So is it a "Demented Creep" that was playing games with a six year old girl? What would we be looking for?

Age? Prime age for that sort of stuff is low twenties.
Personality? Loner. And lonely. Socially awkward in his actions and in his understanding. Perhaps he has to deal with an actual impediment such as a tendancy to stutter particularly when he is in a social situation. Or perhaps instead of an actual stammer he simply is very uncomfortable in a social situation, particularly one involving a female of his own age group.
Theory of Mind? Probably self centered and not as able to relate to someone else's view point very well. Perhaps he even lies somewhere along that famed "Autistic Spectrum"? If so, those who see him as bright would perhaps term him 'Asperger's Syndrome' a category of considerable 'bandwagon' status these days but one that does have some sort of actual existence and might be significant in this case.

Habitus? Probably Klinefelters or marginally so in his appearance. Tall, thin, somewhat female in his physical appearance. Long legs. If so, this would most likely render him having very little muscular development and very little strength in what muscles he did have. So perhaps I have been wrong in viewing the garotte as a means to exercise precise control over the strangulation. Perhaps the garotte should be viewed as his only way to strangle someone because his grip strength is indeed in lowest ranges. He may not have used the garotte so as to experience the exquisite joy of a slowly strangled victim, he may just have needed "an assistive device" in order to accomplish the task at all. He is probably a male who actually has a "husband" in his kitchen cabinet! ("husband" is a woman's term for the ribbed-rubberized glove-type devices used to provide a better grip for opening recalcitrant jars).

Neurology? Probably a minor problem with prefrontal lobes. More a history of a few epileptic episodes rather than a full-blown problem. He would probably have a very acute appreciation of music, though not necessarily loud music. I doubt he would be a musician due to his lack of manual dexterity and coordination in his movements. His lack of fine motor control would prevent his playing an instrument and his lack of social skills would prevent him from ever learning one, but he could well have a passionate interest in music since his brain experiences it so differently than most people do. he would also have turned to music quite early in life, probably before his teenage years. Even though his body would be low in testosterone, his brain would have been fairly high in response to pre-natal testosterone. So he would be a 'somewhat masculine brain imprisoned in a rather feminized body'.

Employment? Well, thats a bit more difficult to speculate about. Surely he would need something not too demanding of social skills so he would turn to something highly technical and would probably be very good at it. So perhaps that is why he can afford all those true crime books and true crime/action/adventure videos. He makes good money as a computer programmer. He can administer systems. He can't administer people though! And eventually his co-workers realize this and lose all respect for him. And his employment while highly remunerative is probably rather punctuated with bouts of unemployment. He probably gets most jobs from temporary agencies that farm out computer programmers, so he doesn't really have to deal with interviews because he would not do well in them.

Interests: Probably rather wide ranging but primarily focused on a few items. Music, computers, probably true crime. He is not dumb intellectually, just socially. He could buy a book on any subject at all, but he couldn't carry on a conversation about it too well and probably not at all with a female.

Did Access Graphics ever hire a temporary programmer who utterly lacked social skills but who saw JonBenet being brought to the office some day?

>Signature is much easier to spot when there is more than one crime.
Yes, clearly. Just as a document examiner wants plenty of exemplars. However, we must make do with what we have. Perhaps Lou Smit is right: the killer was excited afterwards. Perhaps he was too excited to drive and wrapped himself around a tree in a long ignored accident so there will be no more comparison cases. Its easier if there are lots of victims; its more satisfying if you solve it after only one. More satisfying to the sleuth; much more satisfying to those who would have been the subsequent victims.

I know this is rather 'soft' stuff, but I would say the 'demented creep' is likely to be satisfied with one or two kills simply because his personality is so deficient. He has only had one or two girl friends; he has only held one or two decent jobs; he has only had one or two real successes in life.

The tapes of girls being tortured might reveal something. Although we don't know just what JonBenet suffered or for how long, we do know she was stun-guned, molested and that the cords were used for some sort of submission purpose.

On Evening2's contraction's in the note from the previous thread, I wouldn't mind opening a thread on word clues from the note. I would just like to add that even though I said that satisying a compulsion is Signature, the offender would have to satisfy a "need" in the crime by the act in order for it to be a Signature element.

As far as the offender being a demented creep versus a bright personable character, I think he lies somewhere in between. Because he attacked a child; the way he attacked the child; and because I believe the target was John Ramsey via his daughter, I see him as so inadequate as to be able to interact socially only in areas he is completely comfortable with.

If this was a sex crime, it is possible the perpetrator is a successful engineer and does not have the social interaction problems that many of us speculate he has.

If this was a thrill kill, it is more likely he does have problems interacting with others.

Those who see him selecting a six year old girl as a target because he lacks the ability to confron an adult are engaging in rank speculation. I admit that.

Its hard not to go well beyond the evidence and speculate... we have so little evidence to deal with.

"... told everybody I avoided prison on a Ganser syndrome." Ganser's syndrome is an unusual dissociative reaction to extreme stress in which the patient gives absurd or silly answers to simple questions. It has sometimes been labeled as psychiatric malingering, but is more often classified as a factitious disorder. This disorder is variously attributed to underlying personality disorders; child abuse; the wish to repeat a satisfying childhood relationship with a doctor; and the desire to deceive or test authority figures. Also, the wish to assume the role of patient and be cared for is involved. In many cases, the suffering of a major personal loss has been implicated."

Although we have the age-old 'book by its cover' problem, a good many of us do see the perpetrator as someone with social problems, even if not all of us see him as also having sexual problems.

Most of us seem to agree that his social problems would affect his earning capacity and certainly would affect the type of job(s) he held. He clearly would not be a glib, glad-handing salesman but would more likely be a 'systems administrator' with the emphasis on administration of systems rather than personnel.

Whether he fits the tall, thin character who was seen approaching the house or not we don't know. It is possible that if he is tall and thin it is indeed due some genetic condition causing him to have low testosterone and therefore very low muscle mass, but such is utterly rank speculation.

As to the suggestions of cleft palate or stutter to give him an even stronger impediment towards a normal social life, these are ofcourse but possible examples though probably reasonable ones.

I've always felt that the note's handwriting was intentionally drawn and that he is someone who is very neat and precise. Although he probably would prefer everything digitized, if he does have to write, I'm sure he has a very small, neat 'engineer's lettering' skill.

Ofcourse my speculation that he has a spotless kitchen is sheer 'tea leaves' stuff, but it does indicate a precise, controlled life and not the 'hand to mouth' existence of an alley-dwelling misfit who is utterly destitute. I think the 'fat cat' stuff in the note is pure whimsey and is totally unrelated to his financial situation or his politics.

Its entirely possible that he enjoyed the sexual activities with JonBenet but I think he really was not motivated by that and may not have considered it anything more than a 'necessary insult' he had to make. His preference is for adult females, but their preference is to avoid creeps like him. He therefore has few dates, but did not turn to a six year old girl out of desperation. He selected JonBenet solely because her last name was Ramsey.

Consider David Westerfield: Engineer, fairly wealthy and posessed of various 'Desert Toys'. Now maybe he did have a few problems in relating to people and it seems he clearly had problems with alcohol and from time to time, violence. Yet he would never be referred to as a Demented Creep prior to sneaking into his neighbor's occupied home and driving aimlessly around the desert with their daughter's corpse in his RV. He might not have been the most sociable engineer in the office, but he was not ever thought of as a demented creep until he gave in to desires he probably had endured for years.

Now clearly DW's crime was sexually motivated, but I have some doubt as to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey being sexually motivated. Demented creep? I think we are dealing more with a David Westerfield type than a Gary Oliva type.

Helgoth had hi-tec boots and a stun gun. If he's not involved, those two things might give an indication of the type of person that would have these things.

Bats and stun guns were weapons of choice in the Denver area---used by gangs and druggies.

There were a lot of affluent people living in the area, as well as street people and transients. The note lends itself to someone who (maybe) had a certain level of intelligence (although there were two misspellings, and one instance of using a instead of an).

Not rank speculation. Studies have born out the theory that those who attack very young or very old victims are inadequate. This is the same mentality of a schoolyard bully--they attack the weakest to make themselves feel good. It is also the reason so many killers start out by killing or abusing animals--weaker creatures who cannot fight back.

If this killer's primary target was John Ramsey, he may not have felt he could confront Ramsey and win since John would have been able to defend himself. Pick a vulnerable, weaker opponet and you're bound to come out the weiner--er--winner.

Rainsong

I meant more 'rank speculation' on the 'chose JonBenet due to inability to confront John Ramsey' versus 'chose JonBenet because he likes little girls'. I think between these two alternatives the scales pretty much balance.

http://www.puellula.org/almapintada/toc/ramsey/index.html

Ofcourse, he may be correct. We do not know. It is wrong, however, for a sleuth to be so 'convinced' about anything. Looking at the evidence and being receptive to new evidence and new interpretations is important.

I've always admitted that someone from the immediate area is the easiest person to approach the house without being noticed. I've always felt an 'observation post' such as a nearby home is a likely factor. However, without a neighborhood canvass its a hard avenue to follow and in this particular case it seems unlikely to me that it was a teenage male.

I would add that there would be no need for him to have actually been hired by Access Graphics. Boulder was a software revolution town at the time and there were lots of similar firms hiring programmers for a variety of projects.

Teen age male or male in early twenties is statistically favored for sex crimes and perhaps for murder, though not necessarily murder of young children.

I however think the note writer is older, more-experienced.

I also think that anyone who would have any sort of grudge against the Ramseys would tend to be older. Some panhandler perhaps? Recall that Gary Oliva was charged with 'aggressive panhandling'. Did he take offense to someone's reaction to his aggressive behavior. One mugger once said '' I shot him because he didn't give me my money fast enough'. My money! That would be the Demented Creep type. However, I think the Bright, Personable Chap is more likely to write that ransom note and have all these 'creative' posings and false indications.

That's a good point. Why would the "Demented Creep" type even bother with the gentleman-like beginnings of the ransom note?

I'm sure its a behavior pattern/ pesonality disorder influence on crime. Ofcourse if you are going to look at criminals and ages, its hard to account for variation across the dataset. And its even harder, in this particular case, to know for sure whether you should be looking up kidnappers, child murderers, child rapists who merely get rid of witnesses, etc.

I think someone like David Westerfield who probably just disposed of Danielle is different than someone who actively plans on and enjoys the killing. David Westerfield wanted a young girl and didn't want her to live to testify against him. However the killer of JonBenet wanted to enjoy the killing a young girl and may not have had any other really major goals in mind.

I'm lost in regard this statement, Don. Would you mind elaborating on high pre-natal brain testosterone? How does it happen that he would later in life have low testosterone?

This is pure speculation virtually unsupported by evidence from the crime scene, however, I think the low testosterone is common in sex offenders anyway. Consider his garotte use: while fashioning it and employing it may have been pleasurable for him, he may actually have needed to employ one because of low grip strenght. Low grip strength means poor forearm muscular development, usually a sign of low testosterone. I used the example of a man who actually has a "husband" in his kitchen cabinets. Women keep those things in their kitchen cabinets, men don't.

If I were to ask you to name the constiutent organs of the endocrine system, I'm sure you could name several but would be hard put to ever name 'adipose tissue' as an element of the endocrine system. Yet clearly it is. Men like David Westerfield carry alot of fat that converts their testosterone to estrogen. Higher levels of testosterone decrease the levels of ghrellin which decreases appetite. So someone like DW would be converting a great deal of his testosterone to estrogen in an inescapable spiral. On-edit: I would love to get data on DW's E1 and E2 levels, I'm sure his estradiol levels are off the charts. I think you could take a sample of photos of convicted sex offenders and compare them to photos of people sitting in an endocrinologist's waiting room and see distinct similarities.

Sex offenders often have problems relating to others and often might prefer an adult female but are unable to obtain them. This too is a behavior trait that easily be linked to serum testosterone levels. Lack of any assertiveness leads to poor job performance and poor ability to obtain normal social relations. Recall, perhaps the rumor that a firm of trial lawyers in one state actually tested their applicants salivary testosterone levels.

So I would admit that all this is indeed speculation, but there are plausible circumstances for it. Tall, thin, lacking muscles and needing, not choosing, a garotte is a possibility. Corpulent is a less likely possibility. Either way, his acts that night were perhaps an extreme, but they are consistent with his normal state of being. He lives in a fantasy world because he has no "real world" in which to live. He probably has the social skills to eat lunch with coworkers but he doesn't have the social skills to date any of them and if he did ask them for a date, they would all say no to him anyway. He probably has sufficient strength to open a door for a woman, but not for strangling even a child. On-edit: I know I've often felt the garotte was for pure enjoyment, not necessity, but I am speculating on the possibility he just might be in the lowest ten percent of grip strength and needed a garotte.

So based on all this I would say he is probably tall, thin, lacks muscles and would probably prefer adult females for sex and adult males for combat or cameraderie, but must actually choose young girls for sex and must avoid combat with his real opponent that night: John Ramsey.

From some accounts, the garotte and cord on JBR's hands, was a bondage thing-------and garotte's can be used for control.

Take a look at Gary Ridgeway, Ted Bundy, Joel Rifkin. All of them looked 'normal,' acted normal, blended in with society. There are others, like Jeffrey Dahmer and David Berkowitz, who were of the loner type.

Just as there are different types of rapists, there are different types of murderers based on motivation. Testosterone levels can be normal, below normal and above normal--as in the case of Albert DeSalvo, for whom having sex 5 or 6 times a day still wasn't enough.

Sex can be the factor whether a crime is classified as a 'sex crime,' but it doesn't follow that the sex is the ultimate goal or that it is even fulfilling for the offender. Many serial offenders who rape do not find the sex satisfying, thus they continue with their series of attacks in hope the next victim will give them the ultimate thrill they have envisioned in their fantasy.

However, since I don't see JonBenet's murder as a primarily sexually motivated crime--though still classified as a sex crime--I don't believe sexual fantasy played a major part in her murder. Revenge fantasy, yeah, but not sexual fantasy.

There are other offenders, the indequate type, who may use some object for penetration due to their inadequacies. This doesn't necessarily mean they have low testosterone; it could mean they are emotionally or socially inadequate inadequate. Humiliation and degradation may be their end goal.

Rainsong

I've often thought that might be the purpose of the cord, but its also been described as very "wimpy bondage" and so might be simply more an indication of inexperience or else different motivation of some sort.

If the offender in the JonBenét Ramsey case constructed the garotte out of necessity rather than desire or mental pathology, it makes sense to consider what physical pathology might be underlying the weak grip strength. Who knows? DonBradley might be right, and it will help to identify him. I have to admit, I have wondered if the offender constructed the garotte because something was wrong with his hands. Maybe it hurts like hell to strangle someone for several minutes with a 1/4" cord.

I don't really see a bondage fantasist at work in this crime scene. Fantasies of bondage are elaborate and long-standing before any crimes, if a crime is going to occur, are committed. The bonds are tight, usually behind the back, feet are often bound, and the cords often connect between different bondage points. Often the victim will strangle herself if she moves because the offender has tied her that way on purpose. The offender has thought about it for a long time and takes the time to place the bindings just the way he has envisioned. This crime scene is pretty "wimpy" as far as bondage goes, IMO.

Incidentally, I am talking about criminal bondage. My research indicates those who participate in bondage between consenting adults tend to be non-violent.

Incidentally, for those who might be interested, there is some work that shows the only really effective treatment for sex offenders is a very powerful magnet placed over one of the temporal lobes. Obviously, all the funding goes to this "talk therapy and reverse role playing" which is probably too exciting for them to really be therapy.

As far as grip strength goes, very little testing goes on and the low grip strenght is, for a male, a predictor of stroke risk. I believe it was bottom 12 or 17 percent. I don't think it would be 'injury' to the hand as much as strength to maintain the pressure on someone's throat or fear of leaving some sort of evidence if he used his fingers. Its far more likely to be that he enjoyed the use of a garotte than that he really needed one. I just wanted to throw out the possibility of 'need' rather than 'desire'.

Sure, lots of sex offenders are overweight, but a lot of them are slender and not bad looking. Ted Bundy and Richard Chambers were both good looking. On the other end of the spectrum we have David Carpenter (The Trailside Killer), an overweight man with a severe stutter and a domineering mother, Westley Allan Dodd, a man of small stature and retarded social maturity could only relate to children, or a John Hansen, acne-scarred, skinny and a stutterer.

You see, it isn't their physiological imperfections that makes them what they become but what they think they are in their own twisted minds. Bundy saw himself as a 'bastard' but he also saw himself as entitled at the same time he 'knew' he could never attain those elite co-eds due to his wrong-side-of-the-blanket birth. Chambers, a murderer, ran with a crowd he couldn't financially afford to be a part of and compensated by committing petty crimes to buy drugs for the crowd he aspired to. Hansen, a married man who had a miserable adolescence, became a big game hunter in Alaska. When the thrill of the game hunt palled, he started hunting women. Transported to the Alaskan wilderness in his airplane, he stripped them naked and then let them run in order to hunt them. It made him feel like a 'man.'

Then we have someone like an Edmund Kemper, a large, large man (6'9" and over 250lbs) with an IQ in the genius range. Kemper isn't a handsome man by any means but he isn't a monster, either. He is charming, intelligent and converses well. However, he had a miserable childhood at the hands of his mother, locked in a basement room because she feared he might molest his sisters. But his problems were evident prior to her putting him in the basement since one of his favorite games to play with his sisters was to pretend he was sitting in the electric chair while they pulled the switch. At age 12 or 14 (Can't remember), he shot his grandmother (another domineering woman)in the head because he wondered what it would be like to do it. To keep his grandfather from seeing what he had done to his grandmother, he killed him too.

The twisted pattern of logic (and fantasy) develops early. However, while I don't believe this is the type of criminal that killed JonBenet, I do think we can learn something from studying serial killers and one time offenders. We can learn how they think and many of them do not feel adequate to face their primary target on a one-to-one basis. Such was Edmund Kemper. His primary goal was his mother, but it took 10 murders under his belt before he felt up to confronting her and still he had to go one murder further--killing her best friend--before he turned himself in to the cops.

Killers choose to kill and they do so for their own reasons. Modern science has been trying to show a physiological reason why some people kill for over 100 years. As of yet, nothing has been found. Neither frontal lobe abnormalities nor extra chromosomes have been discovered. I seriously doubt the endocrine system has much to do with it either. And I say this because if it did, there would be some constant trait that would show in every killer's life. Too many Twinkies before the age of six, an all rice diet, beards before age 12, every killer the same height, weight, skin texture, all of them wear glasses, have diabetes, or acne. What has been found is nada, zilch, zero.

They choose to kill because it satisfies something in them.

Rainsong

>Sure, lots of sex offenders are overweight, but a lot of
>them are slender and not bad looking.
True. There may well be multiple factors.

>it isn't their physiological imperfections that makes them what
>they become but what they think they are in their own twisted minds.
No. Not 'make them' but perhaps 'influence them' or are evidence of some subtle influence that is as yet undiscovered.

>The twisted pattern of logic (and fantasy) develops early.
>However, while I don't believe this is the type of criminal
>that killed JonBenet,
No, the twisted thinkers you are referring to select a 'type' of person, but a man hunting a naked woman in the Alaskan wilderness would select just about any woman and would not write long notes to her about the hunt. He is not focusing on 'a person' and one victim would be just about interchangeable with any of his other victims.

>They choose to kill because it satisfies something in them.
Clearly.

I'm not so sure, Rainsong. Why does one person growing up in heinous conditions turn out well, while a sibling in the same conditions turns to crime?

Look at a litter of pups. One of those pups may be service dog material, but, another will eventually have to be put down because he is a fear biter. There are temperment tests that can be done with the pups when they are just a few weeks old that are very good indicators of what kind of temperment the full grown dog will have. Is it twisted thinking? Choices? Or were the pups born that way?

I have a strong suspicion that the problems of violent offenders will eventually be addressed most effectively through the medical field, and I wish more resources would be applied to that area.

In the cases I'm talking about, the breeding is carefully controlled. There are not many dogs that have all the desirable traits to be a service dog, so when the breeders of them get those good traits, they don't let their bitch be mated with more than one sire.

Even under carefully controlled conditions, the bitch can still throw a dangerous dog irregardless of environment.

Okay. Consider this scenario. If a man is severely depressed and has persistent suicidal ideation, would you consider that to a form of twisted thinking? I know it is not the particular kind of "twisted thinking" that you were referring to, but it is a reasonable example of a type of twisted thinking.

Now if solely testosterone is administered and no other chemical intervention of any sort is attempted, yet he undergoes an immediate and profound cure, you have clear indications of the role testosterone plays as a potent anti-depressant. That is one reason why I say that sex offenders have low testosterone, though the real problem is not with thier actual levels as it is more related to the circadian rythms of the hormone.

Do not think that sex offenders have 'too much testosterone'. Just the opposite. That is often the reason why 'chemical castration' is not really much of an option. It may change the aggressiveness but it doesn't really change the twisted thinking aspects. So his only choice with lowered aggression levels is to select a victim with lower abilities to resist his aggression: a very young child!

On edit: I would like to address one issue that is particularly relevant to "twisted thinking". You may recall the questions that John Ramsey was asked early that day about who do you owe money to, etc? The BPD were trying to find a "reasonable" enemy. I'm sure John Ramsey was wracking his brain trying to think of a "reasonable" enemy. But it is an enemy with 'twisted thinking' that might be responsible. It would be absurd for John Ramsey to have replied to the BPD with a statement that five years earlier he had been leaving an office building and having happened to be unaware of a man following close behind him, he inadvertantly let the door close on him. John Ramsey, not being a 'twisted thinker', would not consider such a trivial incident as grounds for a long-simmering grudge that resulted in the death of his daughter. However, the "tisted thinker" might well just think exactly that. His depression makes him view his problems as being related to others actions (not his own actions) and his only option is not to track down John Ramsey but to track down someone more defenseless so as to settle that grudge once and for all.

If you compare the crime to the life the Ramseys were living, someone wanted to ruin all that---on one of the happiest days of the year. IMO, jealousy more than a personal grudge is behind it, and the Ramseys were a symbol of what Boulder had become.

>he doesn't rule out the kidnapping motive
I would all but rule it out almost immediately upon discovery of the corpse, if not upon seeing the amount of the ransom demand.

>extremely disturbed, violent personality, with a criminal history.
I might doubt the 'extremely' and see no reason for prior crimes.

>If you compare the crime to the life the Ramseys were
>living, someone wanted to ruin all that---on one of the
>happiest days of the year.
Perhaps.

>jealousy more than a personal grudge is behind it,
There are many who do believe that.

> and the Ramseys were a symbol of what Boulder had become.
Possibly, but you might want to consider my fictious Chamber of Commerce List of 1,000 Successful Businessmen With Young Daughters. I placed John Ramsey as 576th on that list. Perhaps you would place him higher, perhaps not. Since their lifestyle was rather low-key, this also lowers the 'jealousy' motivation a bit too.

Yes, I would consider it twisted thinking but not the same type of twisted thinking predators have.

>Now if solely testosterone is administered and no other
>chemical intervention of any sort is attempted, yet he
>undergoes an immediate and profound cure, you have clear
>indications of the role testosterone plays as a potent
>anti-depressant. That is one reason why I say that sex
>offenders have low testosterone, though the real problem is
>not with thier actual levels as it is more related to the
>circadian rythms of the hormone.

The difficulty with your logic is all sex offenders are not the same. There are various types of sex offenders because their are a multitude of motivations. Some act from their inadequacies, and those inadequacies do not stem from a limited libido but from other sources, such as growing up in a home with a bully for a father, a domineering or over-indulgent mother, a severe speech impediment, or a an emotional difficulty such as not bonding with parents at a young age.
>
>Do not think that sex offenders have 'too much
>testosterone'. Just the opposite. That is often the reason
>why 'chemical castration' is not really much of an option.
>It may change the aggressiveness but it doesn't really
>change the twisted thinking aspects. So his only choice with
>lowered aggression levels is to select a victim with lower
>abilities to resist his aggression: a very young child!

I believe the gamut of testosterone in sex offenders runs from high to low. Those feelings of inadequacy stem from a multitude of reasons: see above.

>On edit: I would like to address one issue that is
>particularly relevant to "twisted thinking". You may recall
>the questions that John Ramsey was asked early that day
>about who do you owe money to, etc? The BPD were trying to
>find a "reasonable" enemy. I'm sure John Ramsey was wracking
>his brain trying to think of a "reasonable" enemy. But it is
>an enemy with 'twisted thinking' that might be responsible.
>It would be absurd for John Ramsey to have replied to the
>BPD with a statement that five years earlier he had been
>leaving an office building and having happened to be unaware
>of a man following close behind him, he inadvertantly let
>the door close on him. John Ramsey, not being a 'twisted
>thinker', would not consider such a trivial incident as
>grounds for a long-simmering grudge that resulted in the
>death of his daughter. However, the "tisted thinker" might
>well just think exactly that.
On this we can agree.

His depression makes him view
>his problems as being related to others actions (not his own
>actions) and his only option is not to track down John
>Ramsey but to track down someone more defenseless so as to
>settle that grudge once and for all.

I have no idea what experience you have with the clinically depressed, but from my own experience, those who suffer this malady rarely have the energy to get out of bed, comb their hair or take a shower, let alone plan and carry out an intricate murder plot including a three page ransom note.

Those who hunt for weaker more easily conquered prey, the very young or the elderly, usually do so because they are not confident in their ability to interact (or assault) with their peers. Those beliefs may stem from one or more of the reasons I listed above plus many more.

Take another look at Ted Bundy. He was confident enough to date women but not confident enough to take control of his own life. His expectations of law school were not met by his local college not being the image he manifested when he thought of 'law school.' His embarrassment over the family car when other families were driving newer, sexier cars, his stepfather being nothing more than a cook, his appreciation for fine things but not the confidence to earn them...all point to a less than confident (inadequate) view of himself and his place in the world.

Bundy certainly had no difficulty in the sex department (other than connecting satisfaction with murder) since he had a steady relationship with a single female for quite a few years. There was no lack of semen found on his victims, implying he had no inadequacies in gaining and maintaining an erection or difficulties with ejaculation. His difficulty, as I said above, was he related sexual pleasure to violence and even then, he told interviewers the sex was secondary and control (power) was his "orgasm." For him, the ultimate high was his power over life and death. I can't find the quote at the moment but to paraphrase, 'With their last breath, you are God.'

Rainsong

However, the presence of the note and the contents of the note indicate that he also has a distinct interest in the identity of his victim. Ted Bundy would pick up any young girl with long straight hair who was willing to help a man who had his arm in a sling. Sick Puppy was not willing to kill any six year old girl he happened to encounter.
He may have selected the Ramseys for what we would consider to be an absurd reason, such as that slammed office door, but he did select his victim, not merely reach out and grab what was encountered.

I agree with your statement about attacking the weaker and I assume he was unwilling to attack John Ramsey because of a physical weakness he has or a perception of himself as too weak to tackle an adult male. Such 'weakness' might be psychological.