Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? (8 page)

The team was provided with a briefing on what had taken place at the Ramsey home following the report of the kidnapping, and Dr. Meyer gave an overview of the autopsy findings. A number of things were discussed during the meeting, and the group determined that there were a number of questions that needed to be researched.

They were interested in the family history and wanted to know if there had been any signs of previous sexual abuse with members of the family. There was an interest in determining if there had been any recent behavioral changes with the children at their schools. It was suggested that the teachers and classmates of JonBenét and Burke be interviewed.

They were interested in determining if Patsy had ever been abused as a child and what kind of behavioral changes had taken place after her bout with cancer.

They also wanted to know how the parents were interacting with their son, and felt it necessary that an interview be conducted with him by investigators.

The first meeting of the Child Fatality Review Team completed, Boulder Police investigators now had another set of investigative priorities established for them in the early stages of this investigation.

Following the meeting, Dr. Meyer returned to the morgue with Dr. Andy Sirontak, Chief of Denver Children’s Hospital Child Protection Team, so that a second opinion could be rendered on the injuries observed to the vaginal area of JonBenét. He would observe the same injuries that Dr. Meyer had noted during the autopsy protocol and concurred that a foreign object had been inserted into the opening of JonBenét’s vaginal orifice and was responsible for the acute injury witnessed at the 7:00 o’clock position.

Further inspection revealed that the hymen was shriveled and retracted, a sign that JonBenét had been subjected to some type of sexual contact prior to the date of her death.

Dr. Sirontak could not provide an opinion as to how old those injuries were or how many times JonBenét may have been assaulted and would defer to the expert opinions of other medical examiners.

Dr. Meyer would prepare a brief press release at the end of the day, announcing that the cause of JonBenét’s death had been “asphyxiation by strangulation.” Estimating the time of death would take a little longer to establish and was not mentioned in the announcement regarding her murder.

The manner of death was ruled to be a Homicide.

D
r. Meyer was concerned about JonBenét’s vaginal injuries, and he, along with Boulder investigators, sought the opinions of a variety of other physicians in the days following her autopsy. Dr. Sirontak, a pediatrician with Denver Children’s Hospital, had recognized signs of prior sexual trauma but neither he nor Dr. Meyer were able to say with any degree of certainty what period of time may have been involved in the abuse.

Experts in their field, physicians and forensic pathologists were consulted from St. Louis, Missouri; Dade County, Florida; Wayne County, Michigan, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to name just a few. They examined the series of photographs that depicted the injuries and came to the opinion that JonBenet had been subjected to sexual intrusion prior to the insertion of the foreign object that had created the injury at the time of her death.

It was their opinion that the type of injury present with the hymen suggested that several different contacts had been made in the past and that digital penetration was consistent with this type of injury. The physicians were unable to date the previous injury or specifically quantify the number of times JonBenét had been assaulted, but were confident in their opinions that she had been subjected to sexual contact prior to the day of her murder.

This particular information suggested that someone close to JonBenét had been responsible for abusing her in the weeks or months preceding her murder. As is often the case involving this type of childhood abuse, investigators had to consider the possibility that a family member, relative, or someone close to the inner circle of the family was responsible for the prior acts and possibly the murder of JonBenét. Someone had to have had access to JonBenét on repeated occasions to have perpetrated these injuries.

Dr. Lucy Rorke, a neuro-pathologist with the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, helped explain the timing of some of the injuries sustained by JonBenét. She told investigators that the blow to the skull had immediately begun to hemorrhage, and it was not likely that she would have regained consciousness after receiving this injury. The blow to the head, if left untreated, would have been fatal.

The presence of cerebral edema, swelling of the brain, suggested that JonBenét had survived for some period of time after receiving the blow to her head. Blood from the injury slowly began to fill the cavity of the skull and began to build up pressure on her brain. As pressure increased, swelling was causing the medulla of the brain to push through the foramen magnum, the narrow opening at the base of the skull.

Dr. Rorke estimated that it would have taken an hour or so for the cerebral edema to develop, but that this swelling had not yet caused JonBenét’s death. “Necrosis,” neurological changes to the brain cells, indicated a period of survival after the blow that could have ranged from between forty-five (45) minutes and two (2) hours.

As pressure in her skull increased, JonBenét was beginning to experience the effects of “brain death.” Her neurological and biological systems were beginning to shut down, and she may have been exhibiting signs of cheyne-stokes breathing. These are short, gasping breaths that may be present as the body struggles to satisfy its need for oxygen in the final stages of death.

The medical experts were in agreement: the blow to JonBenét’s skull had taken place some period of time prior to her death by strangulation. The bruising beneath the garrote and the petechial hemorrhaging in her face and eyes were conclusive evidence that she was still alive when the tightening of the ligature ended her life.

The medical consultants considered the timing of the tracking of the pineapple that had moved through JonBenét’s digestive track. It was generally agreed that the timing of the ingestion of this fruit could have coincided with the time frame regarding her head injury. It was estimated that it would have taken between two to five hours for the pineapple to move through her system. It appeared to investigators that she had eaten the pineapple not long before receiving the blow to her head.

Dr. Werner Spitz, forensic medical examiner for Wayne County, Michigan, had conducted extensive studies on the wounds caused by the application of force and was considered a leading expert on the topic.

He offered an opinion on the sequencing of injuries that had been inflicted upon JonBenét during her murder:

1. This first injury sustained by JonBenét was believed to have been the constriction marks on the sides and front of her throat. He believed that her assailant had grabbed her shirt from the front and twisted the collar in their fist. The cloth from the edge of the collar had created the discolored, striated bruising and abrasions on the sides of her neck, and the knuckles of the perpetrator had caused the triangular shaped bruise located on the front side of her throat.
   
2. JonBenét reached up to her neck with her hands to attempt to pull away the collar causing some nail gouges / abrasions with her fingernails on the side of her throat.
   
3. Released from the grasp of the perpetrator, JonBenét turned and was struck in the upper right side of her head with a blunt object. Dr. Spitz would subsequently offer the opinion that the barrel of the Maglite brand flashlight found on the kitchen counter of the Ramsey home was consistent with the rectangular shape of the skull fracture. JonBenét’s head injury continued to bleed internally until her strangulation.
   
4. The blow would have rendered JonBenét unconscious and accounted for the absence of any additional defensive wounds on her body. (Dr. Meyer had noted during autopsy no further signs of struggle, i.e. broken fingernails, bruising on her hands or fingernail scrapes on her face near the duct tape.)
   
5. Inflicted perimortem with her death, was the insertion of the paintbrush handle into JonBenét’s vaginal orifice. The presence of inflammation and blood in the vaginal vault indicated that she was still alive when this assault took place, but it was believed that this took place at or very near the actual time of her death.
   
6. The last injury sustained was the tightening of the garrote around JonBenét’s throat that resulted in her death by strangulation / asphyxiation.
   

Investigators would also enlist the aid of a knot expert, John Van Tassel of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He would eventually determine that the slip knots used in the wrist and neck ligatures were of standard fare. The end of the cord wrapped around the remains of the paintbrush were observed to be concentric loops and ended in a simple hitch that secured the knot in place. Again, there was nothing particularly fancy about the knots suggesting that a skilled perpetrator had been responsible for tying them.

Investigators took note of the fact that the end of the cord wrapped around the broken paintbrush handle was burned – melted. The manufacturer of these types of nylon cords will burn or melt the ends during production so that the ends will not fray and disassemble. In this instance, it appeared that the cord tied around the handle of the garrote was the first piece used from a new roll of cord and that the pieces of the other ends, all frayed, had been cut with a sharp instrument.

Photo 10 - Wrist bindings used to tie JonBenét. The length of cord between the wrist loops was 15 ½ inches Source. Boulder PD Case File / Internet

If the pieces of cord had been used in sequence to their cutting and assembly, it appeared to investigators that the garrote could have been the first of the pieces applied in JonBenét’s death. The piece of cord used to bind her wrists, an important element in the
control
of a kidnap victim, might not have been applied until after the noose had been wrapped around JonBenét’s neck.

This fact, coupled with the odd length of cord that separated the loose bindings used on her wrists suggested that some form of “staging” might be taking place.
¹
It was a matter of speculation to be certain, but only the killer would know for sure the sequence in which the cord had been applied to JonBenét.

Moreover, given the fact that JonBenét’s hair was entangled in the slip knot at the back of her neck, investigators concluded that the perpetrator had fashioned this ligature spontaneously at the scene. It had not been constructed before their entry to the house.

Photo 11 - JonBenét’s hair intertwined in knot at stick and loop of garrote. This instrument was constructed at the scene at the time of her death. Source: Boulder PD Case File / Internet

As noted previously, John Ramsey had removed the piece of tape covering his daughter’s mouth upon discovering her body. Investigators would closely examine the markings on JonBenét’s face to determine the location of its placement. Mucous emitting from her nose suggested to them that the tape had been placed over her mouth after some period of time and not necessarily at the outset of her abduction.

Additionally, there was the impression of a perfect set of imprints of JonBenét’s lips on the sticky side of the tape.

Investigators thought that if she had been alive and struggling at the time of its placement, the imprint would have been irregular and smeared.

Mucous beneath the tape and the perfect imprint of lips led investigators to believe that this might have been another element of staging that had taken place after JonBenét’s death.

Investigators would subsequently obtain records of JonBenét’s medical treatment from the office of her Pediatrician, Dr. Francesco Beuf. They would learn that JonBenét had visited the doctor’s office on thirty-three (33) occasions over the previous three (3) years and that Patsy Ramsey had called his offices three (3) times on the evening of December 17
^th
. The reason for those calls was never determined.

It should be noted that JonBenét’s pediatrician contradicted the opinions of the experts who believed prior sexual contact had taken place before JonBenét’s murder. Having seen and treated JonBenét for various ailments on thirty-three occasions over the course of a three year period of time, he would state that he never witnessed signs of vaginal abuse being present during her visits.

And though it was reported that a number of these visits were for vaginitis thought to be related to JonBenét’s bedwetting problems, it is not clear if it were his practice to conduct full vaginal exams on 6-year-old girls at the time that he provided this statement.

As helpful as all of this information was in painting a picture of what happened to JonBenét, it did not specifically identify the person responsible for her murder.

Rowan and Blewitt Incorporated

Memorandum

To: The News Media

From: Pat Korten

John and Patsy Ramsey have cooperated extensively with police and other law enforcement authorities since the very beginning of their investigation, and this cooperation will continue. Written answers to all the written questions submitted by the Boulder Police Department have been delivered to them this afternoon.

—Press release provided by Ramsey publicist Pat Korten in January, 1997