Where was she killed?

I notice I have just been blasted by Jameson, on her forum, for my reference as Bill Salisbury, in Miss Marple’s Ramsey case Wikipedia, to the lack of blood spatter at the Ramsey basement crime scene.

I don’t claim to be medically qualified or to be a competent forensic expert. I have probably been reading a bit too much about the false conviction MacDonald murders case in 1970, when there was blood spatter discovered all over the walls of the MacDonald apartment. I agree that in the JonBenet Ramsey case, the autopsy report said that there was no laceration of JonBenet’s head from the head blow and that would be a sensible reason for why no blood was found at the crime scene.

The problem I have with this is that I can’t quite see that there is any real evidence that JonBenet was murdered in the Ramsey basement. It’s simply not good enough in a murder investigation to assume, or presume, she was murdered in the basement. Probing murder is an exact science and no chances can be taken with it. There is no forensic evidence, like some tufts of hair, or pieces of skin, or blood stains and blood spots, to indicate that she was murdered in the basement.

I think both Jameson and Lou Smit would agree that murder victims can, and have been in the past, dumped at a place which was a different place from where they were murdered. In this country forensic experts examine and test the hair of murder victims for any little clues as to where they might have been murdered. The material inside a murder victim’s nose is chemically tested to see if anything like pollen is there which might indicate where the murder victim had been murdered.

There have been cases in this country where forensic experts can pinpoint exactly where a person was murdered by things like bits of plants and nettles found on the murder victim, and on the clothes of murder suspects.

The only forensic evidence that JonBenet might have been murdered in the basement is the supposed urine stain in the basement hall. That’s not conclusive evidence. For one thing it’s not scientifically possible to identify from which person that urine came from. The paintbrush handle in the basement was never a necessary part of any garrotte, and isn‘t proof of a basement murder. Just the cord was all that was needed. The paintbrush handle could easily have been added after she was dead as a ‘trimmings attached’ to the murder

Lou Smit has said publicly in the past that the murderer ‘tried’ to put JonBenet in the suitcase. There is hard, scientific, forensic evidence that it happened. Lou Smit has never said publicly that the murderer DID in fact put JonBenet in the suitcase. That’s because Lou Smit has no evidence that JonBenet was put in the suitcase.

To my mind it’s perfectly logical to assume that JonBenet was put in the suitcase, either dead or alive, and that she was abducted out of the house to a secret Christmas night pedophile party somewhere, as Stephen Singular and Nancy Krebs also seem to believe, and that JonBenet may have been murdered elsewhere.

Henrietta, I think you had better check your sources carefully, because I don't believe Lou Smit has ever said JonBenet HAD been put in the suitcase, only that she MAY have been or that the perp MAY have TRIED to do so. So that means there is no factual information either way that I'm aware of.

Henrietta McPhee wrote:

The problem I have with this is that I can’t quite see that there is any real evidence that JonBenet was murdered in the Ramsey basement. It’s simply not good enough in a murder investigation to assume, or presume, she was murdered in the basement. Probing murder is an exact science and no chances can be taken with it. There is no forensic evidence, like some tufts of hair, or pieces of skin, or blood stains and blood spots, to indicate that she was murdered in the basement.

Lividity or blood-pooling after death doesn’t suggest she was moved. It seems to me like THAT is forensic evidence.

Henrietta McPhee wrote:

The only forensic evidence that JonBenet might have been murdered in the basement is the supposed urine stain in the basement hall. That’s not conclusive evidence. For one thing it’s not scientifically possible to identify from which person that urine came from.

DNA from urine is not as commonplace as other methods, but it certainly can be done.

Henrietta McPhee wrote:

Lou Smit has said publicly in the past that the murderer ‘tried’ to put JonBenet in the suitcase. There is hard, scientific, forensic evidence that it happened.

And what would that be?

Henrietta McPhee wrote:

To my mind it’s perfectly logical to assume that JonBenet was put in the suitcase, either dead or alive, and that she was abducted out of the house to a secret Christmas night pedophile party somewhere, as Stephen Singular and Nancy Krebs also seem to believe, and that JonBenet may have been murdered elsewhere.

First of all, who would take a dead child to a “pedophile party”? What do they do at those, play pin the tail on the pedophile?

Krebs is a crackpot, and if you believe she isn’t after all these years, well…nuff said!

Lou Smit told me he had forensic evidence the perp tried to put her in the suitcase. I think he has said this publicly in the past. I don't think this is new information.

There is evidence that points to JonBenet being murdered right outside of the wine cellar/windowless room- her urine.

I'm not medically qualified to pontificate about blood-pooling. I do know that rigor mortis doesn't usually set in until about four hours after death.

I also know that the Ramsey case pathologist, Dr Meyer, refused point blank to give an estimated time of death for JonBenet because there was no way it could be medically, or scientifically accurate.

I think Tired of censorship may be correct that it now may be possible to DNA test some urine stains. I can tell Tired of censorship right now that it wasn't possible ten years ago. Those Ramsey case urine stains have all gone now.

There was a similar sort of controversy about urine stains in the Dr Jeffrey MacDonald false conviction case. Dr MacDonald said his daughter Kristen wet the bed and he carried her to another room, which was true. The Army CID lab mistakenly insisted it was the other daughter Kim who wet the bed. There was no accurate way a urine stain could be identified in the 1970's. The FBI lab at that time had a policy of not even attempting to identify urine stains because they were then inaccurate.

I believe Nancy Krebs was on the right track with her information that there was a secret night pedophile party. Nancy thought that party might have been held at Fleet White's house. Nancy isn't all knowing. That party was held somewhere else which has never been detected.

I agree with Evening that Lou Smit was being very correct in saying the murderer 'might' have tried to put JonBenet in the suitcase. That's what the evidence tells us, and Lou Smit was going by the evidence. If you want to use a bit of wild speculation you could say that JonBenet WAS put in the suitcase. I agree there is no firm evidence at the moment to back that theory up

Nancy Krebs said she was told the party was held near the Ramsey house...possibly White's rental house two doors away or another home nearby. The home White owns was too far away to fit the description she was given.

I'm glad Mame mentioned that. There is still much confusion regarding where the White's actually lived as opposed to the house a couple of doors down from the Ramseys which the Whites rented out. The Whites and the Ramseys were not neighbors.

No, they weren't neighbors at the time of the murder. However, they had been neighbors when they first met two years prior when the White's rented a home two doors away from the Ramsey's.

I don't believe the Whites rented it "out". I believe they rented it from the owner of the house before they bought the house that was further away (not 2 doors down from the Ramseys).

I just wonder if she was taken out, alive ...in the suitcase. Why bring her back to the basement dead? Why not drop her off in the woods. Going around a home carrying a suitcase would look real suspicious at that time of nite. But then again, I guess carrying a suitcase wouldn't look as suspicious as carrying a dead child or a "stunned one"

"Henrietta McPhee"...I can�t quite see that there is any real evidence that JonBenet was murdered in the Ramsey basement. It�s simply not good enough in a murder investigation to assume, or presume, she was murdered in the basement. Probing murder is an exact science and no chances can be taken with it. There is no forensic evidence, like some tufts of hair, or pieces of skin, or blood stains and blood spots, to indicate that she was murdered in the basement."

[b]There is evidence that the garrote was made in the basement hall and there is evidence she was there that night - wet herself there. if that means nothing to you, I can't help you further.[/b]

"Henrietta McPhee"...I think both Jameson and Lou Smit would agree that murder victims can, and have been in the past, dumped at a place which was a different place from where they were murdered.

[b]Yep[/b]

"Henrietta McPhee"... "The paintbrush handle could easily have been added after she was dead as a �trimmings attached� to the murder"

[b]No, not with her hair in the knots as it was -- the garotte was made on her -- with the handle in place.[/b]

Lou Smit has said publicly in the past that the murderer �tried� to put JonBenet in the suitcase. There is hard, scientific, forensic evidence that it happened. Lou Smit has never said publicly that the murderer DID in fact put JonBenet in the suitcase. That�s because Lou Smit has no evidence that JonBenet was put in the suitcase.

[b]He has an opinion based on fiber evidence.[/b]

To my mind it�s perfectly logical to assume that JonBenet was put in the suitcase, either dead or alive, and that she was abducted out of the house to a secret Christmas night pedophile party somewhere, as Stephen Singular and Nancy Krebs also seem to believe, and that JonBenet may have been murdered elsewhere.
[b]
There is NO evidence of that. None. In fact, no one could have gotten the suitcase out the window well -- I know, i was there.

...but, some duphus could have tried to put her in the suitcase thinking that he could get it out through that window?

jameson _ justwatching wrote:

"Henrietta McPhee"...[b]
There is NO evidence of that. None. In fact, no one could have gotten the suitcase out the window well -- I know, i was there.

I hope I can disagree nicely with Jameson about this basement window business, and about the possibility, and doubts, about JonBenet being murdered in the basement. I admire Jameson for her moral courage in the Ramsey case, and for the obvious time, effort, and even money she must have put into the case in the past.

I think in any difficult murder people can become very fixated in their opinions about what happened. The Boulder police seemed to wrongly have decided who did it in the first twenty minutes, and they then just decided it was a ‘slam dunk’ case. They have never changed their minds about that. The Boulder police have just attempted to discredit any evidence which points away from the Ramseys.

What tends to happen in murder cases is that any real evidence is forgotten and it then becomes a discussion of opinions, rather like discussing something like religion or politics.

I agree with Lou Smit that you follow the evidence, and you go by the evidence. Jameson and Lou Smit seem to have a theory that the intruder gained entry by the basement window, and that JonBenet was murdered in the basement. If I was sitting in the investigator’s chair, I would then attempt to back up that theory, evidentially, and from the available intelligence information. There is no real evidence JonBenet was murdered in the basement. A possible, and unproven, urine stain in the basement hall, as proof, is very weak evidence.

I have no idea if JonBenet was put in the suitcase when she was alive. There is very real evidence that she might have been put in the suitcase when she was dead. There is no reason at all why the suitcase need have ever had to be put through the basement window. Lou Smit has said publicly in the past that he believes the murderer may have left the crime scene through the butler pantry door. Why is it so impossible for the murderer not to have gained entry in the first place to the Ramsey house by the butler pantry door, or another door, particularly if he had a key? In my opinion, that’s the way the murderer came, and went, to the murder scene.

I agree that there probably wouldn’t have been blood spatter if there had been no laceration to JonBenet’s head. I’m still surprised that there doesn’t seem to have been any blood from her nose, or ears, or any tufts of hair, or anything else to indicate she was murdered in the basement. The evidence indicates JonBenet put up a strong fight. There was no sign of a struggle in the basement. Murder victims are often found at a different place to where they were murdered.

It’s plausible that JonBenet was abducted out of the Ramsey house and taken to a secret pedophile party. There is no evidence of that at the moment because the evidence was never collected or gathered by the Boulder cops. They were too busy waiting for a hoax ransom phone call at the time. No tracker dogs were ever sent for to sniff along the back garden tracks and lanes of the Ramsey house.

Any suggestions that people like Nancy Krebs, or her mother, or the JonBenet photographer Randy Simons, or Ariana Pugh, or Helgoth, or Tom Miller might have knowledge in relation to the crime, and about a secret pedophile party where JonBenet was murdered, has just been rejected and ignored

I agree with much of what you've said Henrietta. One question. I've noticed you've mentioned Tom Miller a few times as a possible perp or accomplice. I've never seen him named by anyone else. Can you give us more details on that? I'm certainly not disputing your assertion. But, find it fascinating as in ten years I've never seen his name listed.

Nancy Drew wrote:

I agree with much of what you've said Henrietta. One question. I've noticed you've mentioned Tom Miller a few times as a possible perp or accomplice. I've never seen him named by anyone else. Can you give us more details on that? I'm certainly not disputing your assertion. But, find it fascinating as in ten years I've never seen his name listed.

I need to be a bit careful about what I say about Tom Miller for legal reasons. I think with a lot of these characters whose names crop up in the Ramsey case you can fall into the trap of thinking, as one poster has already mentioned on this Topix site, of thinking that a hundred people must have done it.

The story I have always heard and seen mentioned, was that Judith Phillips (Tom Miller’s wife) was in Chicago for Christmas 1996, I think in order to visit her parents. I presume Tom Miller was with her at the time although quite honestly I’ve never seen that confirmed anywhere.

To me Tom Miller has always seemed rabidly anti-Ramsey, a bit like Fleet White. I can see no good reason for that, or for the similar sort of attitude by Judith Phillips, his wife.

From what I know about Tom Miller he started off in life as a sort of strong arm man security man. He was involved in an unseemly legal wrangle at one time about whether he was allowed to have a gun with him for his job. I think he may then have done a bit of private investigating but I need to check that out. I don’t know if he’s one of these seemingly several people in the Ramsey case who seem to have come from Alabama.

At some stage he qualified as a lawyer. He seems to have had several angry clients when he was lawyer who complained that he had swindled them out of money. One of those angry clients mentioned on the internet that Tom Miller once stabbed Spade. I don’t know what that was all about. His wife Judith categorically denied that on Forums for Justice, as the poster Cookie.

Judith has described Tom Miller as ‘crazy’ in the past. Presumably she was joking about that. I think Tom Miller is no longer allowed to work as a lawyer, but that needs to be checked as well.

Jann Scott has posted on Jameson’s forum in the past that Tom Miller and Judith Phillips were involved in cocaine smuggling from Peru according to his CBI contacts, and are not out of the loop in the Ramsey case. I agree that not everything Jann Scott says is hard documentary evidence. Candy has posted in the past that this Miller cocaine story isn’t true.

Tom Miller is also a purported handwriting expert. He was used by Chris Wolf’s lawyer Darnay Hoffman to provide the Patsy Ramsey handwriting exemplars for the Chris Wolf case in 2001. To be perfectly blunt about it I believe Tom Miller forged some of those Patsy handwriting exemplars to make it appear that Patsy may have written the ransom note. Darnay’s experts used copies, unlike the police handwriting experts. Perhaps a nicer word would be Miller ‘altered’ some of the Patsy exemplars.

There is a mysterious so-called John Ramsey handwriting exemplar on the Italian handwriting expert Brugnatelli’s website. That so-called exemplar has no source, no place, no date no court, no names, and no signature. If you ask me that could be another Tom Miller hoax and forgery.

I have always had the feeling that the Ramsey lawyers Haddons had it in for Tom Miller with regard to the Ramsey case, for one reason or another. The public is probably unaware of what all that was about. The Denver private detective who caught Tom Miller and the Globe journalist Craig Lewis trying to bribe him was employed by Haddons at the time. That led to the Colorado v Miller court case in 2001 which Fleet White and Steve Thomas were very keen not to attend.

Interesting information.

I did interview Judith Phillips many years ago. I met Miller briefly during the two meetings I had with her to record the interview. They were not married at that time.

I was always under the impression (although I could be wrong) that Judith met him after the death of JonBenet. I thought she met him due to her involvement in the case.

It's been a long time so I may be remembering this incorrectly.

Is the info on Miller and Spade still on the Internet? If so, can you point me in that direction?

Thanks, Henrietta.

Nancy Drew wrote:

Is the info on Miller and Spade still on the Internet? If so, can you point me in that direction?
Thanks, Henrietta.

You may well be correct about when Judith Phillips and Tom Miller married. I was always under the impression that they were living together at the time of JonBenet's murder. I may be wrong about that.

There was some gossip once that Judith was having some kind of affair with the National Enquirer journalist, I think called South, at the time of the Stephen Miles case in 1998. All this fast style of life is a bit too much for me to have a thorough grasp of at times.

I think that story by one of Tom Miller's angry clients is still on the internet somewhere. I'm pretty sure it mentions Spade being stabbed by Tom Miller.

I think it was Mame who posted it on Jameson's website a couple of months ago. The trouble is Jameson has gone and deleted masses of postings from her public forum and that particular posting seems to have gone with the rest. I'll try searching for it myself. I have seen it on the internet before. It may still be there somewhere.

Henrietta McPhee wrote:

I believe Nancy Krebs was on the right track with her information that there was a secret night pedophile party. Nancy thought that party might have been held at Fleet White's house. Nancy isn't all knowing. That party was held somewhere else which has never been detected.

Burke Ramsey and Fleet and Daphne White were all interviewed. They gave NO indication that they had ever been part of such parties.

Nancy had issues and opinions -- but it takes more when investigating a murder -- it takes EVIDENCE.