A best-fit analysis of the facts and circumstances related to the death of JonBenet Patricia Ramsey

Bill McReynolds was a former University of Colorado journalism professor, who played Santa Claus at the Ramseys' Christmas parties, including one the week JBR was killed. Years before JBR was murdered, his wife Janet McReynolds wrote a play with many parallels to the JBR crime. The play was called Hey, Rube. It was suggested by a true crime which occurred in the '60s. A young girl (16 year-old Sylvia Likens) was tortured over a period of months and finally murdered by a woman with whom she was boarded and the woman's two daughters. Contrary to hearsay, the victim in this real case was not sexually molested in the classic definition. The play starts with a courtroom scene and the story is told in flashbacks. The focal point of the play is the close identity the woman feels with her victim. She keeps insisting, "I am the one who was murdered." A carnival atmosphere adds a bizarre element. One of the possible suspects the Ramseys brought to the attention of the police the very day JBR’s remains were recovered was Bill and Janet McReynolds.

The real Sylvia Likens, left

Bill McReynolds was quoted as saying, "I think it is hurtful that Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey are accusing me and my wife of being in any way involved in the murder of their child," Bill McReynolds said. "We have been exhaustively investigated and exonerated by the authorities."

You betcha!

It was hurtful to you but a source of endless humor for a Narcissist. And since a Narcissist doesn’t have empathy for anyone, what you feel doesn’t matter one iota to them. But that damn pervert dropped his DNA in the mix and confused everything! Too bad, it didn’t work like they hoped. McReynolds was clueless. Or was he? One of the common patterns seen with hard-core Narcissists is that people around them seem to continually and consistently underestimate them. If Narcissism played a role here, it helps explain how both their friends and the general public had such a hard time imagining their guilt. Narcissists are consummate experts at public image and deception. Lizzie Borden was one of them.

But there’s more. Several years before the JBR murder Bill McReynold’s daughter was abducted along with a friend of hers. This occurred on, you guessed it, 26 December. The friend was molested but McReynold’s daughter was just made to watch (yea right, that’s called victim privacy, my friend). Now, our best-fit shows that the murder may have been far more cold and calculated than anyone might have thought before. But could this also have been premeditated? Yes. Remember the rope and the unique black duct tape? Both were apparently purchased using PR’s American Express card about one month before the murder at a local Boulder hardware store. Oh yes, I know this person all too well. Sadie Ann Komrik, my love, found this to be so hilarious she still laughs at any hint of this story. Sadie’s greatest source of humor in the JBR case is how PR set McReynold’s up, basically setting up Santa Claus as a pervert – a man whose own daughter was actually victimized by a pervert!. Whenever I say, “Santa” she explodes in laughter. They are so clever, so cunning, such great stage performers and so great at public image. But so damn witchy in the dark! So, was PR fucking with people on purpose? Of course she was, but you’d have to know one of these types to see it. But we mustn’t let conjecture get ahead of us, despite the remarkable improbability of this being pure coincidence. But before you get caught up too much in political correctness, figure the odds of this being a mere coincidence. The police certainly agreed that it was exceedingly unlikely, but were baffled when Bill McReynolds was excluded by DNA. PR was gaming the police and they fell for it. Bill McReynolds did not at first even realize that the dates were identical. When told he replied,

"You're kidding!'' he said."That is peculiar.''

You betcha!

Seated on an overstuffed easy chair in the couple's snowbound cabin near Rollinsville, his faded plaid shirt tucked into a pair of bright blue sweats, he folded his hands. "That is surprising,'' he continued. "That's sort of a blow. ... It's probably just a coincidence. A raw coincidence. I'm sort of stunned.''

Yea, you are. It is a blow that PR would frame you. And you’re stunned that she killed JBR.

At the end of that interview, Bill McReynolds closes:

"All I can say is, ... I don't know. In my heart, I know there is no connection. Anything I'd say would sound suspicious. That's the nuts and bolts of it.''
He gazed silently out the window into the woods, where any sign of spring was still a well-kept secret.
"Isn't life strange?'' said the man who plays Santa. "So strange.''

He knew.

There was only one person who double-played the Narcissist game and turned the tables on PR; at least that I could find. Bill McReynolds eventually realized what hit him but he had no idea how to get out of the swamp he found himself in. But Vassar College linguistics professor Donald Foster is the highlight of the entire, sordid murder mystery. He was the linguist credited with identifying the anonymous author of Primary Colors and validating the authorship of the Unabomber Manifesto. To be sure, he has not always hit the mark. One of his errors was in the identification of a play as authored by William Shakespeare. But putting it in context, the ransom note written in the Ramsey case couldn’t come anywhere near the challenges this linguist was accustomed to facing. At that time, Foster was probably the most qualified person on the planet to make an assessment of the authorship of the ransom note.

An internet poster and mouthpiece for the Ramsey family, Susan Bennett (AKA “jameson”), agrees with me that Foster probably contacted the DA’s office in Boulder long before it was publicly admitted. That’s right. Foster probably had access to the ransom note before it was publicly released and did a cursory examination. He might have even had writing witnesses from PR to compare. This guy is clever. He knew who wrote the note but in order to affix his imprimatur publicly, he needed publicly acknowledged access to the exemplar and the witnesses. To avoid pressure by the Ramsey’s to keep him off the official payroll of the DA’s office, a little con was needed. Knowing “jameson’s” likely connection to the Ramseys, Foster played her like all the instruments of a Symphony Orchestra. Pretty soon Foster was greeted as a member of the Ramsey country club and Foster wiggled his way into the bowels of Colorado law enforcement. To this day, “jameson” doesn’t realize what hit her and she still thinks he falsely identified her as John Andrew Ramsey. She ate it up. She is still clueless.

But, in the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Jameson kept swinging in the dark. She first connected by sharing all her correspondence with Foster with the DA’s office and the Ramsey’s. Of course, what she didn’t realize was that this was not an unprofessional conflict of interest. It was a con. When Jameson’s files reached certain “choice” people, Foster was fired. So, though I have little confidence in handwriting analysis, if I were to buy into any of it, I’d lean toward Foster first.

Once a publicly acknowledged examination occurred Foster dropped the bomb. PR wrote the ransom note. Of course, it didn’t have the fully desired effect because he was fired before charges could be filed, which was the whole point of the exercise. If I had to bet on it, detective Steve Thomas was probably the one who initiated contact with Foster.

Another odd occurrence is that on Dec. 27, 1996 PR, being exhausted and lying down, reached up and touched the face of a friend, Pam Griffin, the woman who had made JBR’s pageant costumes.  Griffin thought PR was delirious when she asked, “Couldn’t you fix this for me?” as though a sewing machine could bring back her daughter.  She then remembers PR saying, “We didn’t mean for this to happen” and Griffin got the definite feeling that in her weakened condition, PR had revealed that she knew who the killer was. Even if we accept this as factual, it does not necessarily indicate that the murder was an accident of PR’s. To understand exactly what PR was talking about is an issue of state of mind, which we don’t know. She could have simply meant that JBR was a liability to her, but that she couldn’t find any other way to fix the problem, hence, “we didn’t mean for this to happen”. Who knows? Because it is not corroborated and speaks to state of mind, we’ve excluded this fascinating story from our best-ft analysis.

The appearance of the nightgown entwined with the blanket used to cover the body of JBR in the “wine cellar”, appearing bound to it by static cling, seemingly corroborates the statements of LHP. The odds of an intruder knowing where to find this blanket, or to know its significance to JBR, are rather slim.