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.