Thread by @BTH_Bill

I'm not much of a true crime guy but I'm making an exception for a couple of threads about one of the most bizarre unsolved murder cases in recent memory: the killing of JonBenet Ramsey.

First up: Stephen Singular's "Presumed Guilty: An Investigation Into the JonBenet Ramsey Case, the Media, and the Culture of Pornography." New Millennium, 1999.

Second will be A. James Kolar's "Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet?"

I'm giving each of these books a thread of their own because I think they make good companions, for reasons I'll get into at some point.

Without further ado, let's begin on "Presumed Gulity"...

Singular had been on the periphery of the OJ Simpson case for much of 1994 and 1995 as a freelance journalist and investigator. Since they resided in Colorado, Singular and his wife couldn't help but get involved when another high-profile murder case occurred closer to home.

Some very basic facts: JonBenet Ramsey was killed sometime either late Christmas night or in the early morning hours of December 26, 1996, nearly 25 years ago.

Her parents found a "ransom note" stating JonBenet had been kidnapped at around 5:50am on the 26th; approximately 7 hours later her body was discovered in the basement of their home.

The case quickly became a media sensation. Due to her mother's interest in the child beauty pageant circuit, the girl was photographed extensively, and images of the girl dominated nightly newscasts and supermarket tabloids for months and months.

The media element made for a very tumultuous criminal investigation; the Boulder, CO police department did not have extensive experience with homicide investigations (JonBenet was their first of the year for 1996), and media criticism was swift and severe:

In the midst of the Ramsey circus was the Clinton circus, as well as the rise of the internet as a new avenue for the pornography industry to find customers. The result, Singular argues, was a culture with extremely bizarre attitudes towards sex:

Singular's most consistent contact within the case was with Boulder D.A. Alex Hunter. "Many D.A.'s are macho figures who like to swagger inside their authority," Singular writes, but Hunter didn't fit that mold:

There would come to be a great deal of (well-publicized) friction between the D.A.'s office and the Boulder police investigators, but at least through the first 3 months, things were progressing well:

"Editorial writers ride out of the hills after the battle is over and shoot the wounded." On the different agendas for media and investigators:

The parents themselves gave a sit-down interview with CNN long before they ever cooperated with police requests for a formal interview; other than giving hair/print samples, they would not have such an interview until April of 1997.

The Ramseys were in Boulder's high society, and many of that clique had attended a holiday party at their home just prior to Christmas. But the Ramseys quickly became pariahs based on their public comments and behavior:

This pressure, plus disagreements about which direction to focus investigative resources, began to crack what should have been a united front between Boulder PD and the D.A.'s office:

The Ramseys hired a firm headed by Hal Haddon, who effectively ran PR for the family. In April, 1997, the Ramsey camp handpicked reporters for a tightly managed "news conference"; no questions about JonBenet or the events of 12/26 were permitted.

This is where Singular begins to sketch out his own theory of the case, as he tried to read between the lines... "What if the Ramseys are guilty and innocent at the same time? What if *who* had killed her was ultimately less significant than *what* had killed her?"

Singular points out that John Ramsey and Patsy Ramsey each retained their own legal counsel, and did so before JonBenet's funeral had even been planned.

Singular worked the child pornography angle of the case, and was generating some interesting leads as a result. He brought the info to the D.A., who essentially stated that the cops wouldn't go down that path, as they were laser-focused on the parents.

Another mystery: what happened between Fleet White and John Ramsey? The two men, who'd been very close friends prior to the murder, had some sort of altercation in Georgia (around JonBenet's funeral) that required police intervention:

Singular was contacted by a woman who saw a photo of JonBenet in a "provocative pose" in a Michigan home (near the Ramsey family's Charlevoix residence) prior to the murder.

What if one of the parents had allowed JonBenet to work with a predatory photographer or other associate in the child beauty pageant circuit? What if she'd been killed elsewhere and brought home dead?

Even those within the child beauty pageant circuit, such as Pam Griffin, who'd been a seamstress for JonBenet's elaborate outfits, were aware of some of the possible dangers involved with their chosen pastime:

By August of 1997, suspects were slowly being whittled down, but the level of dysfunction and disconnect between the cops and prosecutors was only getting more intense.

Essentially, the Boulder cops were using some reporters to snoop around and find out what the DA was up to; the D.A. was doing the same, as well as meeting with Singular to find out what the Ramseys' P.I. was digging up. Just a masterclass in broken/dysfunctional communication.

Singular lays out his theory of the murder. This is much different than the scenario I'll lay out in the thread about Foreign Faction. But here are the basics:

Singular's theory, at least at time of publication (1999): JonBenet was sent to do a photo shoot on Christmas night. She was returned home dead. For reasons that are still a mystery, John decided his best course of action was a cover-up.

Singular ran all of this by Detective Wickman, who was working the case. Wickman's responses are very coy, but he doesn't totally discount the theory. This, to me, is the most interesting part of the book:

"Why is it that people want everything to be simple and clean? ... what if there's nothing simple and clean, here? What if (John Ramsey) doesn't really know what happened that night?"

My two cents: it's a good book, and the main takeaway for me is to cease thinking of this case as a binary (Ramseys GUILTY or Ramseys INNOCENT). Singular makes a compelling case for the middle ground.

Perhaps she was killed elsewhere, her body was brought home, and sometime in the wee hours of 12/26/1996 her parents settled on "cover-up" over "justice" as their best course of action.

Singular wrote this book in 1999. At the time it was published, a grand jury had been convened to hear all of the available evidence of the case. Their findings were turned over to the District Attorney's office, who declined to prosecute anyone, then sealed the files.

Since the Ramseys hadn't been charged, and since one of D.A. Hunter's successors (Mary Lacy) publicly cleared the Ramseys of culpability in 2008, everyone assumed the grand jury had declined to recommend charges.

In 2013, after a long series of lawsuits between Colorado News organizations and the state, 4 unredacted pages of the 14 page summary where released to the public. Here they are:

In short, Singular was on to something. The grand jury recommended the parents be charged with allowing JonBenet to be put into danger and with participating in the subsequent cover-up.

Why the D.A.'s office has been so unwilling to move forward against the Ramseys is anyone's guess. Someone should leak the remaining 10 pages of the summary, or, better yet, the full report.

Thus concludes the thread on "Presumed Guilty." Next, I'll have a thread on "Foreign Faction" by A. James Kolar, which was published in 2012 and gets even further into the weeds of the case.