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

by Kir Komrik

Abstract

Author’s Preface

In researching this story I came to it with little or no knowledge of the crime. In fact, I lived in Boulder during those times but was, like a lot of people, sick of hearing about the case. It was wall to wall coverage in the news. The public fascination with this case was kind of twisted and unhealthy, I felt. So, for years I just ignored the case. As it slipped into the annals of American history I decided to take a read of it. I was, I must admit, fascinated by the confusing array of evidence, all of it seemingly pointing everywhere and nowhere. Surely, I thought, there must be an explanation for this. As I gleaned what I could from public sources I must admit that I began to lean toward the PDI camp. At one point I felt strong disdain for the Ramseys for what I believed they had done to a six year old child; and even greater umbrage brewed when I read about the behavior of the Ramseys and the Boulder District Attorney’s office in the years following. But I reached a magic point, this eureka, when I finally put the pieces to this tragedy together. It had finally become evident to me what almost certainly had happened. Was I the only one who figured this out? That’s not possible. No, it isn’t and yes, others know as well. I hope the reader will, after reading this work, reach the same sense of compassion and decency that struck me. I’ve come to realize that things are not what they always seem. I’ve come to forgive the Ramseys – if I have the right to do so – and have come to feel a sense of sympathy for their predicament.

I am married to an amazing, clever and industrious woman who happens to present clinical symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Living with her has been a true eye-opener. Now I can spot her kind a mile off – it is so easy. Women experience them as the loser boyfriend with a penchant for physical and emotional abuse. I have since developed a greater appreciation for women in those situations because now I understand some of what they’ve experienced. People that do not have intimate experience with Narcissism seldom understand much about it. They appear to people like us as naïve and easily manipulated. But most significantly, they seem incredibly vulnerable to manipulation and don’t recognize it when it is directed at them. They are what my wife in good humor calls “potential victims” or “marks”. In any case, marriages of this kind only work if the two of you can establish some kind of loyalty bond that brings value to each spouse regardless of the emotional content of the marriage. This is because the hard-core Narcissist – like my wife – has no empathy at all (there are 2 exceptions to that for her). The point is that while I can see the maladies contributing to the horrors of this case, and there are many, and while killing is never a solution to a problem, there are circumstances under which the factors militate against condemnation and beg for forgiveness. That is what I’ve learned about this case. I do not condone the murder of JBR or the abuse she likely suffered. But I see the bigger picture now and I’d like to share it with you if you have the patience for a long and fact filled discussion.

Disclaimer

Given that defamation litigation’s salient trait is Narcissism, and given that we have good reason to believe that what we will be discussing here is witchy, uncomfortably close to what really happened, we shall carefully qualify what we are stating on this site. Therefore, we begin with the proviso that this website and all documents used in it, by it or referenced or linked by it or to it, represents our opinion, and is not a statement of fact nor is it implied to be such. If there is any detail in this work for which defamation is believed, assumed or represented as such, the exact meaning of what is stated we aver to be drawn only after cross-examination of the author in a court of law; that is, the content in this work has no meaning at all unless and until the author is cross-examined in a court of law. The reason why this case was never officially solved is because it was just too damn freaky … we’ve been telling the real story on this website for some time now and have yet to be served with a defamation suit. Why? Because the guilty know we’re right. Welcome to the REAL story of the Ramsey case.

Introduction

To be fair this story truly began with the couple Kir and Sadie Ann Komrik. This woman, Sadie Ann, taught Kir some crucial lessons that are still with him today. She also turned his attention toward the rights of children, something to which Kir had previously given little thought. We’ll discuss this angle more when we discuss the motives for this crime against JonBenet Ramsey (from hereon, JBR). But it is enough to say that the story of Sadie Ann and her son is behind this entire story. Sadie Ann is the allegorical expositor of the psychology we seek to describe.

In addition to the above, in reading the publicly available sources some salient observations were made that inspired us to write this story.

It seems to be a popular American past time to thinking of this case through the divination of a theory for which evidence is sought in its support. We have chosen a different path. Here, we will be examining the publicly available information, dismissing anything that could be misleading (regardless of to what result it points), and creating what is called a “best fit analysis”. This simply means that we’ll be following the best evidence – on face value for what it says - toward a conclusion that represents the most probable explanation given the evidence available to us. This requires some major qualification. We are not presenting a theory in the sense that we promote it as conclusive fact. Rather, we are presenting a framework by which the case can be understood probabilistically based on available information. As more information is available, this best-fit analysis will likely change. In other words, we’re seeking the most likely explanation of what happened, not necessarily what actually did happen. The reader should take careful note of this qualification before responding to our analysis.

Our approach may be a put-off for the lay reader due to its academic approach; and most significantly for its lack of any intent toward a decisive conclusion. We will remain skeptical of subjective analysis immersed in adiaphora, hearsay without corroboration, conclusions based on state of mind (which we cannot know) and evidence purported to be such which we cannot ourselves readily confirm. This is done to enhance the validity and reliability of the best-fit analysis we’ve applied. Apropos, the reader should keep in mind that a probability is meaningful only to the extent that the information upon which it is based is complete. As we’ve stated, that information will not be 100% complete. This means that the probabilistic conclusion we generate is only valid inasmuch as we feel confident the information – which we’ve necessarily reduced in size as a result of dismissing some of it – is sufficiently complete. Fortunately, there is in fact a mountain of evidence with which to begin, something the general public might be surprised to know. In this analysis, we’ve included reference to only about 10% of the “evidence” in public circulation, the rest discarded for the sake of a best-fit. This work focuses only on the inclusive evidence.

One of the problems with crime statistics is that it can create precisely the problem we alluded to above: A person, knowing the statistics of a given scenario can then consciously or subconsciously generate a theory based on those statistics then seek evidence to support that theory. This is backward. This is the approach used by the Boulder Police Department (BPD). It failed. A more effective approach is to initially do everything possible to preserve the evidence, then have it properly and fully examined, then proceed from that evidentiary basis to a “best fit analysis”. Only then are the crime statistics considered in light of a final assessment of best-fit. Some people call this error “tunnel vision”. We call it unsophisticated and likely to generate erroneous conclusions. It’s a short-cut. Most of the time you’ll be right simply by virtue of odds. But in doing that the analysis of the actual evidence of any specific crime becomes a meaningless stage act, something merely pro forma that need not be analyzed or questioned any further. Only someone with significant resources – and someone reasonably well-educated - can fight and deflect a false accusation generated this way. This is unfortunate, but is apparently the approach most police departments in the United States use, though they may strenuously deny it. Exculpatory evidence, consequent to pro forma style, is ignored and only inculpatory evidence considered for the purposes of successful prosecution. Some pooh-pooh the significance of exculpatory evidence, but this kind of evidence goes to the very heart of the way our judicial system works. Reasonable doubt cannot be had without it. A suspect that looks guilty by statistics and other evidence but who is actually innocent desperately needs this exculpatory evidence to obtain justice for themselves.

The Boulder DA’s office seems confused as to what information is publicly available and what isn’t. This played a big role in their mistake with John Mark Karr, a man who claimed to have killed JBR but who, upon later examination, was clearly excluded both by DNA and alibi. This is not surprising considering the number of leaks that have occurred and the sheer amount of time that has passed since the crime. Trying to use ‘privileged information’ to identify a suspect is a long shot, we suspect, and we suspect there is little if anything about the case that remains confidential. While that is not good for the official investigation and prosecution, it gives me some degree of confidence in knowing that we have most if not all of the available information to examine. There may be a few things we still don’t know, but for the most part, we believe the information necessary to ‘solve’ this crime is already out. When we say “solve”, or we imply that there is a solution, please keep in mind that we are making a probabilistic statement based on the existing information available to us. That qualification should be understood by the reader from hereon. We shall see in what follows that this crime is rather elementary, but on the other hand highly deceptive and tricky due to the nature of the events. We shall see that the perpetrator in this case was very, very lucky as a result of an unforeseen series of events. We shall see both how clear the case is while at the same time clearly seeing why it was such a complex and confusing case. Many officials in this investigation have found themselves besotted time and again, as happened to Boulder DA Mary Lacy in the JMK case. But in all fairness, they were biting into a jigsaw puzzle unlike any ever seen in American history. We’ll soon see why and how. We shall see in what follows a macabre picture that never appeared to anyone before, largely because of the quirks in this case we’ll examine. And the true story is truly horrid.

The family of JonBenet Ramsey lived in Boulder, Colorado. This fact must be noted if we are to understand this case more clearly. Boulder is a small, university town with a highly educated, progressive population. The result is that certain personalities normally in check in more moderate populations dominate the politics of the town, something that would be true regardless of which political extreme we’re discussing. We shall see various progressive agendas, such as women’s issues, playing a big role in the thinking and behavior of such characters as detective Linda Arndt and “Spacey” Lacey, AKA Mary Lacey. Without passing judgment, we simply note that it has an impact on how people view situations and circumstances. Indeed, this case seems to exhibit a national pattern of gender bias. Men seem to view the evidence at hand as inculpatory to Patsy Ramsey, whereas the women seem more likely inclined to consider the possibility that an intruder was responsible for JBR’s murder. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It provides perspective and balance. But it is worth noting for anyone trying to understand this case. We will also note later what appears to be the unfortunate fingerprint of political corruption similar in its public visibility to the corruption often seen in third world countries.

Best-fit Analysis was developed, and is still used, by the Central Intelligence Agency for the creation of situation reports in environments in which access to information is limited. Believe it or not, there are people who sit in rooms all day reading publicly available information; magazines, newspapers, etc. to cull together a likely picture of what is going on in some particular instance and for predicting the future behavior of nations and actors. For those not familiar with the math of best-fit analysis, the technique is analogous to methods used in tensor algebra when transforming a vector from one coordinate system to another. It would thus be reasonable to think of the vector as the finger of guilt and the act of performing a best-fit is the rotation of that vector from one coordinate system (the body of usable evidence) to another (the causality sequence forced by that body of evidence). In the end, we shall see that we have sufficient information to make that transformation and we shall see that the vector will point directly at the guilty party/parties. But this will only adumbrate the events of that night, not fully describe them all. In practice, the application of best-fit analysis is much simpler than its mathematical foundations imply. The key to the process is to first take a stack of evidence and go through it piece by piece discarding those items that do not meet specific, pre-defined criteria. Those criteria are referred to as the “25 standing criteria” of best-fit analysis:

The 25 standing criteria for the inclusion and application of evidence for best-fit analysis is as follows:

1.)  Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Lack of evidence for an intruder is not evidence that an intruder didn’t exist, for example. The corollary to this criteria is that the presence of evidence is not necessarily dispositive either.

2.)  It is not possible to know a person’s state of mind, especially under stress. This has resulted in the dismissal of large amounts of evidence in the JBR case for the purposes of best-fit.

3.)  Any event, whether atomic or general, is prone to subjective error and unlikely to occur without direct evidence to support it (conjecture is to be avoided)

4.)  Given evidence potentially supporting n possibilities, if the k’th possibility in n is most probable, it is most probably the correct explanation. We’ve applied this universally herein.

5.)  Inconsistencies of causality are evidentiary. Examples are the interviews of PR regarding the notepads location and JR’s visits to the basement.

6.)  barring loyalties derived of affections, binding commitments or other evidence, human beings usually act in their own self interest (people tend not to work corruption of their own intent – in criminology this is more specifically referred to as the “people tend not to incriminate themselves” mantra). An example in the JBR case are the questions arising for what gain does an intruder write a ransom note if the intruder knows the subject is already dead and likely to be quickly found.

7.)  The simplest complete and probable explanation for an event is the most likely explanation, but should be no simpler (conclusions must take all or most evidence meeting the “standing criteria” into account). Ceteris paribus, Steve Thomas’ theory is an elegant example.

8.)  Statistical probabilities derived for populations should not be imputed to individuals (common mistake in law enforcement – it may result in a conviction but can also promote the wrong answer). Applies to the statistics involving who most likely kills children and leaves the remains in their home.

9.)  Probabilities are best derived by simple summation of indicators. Anything more mathematically involved has been shown to result in unpredictable and unreliable results. While simplistic, it has been shown that simple summation of indicators for the likelihood of an event is remarkably reliable. “Grading” of evidentiary types should be limited to scorings of 3 multiples or less. Consider the ransom note analysis.

10.)       Disinformation has a motive and should always be considered for any evidence examined. The JBR case shows indications of this.

11.)       Hearsay is problematic because it is predicated on state of mind. The exception is if multiple instances of independent hearsay corroborates a common assertion, in which case state of mind is unlikely to be shared across witnesses who are relatively independent from each other. Deception is often detectable using this method (multiple conspirators often tell the same story. If the story is improbable, they are likely attempting to deceive). Note discussions regarding the common statements of PR and JR and their agreement in light of the evidence.

12.)       Field operations to actively produce (but not fabricate) evidence are the best, most direct way to resolve a probability (con jobs work). In law enforcement this is often politely referred to as pre-texting. It just means setting someone up using deception. As far as we know, this has not been done in the JBR case at all.

13.)       An act or event is more likely causally attributable to a person for whom motive, opportunity and means can be identified (see section on the motive issue for a PR theory).

14.)       An otherwise reliable witness may become remarkably unreliable in matters involving personal emotions; such as anger, vindictiveness or general malice toward a person for whom the claims are unfavorable. The corollary is that the same is true if self-interest is substituted for emotion. These possibilities must be ruled out (see discussion of Thomas for an example of acting in dudgeon of the Ramseys behavior and LHP for an example of self-interest).

15.)       Scientific evidence from competent, disinterested third parties is likely accurate. See the coroner’s report.

16.)       Money, sex and power are usually the strongest motivators in human behavior, despite one’s purported moral views on the matter. The corollary is that a person’s or entities behavior is more reliable than what they aver or communicate overtly.

17.)       The degree of substantial dissonance in one’s words and documented actions is indicative of mental illness. This is supported by psychoanalytic studies provided the degree of dissonance is very high. State of mind and motive become ephemeral and difficult to understand in these cases.

18.)       The application of moral standards to expectations of human behavior will likely lead to error, especially when applied to person’s of a foreign culture. Analysis should remain a sobered, secular exercise.

19.)       Governments usually operate purely on the basis of national self-interest. In this sense they are quintessentially Narcissitic. The same is true of their sub-organs and bureaucracies.

20.)       Lie detectors should be used solely for the purpose of pre-texting and gaming subjects as they have little scientific basis. So-called neutral questions which compel the subject to lie (such as, “have you ever lied”) are used to pattern a person’s lying responses (knowing this, the correct response is always to tell the truth regardless of how incriminating or embarrassing the answer may be so that no lying pattern can be recorded). Scores are based on comparing known lies to suspect lies. Lie detectors can be easily defeated by a trained agent or by a field trained lay person. The simple strategy is to tell the truth regardless of the nature of the question. Drugs and nails in your shoes are Hollywood fantasies and don’t work nearly as well.

21.)       Handwriting analysis is subjective and lacks scientific rigor but can be useful in cases of blatant patterns and for gaming subjects.

22.)       Psychics should never be relied upon.

23.)       Murderers, assassins and capital criminals in general tend to harbor personality disorders. An understanding of them is essential to understanding their behavior. Case officers should place special scrutiny on team members with this history and take personality disorders into account when assigning responsibilities.

24.)       Human beings seldom act purely out of nationalistic sentiment or “patriotism”; in general, humans seldom act purely out of loyalty to an abstract cause despite the appearances often seen.

25.)       Given the preceding observations, obtaining favors and compelling behavior in normally hostile actors is best achieved by deception and motivation by sex, money or power. This is key to intelligence gathering.

A final note is that though we list all 25 criteria here, only criteria 1-6, 9 - 11, 21, and 23 (11 criteria) were used in this best-fit analysis. The invocation of the others was not indicated by the evidence in this case and we did not explicitly decline them.

Can someone please put some rigor into this intellectual train wreck?

If the last math class you took was high school math 20 years ago, no worries. This section can be ignored and you can still follow the discussion. But for the hard-core detractors, we wanted to provide the method we’ll use to prove our conclusion. Hopefully, but not likely, this will put the wacky theories about this case to rest.

Once gathered the evidence is tabulated to reveal a numeric understanding of the overall pattern in the evidence. Next, a hypothetical model causally related to that numeric pattern is created. It is tweaked and perturbed until it precisely aligns with the evidence tabulation. That is, a cause is generated for assignment to its best-fit in effect (the tabulated evidence). That constitutes the completed best-fit. As the input information changes, so too might the best-fit and a re-calculation is required. Obviously, in generating the cause one must be confident that each cause indentified is uniquely positioned as the most likely cause – which is done using the 25 standing criteria. This provides a repeatable and reliable process for generating cause that is not subject to interpretation or “analytical imagination”. This work serves as the template for any future adjustments should they be indicated by changes in the body of evidentiary effect. And that is the object of this study. The general approach is to discuss the issue at hand in narrative style whilst documenting each discovery of evidentiary effect that satisfies the 25 standing criteria, and providing a weighted value of 1, 2 or 3 in increasing value of merit. At the end the final tabulation is presented and we solve for a cause uniquely attributable to effect. A tensor is an algebraic structure used to relate operators and values in a systematic manner.

The rank of a tensor is the number of unique operations required for a cause to make effect. An operation is a logical generalization of a specific fact or event. Let’s explain this more broadly. By the word “operation” we’re talking about the application of some pattern (a theory). If we were calculating a tensor in the pure mathematical sense, the operator is called a “function”. In our case, the object of this whole exercise is to inductively solve for the operators involved (the “theory”). But the difference between “inductive” and “deductive” is that a function is a deductive process. A pattern is an inductive process mostly alien to mathematics (math is almost all deductive with some notable exceptions, such as the “principle of mathematical induction” which contains some inductive properties in addition to deductive properties). By the words inductive and deductive we’re implying that there are two basic forms of cognition, or thought processes. Deductive reasoning is the intellectual exercise of taking a known, general theorem and using it in a given, specific situation to predict a specific outcome. Inductive reasoning is somewhat the reverse in that inductive reasoning is the process of taking a relatively small collection of specific events or outcomes and using them to create a theorem for which deductions can be made for events distinct from specific events used to make the induction. It is much more characteristically human as a method of cognition, whereas deduction can be readily duplicated using algorithmic machines. In a sense, induction is analogous to human “creativity”. Solving crimes, for example, is almost 100% inductive and admits of little deductive reasoning by comparison. This is because things of that nature seldom fit totally within a scientific (deductive) framework. We have to rely on human thought processes much more inscrutable and much harder to characterize objectively. But, as we know, it works remarkably well. Virtually every major development in science and mathematics was the result of an inductive process. Deduction is the application of science; creating experiments to determine if the prediction given by a theorem or hypothesis actually occurs as expected. But induction is the true power horse of the human brain. In best-fit analysis we rely very heavily on using inductive operators for each matrix entry. A simple example is in order. Let B be a rank 1 order 3 (3 geometric dimensions) tensor: