LAST EDITED ON Sep-01-02 AT 06:09 PM (EST)
>I have some of that cord, it feels "waxed", all the better to make a slip knot, perhaps.Perhaps, but also perhaps to make any attempted clawing at the cord totally ineffectual. However, the main thing is this: are we dealing with a mere coincidence which could have occured simply because some guy walked into a camping store and bought the first thing he saw or are we dealing with someone extremely knowledgeable and perhaps also extremely experienced?
Anyone can select a rope at random and come up with a 'good' one. Anyone can also perhaps come up with an 'optimal' one by sheer chance. But the intruder may have come up with one by design and if so we have to consider such things as the 118,000 in the note was pre-planned and not 'spur of the moment because he saw a pay stub' or the like.
Would you carefully and methodically select the optimal rope and then later change the ransom sum on a whim?
Someone who is careful and methodical is not going to abandon his character traits at a moment of extreme stress or at a moment of extreme ecstasy. As he joyfully penned that note, his character traits did not change.
On edit: Someone so careful to select and equip himself with an optimal cord might well have penned the note well in advance too.
Which would mean access to note pads in advance.
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "JonBenét was strangled not once, says Smit, but twice, with this
intricately made device known as a garrote that had to be made by the killer during the murder." Lou Smit: "You see hair right inside the windings of that cord. That's JonBenét's hair."
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "It's a device, says Smit, that was not left there for show. Whoever killed
JonBenét used the garrote to strangle her."
Lou Smit: "That shows a very brutal death. Notice how bright red that is. I'm being very clinical here.
That is bright red. What that means is she was alive when that was pressed into her neck that hard."
(images of JonBenét's neck)
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "JonBenét was not only alive, Smit believes she was fighting for her life.
There were marks that look a lot like scratches on her neck"
Lou Smit: "She did have her own DNA under her fingernails. I'm pretty sure that's a scratch to get that
off. I think she was struggling then."
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "At some point the child was then hit with such force it crushed her skull
but her nightmare wasn't over. Shortly before she died investigators believe she was sexually
assaulted
with a piece of the paint brush to make the garrote."
Lou Smit: "There is no motive for the parent to do that."
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "The evidence, says Smit, simply does not support the popular theory that
the Ramseys struck their daughter then tried to cover it up."
(images of paint tray in basement hall just outside windowless room)
Lou Smit: "It's not a mother waking up in the middle of the night saying, "oops, I think I hurt my child,
oops I got to bring her downstairs and fashion one of these things then I'm going to put it around her
neck and I'm going to tighten it a couple times while she's struggling." Now if you want to believe that,
go ahead, I can't say this on the air, but that's bullshit."
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "But what about the fibers from Patsy Ramsey's jacket that police say
were in the paint tray and on the sticky side of duct tape covering JonBenét's mouth?"
Erin Moriarty: "Is the fact that there were fibers that were consistent with Patsy Ramsey's jacket
incriminating?"
Lou Smit: "Sure."
Erin Moriarty: "But does that shake your faith that the Ramsey's were not involved?"
Lou Smit: "No, you just can't rely on fiber evidence because fibers could come off the jacket or
something similar to the jacket."
(image of blanket and duct tape as found in windowless room)
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "What's more says Smit there were also dozens of unidentified fibers that
didn't come from the Ramsey's and Smit is unaware of a single case where a parent used a garrote like
this to kill a child."
Lou Smit: "This is one of the best clues left behind by the killer. This shows what's going on in his
mind.
This is a sexual device. I'm looking for a pedophile who's a sexual sadist. That's what Lou Smit's
looking for."
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "Smit's not the only one"
(images of Ollie Gray and John Sanagustin in van)
Ollie Gray: "There are 57 pages of names that have come out of the tip files."
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "Colorado private detective Ollie Gray and his partner John Sanagustin
were hired by the Ramsey's two years ago."
(Background shots of rear of Ramsey Boulder house)
John Sanagustin: (Pointing toward house) "That's JonBenét's room on the second level"
Erin Moriarty: (Voice Over) "Even when the Ramsey's ran out of money, Ollie and John stayed on the
job"
Ollie Gray: "We probably do something on it two or three times a week."
Erin Moriarty: "Even though you're not getting paid?"
Ollie Gray: "Sure"
Are untied laces stylish, entertaining, annoying, ... ?Okay. If that particular cord material were used as shoe laces, those laces would be perpetually untied to the surface characteristics. Therefore we may conclude that of the many uses such a cord could be put to, shoelaces is not one of them.
Perhaps howeve mountain climbers who want to pay out their ropes and not have them stick in rings or buckles might want such a slippery surface?
Was the cord selected from a store's many choices or simply picked up from what was available from neighborhood clotheslines or the like?
The paintbrush handle was selected from what was immediately availalble, but he brought the cord with him. Did he suddenly find that he needed or wanted the handle or did he intend to obtain some implement from within the home? The cord's slipperyness may well be a mere coincidence but it could also mean selectivity, care and precision.