A Final Incompetence

Their Lordships, the five Justices of the High Court of Criminal Appeals, formally severed Luke Mitchell's appeal from the proceedings since he was not then represented by counsel. This was done so as to give him additional time with which to seek the advice of counsel but the justices formally advised Luke Mitchell they would expect any such advice of counsel to be consonant with a recognition that the present proceedings as continuing against appellant Nat Fraser declared the grounds of the appeal to be legally incompetent.

Oh what a fine nicety of the law! We are not now denying your appeal because you don't have a lawyer and we are giving you time to go get a lawyer but its obvious you will never be able to actually get a lawyer since we are now formally announcing your appeal to be legally incompetent.

What an awful mess. At age 14, Luke Mitchell gallantly set forth in the night to search for his overdue 14 year old girlfriend. Each and every member of the small search party stated to police that Luke's dog created a ruckus at a small cleft in the wall and only then did Luke Mitchell proceed to discover the naked and woefully bloody corpse of his girlfriend. After extensive and persistent police questioning the witnesses changed their recollections as to the dog having located the corpse rather than Luke Mitchell having done so. This of course gave the police, the prosecutor and the press the opportunity to repeatedly point out that Luke Mitchell had guilty knowledge of the corpse's location.

The press repeatedly harped on the fact that the injuries to the corpse bore a resemblance to the injuries suffered decades earlier in the Black Dahlia case that was oft mentioned by rock star Marilyn Manson. The press informed the public that Luke Mitchell was an obsessed fan of Marilyn Manson but failed to point out that there was not one reference on Luke's computer to the Black Dahlia and that the only Marilyn Manson CD found in Luke's home was one that was purchased after the murder. The press repeatedly described Luke Mitchell as a devotee of Satan but failed to point out that the school book scribbling they repeatedly described as satanic was in fact a quotation from a very popular computer game.

His girlfriend had struggled valiantly suffering extensive defensive wounds and almost total exsanguination but Luke Mitchell had nary a scratch nor a single drop of blood on him.

Although it was publicly announced that the crime was murder not rape semen was found on the girlfriend's body yet it was not from Luke Mitchell.

Meanwhile the police, prosecutor, press and public show not the slightest interest whatsoever in a male known to have been fond of the location where the body was found, known to have appeared disheveled at the time, known to have borne the next morning facial scratches for which there were absurd and ever-changing explanations and known to have penned an essay about having killed a girl within a week of the murder.

Ah the ever so fine niceties of the law: we will give you additional time to try to get a lawyer to represent you in a futile appeal but we won't even question much less arrest or prosecute the facially scratched violence-prone druggie and sex-offender whose dna was found on the corpse.

What is the use of having dna databases if such evidence as semen found on a murder victim is ignored? What is the use of having advanced forensics if a corpse is allowed to remain out in the woods unprotected from overnight rains and morning dew that will clearly wash away evidence deposited by the attacker? What is the use of having juries if they accept ownership of a Marilyn Manson CD as proof of murder? What is the use of having guidelines for the questioning of a 15 year old youth if all judges do is mildly rebuke the police for their obvious excesses?

Clearly, the one lesson to be learned is that when the police want you they will not shift their focus elsewhere. Obtaining counsel may availeth naught but going without counsel is utterly absurd. The police, prosecutor and press have all railroaded Luke Mitchell and allowed a known sex offender to go unprosecuted.

The Writer's Guide ... revisited.

In a previous posting I lamented the lack of a Writer's Guide to Criminals while noting the existence of various such reference works that allow for realism by providing writers with data on everyday life. The dispelling of myths about the settlement of the American West was used as an example that I thought might help shed some light on the world of criminals and particularly on the world of perverts. Its not just the availability of facts and figures relating to daily life but the use of those facts and figures to dispel our oft-cherished but unproven assumptions.

I was taken to task by someone who pointed out that any particular type of crime would have sufficient variance as to make such a reference book inapplicable to those who wish to solve the JonBenet Ramsey case. To a certain extent, I do agree with my critic. Some crimes escalate, some do not. A simple burglary can become a murder, a rape or an abduction simply by chance or whim. What is intended as a car-jacking can wind up as assault or murder. Many a wife has rattled a chair in the night as her husband has prepared to descend to investigate strange noises downstairs. The thumping alerts the nocturnal burglar and provides an opportunity to drift silently off into the night rather than have a confrontation with the homeowner. The burglar is alert and motivated, the home-owner is groggy with sleep. So a wife's thumping of a chair against the floor may save her husband's life even if the husband is armed. Would the burglar who faded away into the night have resorted to deadly force? That is a question a wife may not want to find out the answer to. So the crime gets logged as attempted burglary by persons unknown and the database lacks an entry under homicide. Or alternatively some man tries to defend his obsolete television set even though there is nothing good on it these days and gets stabbed to death for his efforts. Some homicide statistics result from vehicle breakdowns, dead phone batteries or the sheer bad luck of a chance encounter with a depraved maniac. Variance. Unforeseen consequences. Unintended actions. An imprecisely elucidated variance but a variance sufficiently great to disable the reference work's usefulness.

Yet consider that Writers Guide. It does allow us to dispense with a great many myths. No gunfight at high noon. Actual homicide rates of the notorious towns. The truth still dispels our myths. And that is a good thing. What sort of variance would be applicable to the JonBenet Ramsey case? We have no way of knowing. However, if myths about pedophiles can be dispelled perhaps some truths would emerge. And at all times and in all things, the truth shall set you free.

I wonder how many victims were subjected to bondage for brief periods of time when their attackers had available to them extended durations for such activities? This information might help us decide if the bondage in the JBR case is real or a misdirection or if it holds some intermediate position indicating desire but not indicating paramount importance.

I wonder how many torturers use only two stun gun shocks or two cigarette burns when there is plenty of time available for further entertainment. This might help us decide on the intruder's ultimate goals. It is indeed quite possible that an intruder became satiated after two brief electro-shocks from the stun gun, but I question this primarily from the aspect that it is a clue to the age of the perpetrator. For any sort of experimentation about anything at all would be a sign of inexperience and therefore a sign of youth. We of course could not be certain that the experimentation was not an intentional distraction for the investigators but its mere existence would tend to help narrow the field of suspects.

It is in this manner that we would proceed to apply the lessons learned from the as yet non-existent reference work: Writer's Guide to Criminals. If we can dispel myths can we then review the case with a renewed vigor and focus? After all, many crimes are actually solved by police simply applying common sense to the actions of criminals who seem not to have utilized any common sense but mainly simply do not have needed information available to them. Occasionally a murder is staged to appear as if it had been a homeowner's interruption of a burglary. Police know what items are actually of value to a real burglar. If the kitchen toaster is one of the items that has been put on the floor to be taken out by a burglar, the cops tend to think immediately of staging because most real burglars who must make their living as burglars know that you can't pawn a toaster. Or if a chest of drawer or bedroom bureau has its drawers disarranged in the wrong manner, the cops will suspect staging. A professional thief values time and silence. A professional thief knows his trade and will open the bottom drawer first, rummage through it quickly and quietly and then neither waste time nor make noise by closing the drawer. The professional thief simply opens the next highest drawer and continues. Quickly, quietly, efficiently. The wife who wants to be a widow is someone who might make a mistake on this point involving burglary protocols and in so doing make the police suspicious. In a Hollywood movie a burglarized home may appear to have been ransacked but in the real world very few burglars smash anything unnecessarily and very few burglars create a disorganized, chaotic mess simply because they have no reason to waste their time and energy doing so. The professional burglar is seeking small, light-weight highly portable items of substantial value to a fence. An inexperienced spouse may believe in making a mess and assembling items that are uninteresting to a fence.

A Writer's Guide to Criminals would allow greater confidence in our decisions about disposal of the body or its degree of concealment. The note induced hours of agonizing but futile waiting for the phone to ring. Such agony of the parents would have been unavailable to the intruder as imagined entertainment if the body had not been concealed. Such notes and manipulation suggests ulterior motives beyond the perverse pleasures of the basement. It also suggests an attention being focused on the parents which while not dispositive of the issue involving the intruder's pedophilia is at least suggestive that the intruder's real focus might be elsewhere than the perversion.

If we utilize this as-yet-non-existent reference work, we might discover that so much of the crime was concocted as to make us doubt the validity of the dna. I've rarely felt that anyone was capable of planting dna and that if planted dna was to be used, copious amounts would be planted rather than a few minute droplets. So I don't really want to reject the dna, I just want to determine if the dna is that of the primary actor or that of a mere puppet. If it is the dna of a puppet, then I would surely assume that puppet died quite soon after the murder. After all, what else are puppets for?

If we utilize the reference work to determine that the crime scene was not largely misdirection but was instead a fanciful experience then we would surely conclude the perpetrator was an inexperienced youth well acquainted with the realm of fiction. What we need to do is to find the culprit irrespective of our musings as to his age range, however, such speculations about the age range of the intruder do help narrow the field of focus a bit and might provide us with a degree of confidence that the performance of the BPD has failed to instill in us.

"...Yet when I think of the utterly fanciful and almost nonsensical nature of the note and the amount of the ransom demand, I can only think more of an absurdly youthful prank rather than a mature man's plot."

An absurdly youthful prank rather than a mature man's plot? Perhaps that's it! At one time, an age marked by prosperity, the beatniks and their successors, the hippies, could lead a life of general disdain for the workaday world. In our present reality, the Beat Generation is long gone, the Hippies either abandoned making candles and joined the workforce or they stayed in The Lifestyle and now own The Candle Factory, The Condominiums at the Candle Factory and own distribution rights to the film Naked Hippie Chicks at the Candle Factory. So as the societal drop-outs transitioned from Beatnik to Hippie to Hippie-Entrepreneur, with what are we now confronted? Perhaps Austin's layabouts, losers and loners give us the clue. Slackers! The disaffected youth of today are Slackers. The beatniks and hippies could work half a day as pearl-divers at some restaurant and after the dishes were washed they could devote their attentions to poetry, music, art or wherever else their passions lead them. Yet in today's world, the pearl diver at a trendy restaurant is not a frustrated poet or frustrated artist. He is simply frustrated by a relentless inescapable poverty and a paucity of real job opportunities. It was all he could do to master mechanical drawing and now there are no jobs for draftsmen unless they know Autocad. His life is clearly that of an overworked minimum-waged serf forever yoked to a life that can be experienced only in his imagination. His ambitions are not stunted, but his ability to achieve any of them is truncated by a poverty of intellect and a poverty of resources. He is of a generation that can't go down to the docks and ship out, but can sing the theme song of Gilligan's Island without hesitation. He knows he will never be James Bond, he will never make a James Bond movie, he barely makes enough money to rent a James Bond videotape. It just might be amongst Boulder's Slackers that we look for those whose dreams have been foreclosed by poverty and hopeless despair. Slackers are utterly without hope and utterly immune from the usual encounters with authority. They can't strike back at the world in rage, because nobody can strike back at the entire world. They can however strike back at the man who took their draftsman job away from them but did not teach them Autocad. They can strike back at those who have cornered them in the People's Republic that offers them little but a succession of dead-end jobs and rising rents.

Will our Writer's Guide to Real Criminals aid us? Or is variance going to make it ineffective. I do not know. I know there are alot of Slackers who are not child murderers. I do however favor realism over fantasy and perhaps that is why it is difficult for me to deal with a case that involves such absurd fantasies.

Maturity?

In looking at the JonBenet Ramsey murder case some sleuths see a degree of maturity though I, at times, have considerable doubts about that. Certain terms in the ransom note particularly the use of the word attache and the phrase brown paper bag are viewed as indicating a man closer to middle age than youth.

I ofcourse question how maturity can be deemed to exist when the very existence of a useless ransom note contravenes any notion of maturity and instead is suggestive of immature impulses. I certainly question why a brown paper bag is known only to middle aged men rather than teen age males? Sure, in grocery stores it is far more common to encounter plastic now but that does not mean the phrase is unknown or that the item itself is unknown. Any bookish young male would certainly have encountered references to the phrase and any young male inclined to read various magazines containing centerfolds are likely to read jokes about "putting a brown paper bag over her head" for even if brown paper bags are not quite routinely encountered anymore, the jokes persist.

We all experience plastic shopping bags, but particularly at an upscale grocery store at a location near the display of mushrooms it is quite common to find a stack of brown paper bags rather than plastic ones. So I really see no valid basis for concluding that a brown paper bag would be a phrase utilized mainly by a middle aged male because it is an item alien to youthful males.

Attache? I likewise see the term as being well known to the twelve and over crowd. Military attache, cultural attache, attache case ... these are not terms that are somehow alien to the world of teen agers and young adults. Its perhaps been an erronious conclusion on the part of certain internet sleuths that the word attache is alien to younger males.

I think so much of the crime points to inexperience that we should focus on youths. Oh, no element of the crime is limited to youth. Even the initial entry into that window is easier for a youth but perfectly capable of having been done not only by a fully grown male but by a fairly large male. Consider the concoction of a ransom note when a murder is intended. The note is futile. Even a short note of the customary and expected content will gain the intruder nothing at all as there will never be a ransom payment. Yet the intruder not only writes a note but goes on and on with the note well beyond what any real kidnapper would be likely to do. After all, how many kidnappers bring Dirty Harry themes and vague references to foreign intrigue into a simple ransom note?

Much of the night's activities seem more akin to experimentation than a dedicated desire. Consider for a moment the use of a stun gun. Twenty or thirty sets of stun gun burns would indicate a pleasurable night was had by the intruder. Oh sure, we can be quite grateful that JonBenet was spared such an ordeal, however, the two stun gun marks do seem to be more consonant with mere youthful experimentation than with an established hobby the intruder had.

We, as sleuths, are grateful for the presence of the dna. We are even proud of that little six year old girl for getting a piece of her attacker. Oh we know that those tiny little fingernails were not really much of a defense for her. We know the attacker was probably not troubled by such an ineffective annoyance, but we cherish that little girl's final gift to us: her attacker's dna. We can admire her courage to claw ineffectually at that cord around her neck. We don't know for sure if it was repeatedly tightened and loosened but we do know that with its flat inward surface and rounded outer edge it was optimal for repeated near strangulation. We look at how deep that cord was embedded in her neck and know that she never had a chance but we are grateful for her feeble efforts for that is what provided us with the dna. Somehow, she was able to scratch her attacker.

Yet, consider that dna. Wouldn't a middle aged male experienced with the infliction of pain know enough to avoid even the tiny fingernails of a six year old girl? Wouldn't a middle aged male have immobilized his victim entirely before embarking upon the more unspeakable events of that night? Doesn't the crime suggest youth rather than maturity?

Mastermind ... or not?

Mastermind. It seems to be a word that is used in true-crime circles to indicate two sets of circumstances. One involves a relationship between individuals wherein the personal dynamics reveal what may well be an exaggerated situation involving styles of personal interaction. The companion of the mastermind is oft termed a puppet and quite obviously the relationship is one of ability to exert control irrespective of native intelligence. The other use of the term mastermind reflects someone of great cunning or skill or intelligence who has applied his skills to a criminal enterprise. Someone who tunnels into a bank or a jewelry store may be termed a mastermind. So too would someone who seems to have simply been clever in some aspect of a crime that achieved notoriety.

With regard to the JonBenet Ramsey case, I've no idea what the situation would be. My initial reaction was that this is a sort of crime that would be the work of a sole practitioner because such perverts do not have any friends available to them to act as accomplices irrespective of any issues involving personal dynamics. I have over time become less sanguine with my belief that all perverts are loners to be found in a dirty raincoat at a nearby park but then I have also become less convinced that the acts of perversion were central to the crime that was committed that night. We often misplace the mental processes of the criminal. We constantly harp about hopheads being addicted to heroin when in reality we know that hopheads are not at all addicted to the heroin they are addicted to the needle. Its simply inconvenient for us to acknowledge that and so we refuse to do so.

In a home invasion in Florida resulting in a triple murder, the home-owners surveillance camera showed the exact sequence of events and showed just where the perpetrators had positioned their feet and their hands, yet the forensic team was unable to lift any footprints or any fingerprints. The perpetrators were later identified and shown to be youthful thugs of no particular intellectual achievement or any other type of achievement in life. This would of course tend to make the absence of forensic evidence not be any indication of the existence of a skilled or intelligent criminal and thus one sense of the word mastermind would be eliminated. In a noted case in the San Diego area one pervert entered his neighbor's home while it was occupied and the occupants were alert and active though not necessarily moving about the home, yet the pervert not only was able to abduct their daughter he was able to do it without leaving any forensic evidence at all. No footprints, no fingerprints, nothing. Once again, this noted case involving an engineer shows that lack of forensic evidence does not render the perpetrator deserving of some sort of mastermind appellation. Oh sure in each of these two cases there can be some aspects that are less than ideal from a forensic viewpoint, but in real life I would imagine many cases are less than ideal. Certainly in the JBR case the forensic team knew what the already existing "party line" of the police department was, so I don't think we should ever be looking for a forensically ideal situation in the real world. Does the absence of forensic clues in the JBR case justify our viewing the intruder as some sort of mastermind or should we simply view him as someone who was reasonably lucky under the circumstances? Perhaps we should also bear in mind that just about anyone can enter a home when the homeowners are so very trusting and so very distant from the point of entry.

He left a ransom note but did not leave his own fingerprints on it. Well, its not very hard to obtain a pair of gloves in Boulder Colorado particularly in late December. Indeed, I would dare say that a person who lacked a pair of gloves in Boulder, Colorado in late December would be likely to come to the attention of passerby and perhaps even the police. And boxes and boxes of "latex" gloves are available in any drug store so its really not a sign of having great smarts if the intruder fails to leave fingerprints on the ransom note. Even if he removed his gloves once inside the home he might well not leave a usable print on the note due to finger secretions, humidity, brief contact with the paper surface or any number of such reasons.

He treked in and around the upstairs bedroom but no one really expects anyone to be leaving big muddy footprints so the absence of such prints does not confer any presumption of his having great smarts and certainly does not justify the use of the term mastermind in its sense of skillfulness. He was sufficiently stealthy but given the acoustics that was not a particularly challenging task and evidences no great skill or level of experience.

Now we can also address the issue of mastermind as a term implying some sort of personal dynamics involving a very controlling person and a more pliant accomplice. It is quite obvious that we can not have two persons of grossly unequal personal interaction until we first have two persons committing the crime. Evidence of two perpetrators is said to be two partial shoeprints, a perceived duality in the text of the ransom note and a perceived duality in the fabrication of the garotte as compared to the fabrication of the ransom note. Since it is concluded by the investigators that the instrument utilized to inflict a final blow was taken away as well as a stun gun, roll of duct tape, cloth, etc. there is some basis for assuming the presence of two perpetrators but no particular necessity for multiple perpetrators.

If we were to conclude that the cord was in fact optimal for its purpose and that the cord was neatly and precisely positioned around the paint handle we would have a matter that appears to contradict the senseless existence of a ransom note, the senseless length of the ransom note and the existence of the absurd text of the note. Such a duality of our perceptions is certainly slim evidence of two perpetrators. However, we can simply say that we are willing to accept this perceived discord as sufficient evidence of the existence of two perpetrators.

Now as to the applicability of mastermind to the two persons: It is possible though certainly unproven that if one person is precise and determined and another person engages in fanciful deluded behavior that the personal dynamics of the relationship might fit our rather loosely defined terms of mastermind and puppet.

Once we approach the end of this line of reasoning however we come to a serious matter. We can assume the existence of two perpetrators and we can assume a variety of things about their styles of interacting with each other, but if we arrive at a determination of one person being a mastermind and the other a compliant puppet then we must certainly conclude that the mastermind has enough on the ball to know that he can not allow the puppet to live. Puppets are by definition expendable. And rather easily expended also. Whoever would perform the actual acts of perversion that deposited the dna must surely be somewhat lacking in intellectual achievements as well as in what might be termed street-smarts, for if they were a scatterbrained puppet they are now certainly a dead scatterbrained puppet.

I can not see a mastermind as exposing himself to the risk of a puppet copping a plea in some other crime or perusing the tabloids and seeing something about a one-million dollar reward. No matter how much a mastermind valued his puppet, the puppet is clearly a liability.

We have all these rules about crime. One ofcourse is that criminals start out in a comfort zone and as much as possible stick to their comfort zone. Quite frankly, I don't know if comfort plays as much of a role as laziness does. Laziness on the part of the criminal as well as laziness on the part of the cops. We may simply catch more criminals since input from neighborhood observers will play a greater role but criminals do tend to be geographically mobile and it seems readily become quite comfortable wherever they happen to find themselves. Spontaneity is often an admirable character trait, even for a criminal. Just as we find it inconvenient to acknowledge that a junkie is more addicted to the needle than the drug, we often find it inconvenient to acknowledge the degree of geographic mobility of the criminal element and their penchant for spontaneous crimes of opportunity.

Recapitulation:
Multiple perpetrators: Possible but not proven. Footprints might be from others and one person could have carried all items that were brought or removed. One can say it is likely that the prints were recent and recent they well might be, but we know of no tests that were conducted and we do know of recent pedestrian traffic in some areas of the basement.

Mastermind-Puppet: Possible but most definitely not proven. A certain duality is acknowledged to exist but could well be an intentional deception for purposes of humor or investigatory confusion. The garotte is functional, the cord is functional, indeed it might be described as optimal. The garotte is simply fashioned but it appears to be carefully fashioned. Whereas the note is absurd in its existence, length and content, the stun gun use is absurdly insufficient (no matter how grateful we may be for that), the molestation is perhaps perfunctory, the bondage is perhaps more akin to decoration than dedication to sadism. Duality may indeed exist in our perception of the crime but this is merely consistent with multiple perpetrators of different personal dynamics and different goals, it is not proof of it.

Dead Puppet: Not proven but so gravely necessary for any mastermind that I fear we can write off any dna-donating puppet that may have existed. If the puppet existed, he served his purpose. After that, no matter how admired he might have been, he was a liability that could not be long indulged.

Mastermind (in the sense of planning a stellar caper): Not proven and in many aspects not likely. There was perhaps not quite a generic ransom note but certainly one that could well have been used or planned to have been used on a different date. There was no great display of planing or familiarity with the family. There was no great forensic skill displayed. Luck may surely have played a role but anyone can wipe away evidence, it does not require great brains to do so. There are no indications of great planning or feats of great daring. Evading capture is not difficult if the forensic team was at best half-hearted and there was an entrenched party-line concerning responsibility for the crime.

no questions

Most people that knew the late Patsy Ramsey, before and after JonBenet's murder, remember her with the warmest of memories and kindest of words. It's nice to see folks like Dresden speaking from the heart - -

Remembering Patsy
Posted by Dresden

"The family of JonBenet Ramsey is on my mind today. I had the pleasure of meeting and working with both John Ramsey and the late Patsy Ramsey. I have to say that I have never met a more beautiful soul than that of Patsy Ramsey. She was so down to earth and warm...No family should have to endure this kind of pain, but I trust God's plan and I know we are not supposed to question anything. [...read more]

baby face

Another article about child beauty pageants mentioning how the murder of JonBenet Ramsey thrust a so called 'subculture' into the spotlight as though beautiful child contests are something new and unusual, rather than a generations old, well established element of society - -

Girls line up to be 'Little Miss Perfect
Published in the LA Times
By Jon Caramanica

"In reality television, to film something is to judge it...The murder of JonBenét Ramsey a little more than 13 years ago helped thrust the child-pageant subculture into the spotlight, and it appears little has changed since then. Young women still get unreasonably dolled up in pursuit of trophies, and an entire coterie of leech-like figures -- coaches, dressmakers, makeup artists -- are there to expedite the process.

"Little Miss Perfect" focuses on glitz pageants (natural pageants forswear makeup and tanning and the like, and what kind of TV show would that make?) though what's overwhelming on this show is the sheer averageness of the proceedings, which take place in hotel ballrooms on makeshift stages while an audience of decidedly unglamorous parents and supporters look on.[...read more]

and zero

In the first 12 days of 2010 JonBenet Ramsey's name has been used in a number of media stories such as a golfer's fall from grace and now, an NBA player. This time, more about picture copyrights. I understand how a photographers work ought to be protected and the issue around pictures of Gilbert Arenas in the article below. But I still don't get why a parent, such as the Ramsey's, have no say so in the use and distribution of their offspring's images, no matter what the acquiring source - -

What's In a Picture? Apparently NOT Mr. Hero to "O"!

Posted by John Harrington

"Gilbert Arenas, known by his jersey number "O" seems to have gone from hero to a REAL zero, and then (at least temporarily) non-existent. Arenas, after apparently breaking the law by not only possessing handguns in Washington DC, but, if some reports are to be believed, brandishing them, is, according to NBA Commissioner David Stern, "...not currently fit to take the court...", then while it would stand to reason that the NBA wouldn't want the bad publicity, why would Getty Images - take down the images?

...The only way I've ever seen a true wire-service photo taken down was when it was demonstrated that the distribution of the photo was in violation of someone elses copyright (as with JonBenet Ramsey, here) or if the photo was manipulated..[...read more]

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life.

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life and similar reference works used in the film industry are just what we need for the JonBenet Ramsey case. For those of you unfamiliar with such reference works let me just give a brief explanation of them. They are the works that would be consulted to maintain realism on movie sets and in dialog. Today a young woman might walk into an office and announce that she was a secretary but in the early part of the twentieth century she would have announced that she was a typewriter. Not secretary, not typist, ... typewriter! Such things might be cut out of a film now or the dialog might be altered for current audiences but the director usually wants realism as a starting point. Its the same way with the background of location scenes. If the action takes place near a sidewalk fruit market, the display baskets will be appropriate to the time period and the price signage will be in prices that were in effect at whatever time the action is taking place. Advertisements in the background are appropriate to time and place, movie marquees show what would actually have been reasonable at the time. Such reference works give writers an ability to avoid gross errors. Knowing what an average wage was for a cowboy is just as important to a writer as knowing how far a horse may be ridden in a day or how much a plate of beans would actually cost in a saloon. Fashions and hair styles have to be appropriate to the time, as does architecture. Oh sure there can be exceptions, sometimes notable ones. Recent movies shot in Las Vegas have featured casinos that have been somewhat transplanted in time or location. I've previously mentioned in this blog the movie In The Heat of the Night (see: I Said Check It, Sam). Well, the action supposedly takes place in Sparta, Mississippi on a hot Summer night, but early in the movie Shagbag is seen chasing a suspect through what is obviously Fall foliage and obviously not Mississippi. Sometimes things simply don't get noticed or sometimes costs outweigh a desire for realism. Even today, studios tend to "not want the picture good, they want it Tuesday".

I just wish we had such a reference work for the world of criminals. What would it tell us if we could consult a Writer's Guide to Everyday Life of the Criminal? I wonder if its really reasonable for a pedophile to be willing to kill a six year old girl after but a few moments of jolting her with a stun gun. I wish we had a reference work which would tell us the length of time that a pedophile considers "bondage play" to be sufficient. I wish I had a reference work that would provide ready access to reliable facts and figures about crime and criminals.

I've based a fair amount of my conclusions about this case on assumptions that I have no way of verifying. It strikes me as strange that a man would be thought of as satiated by two lousy jolts from a stun gun. Was he disappointed or was he elated? Whats the matter? You object to my referring to the stun gun use on a six year old girl as "two lousy jolts"? Well, the whole point of this blog post is realism from the point of view of the criminal, so lets get real! If we are to solve this case we have to cast off our sensibilities and take a look at this crime from the viewpoint of the evil vile perpetrator who did these unspeakable acts.

I have at my desk ready reference works that will tell me just how many homicides the famed cowtowns of the Old West had. (Quite frankly, there were relatively few homicides and ofcourse not one instance ever anywhere of any gunfight at high noon). Our impressions are based on all the Westerns (known in the trade as "oaters") that we've seen. Yet our impressions are sorely lacking any relationship to actual history. Hangings, even outright lynchings? Sure, but check your history books and you will find that most were quite rightful according to time and place. Mining law districts in California, Nevada and Colorado may not have had formal peace officers but they did have both law and justice. Far less law than we have today and far more justice than we have today!

It is relatively easy to wade through reference works about real life and to then discard our media-fed myths. Ofcourse there are some tempting paralells to be drawn. I often wonder if the financial journalists of yesteryear were in fact any better than the financial journalists of today. In olden times we had newspapers that advertised cans of Gold Paste that were to rubbed onto your clothing prior to your rolling down a California hillside. At the bottom of the hill, you merely washed your clothes and retrieved the gold. Perhaps we can make comparisons to present day wealth acquisition where it was thought that all one had to do to obtain wealth was to go to a swank Palm Beach party and give your money to Bernie Madoff. Perhaps the quality of journalism never changes.

Nevertheless, we do have reference books that feature the nuts and bolts details of the real world rather than the world of myths and fantasies.

But what do we really know of pedophiles? Do they really prefer long-term relationships to one-night-stands? Its rather obvious they don't limit themselves in that regard. Some young children have been forcibly kidnapped and promptly disposed of. I recall one San Diego pedophile who apparently disposed of his victim promptly and then went treking all over the Mohave desert for a few days. His crime appears to have been impulsive and may have resulted from having been rejected by an adult female that he knew to fit the description of loose morals. He had lived next to his victim for several years but one night he entered her home and abducted her. Had the pervert lusted after her previously? I've no idea and I'm sure if there is any answer to that question it is an answer that has been mediated by defense counsel and self-interest on the part of the pervert.

So what do you want to know about "the Wild West"? I can instantly look up material on foods, fashions, education, land-ownership, tools, coinage, salaries, education, entertainment. I can show you the menu from a luxurious French restaurant in a Colorado boom town. I can show you the educational achievements of outlaws and miners. I can show you the operas and plays that were available in the places that your movies depict as having only cheap saloons and horse stalls. I can show you the real world because I have ready reference works at my fingertips. I can show you that the Indian did not consider the West to be wild until the arrival of the White man. I can show you that many women taken captive by Indians and then rescued, chose to return to their Indian tribes. I can show you battles that were contemporaneously described as victories that are now described as massacres. I can show you battles where Indian chiefs and military officers were close relatives. I can end your false mental images in a few moments with such reference works.

But where are our reference works on criminals? Oh you say there are profiler interviews by trained psychologists. Well, self-serving statements in prison by people who have not much in the way of entertainment are not really valid. I've not seen any validation studies. Most of what prisoners say is quite removed from the truth the moment anyone but other prisoners are around. And even in the company of other prisoners, cons tend to be guarded in their comments. So don't quote criminology texts to me. It just won't wash. Data is indeed available, but data-quality is simply too important to me to rely on some of the hogwash that I have seen bandied about. Cops get lied to all the time, tabloid television shows even reveal criminals not only lying before they've been shown a videotape but after they've been shown a videotape of their crimes.

So was it a neighborhood pervert? Was it a long-term grudge? Was it a momentary impulse? Was it a planned and carefully re-written ransom note or was it a bit of pure whimsey concocted on the spot in one sitting? So is a burglar alarm decal something an intruder even notices? Does entry via a basement window imply prior skillful entry? Does anything less than extreme activity as far as the perversions go indicate a psychological hesitancy or an ulterior motive? Does a walkway devoid of footprints show careful attention to detail or simply show that the BPD would have been wiser to use stretch plastic wrap on the walkways and apply their stun guns to it to reveal the remnants of footprints?

How is it we can get facts and figures on the wild west but not on the ransom note? I can tell you that cackleberry was a term for an egg, but can't tell you about attache case in the ransom note. I can tell you that rawhide was a derogatory term in the West, but can't tell you anything at all about the vocabulary of the ransom note.

The Utter Moral Bankruptcy of the DNA database.

The Utter Moral Bankruptcy of the DNA Database ??

Gee, few people declared that a fingerprint database or a mugshot database was somehow immoral. Why are we more sensitive when it comes to our dna? Oh sure, there are excesses at times in feeding profiles into dna databases. Some infants are now in police databases. One man had his dna added to a police database because he owned the firm wherein an employee had sent an email using the word "likey" which was deemed to be suggestive of a politically incorrect euphemism for a racial classification of an applicant for a building permit. And people do seem more and more troubled by such extremes of political correctness, overly broad rules and a growing lack of concern for the possibility of error.

Yet there is a growing concern over openness and ultimate effectiveness.

Scientists and lawyers are fighting to get the entire CODIS database opened to expose errors and false positives. Interesting to scientists and statisticians but I fear it would be misused in the hands of lawyers when presented to overwhelmed jurors and judges. Yet, it seems that we are at our most vulnerable whenever the highly valued technology is relied upon. We rely on GPS systems and unwisely drive into remote areas during inclement weather. We find that even a Detective Constable such as Shirley McKie is unable to overcome the presumption of infallibility of the database and the political shenanigans that to this day have the Scottish fingerprint authorities tenaciously clinging to an identification that over 200 fingerprints experts describe as clearly erronious. We find administrative and processing errors in handling dna-laden forensic evidence and yet the database results are usually accepted without question.

"...Criminal detection using the UK DNA database have fallen 25 percent over the past two years despite the number of profiles increasing by 1m and its running costs doubling to £4.2m a year." This fragment from Opendotdotdot fails to appropriately differentiate between identification of criminal suspects and the ultimate prosecution of crimes, yet it is interesting to note that there is some value to the concept even though the numbers are a bit misleading.

"...This "most effective tool for the prevention and detection of crime since the development of fingerprint analysis" is getting ever-less effective and more costly, and infringing on the rights of ever more people..." Well, just about everything is more costly and infringing on more rights than before.

"...The UK government is continuing to foist this intrusive, disproportionate, racist and morally repugnant approach.". It is clear that some people do indeed hold strong views on the matter and do express them in a colorful manner. Do we expect the London Bobby to go strolling around in the bitter cold or to stay in the warm stationhouse doing paperwork and profiling? Each activity undoubtedly has some benefits to it and some direct costs to it as well. In emphasizing a consideration of cost some are arguing that there is a cost to society as police become more involved with technological surveillance than in walking a beat and interacting with the populace in a friendly and supportive manner. A great many crimes now solved by personal contact rather than tecnology will go unsolved when the people lose trust and the police become soley an intrusive surveillance force.

Irrespective of what societal changes may or may not be taking place, its important to remember that a slavish adherence to a database can be just as damaging as a slavish adherence to any profile, rule of thumb, guideline or mistaken notion of routine procedures. Just as parents are most vulnerable when they lose a child, so too are defendants most vulnerable when a database error is relied on. Its not the database that is morally repugnant as much as those who would excessively feed the database or excessively rely upon it.

free culture

Good questions posed by Cee Kay over at Desocritics, with the wrap up tied to the persecution of JonBenet Ramsey's family in the court of public opinion - -

"What is more important - our right to freedom of speech or our responsibility to cause no harm?"

"Can someone else's right to free speech infringe upon this inalienable right granted to them?"

Freedom of Speech or Responsibility to Do No Harm?
Posted in Desicritics
by Cee Kay

"...I have seen this kind of relentless pursuit of parents by the media in Jonbenet Ramsey case, though the wrongful death scenario doesn’t fit there. What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? Should the media (or public) be allowed to take matters in their own hands and pursue the people they imagine to be guilty?

Again - DOES my right to freedom of speech trump someone else's right to live (and pursue happiness)?[...read more]

Reflections Upon JonBenet and the Voynich Manuscript

Concerning the Voynich Manuscript and the murder of JonBenet Ramsey.

Muse: What? What utter nonsense is this? Has that infernal FleaStiff finally taken leave of his last remaining senses? Now that utter fool is trying to link the torture, rape and murder of little girl in Boulder Colorado to a famed pre-Columbian manuscript that has posed a riddle to the experts as well as the amateurs through the ages? How can that utter dolt think the two are in any way related to each other? What twisted linkages in his addled brain could possible entertain even the fleeting notion of such a connection?

Well, Muse, I realize those are your initial thoughts, but let me 'splain.

Muse: You darned well better explain yourself and do it pretty darn quick. Your readers are getting tired of nonsense! Film Noir, Scottish police inquiries, fictional detectives ... you should learn to stay on point. It was a murder committed in Boulder, Colorado in 1996! It got nothin' to do with Voynich and his 1912 discoveries.

Okay, its like this:

All within the space of the last few months, the famed Voynich Manuscript has been proven by experts to be:

A spreadsheet,
An instance of symbolic algebra,
Not a language at all,
A musical manuscript,
a synthetic language,
A simple annagram of every day Italian,
A manuscript authored by Roger Bacon in the fifteenth century,
A manuscript authored by three generations of Italians who owned the villa in which it was found,
A manuscript authored by Leonardo DaVinci in his childhood.

Please do not get me wrong, each and everyone of these pronouncements were made over the span of about six months by qualified and dedicated experts using the most advanced techniques and equipment available in their respective fields.

Muse: Wrong? For you "wrong" is usually the right word to use!

Oh Muse, get thee behind me! You are supposed to inspire me, not perpetually degrade my intellectual achievements. Why do I perpetually argue with you when I could be at The Planetarium observing heavenly bodies instead?

Muse: Hah!! You can't fool me. I know about those heavenly bodies you want to observe. And I know that The Planetarium is that next-door strip club. And I know that you still ain't said nuttin' 'bout no JonBenet Ramsey murder. So as I keep telling you over and over: Get To The Point!!

With your intrusive comments breaking my chain of thought, its a wonder I ever can frame a coherent sentence. As a muse you are supposed to be poetic and inspiring to me, not my constantly ridiculing Xantippe.

Muse: You ain't never framed no coherent sentence in your entire life! And you sure ain't never framed no humorous one, neither! Now get back to that Voynich Manuscript, 'bout which you know nothin'. And above all else get back to the JonBenet Ramsey case, 'bout which you know nothin' neither.

Well from all those contradictory or incomplete pronouncements in the news of late, it sure seems like its experts that don't know anything about the Voynich manuscript. How can scholars in different fields after applying very advanced techniques in a formal manner arrive at such differing conclusions and yet the expert is judged to remain an expert? I mean each of them has announced that they have at long last found the one definitive answer to this riddle that has perplexed us for centuries. So how come they all have different answers?

Maybe I should stop having respect for scholars? Maybe I should stop deferring to experts? This is where the murder of JonBenet Ramsey comes in.

Muse: Well, its about time you finally got around to JonBenet Ramsey!!

Oh, Muse, will you stop. I work my head to the bone to please you and all you do is razz me all the time and diminish the pleasures of the heavenly bodies at the Planetarium.

Well, look at this way. We know darn well the whole world laughs at the BPD. Oh they may not do so publicly but privately they surely do. The DA's investigation went nowhere too, he wouldn't even listen to much less heed the experienced guy he himself had hired from a field of 24 finalists. So if the BPD ignores the dna experts and the DA ignores the expert he hired, why can't I ignore those talking head experts too?

So how do we resolve issues that require expertise? Or is war really too important to be left to the generals? Should we indeed dispense with each and every one of these so-called experts?

I mean we hear alot about experts getting something right and we so seldom hear about experts getting something wrong. So maybe I should just reconsider this whole notion of investigatory expertise.

Muse: Notion. Thats sure the right word. You are so utterly notional. So what you really want to discuss are complex determinations by experts. And you want to do more than discuss them, you seem to want to dismiss them.

Well, yeah. I mean some things are clearly the province of the jury, some things are beyond the ken of the ordinary layman sitting on a jury and then some things are sort of an in between category wherein one side will try to get it before the jury but its not necessarily proper or helpful because it really is a matter for the jury and only the jury.

Muse: Oh, you mean sort of like a Cable News Talking Head. He spouts something but he may not really have any more facts at his disposal than anyone else and his role is really that of entertainer.

Precisely. I see all these experts making contradictory statements about the Voynich Manuscript and I can't help but feel something is amiss. And whats worse, the most sensible and factually supported pronouncement relates to a conclusion that the language is simple Italian and not something that should have puzzled scholars for centuries. I mean that if it looks like its Italian and it is known to have been found in Italy then why on earth should it take so many centuries for some expert to pronounce that the document is indeed in Italian? It should not have even puzzled laymen for centuries, much less experts. Yet it has. If the experts get it so wrong on the Voynich Manuscript ... perhaps we should just dispense with them experts on the JonBenet Investigation?

So let us then go to the establishment located next door and inquire of the patrons and the performers just what they think about the JonBenet investigation.

Muse: Man, you will use any excuse to go to a strip club!

Well, I spoke to Miss Bubbles LaRue in between her appearances on stage and she made some interesting comments as well as some interesting suggestions.

Muse: Just stick to the comments she made, not what she suggested you two do together in the Champagne Room. We don't want to hear about that.

Well, Bubbles said that every night she has to make decisions about when to show up since if she shows up early she gets to pay a lower stage-rent for that night. Yet, if she is there early its a less crowded place and her tips will be lower. And once she is signed in, she can't head to a different club in hopes of a more profitable night elsewhere. She has to make decisions about which particular leering drunk is likely to give her the biggest amount of money and which music selections will work the crowd up nicely. She must allocate her time amongst the various lechers so as to maximize the contributions of each of them. In short, being a stripper requires a brain!

Now I had no idea how much calculation went into a stripper's decision making but I felt her suggestion about the crime was a good one. Based upon her expertise, she felt the killer likewise had to know what he was doing. Just as her world is not a matter of simply showing up and taking her clothes off while doing a few miscellaneous bumps and grinds, she felt the killer lived in a world requiring prior decision making skills and prior habits of being efficient and effective. He knew the target, the neighborhood, the manner in which to dress and whats more he felt comfortable with his knowledge. Above all else, he felt comfortable with his actions. Bubbles was clearly of the opinion that the killer would no more feel regret afterwards than she feels any regret in taking her clothes off in a room full of strange men. She tallys up her take at the end of the night and may have some opinions as to how those dirty little drunken cheapskates should go home to their wives but she doesn't have any regrets about what she chose to do for the evening. Bubbles was therefore quite certain that once having made decisions that involved a certain course of conduct with a six year old girl, the killer would not be feeling any sort of shame or remorse. She therefore felt that any sort of profile of the killer should reflect those actions and emotions that people generally feel rather than some set of emotions or actions that we want to impose on our killer for our pyschological benefit.

Muse: Well, that sort of makes sense but just what did she mean by it.

Well, its like those do-gooders who sometimes parade up and down the sidewalk outside the club. Those do-gooders keep telling her that she should be ashamed of what she does for a living. Now Bubbles takes her clothes off in front of a room full of strange men and goes home with oodles and oodles of dollar bills, yet she has to put up with those do-gooder wives who think she is the one who should feel shame. She feels no shame about it and she ain't never gonna feel no shame about it. Ain't nothing happening in the strip club that she didn't expect to happen.

Muse: So tell me again, just what does this have to do with JonBenet Ramsey?

Well, I was just thinking. No matter what we as civilized human beings might think maybe we should stop thinking like those parading do-gooders outside the club and start thinking like Bubbles LaRue thinks. She takes her clothes off for money. Thats the choice she makes. She doesn't feel any shame. So maybe we should stop thinking that the killer of JonBenet would ever feel any sort of shame, regret or remorse of any sort. Maybe we should stop thinking the way these experts keep telling us to think. Maybe we should just accept the fact that after the killer of JonBenet Ramsey got to a place of seeming safety, he did not turn to religion. Maybe he did what people do after graduating from high school or after buying their first car? Maybe he celebrated this great achievement in his life?

Muse: You evil, vile nutcase!!

No,No! Hear me out!! Just as Bubbles LaRue knows what is likely to happen when she enters the club, the killer knew what was likely to happen when he went into the Ramsey home. We have all these experts telling us he would feel shame and remorse, but I think we should ignore the experts and just accept that he would more likely feel a sense of accomplishment.

Muse: And you base this on the statements made to you by Bubbles LaRue of The Planetarium?

Yes. After all, she is more expert than anyone else. She is more of an expert than those housewives that are parading around outide. Those placard toting housewives have husbands who are inside the club giving their money to Bubbles. She is more of an expert than those highly educated sociologists what are always showing up to interview her. Those sociologists got brains but don't make in month what Bubbles makes in one night. So whats the use of listening to experts. If Bubbles states that the killer was proud of his accomplishment then I think he was proud of his accomplishment too. If Bubbles states that he killed JonBenet because that was his goal, then he killed JonBenet because that was his goal. It had nothing to do with his suddenly being unable to perform other acts that he might have intended to perform.

Muse: Oh, so you've finally got around to making your point. After all this stuff about Voynich Manuscripts and experts what you really want to to is dispense with all learning and only embrace leering!

No, no, not at all. I merely mean we should not allow those in the learned professions to let us lose sight of some basic truths about crime. Those civilized, educated types want us to think that the killer of JonBenet Ramsey had some sudden transfixing fundamental change come over him. Well it didn't happen. When a man leaves a strip bar to go home to his wife it is not because he had a sudden transfixing fundamental change in his value system. Its because he ran out of money.

So let us return to the world of Parker and of Phillip Marlowe. Parker is the unemotional, dedicated consummate professional who remains focused on the goal at all times. He is a professional criminal because that is the life that he has chosen. He knows he is not suited for the straight and narrow. Phillip Marlowe is the shamus what goes around town nobly wading through the dregs of society on behalf of the wealthy only to learn that the filth, deceit and depravity of the gutter is the same filth, deceit and depravity of the wealthy. The only difference is the facade. The wealthy pay Marlowe to fight the depravity of those in the gutter with the money the wealthy obtain from their own depravity.

So let us address some case themes and obtain our answers from the world of Bubbles LaRue, Parker and Phillip Marlowe.

Case theme: Erectile Dysfunction. Was the intruder's semen unable to be recovered from the crime scene because he found himself physiologically unable to perform the acts that he had intended to perform?

Well, Parker ain't never assembled a team to knock over a jewelry warehouse and then suddenly discovered that nobody on the team knows how to open a safe. The Intruder in the JonBenet case was aware of his physiological abilities when he entered the window well. He didn't take down some six year old girl's panties and then suddenly remember that he had been having problems achieving and maintaining an erection. The intruder was capable and competent when he selected his clothing so as to blend into the neighborhood. The intruder was capable and competent when he selected the point of entry. The intruder was capable and competent when he selected a place of concealment within the home. The intruder was capable and competent when he emerged from hiding and successfully obtained his prey. So all of a sudden the case sleuths want to render the intruder impotent simply because it salves the conscience of the sleuth? No. That intruder did exactly and precisely whatever he wanted to do. He chose whether to wear gloves or not, he chose whether to stun or not, he chose whether to rape or not. Whatever he did or did not do to his victim was determined by his desires and his knowledge of the forensic sciences. After he had mastered all the obstacles in obtaining his prey, he did not suddenly fall victim to some sort of disabling sensibilities. He does not have any disabling sensibilities. If he made a decision about various acts that would leave copious amounts of dna at the crime scene then he made that decision based on an evaluation of the forensic danger to himself versus any desires that he might have had.

Case theme: Bondage. Was the intruder heavily into the world of bondage? Or were the bondage related items at the scene the mere trappings of bondage that constitute a sort of set decoration.

Well Parker would only leave an item at the scene of the crime if it would delay the cops or send the cops off in the wrong direction. Parker would never leave something at a crime scene merely for entertainment. Would a less consummate criminal find entertainment in the humiliation of a six year old girl? Or the infliction of terror and pain on a six year old girl? In the settlement of the American west six year old girls might indeed be killed by Indians but that doesn't mean a warrior would feel moved to count coup over his "opponent". He would not scalp the six year old girl and display the scalp on his spear or his lodgepole. And the "Indians" (actually the Utah Territorial Militia) who shot the two little girls bedecked in white and carrying a humanitarian water-pail at Mountain Meadows took no sexual pleasure from the action. The shooting of the two little girls seeking water for the parched "federal invaders" were killed simply for the effects the deaths would have on the adults. So maybe its time we focus on the fact that to many people killing a child is no big deal at all.

So was it bondage or mere bondage trappings? I don't know for sure, but if it was actual bondage that he enjoyed, it sure seems he enjoyed it fairly briefly. Its the same way with the stun gun use. He did in fact have a stun gun and he clearly did in fact use that stun gun on his victim. Although we can not prove precisely when and where he used the stun gun, we do know that it was at most two jolts. So even if we allow him a few minutes rather than a few seconds for each of those jolts, we still get a mighty short period of time. He takes all the risks that he undertook that night in return for a few paltry jolts of electricity and a few humiliating and painful positions that he subject JonBenet to. Well, maybe he did actually commit this crime primarily for a few moments of experimentation with a stun gun and perhaps a few hours of putting a six year old girl into some bondage situations that he had long imagined doing. I just fail to see how such an irrational criminal can be so sensible about everything else but so utterly foolish about his goals. Should we as sleuths adopt a viewpoint that the criminal is akin to the "savage Indian who kills a six year old girl"? Or should we as sleuths pay less attention to the specifics of the crime and have more of a focus on the effects of the crime on the parents because that is the only thing we see that makes his actions sensible to us. If the savage will kill a child but not boast of it what view should we take of bondage involving a child? Do we think the intruder felt that inflicting bondage and torture on a six year old girl was an achievement? The raw inescapable truth is that it just may have been an achievement to him no matter how brief or perfunctory his acts may or may not have been. No expert exists that can truly determine either the time that was devoted to the various acts that night nor the emotional significance of any of them to the intruder.

We know he left a ransom note but it is so absurd in its content and its setting that it is more in the form of a parody. He did not want or expect a ransom payment. So is the rest of the crime such as the parts about the bondage and the violation just as trivial to him as the ransom? Did he enjoy the fantasy of the note or did he enjoy the insult that the note consists of? He surely did not enjoy thoughts of all that money. Its not all that much money and its surely unlikely that a parent would pay a ransom for a child they knew was already dead.

Perhaps I should stop looking for rationality and stop trying to impose my values on the intruder? The savage Indian may not boast about killing the little girl, but he has no compunctions against doing it. The Mormon Militia at Mountain Meadows did not hesitate to kill the little girls. Bubbles LaRue does not hesitate to strip naked in a roomful of leering drunks. People are what they do and they do what they choose. So what on earth is so wrong with me? Why am I looking for rational behavior in the intruder? He strangled a helpless six year old girl because he enjoyed it, he bashed her brains because he enjoyed it. Bubbles gives a list of songs to the DeeJay and he mixes and matches as he sees fit, but in reality her performances last just about as long as song does. Yet a great deal of money changes hands nevertheless. So if leering drunks go to strip clubs for three-minute long performances just maybe a homicidal afficiado of torture did indeed find great pleasure in two quick jolts. Its just that if we choose to attribute to Bubbles LaRue sufficient knowledge about how to get leering drunks to part with their money then perhaps we should attribute to intruding murderers sufficient knowledge of just how brief two quick jolts of electricity are going to be and just how capable of performing they are going to be.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them. So what would Epictetus say is the proper view for us to take? Epictetus may be in a cage, but his mind is free. Well we are enslaved by a homicide that revolts us and by a police investigation that revolts us and by journalism the quality of which truly revolts us to the core of our being. Is the fault in the views we take? Epictetus would have us define good and evil as being determined within ourselves by the views we choose to take. Well, good and evil are also extrinsic entities with their own separat existence. Certain immutable laws apply. If we jump out the window we will fall, irrespective of whether or not we choose to fly. Is it somehow more noble for us to hit the ground with our arms flapping? If we choose to take the view that pedophiles are posessed by mis-wired brains, that is fine but we can not allow pedophiles to get away with the acts that they perform. We can choose to view murder as simply murder or we can choose to view a child murder as of elevated concern to our society, but we can not escape the fact that no matter how we view the murder of JonBenet Ramsey more effort seems to have been invested in the BPD press releases than in thier actual investigation. And I for one am left with a nagging belief that the Boulder police are in fact more upset with the challenges to their turf than the challenges of solving the murder. Stoicism? I find it hard to glance at the calendar these days. No matter what the actual artwork is, in my view its always some Boulder cop with a cruller.

Should we take the view that the intruder is a capable, skilled and dedicated person on a mission that in his culture and in his own psyche is not only proper but noble? If we take such a view then we can hardly assume he was suddenly physiologically incapable of performing certain acts. Men who are on a noble mission are not suddenly disabled, they are free from external coercion in their values and in their actions. They are the stoics!

So I fear that it is necessary for us to accept that Bubbles LaRue knows enough about herself and her business to make a really good account of actions. It is also necessary for us to accept that the intruder knows enough about himself and his business to have made a really good account of his actions. Just as we find freedom in releasing Bubbles LaRue of our prejudices, we must find freedom in releasing the intruder from our prejudices. Oh that does not mean we must release him from the bounds of our civilization and its laws. It simply means that we must release him from our sense of values that we are attempting to impose upon him. He chose to embed that cord deeply in that tiny neck. He enjoyed doing it. We can not view him as suddenly wanting to strangle her. He wanted it all the time he was planning his dastardly deeds. We can not view him as suddenly disabled by phsysiology. We must accept that he was untroubled by his deeds then and is untroubled by his deeds now.

Muse: So after all this palaver and invoking of Voynich, Epictetus and your stripper friend, Bubbles, what you really are saying is that you are hereby rejecting all those criminology experts whose pronouncements about the intruder are grounded in their own sensibilities.

Thats right. Just as Parker would never plan a jewelry heist without knowing about safes and jewels, the intruder would not plan a rape without knowing about his own abilities. Nor would he plan a bondage e nactment scenario without knowing about his own desires regarding the enjoyment and the duration of that enjoyment. Nor would he plan the use of a stun gun torture episode with having full knowledge of the duration of the episode and the duration of the pleasure to be derived from it. If we acknowledge that a stripper has enough on the ball to know her business then we must acknowledge that the intruder knows enough about himself to have done exactly and precisely what he wanted to do. No more and no less. We must reject the experts who would have us believe otherwise. Experts simply no longer merit our respect when it takes them centuries to deem a document found in Italy is written in Italian. Experts simply no longer merit our respect when it takes them years of painstaking research to come to contrary results. Experts simply no longer hold sway. The Voynich manuscript can not have authors that were separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years, no matter what the experts tell us. The Voynich manuscript can not be both text and symbolic algebra, no matter what the experts try to tell us. In rejecting the experts who have studied the Voynich Manuscript I reject experts in their entirety. Its time for the talking heads to be silent. Its time for the jurors to re-assert themselves and state that whatever is in the province of the jury should be left to the jurors, not the experts. In accepting the plain truth that the ordinary man going about his daily affairs has sufficient knowledge and experience to render a verdict on the issue of guilt we have to also accept the fact that the ordinary man going about his daily affairs often has the ability to wade into matters that would otherwise be the sole province of experts. The ordinary man is more expert than we tend to think. And with recent revelations concerning experts about the Voynich Manuscript and experts in the forensic sciences, I think the ordinary man just may be far more capable of arriving at the proper decisions than we usully give him credit for.

Muse: So that leaves Philip Marlowe as having been mentioned but the invocation of his personna is unresolved in any way.

Oh, thats simple too! We are Philip Marlowe! We are the knight errants who embark upon a sojourn through the gutter. We are the ones who suffer trials and tribulations in dealing with the dregs of society only to discover our employers are just as morally bankrupt as the gutter-life we deal with. We are the ones who are angry at the incompetence and intransigence of the BPD, only to discover that such incompetence is quite common. We are the ones who decry the lack of quality in the endeavors of the journalists only to learn that in selling more salted peanuts than caviar America has always basked in the glow of poor quality journalism. We are the ones who sojourn through filth attempting to right the wrongs of the world only to find out that such wrongs are but entertainment to much of the world's populace. We are the ones who are the incorruptibly honest and as Philip Marlowe said: King of the Fools.

mind over media

Every once in awhile I come across articles of comparison between the murders of JonBenet Ramsey and Caylee Anthony. I don't see a great commonality in these crimes, but for the apparent public appetite for titillating details delivered in the trial-by-the media and the perversion of our Constitution - -

Family cleared in JonBenet Ramsey’s death

Posted at Never Cry Wolf

"In many ways The Jon Benet Ramsey Case resembles The Casey Anthony case. The public “trial” of Ms. Anthony as we have seen, paints a very sour picture of The Florida prosecution, law enforcement and media .You would think Jon Benet case would have taught us all something but tragically we replay it over and over again."[...read more]

matters of hate

I've never known a child prodigy along the line of a young Christina Aguilera. Since JonBenet became famous as a result of a brutal crime, it is hard to guess if prior she was once perceived as some kind of prodigy too. I am quite taken back by the hate and violence Aguilera's family apparently experienced while Christina was growing up - because of Christina's gift of voice. Sure, there are various flavors of competitive jealousies but I've never heard of such a thing, a family run out of their neighborhood, hated for a child's God given talent - -


Queen Christina: Christina Aguilera Marie Claire Interview
Posted at Rouge

"Christina Aguilera’s 22-month-old son, Max, is giving me a guided tour of their Beverly Hills home—

...Growing up, Aguilera was such a bigvoiced prodigy—the voice of Etta James trapped in the body of JonBenét Ramsey, with slightly less makeup—that kids mocked her mercilessly, threatened her mother, slashed the family’s car tires. (Eventually, the family had to move.) Not only did she have incongruous technical gifts, but she also brought to the music she sang a kind of heartbreak well beyond her years....[...read more]

yes, it's weird

Celebrity status as the result of the 1996 viscous and yet to be solved murder, JonBenet Ramsey's autopsy images made an online presence back in the late 1990's, still a source of discussion today - -

Celebrity Autopsy of Brittany Murphy and Tupac Shakur Online

Posted by gladiator2332

"JonBenet Ramsey autopsy photos are being uploaded on internet sites...We could think what would make a woman search for Autopsy of famous celebrities?

...I wonder if I get killed will people argue that I exist even when they find the death images, like they do Tupac to this minute. What about you? Do you want to see the dead body of Brittany Murphy or President JFK? Or is that just weird?'[...read more]

cracking cases

The lead investigators for the Ramsey family regarding JonBenet's murder, still on the unsolved case now in it's 14th year later, are delivering on commitments to help victim's families with their expertise - -

Private investigators: man's 2007 death in Navarre wasn't accidental drowning
Published in the Northwest Florida Daily
By Jeff Barker

"NAVARRE BEACH — The mother of a young man found dead nearly three years ago is teaming up with investigators from the JonBenet Ramsey case.

Melody Schmitt, believes someone murdered her son, Joshua Whittier, in February 2007, although the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office determined he drowned....A friend of Schmitt’s told her to talk to Lou Smit, a forensic specialist who worked on the JonBenet Ramsey case. Smit and Ollie Gray, both retired from law enforcement, do free follow-up investigations. They have been collecting evidence related to Whittier’s death for 7 or 8 months.

“A lot of times people can’t afford to have follow-up done on things,” Gray said. “Law enforcement a lot of times doesn’t have the manpower or experience.”

Gray said he doesn’t think Whittier’s death was an accident. His wallet was empty when his body was discovered, he said....[...read more]