JonBenet Ramsey

[ABSTRUSE]

Dressing a child in a hat like this is criminal. She looks ready for a cat-fight with Joan Collins on 'Dynasty;:

That...is child abuse.

 

[yui]

That...is child abuse.

Nope, that's bad parenting.

And, unfortunately, not something anyone can do too much about.

She was lovely; a little girl, made to look adult, sexualized … that's society’s crime.

Sorry, the social worker in me is rearing her ugly head.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Nope, that's bad parenting.

And, unfortunately, not something anyone can do too much about.

She was lovely; a little girl, made to look adult, sexualized … that's society’s crime.

Sorry, the social worker in me is rearing her ugly head.

I love social workers.

 

[Guest]

I love social workers.

Are you flirting with Yui?

 

[yui]

I love social workers.

I love Abs, so we're even.

Tho, to be honest, I'm an ex-social worker. Couldn't cut it. I just hurt for the so-lost-souls too freaking much; my failure, eh?

Are you flirting with Yui?

One can only hope ....

 

[Boxlicker101]

I love Abs, so we're even.

Tho, to be honest, I'm an ex-social worker. Couldn't cut it. I just hurt for the so-lost-souls too freaking much; my failure, eh?


One can only hope ....

When I started working for the state of CA, I worked providing clerical support for a group of social workers. I found they were nice people but rather scatterbrained and impractical. I thought of them as having bleeding hearts.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Are you flirting with Yui?

Maybe?

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I love Abs, so we're even.

Tho, to be honest, I'm an ex-social worker. Couldn't cut it. I just hurt for the so-lost-souls too freaking much; my failure, eh?


One can only hope ....

Not failure on your part, the system doesn't always work.

 

[yui]

When I started working for the state of CA, I worked providing clerical support for a group of social workers. I found they were nice people but rather scatterbrained and impractical. I thought of them as having bleeding hearts.

Well, I would suggest, that the world needs more bleeding hearts, eh? They're children, and they are lost. Completely. You can't give them what they need, but you want to. Hurts. Makes the heart bleed a bit.

Maybe?

Maybe-ish?

Love me, Abs ... it's painless.

Not failure on your part, the system doesn't always work.

Oy, the system sucks. One of the reasons I resigned. There was so much there. Oy. It's my failure for not fighting the good fight, but that's my karma; I saved my soul, in this life, if not the next. Way.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Just read this in an article about the case:

Yet JonBenet's autopsy report found no evidence of drugs, saying her death was caused by strangulation after a beating that included a fractured skull. And while it describes vaginal injuries, it makes no conclusions about whether she was raped.

um... a 6 year old with vaginal injuries... hm...

the deduction, Watson... I tell ya...

 

[Boxlicker101]

When I started working for the state of CA, I worked providing clerical support for a group of social workers. I found they were nice people but rather scatterbrained and impractical. I thought of them as having bleeding hearts.

Well, I would suggest, that the world needs more bleeding hearts, eh? They're children, and they are lost. Completely. You can't give them what they need, but you want to. Hurts. Makes the heart bleed a bit.

I really don't mean to sound so stone-hearted. Personally, I love children and my heart would bleed for them too. When I first read about the JonBenet Ramsey case and saw pictures and videos of her all tarted up like that, I was disgusted. I thought it a form of child abuse and I still do. A beautiful baby contest, with judges looking at a group of babies being babies and choosing the most beautiful is okay. A beauty contest with girls being girls or women being women is okay too. But at these pageants, the children, maybe five or six years old or younger, looked like Las Vegas show girls or young hookers, and I thought it was just wrong. They said JonBenet liked it but she would probably liked a diet of nothing but ice cream too. Parents should be parents, not enablers.

When I think of "bleeding hearts" I think of those persons, frequently social workers, who think that nothing is ever anybody's fault. Even the dregs of humanity, people like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahlmer or John Wayne Gacy are actually victims. They would probably say that it wasn't Hitler's fault, that he was potty-trained too early or something like that.

If the suspect turns out to be telling the truth, I would consider him to be amont the dregs also.

This has nothing to do with JohnBenet, by the way, who really was a victim.

 

[3113]

I thought it a form of child abuse and I still do.

Which, arguably, it may be, but such forms of abuse do not mean that anyone in the family killed her. Parents force their children to be child stars, the push them to be Olympic atheletes or musicians or learn a dozen languages. They put them on weird diets, make them part of strange religions.

And none of it means that these parents would beat, strangle or sexual abuse the child. They might. But then a lot of parents who physically/sexually abuse and sometimes eventually kill their children come across as the most normal, good-hearted, even-tempered parents you'd ever want to know.

Let's not be so quick to decide that ONE thing we don't like about these parents equals a horrible crime. Not unless we can statistically show that parents who put their children in such beauty pagents are more likely to physically abuse and kill them.

One does not equal the other. And we must be VERY careful not to start making such equations. Because it's all too easy for us to one day find ourselves on trial with a prosecutor yelling in our faces, "ISN'T IT TRUE YOU WRITE PORNOGRAPHIC STORIES?" And a jury and the media deciding that this, alone, is enough to condemn us of whatever crime we've been wrongly accused of. Because one must equal the other, right?

 

[3113]

Another possibility is that Karr and Patsy Ramsey were in on this together. One thing that has always bothered me about Patsy is the fact that she was dressed in the same clothes that morning when the police arrived that she wore to the Christmas party the night before. Now for a wopman who was supposed to be sleeping because she had an early trip the next day I find that strange.

Highly unlikely that these two worked together. There would have to have been something really weird going on and likely this guy would have spilled the beans about it by now--something like, "Patsy made me do it!" because that would save his ass.

As for dressed in the same clothes...I don't find that weird at all. I don't know enough about the case to know her explaination but I would assume:
1) She went to sleep in it, too tired to undress.
2) She woke up, found the note, etc. and got dress in what was still lying about as quickly as she could. I was alseep when the big quake hit and I threw on the first thing in reach. When you're upset and scared out of your mind, you don't look at what you're putting on, you put it on be it a party dress or a pair of jeans.

I honestly don't see how this is evidence of any foul play on her part.

 

[Pure]

will someone explain why, after all these years, the case suddenly 'cracked'? is it due to private efforts of the parents?

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
I thought it a form of child abuse and I still do.

Which, arguably, it may be, but such forms of abuse do not mean that anyone in the family killed her. Parents force their children to be child stars, the push them to be Olympic atheletes or musicians or learn a dozen languages. They put them on weird diets, make them part of strange religions.

And none of it means that these parents would beat, strangle or sexual abuse the child. They might. But then a lot of parents who physically/sexually abuse and sometimes eventually kill their children come across as the most normal, good-hearted, even-tempered parents you'd ever want to know.

Let's not be so quick to decide that ONE thing we don't like about these parents equals a horrible crime. Not unless we can statistically show that parents who put their children in such beauty pagents are more likely to physically abuse and kill them.

One does not equal the other. And we must be VERY careful not to start making such equations. Because it's all too easy for us to one day find ourselves on trial with a prosecutor yelling in our faces, "ISN'T IT TRUE YOU WRITE PORNOGRAPHIC STORIES?" And a jury and the media deciding that this, alone, is enough to condemn us of whatever crime we've been wrongly accused of. Because one must equal the other, right?

Of course not. I think of pushing a child too harde to achieve impossible goals, or depriving her of a big chunk of her childhood or other things like that as being a form of child abuse. I would never equate such a thing with murder of a child. Actually, stage mothers or fathers or the equivalent would do anything they could to avoid crippling injury or death because the child is seen as a meal ticket. I wouldn't believe the Ramseys thought that way but they did pack her around to pageants, depriving her of the chance to be a more normal little girl. I'm assuming therer were frequent pageants. One or two a year might be another story, as long as the preparation didn't take up too much of her time.

 

[Boxlicker101]

will someone explain why, after all these years, the case suddenly 'cracked'? is it due to private efforts of the parents?

Somebody from CO reported to the police a series of emails he had received from the suspect.

 

[R. Richard]

Somebody from CO reported to the police a series of emails he had received from the suspect.

In May, University of Colorado Professor Michael Tracey, who had been corresponding with Karr about the case for four years, contacted the Boulder district attorney about their e-mail exchanges. [Professor Tracey has written several books on the JonBenet Ransey case. Apparently there was a specific e-mail that triggered the Professor's suspicions.]

 

[shereads]

She was lovely; a little girl, made to look adult, sexualized … that's society’s crime.

On behalf of society (a portion thereof) I accept responsibility for all kinds of crimes. But not this one. Child beauty pageants give me the creeps.

As exploitation goes, there are degress of difference between child porn and the sexualization of little girls for the pageant industry. These children are slathered with with red lipstick, fitted with false eyelashes, subjected to hair bleaching and styling rituals that would frighten a Houston cheerleader, and taught to pose for publicity photos wearing a 'come hither' look before they're old enough to pronounce 'hither' without spitting out a baby tooth.

Can their parents and pageant promoters really be surprised that pedophiles take notice - or that some of the crazier ones might imagine themselves 'in love' with one of these babies?

What rocked my brain ten years ago, when the JonBenet Ramsey case became front-page news, is that enrollment in child pageants went up.

WTF?!

The concept of child beauty pageants should have gone the way of child marriage, and the murder of this little girl ought to have been the tipping point. I'd be willing to bet they're most popular among the same solid citizens who yell loudest about protecting children by censoring the internet - church-going folk like the Ramseys among them.

 

[Aurora Black]

What rocked my brain ten years ago, when the JonBenet Ramsey case became front-page news, is that enrollment in child pageants went up.

WTF?!

Disgusting.

 

[Samandiriel]

will someone explain why, after all these years, the case suddenly 'cracked'? is it due to private efforts of the parents?

That's the question of the evening/day.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by yui
She was lovely; a little girl, made to look adult, sexualized … that's society’s crime.

On behalf of society (a portion thereof) I accept responsibility for all kinds of crimes. But not this one. Child beauty pageants give me the creeps.

As exploitation goes, there are degress of difference between child porn and the sexualization of little girls for the pageant industry. These children are slathered with with red lipstick, fitted with false eyelashes, subjected to hair bleaching and styling rituals that would frighten a Houston cheerleader, and taught to pose for publicity photos wearing a 'come hither' look before they're old enough to pronounce 'hither' without spitting out a baby tooth.

Can their parents and pageant promoters really be surprised that pedophiles take notice - or that some of the crazier ones might imagine themselves 'in love' with one of these babies?

What rocked my brain ten years ago, when the JonBenet Ramsey case became front-page news, is that enrollment in child pageants went up.

WTF?!

The concept of child beauty pageants should have gone the way of child marriage, and the murder of this little girl ought to have been the tipping point. I'd be willing to bet they're most popular among the same solid citizens who yell loudest about protecting children by censoring the internet - church-going folk like the Ramseys among them.

I have to agree with you, Sher, except that I don't accept responsibility for any crimes except those I have committed. Even for those, I try to avoid responsibility.

When I first read about this case or saw it on news programs, they included photos or tapes of her in costume. I didn't think she was a six year old until I read about what they were, and I was disgusted. I have also seen snapshots of her, and she was a pretty little girl. I thought she looked better in them than in her costumes.

The Ramseys may or not have killed her. I have been hearing doubts cast on the guys confession because of inconsistencies. To me, that brings up this idea:

He was very knowledgeable about the case. That is why suspicion arose about him, but his confession included some information that he should have known was wrong. He said he drugged her and had sex with her. However, the autopsy showed no drugs in her system and no evidence of rape except vaginal bruising. I don't know how they can say that last one, because she could have been anally raped by a man wearing a condom. Anyhow, Karr would have known those facts and, if his confession was serious, even if bogus, he would not have included them. Maybe he knew he was caught, so he made a confession with enough inconsistencies in it that it would be thrown out and he would be dismissed as just another whacko. Just a thought.

 

[Pure]

thanks, rr!

today's paper has a couple interesting things.

support for RR's account of emails that implicated the alleged killer (correspondence of the confessed killer and a prof who'd written a book about the case)

statements that there is no evidence, as yet, supporting the confession, indeed the exwife says he was in Alabama at the time, and his dad says he was never in CO.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Maybe he just wanted a free trip back to the U.S.?

 

[R. Richard]

Stranger and stranger. Comment?

E-mails a portrait of 'my darkness'

Messages to CU prof paint a disturbing picture of Karr

Text of an ode to JonBenet Ramsey in a 2005 e-mail believed to be from John Mark Karr to CU professor Michael Tracey.

By Todd Hartman and Kevin Vaughan, © 2006 Rocky Mountain News
August 18, 2006
It was the day before Christmas Eve 2005 when John Mark Karr sent an e-mail to University of Colorado professor Michael Tracey, seeking a strange favor.
He asked Tracey to visit JonBenet Ramsey's old house in Boulder and read aloud an ode he called JonBenet, My Love.

"JonBenet, my love, my life. I love you and shall forever love you. I pray that you can hear my voice calling out to you from my darkness - this darkness that now separates us," it read, in part.

The e-mail was part of a small sample of the often lurid and disturbing correspondence between a person that investigators believe to be Karr and Tracey. The e-mails were obtained Thursday by the Rocky Mountain News from a source close to the investigation.

None includes any statements from Karr about his possible role in JonBenet's death. They do, however, include several interesting - and sometimes bizarre - exchanges between the two, including one in which Karr expresses concern that Tracey has obtained a photograph of him; another in which Karr said he was under federal investigation for "child murder and child molestation" in four states; and one in which the two traded views on the Peter Pan-related film Finding Neverland.

Karr was arrested in Thailand early Wednesday on a warrant naming him as the suspect in the unsolved murder of 6-year-old JonBenet in 1996. He is expected to be extradited to the United States next week.

In one of the e-mails obtained by the News, Karr brought up the legal travails of pop singer Michael Jackson, long under scrutiny for what seemed by his critics to be unusually close relationships with young boys.

"I will tell you that I can understand people like Michael Jackson and feel sympathy when he suffers as he has," Karr wrote. He added that he, himself, "is trapped in a world that does not understand."

The News reported exclusively Wednesday that Tracey and Karr have swapped hundreds of e-mails during a four-year span, and that it was the content of those e-mails that gave rise to Tracey's suspicions about Karr's potential involvement in JonBenet's killing.

Tracey, in turn, passed his concerns on to investigators working the case privately. They, in turn, would later take it to prosecutors at the Boulder District Attorney's Office.

Tracey declined to comment on the e-mails obtained by the News Thursday, and a statement provided by a CU spokesman said Tracey would continue to decline interview requests "until he feels the time is right."

"Tracey said it is important now that people respect the judicial process and make no judgments about the guilt or innocence of the suspect until more information is available," the CU statement said.

It also said that Tracey wants to resume writing a book about the 10-year-old investigation and is planning to produce additional documentaries on the case, beyond the three he has already completed.

In a related development Thursday, the Daily Camera reported that Tracey shared details of his research into the Ramsey case with students months before he alerted authorities.

The paper reported former students as saying that someone sent Tracey a childhood picture of himself holding a white Santa Claus teddy bear and purportedly taken on a Christmas morning. The stuffed animal was apparently just like the one that mysteriously showed up in JonBenet's bedroom and stumped the family and investigators.

One of e-mails obtained by the News began with Karr chiding Tracey for failing to respond to an earlier message entitled, "Pretty Little Boy."

That e-mail included what appears to be a back-and-forth exchange - a passage from Tracey and an answer from Karr. However, it appears that Karr took a Tracey e-mail and then inserted his answers after each paragraph.

At one point, Tracey wrote to Karr, "I'm also curious as to why you feel that talking to me is dangerous and that you have shared too much."

Karr wrote back: "I was the subject of at lease (sic) a four-state federal investigation for child murder and child molestation. These people were not finished with me when I left the U.S. I cannot return. Since you have never been through something like this in your own life, you cannot know the paranoia it causes. You mentioned you have access to my photograph after talking to you for at least two years. I have reason to be concerned. Consider, if you will, post-traumatic stress."

A later e-mail included "Resend of Pretty Little Boy" in its subject line.

Again, it appeared to include a back-and-forth exchange.

"This is a letter that was sent on October 10th," Karr wrote. "I have found that you are easily overwhelmed and, when so, you seem to stop responding altogether. That being said, I am also responding to your last mail and will prepare a short message for JonBenet for Christmas night. Please check your mail each day prior to Christmas. Don't stop responding now."

Karr then wrote about his anger that a third person had provided Tracey with a photograph of him. "You NEVER said he HAD a photo of me," Karr wrote. "This changes everything. You have everything but my name and fingerprints. This comes as a major blow. Why did you not tell me this in the past?"

At another point, Karr responded to Tracey's challenge to follow through on his pledge to be "intense and thorough."

"Oh, Michael," Karr wrote, "I was referring to you - not me. I AM intense and thorough. I wanted you to be more intense and thorough in your responses to me. Your desire from me is that I cut to the chase and be specific about locations, names and all the other elements that journalist (sic) look for in a story. I am sorry that this is not the way I express myself about this matter."

Karr wrote later that his father was a "strong influence but rarely around," and then responded to Tracey's question about whether his "fascination with little girls - which clearly has a strong erotic component - is a way of going back."

"Maybe I am not going back but have simply stayed consistent," Karr wrote. "My peer group has not changed since I was a little boy, and girls were the people I was with always. Referring to them as a peer group is somewhat incorrect, but might also be the very definition of what they continue to be in my life."

At another point, Tracey wrote, "You told me once that your mother tended to raise you as a girl. This must have had a powerful effect on your developing sexuality - confusion maybe?"

Karr responded: "Michael, I will not discuss my sexuality as if it is a psychological disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In my case, I disagree with that totally, and if this is to be the way we progress in discussing it, I might as well stop while I am ahead.

"On the other hand, if you would like to learn something about my sexuality on an intellectual, nonjudgmental, nontraditional and nonpsychological way, I would love to share. It would help you understand a lot about my connection with JonBenet and possibly about the case. Shall we?"

Tracey also wrote to Karr about the movie Finding Neverland, which was about the author of Peter Pan.
"I can only say," Karr wrote, "that I can relate very well to children and the way they think and feel. I think you are asking if I am much a 'Peter Pan.' In many ways, the answer is yes. In other ways, I suppose it is no because I am trapped in a world that does not understand."

In his words

• Excerpts from e-mails written by John Mark Karr to University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey:

"I am tortured mostly because of my present situation. I appreciate that you would refer to my childhood. It was unique . . . "

"I will tell you that I can understand people like Michael Jackson and feel sympathy when he suffers as he has. I do think that he is sexually attracted to certain children but could never divulge this. He made an attempt when he talked of sleeping with little boys but was completely misunderstood. I think he made an assertion and quickly had to back down. On the other hand, his comments might have had nothing to do with having the type of sex one might equate with the sense of the term, sex."

"Again, I was talking about you in reference to more intensity. The investigation was Federal. It involved four states. Knowing now that you have my photo, I am not keen on telling you of the specific states. I lost every friend, contact and family member as a result of this investigation. Some of my closest little girls were questioned by the authorities which broke my heart into pieces. I will never have contact with anyone in my past ever again. I lost my identity when this happened. This was the easy part. The worst was yet to come."

"I 'want' to tell you much though I cannot due to the fact that it has been revealed to me that you now know what I look like. This is a blow to our conversations and to my sharing. Had I known this earlier, I would have shared less - I am sure of it. With that said, I still responded to your mail in full . . .

"Sometimes little girls are closer to me than with their parents or any other person in their lives. When I refer to myself as JonBenet's Closest, maybe now you understand."

"I am interested in telling you anything that does not cost me everything as it did in the past."


Extradition policy

• The process for getting back an American citizen suspected of a crime, such as John Mark Karr, from a foreign country depends on the terms of the extradition treaty the United States has with it. "If we have a treaty with the country, it lays out the protocol in which you seek the return," said Bryan Sierra, spokesman for the Department of Justice.

• The United States does have an extradition treaty with Thailand, but it was not clear Thursday what the terms are.A formal request, either by the Department of Justice or the State Department, or sometimes both, would be made to the foreign country under the terms of the treaty.

• There had been no response Thursday to the Department of Justice's request to have Karr extradited. The decision on when the suspect is extradited is up to Thailand. "We're not the ones who have the control of the system," Sierra said.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I watched this Professor Tracy guy who blew the whistle. For someone doing his civic duty, this guy is certainly playing the Celeb thing to the hilt. This whole thing smells like a dead fish to me.
















Oh, never mind. He's just trying to push his books on the case