcoholic. I'm much more interested in the unsociable man who made vitriolic threats against John Ramsey prior to the murder than in some broad inquiry into child abuse in Colorado. Its a homicide investigation, not a sociological study. The suspect to which I refer had a brain injury and episodes of deep depression, that doesn't mean you conduct a study of minimal brain damage or a study of depression. Its a homicide investigation, not a socio-medical inquiry into US society. A broad study of pornography is meaningless when the only nude photographs ever taken of the victim were taken by the medical examiner.
The rejoinder was:
Whoa--if there are legitimate reasons Singular is privy to that you might not be that give him reason to explore the world of CP and its consumers, then don't you think that should be ruled out? Its not like the decedent wasn't molested and sexually-sadistically tortured - chronic pedophile or situational molester might be a debatable question.
And my response focused on not so much as it being a logically incorrect association but more that it was incorrect as an investigative goal since it was more an unnecessary detour than anything else. Oh sure, any door may be the right one. We all hope that surely the BPD has by now learned to do such things as open doors.
Well, of course on that night a great many things took place, none of which we really want to dwell on beyond what is necessary for the investigation. A stun gun was used, it appears to have been experimental in nature rather than dedicated torture. Does that mean we should take a detour into a general investigation of sadism? Even if we attempt to limit our study to sadism in Colorado it seems to me to be a waste of investigative resources. Those who have perused the faux ransom note have often used the term "James Bondish" to indicate its style, does that mean we should assign Boulder detectives to read all the works of Ian Fleming? And watch all those silly movies?
In a Hit and Run investigation, do you focus on readers of Car and Driver magazine and elevate chronic possession of a driver's license to the status of a profound clue? It is, of course, entirely possible that the person who left the scene of an accident without rendering aid to the dying will indeed turn out to be a subscriber to Car and Driver and will be in general an aficionado of motor-cars. It is not however an excuse to go off on a tangent and devote resources to a field of inquiry that is more a general survey of sociology rather than a finely focused homicide investigation.
There are a great many allegations of investigators protecting powerful pedophiles. Probably some of these allegations are quite well founded. Chances are that by sheer percentage some of the allegations of Pedophile Rings in High Governmental Circles will turn out to be true, but so far I've seen no evidence that either pornography or child-pornography had the least bit to do with the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. So why are there persistent calls for investigative resources to be dedicated to such tangents which consist of low-grade ore? Oh, its not that we should be unwilling to mine low-grade ore, its simply that higher grade ore should be mined first.
I do not think the entire detective division of Boulder should hie away to foreign shores in search of that "small foreign faction". Its a false trail. One that was provided for a reason. Provided for an unknown reason and provided by a demented mind perhaps, but provided as an artificial construct. No time should be wasted and no funds should be expended sending detectives off on junkets to a variety of foreign shores in search of small foreign factions.
We all have information available to us about which we are uncertain. Uncertain as to its exact nature and uncertain as to its weight and uncertain as to the veracity of our informants. Life is uncertain. Death is certain, but a homicide investigation is a part of life, not death. One of my particularly uncertain sources has provided me with information which does not negate the possibility of a pedophile being involved but which does provide an aspect to the crime which casts serious doubt on the pedophilia aspects of the crime and also casts serious doubt on the torture aspects to the crime. This makes me hesitant to wander off on what I perceive to be a tangent. It is, however, a factor that is clouded by uncertainty. The trouble with the Boulder investigators has always been that they heard the music loud and clear, it is the bolder investigators who hear a different and more distant measure. Yet that does not mean that the famed distant drummer is playing the correct beat.
The stun gun use seems not only experimental but very perfunctory. Its as if it were almost two quick jolts and that's it for the stun gun. Did he stop because he discovered he did not enjoy it? Or perhaps is it that he stopped because he had left the sufficiently misleading clue? Its possible to view the molestation as consisting of largely perfunctory acts performed quickly rather than unspeakable acts performed with care and savored by a demented mind. We do not know for certain what was experienced or how long things took or how much they were enjoyed, but there is at least some body of evidence which supports a conclusion that irrespective of time of entry into the home, time of departure was quite prompt. Therefore if a reasonably intelligent intruder already lying in wait in the JBR/Guest room were to have waited until he felt the parents would be asleep and if the intruder did in fact depart prior to the 1:00am time constraint we have a very narrow time frame for taking his victim to the basement, applying a stun gun, applying a garrote, hiding the body and leaving. With a very narrow time frame comes the obvious question: if he did not linger and savor the events as they unfolded, then perhaps he was not really there for the purpose of enjoying them. Oh, he was clearly there to kill JonBenet Ramsey. Right from the start this was a murder and it was never any sort of kidnapping plot or some faux-kidnapping ploy to obtain a ransom payment. Its just that if the application of a stun gun to a six year old girl was performed so briefly then it is possible that the lack of a prolonged usage means that there was no great enjoyment. Perhaps it is equally true of the perversion: no great enjoyment and therefore not a pedophile and not likely to re-offend.
Normally one would expect any criminal to have a measure of goal directed action. We also expect a short order cook to have a measure of goal directed action. Some places serve fast food, not culinary masterpieces that take great time to prepare. Some people simply do not linger over a meal or linger over its preparation. If there was a failure to linger over a meal that does not mean that a person is necessarily not a gourmand. He may simply have been pressed for time and not been able to dally. So if the intruder who killed JonBenet Ramsey failed to extend the activities it does not necessarily mean that he was not a pedophile. He may have been desirous of limiting his exposure to danger, he may have become slightly concerned by the scream, any number of things may have happened but one thing is still possible: he simply had no interest in prolonging the events because he was no more interested in perversion than he was in foreign factions or ransom payments.
A weekly search of the CODIS database is hardly going to yield good results if the perpetrator is not likely to be a repeat offender. Now I do realize that there are a great many uncertainties in this. Was it a brief crime? Does such brevity actually indicate lack of intense sexual interest, does such lack of sexual interest mean he is not likely to be a repeat offender? These are all unknown imponderables that can be debated forever but meanwhile an investigation should be proceeding and if these musings are to be given any weight at all they should be given that weight now.
Addendum: Elsewhere these comments were posted with the following closing comments.
A police force bears the hallmarks of a paramilitary organization and there is less room for diversity of opinion amongst investigators. Recall perhaps The Caine Mutiny. The burden of command can be great but so to is the burden of subordination. Humphrey Bogart sitting there with his steel ball bearings and a demented conviction that there is a plot amongst his junior officers may make for an entertaining movie but Jose Ferrer’s character is the one who points out that the fault does indeed lie with the junior officers.
We on the internet are a bit more free to speculate about alternative case scenarios and alternative viewpoints. When a little girl is missing we tend to hope she is merely lost but we worry about some demented pervert as well as disorientation. When it is a kidnapping, we worry about a ransom demand but still also worry about a pervert even if the note and circumstances utterly convince us that the kidnappers are professional criminals whose only interest is financial. When a victim is found not only murdered, but brutally murdered and subjected to torture and unspeakable indignities we tend to focus largely on the perverted aspects of the crime. Perhaps that is the correct thing to do. It is certainly the most obvious path for an investigator to take. Yet when that path turns out to be unfruitful, perhaps it is time to reconsider the nature of our underlying assumptions about the crime. Perhaps investigators should consider a more distant drummer may indeed be playing an interesting measure.
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