>>I tend to think the perp knew JR in some way, >>and had a grudge against him<P>>but not one of them requires ever having met <BR>>any of the Ramseys at all. <P>Except for those emotional, knee-jerk reactions that the BPD and the tabloid readers had about 'the parents did it because its always the parents who did it', there is very little, if anything, that ties the murderer to the family much less to prior knowledge about the family or prior acquantancehip with the family.<P>Now ofcourse that darn ransom demand does leap to mind, but suppose the demand had been for 'a billion dollars'...its an equally absurd amount, but it would correspond with the recent publicity about AccessGraphics. No one would then be saying that it had to be some 'inner circle' type. The main support for the 'inner circle' theory is that the 118,000 just happens to approximate rather closely some after-tax, net figure on an annual bonus. It probably has some particular meaning to the intruder and is unrelated to the bonus amount. Certainly, if it is related to the Merrick dispute, then it would be someone who knew Merrick but almost certainly not someone who knew the Ramsey family.<P><P><BR>