What I believe NoteWriter is saying is, "Listen John, me and some other guys represent the interests of a foreign faction. It has nothing to do with you or your business. It's a political matter, so from one business man to another, just do as I say, and you'll get your daughter back no problem...

(NoteWriter is immediately giving John a great deal of hope that this isn't personal, it's just about the money, and he'll be able to get his daughter back safe and sound as long as he allows himself to be completely controlled by NoteWriter.)

...I want you to believe I really do want money so I'm including the extraneous information about the size of the attache, denominations, and a warning on tampering with the money. What I really want is you to figure out the appropriate size of case to take to the bank, bring the money back and put it in a paper bag, and sit there and wait. I want you to believe that your every move is being watched and to believe I may call at any moment. While you are waiting, John, here are some things I want you to think about: a couple of the guys DO have a grudge against you, after all, and they may kill her at any moment by chopping her head off. You won't even get the body back. Not only that, but the delivery is going to involve a long, drawn-out process wherein you will meet some very dangerous and saavy characters who are going to check you for electronic tracking devices. You're the only one who can save her, John, and one false move will put your daughter's blood on your hands. You'll have no one to blame but yourself. Oh, and while you're at it, it's going to be a long, extremely stressful day, so get some rest."

I suggest that the offender knew beforehand that he was going to murder John Ramsey's daughter and leave her in the house. For an unknown reason, the offender relished the thought of John waiting by the phone with his sack of money envisioning the terror and responsibilities ahead of him, all the while knowing JonBenet was dead and still in the house.

I, ofcourse, agree with that.
However, I am not certain about the use of your term 'control device'.

I would agree that he wanted the note to instill a viewpoint of 'we must get the money and sit by the phone'. It was still overly wordy for such a message, but that is the behavior he wanted.

Sit by the phone endlessly waiting for a call that would not come and going through pure hell everytime some darned telemarketer called.

Was this solely for his amusement or did he have to get someplace in particular before the corpse was discovered?

The one item that we don't know about is that magazine article that was marked up similar to "Ricochet." If that was part of the message the perp wanted to convey, it makes it more likely that this was some kind of vendetta...and yes, then I would agree that murdering JR's daughter and sexually assaulting her might have been pre-planned. On the other hand, as gruesome as this crime was, the parents whose children are never found never have closure----and they never have a "proper burial." They wonder forever what happened.

If murder was part of the plan, I don't think they would have left JBR in the house.......for one thing, the forensic evidence that can be obtained from the body. Remember--perps take something with then---they leave evidence behind. The perp was careful in trying to cover his tracks, but even with the contaminated crime scene he left plenty of clues behind, such as a footprint....DNA...hair and fibers...ransom note in someone's writing...and possibly a few things that have never been made public. It still seems like a kidnapping gone bad to me by an amateur.

I can't shake a Vodicka link.....someone that may have been upset that her death was ruled an accident, so they might have planned a kidnapping and murder of JBR, leaving no doubt a crime and murder had been committed---something the police could not rule an "accident."

I just don't understand how murder could NOT have been part of the plan, if not the sole plan. What was done to her was no accident. It was brutal.

How could it go from a mere kidnapping to her brutally battered tortured body being left in the basement?

It would have been quite easy for him to walk right out of the house with her and stash her somewhere until John met his demands. He didn't even try and he never intended to take her anywhere, imo.

I think he had been wanting to do this for a while-- saw the movie ransom and it gave him idea of the note. This very well could be someone that is familiar with LE by watching movies. In his mind he wsa like the creepy cop and john was the enemy, just like Mel Gibson, in the movie.

He knew the note would throw everything off. The crime would be looked at as something completely different that what he really had in mind. And it would also buy him some time. Maybe?

THIS perp has shown through the note that he had a particular interest in action movies. From there, speculation has stretched into presumed knowledge of such long ago crimes as the Franck murder (Leopold and Loeb), the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Clutter family murders, etc.

I'm not so sure he was as savvy as we give him credit for. Was he 'lucky' to

have a crime scene that was contaminated from the start?
have an inept, inexperienced police department?
have the FBI killing time in Denver and at the BPD offices, rather than get set up to handle the 'kidnapping' they were required to handle?
have 'chosen' to commit the crime on a day when the police department (and maybe the FBI) was down to a skeleton staff?
have chosen a family that the public loves to hate?
have committed this crime in a political atmosphere that was not unlike the Hatfields v the McCoys?

TWO people contributed enormous advantage for this perp. How could he have predicted how much they would HELP him get away with this crime? John Eller, whose obstructive behaviors, time and again, created an uncooperative atmosphere between the BPD and other law enforcement agencies and between the victims and law enforcement could never have been predicted. AND Steve Thomas, modeling after his mentor, John Eller, with belligerent, arrogant, obstructive activities that further damaged the investigation and led the BPD down a ridiculously illogical garden path. How lucky could a guy get?

From PMPT pb page 499 (The Quantico Presentation)

The police then mentioned the Ramseys' behavior immediately after the body was found: the fact that John Ramsey was ready to fly to Atlanta with his wife and son and leave his daughter's body - and the investigation into her murder - behind; the refusal to cooperate with the police; and the hiring of criminal attorneys. In reply, the FBI pointed out that no two people respond to trauma and grief the same way, and that the police should not overanalyze what they had observed. Most of the time, the parents of a victim are all over the police. "Why the hell haven't you caught my child's killer?" "What's going on? I want to know everything." In this case, the police had to acknowledge that it was their own commander's actions that led to the long postponement of the parents' interviews.

Oh, thanks, Margoo.

One person the note may or may not have fooled is Fleet White, Jr. I don't think he is the perp (unless there is some sort of huge cover up, which I can't imagine to be so, with Keenan now on the case), but I don't think it's known for sure, except in the DA's office, whether or not Fleet White, Jr. has been ruled out.

And Fleet could have been just spacing out in the tremendous anxiety and fear of that morning, with JonBenet missing. But why did he search the house, even calling out JonBenet's name (?), thinking perhaps it was similar to the incident when Daphne was missing but just hiding?

What could have been his reasoning? That JonBenet wrote that 3-page ransom note, and then she went into hiding someplace in the house before 6 a.m.? I have wondered about this several times. Why in the world would Fleet think it could be like what Daphne did, with that 3-page kidnapping note sitting there?

I've thought about that safe a number of times. I understand it wasn't real easy to see. I also wonder why, if the perp was interested in the safe, he didn't come up with a plan that incorporated it, or why he would think the 118,000 was in the safe. Maybe there wasn't that much. Maybe, there was a whole lot more! If there were any relevance at all to the safe, I think it would be the symbolic message that John's sack of money and his safe can't buy back the life of his daughter.

>The one item that we don't know about is that magazine
>article that was marked up similar to "Ricochet." If that
>was part of the message the perp wanted to convey, it makes
>it more likely that this was some kind of vendetta...and
>yes, then I would agree that murdering JR's daughter and
>sexually assaulting her might have been pre-planned. On the
>other hand, as gruesome as this crime was, the parents whose
>children are never found never have closure----and they
>never have a "proper burial." They wonder forever what
>happened.

If only we knew for sure about that article. Lou Smit was curious. It sure got John Ramsey's attention. I don't know that they would get all that excited about a child's scribble.

>If murder was part of the plan, I don't think they would
>have left JBR in the house.......for one thing, the forensic
>evidence that can be obtained from the body.
>Remember--perps take something with then---they leave
>evidence behind. The perp was careful in trying to cover
>his tracks, but even with the contaminated crime scene he
>left plenty of clues behind, such as a
>footprint....DNA...hair and fibers...ransom note in
>someone's writing...and possibly a few things that have
>never been made public. It still seems like a kidnapping
>gone bad to me by an amateur.

You could be right. In some ways, it seems the most sensible way to think. If JonBenet had sustained more overall random injuries, I could see the kidnapping gone bad scenario. If the note, itself, sounded more like a ransom note then someone writing a self-gratifying, Hollywood script, I could believe it was a kidnapping. If he had fled in a panic, it would be more believable. I think he was over-confident that night, and that may be his undoing.

I'm thinking one of the reasons for the note was to control John's actions, thoughts and feelings as much as possible. To me, this offender is a very controlled and controlling individual, but he is terrified to have direct confrontations with those who he sees as equal or superior to him. I think he would have loved to put John through hell directly, if he could, but he can't, so he used the note to begin controlling him from the moment John read it. I think he may have used the note to control the investigation by sending LE down the wrong path right from the beginning. I liken the note to the garotte in that both were constructed for the purpose of control.

>I would agree that he wanted the note to instill a viewpoint
>of 'we must get the money and sit by the phone'. It was
>still overly wordy for such a message, but that is the
>behavior he wanted.

Not just get the money and sit by the phone. Immediately begin looking for what might be the proper size case to carry the money in. Make the arrangements with the bank to get the money and have it sorted into the proper denominations. Bring the money home and transfer it into a sack. Then wait by the phone for a phone call that may come any second because the perp said if he got the money earlier he might call. And, of course, John's brain will not be idle while he is waiting. The perp has given John plenty of bloody and terrifying imagery, plenty of questions, and he still has many hoops to jump through after the call. John Ramsey probably didn't relax and begin healing for many, many months. The offender had to put enough in the note to satisfy himself that, at least until JonBenet was found, he was in total control of John Ramsey. The offender is either a natural at psychological warfare or he studied it. You and I know that a simple, "We've got the kid. Get the money. We'll call you," would have had the same affect, but that would in no way satisfy the offender, would it?

>Sit by the phone endlessly waiting for a call that would not
>come and going through pure hell everytime some darned
>telemarketer called.

It's hard to imagine anyone would think this way or be so cruel, but that is what it looks like to me.

>Was this solely for his amusement or did he have to get
>someplace in particular before the corpse was discovered?

I don't know, but I do think he would have rehearsed his alibi and reinforced it to others.

Rainsong

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Dosen't someone have to rehearse a lie? We know of one suspect who told a BIG one. Maybe there's more suspects who did the same... but he's the only one i know of that flat out lied to the police about where he spent the Christmas Holiday.

I'd imagine that separating that luck into 'crime scene luck' and 'post-discovery luck' might help.

Obviously the incredible bungling and the foolish obsession of the BPD could not have been predicted, but should we credit him with having been 'lucky' at the crime scene or should we think it more 'skill'?

If he left a sack and some un-used rope as well as perhaps leaving a flashlight at the scene one wonders if he is lacking in task attention abilities or if he is somehow being really clever.

Forensic awareness? Or just luck. Maybe he did leave footprints of some sort or debris from his shoes and that is why the carpet was cut from each side of the bed by the forensic types.

And if the ransom note's monetary amount was based on his favorite numbers, having that amount turn out to be the annual bonus was an incredible piece of luck rather than any sort of inside knowledge.

There are a lot of things the offender could not have known would happen in the aftermath of the crime, but I'm sure he felt he could count on the fact that the crime would devastate John Ramsey and that it wouldn't be that hard to kill a small child. That's all I can see the guy really wanted out of the crime.

I agree. He hasn't struck again in 7 years. No little girl has been killed in her home on Christmas night or any other night in this manner. He wanted JB and he had a lot of info. He had an opportunity, just like Westerfield did. Only thing is, this was planned down to a ransom note and a stun-gun.

It had to be someone with a vantage point and an axe to grind, imo. Someone very close to the home. A neighbor.

There would be a considerable advantage to the perpetrator to have had an observation post nearby. The easiest one is a home, but a van might work also. If he did not actually live in the area, that might be okay too: he could visit a friend or relative. There are other possibilities, but the primary one is indeed someone who lives nearby.

Living nearby provides not only a vantage point for observations but also a greater liklihood of knowing about JonBenet and having had some sort of interaction with John Ramsey or Patsy Ramsey and thereby forming some sort of grudge.

For those who see this crime as primarily a crime against the parents, a neighbor makes sense. For those who do see this crime as a sex crime then a neighbor makes sense too. Statistically, someone from the neighborhood is high on the list anyway.

The lack of any similar crimes is indeed significant though some people can be satiated rather easily. Alot of people have been tormented by demons but give in to impulses after years of such torment. It is possible that someone nearby was 'satisfied' with the crime. And if it is a 'grudge' against the parents, he is perfectly happy to refrain from any similar crimes just to make sure the parents continue to suffer in the Court of Last Resort.

The incredible bumbling of the BPD's failure to canvass the neighborhood is an absurd impediment to the investigation.

Quite some time ago, when I first read the title of this thread, I reacted to the words 'control device' as more relating to physical control and felt it very strange, but opened the thread anyway.

I tend to think of handcuffs, thumb cuffs, cattle prods as 'control devices' and would probably prefer a term such as 'manipulative artifact' or some such nonsense.

I do agree, however, that the essential purpose of the so-called ransom note is to manipulate the mind and actions of the parents.

And although I would not necessarily think the note-writer was 'controlled' I would certainly agree that he is controlling in a very manipulative way and desires to exercise control directly but is unable to do so.

The note was more than the "added touch". It was very important to the killer that the parents spend anxious hours awaiting a call that would never be made to them. It was very important for the killer to revel in the fact that he knew what they were going through and that he had been responsible for it and that he alone knew of the real situation they were in. He so reveled in power that he undoubtedly lacks it in his normal life. After all, who can revel in power over a six year old girl if he is a full grown man? Only someone who is utterly at odds with the whole world in which he lives.

But it seems completely unnesessary to write anything more than a perfunctory note: "If you want to see your daughter again you'll wait by the phone until we call...notify the cops and she's dead".

That being the case, I have a hard time thinking all that other extraneous wordiness was just clap trap or time filler. The logical answer, it seems to me, is that the note is the way it, in order to accomplish the writer's purpose, beyond tormenting or controlling the family and serving as a deterrant on the stair.

Specifically, it set the Ramseys up for the kidnapping call to the police which led to the FBI textbook conclusion that "they were good for it". It really is simple in this, it's primary purpose, and thus affords the writer the secondary pleasure of outwitting the dumb cops/FBI, whom he distains as much as the Ramseys.

What if the call had never been made...the RN warning being taken seriously? A day or two gone by, a trip postponed, a lot of money collected, at least in terms of cash on hand, and it would look like they were trying to buy time to figure out what to do-the note would justyify that-to hide the body or leave the country?

In a short time, the body would have made itself known and the Ramseys would have been just as vilified as they have been.

Either way, the note would have served it's purposes. A drunk, high as a kite, loner, fantasy following pedophile didn't write this note in a few moments; Somebody gave a lot of thought to what this note could do.

I think it might be best to compare the two immediately preceeding posts together.

One post points out that the note could have been ten words long and still communicated the same message.
one post points out that John Ramsey, if the intended target, was there asleep and could have been attacked almost certainly successfully.

Just as the note was elaborated excessively, so too was the crime.
Why try to kill John Ramsey when you can elaborately make him suffer for years? And why try to kill him when you are slightly built and might lose the fight? Much more sensible to do it in a very elaborate manner. Attack the six year old. Besides, maybe he did enjoy the "other activities" too.

It probably is strange. I was thinking more along the lines of a physical item used for control even if not face to face.

"And although I would not necessarily think the note-writer was 'controlled'..."

Let us say the hypothesis of "revenge crime" is correct. Typically, one thinks of an angry individual, angry enough to kill, who loses his temper and fully vents his hatred as soon as he feels free to do so. I don't see that in this case.

The note begins politely, almost cordially, before it descends to threats and taunting. Even those, though, are kept within the context of the note. There are no tangents about 'getting even." JonBenét was taken from her bed quietly and carefully. The application of the garotte was controlled in that pressure enough to cut into skin and underlying structures did not occur. There was not full or repeated penetration during the vaginal assault. The blunt force trauma was one, well-aimed blow. For someone who was out for revenge, this individual acted in a very controlled way. My impression of the note is NoteWriter was eager to say more, but could not. In terms of control, I think the offender is very controlled and would consider losing one's temper beneath him. I think he is a bit of a snob this way.

"He so reveled in power that he undoubtedly lacks it in his normal life. After all, who can revel in power over a six year old girl if he is a full grown man? Only someone who is utterly at odds with the whole world in which he lives."

I have to agree this is the inner condition of the offender. Do those around him see it, too? Not really. He is used to interacting with the world and knows what society wants to hear. Those around him might think he is a pompous jerk or "wimp" at times but he keeps to himself for the most part, and no one really wonders what he does when they aren't around him. He has a carefully crafted facade for family and "friends." He knows society doesn't consider a grown man attacking a child as particularly brave or courageous. He knows he has violated the ultimate taboo. He just doesn't see it that way. I would dare to take it one step further to say he is throwing this crime in our faces right along with the Ramseys by challenging LE as Braveheart has pointed out.

Many inadequate types do inflict pain, suffering and death on someone other than their primary target and many of them choose children or older women as their victims. It's payback time, and to the perpetrator, who pays the price isn't important as long as the punishment he inflicts makes him feel better about himself--in control.

Rainsong

However, I think there is a good chance that this guy was interested in a particular victim, not just a surrogate for some face he would visualize. He wanted to visualize this specific victim dying.

Sure its possible that he just opened the phone book and studied his arbitrarily selected victim, but I doubt it.

Rainsong

So true. It is not at all stretching the bounds of reality to think the offender killed JonBenét as a strike to the heart of her father. It happens more frequently than one suspects. How much easier to kill someone weaker than to perhaps get hurt and apprehended by facing the primary target.

Well yeah, if someone wanted to kill John Ramsey they could have, you are right. Shot dead by a sniper/hit man with a silencer. Quick. Not traceable. Possibly a 4"x 4"article in the local news section of the paper, a brief mention on the Boulder late night news, "local businessman shot dead-police have no clue". The family grieves privately for a while and they eventually move on, probably back to Georgia. NOBODY hears anything about this ANYMORE.

>I don't really buy that they attacked JBR to get back at him.

One of the motives of this crime is not just to "get"John but to point out John and Patsy's faults to the whole world. One of the motives for this is to make them suffer in the public eye. John wouldn't have suffered much if he was wacked. Maybe a few terrible painfull moments and then....gone.
His family would have suffered, sure. Yet, wives expect their spouses to die someday. Adults expect to die someday. But nobody expects to see their child murdered, and then get blamed for it.

Watch "Richochet"again and watch the bad guy complain at the end, "It's not fair...you should suffer for ever"(or something like that ).

The difference between my motive and the killer's: He thought about this a long time, he didn't just react. He wanted to make the Ramseys guilt known-they deserved this, not because they did this personally to him, but they were two well known persons in the community who represented the groups of people he hated and whom he thinks are respomsible for societies, and his, problems.

Like the brother, they just happened along and had a daughter and situation that he could exploit.
He planned this to go down a certain way. I can't think of a crueler way to get at them. But that certainly wasn't his only motive.

The note and the movie lines/themes and the marked up picture indicate a vendetta. By the same token, it could be the perp's own idea of a movie script (ie: role-playing...copycat crime). If he knew about the death of Beth, pre-planned murder of the youngest daughter and sexually assaulting her would surely be almost more then one person could bear. The note tends to shift the outcome on JR....so I'm not completely convinced it wasn't pre-meditated murder.

However, something about the way the note sounds, lacks punch...and seems to lack a real passion for a personal vendetta. Unless the perp were directing the investigation, how could he possibly have known the coroner would miss the stun gun marks....the police would think someone in the house wrote the note....would miss signs of an intruder by the basement window? That his DNA wouldn't be found? They know who the perp is by his DNA---they just haven't been able to put a name to it. How did the perp know that the police wouldn't thoroughly search the house and find JBR earlyon? I think he would have done a much better job of setting John Ramsey up, by planting porn and drugs, and he could have written a shorter note that still got his "personal" grudge across to JR. Something that didn't have 3 pages of his handwriting. Most of that note contains superfluous words.

The outcome must have been icing on the cake, but I don't think this perp was that smart or cunning to be able to predict how the police investigation would go---I think he got out of Dodge fast---thinking he had really screwed up, because I don't think he meant to kill JBR---just cause a commotion when the note was made public...and I think he thought he could get some cash as well.

But I don't think the intruder wanted to nail the father, I think he wanted to needle him.

Got out of Dodge? Yeah, maybe. That might be the purpose of corpse concealment. And he might have later been ecstatic to find that his ransom demand which was determined by the roll of the dice turned out to be near John Ramsey's annual bonus.

We all know there are alot of possibilities.

I do however see this crime as being quite likely to have been a grudge against the parents or one of them.

Yes. And ofcourse it is indeed possible to impose some 'cruel tease' on a randomly selected person or simply by whim. It is possible to hate the whole world, but I think the "cruel tease" implies a desire to cruely tease a particular victim.

He was not 'cruely teasing' the parents of 'that cute girl he had encountered'. He was cruely teasing the Ramseys and was doing it for some long simmering reason.

I've often wondered if the missing pages, assumed to be practice notes, may have had that added punch you are referring to. In writing that note, the NoteWriter would have to be careful he did not give away any self identifiers. When NoteWriter starts talking about killing JonBenét, I see plenty of punch...decapitation? Shades of Adam Walsh whose father is one of the most well known men in the world. The figurehead for what all parents fear the most? By talking about what would happen to his daughter, extensively, the perp was telling John this is personal without actually saying it. When NoteWriter said the two gentlemen did not particularly like John, he directly contradicted what he said earlier in the note...this isn't personal. He couldn't say he or anyone he knew loathed John because that would send the police straight to searchng for anyone with even a remote agenda for revenge. NoteWriter couldn't help himself, though, he had to get a few little digs in there as non-descript as they were.

I doubt the offender knew how the police investigation would go beyond the fact that they would be looking for him. Whatever came after was a result of the political atmosphere of LE in Boulder over which the offender had little or no control.

As far as the superfluous words in the note, I think a much more careful reading is in order. I think the perp used an economy of words to get his point across without revealing his identity. He HAD to make this crime look like something else, IMO.

I agree, though, the goal was not to set up the Ramseys. He could have done a much better job of it if that were his goal.

For this reason, I think the 'grudge' related to something a bit more than letting a door slam on him. That would not be identifying. Something more precise in John or Patsy's past. Something. But what?

Who was John close enough too that they may not like him and close enough for him to be able to know the families comings and goings, bonus amount and know the had a little girl?

I feel John would be completely unaware of this person...someone he quite possibly had never even met in person.

What if this perp just heard about John all the time. JOhn this and JOhn that. He's so successful, he's this and that. The perp starts obssessing,he's jealous. Maybe someone that he was close too and always longed for the kind of attention that this person was paying John. How come he didn't look up to him like he did John?

Maybe he wasn't successful enough for him, had disappointed him all his life.

He wanted this John Ramsey who gleaning all this attention to suffer, maybe feel a loss like he had felt.

That's who I feel has committed this murder. Someone close, yet far.

Is there any record of a murder of anyone, or a member of anyone's family, such as a child, by a creep, based only on an overly sensitive reaction to a small slight? Pardon my ignorance if there is. I know that there are instances where a perp who already sort of had a plan to kill got set off by something in passing the victim said, such as may have happened in the Dartmouth faculty killings (or just the visual stimulus of money in the man's wallet in that case). But to put a plan into action to kill a person, or to kill a man's child, to put a plan into action only because of a small slight?.... where has this happened before?

I am more inclined to think JonBenet's murder was in the broad class of the L&L variety, or by a sick-O teenager experimenting with his first human kill, while also experimenting with his undifferentiated sexuality and anger.

Recently, I have been studying the murders of those three 8-yr-old boys in Arkansas, where there may be three men wrongfully in prison for those murders, one on death row. What is also intersting there, is that a forensic profiler, who also was very active in the unabomber case, did a re-analysis of the Arkansas autopsies of the three eight-year-old boys' murders and was the one who pointed out that the marks on two of the victims' bodies were HUMAN BITE MARKS, which I believe has been confirmed by experts who do this type of dental forensic work, AND which bite marks do not match any of those convicted and in prison for the murders. This certainly reminds me of Lou Smit's work and with other experts' help showing that marks on JonBenet were from a stun gun. In both cases, the types of the marks were not recognized by the cororners at the time of the autopsies. I don't think the cororners should be criticized. Communities can get whatever expertise they are willing to pay for.

It could be be something slight. But in this case, I think it could be that he didn't care for the family, but John was not the person he was after, he was just icing on the cake. No, I believe this was nothing more than a sadist who wanted a little girl. a real sick pup, who learned of JB thru a close neighbor or friend who might have idolized John or put him on a pedestal.

The perp would have had to observe the family at some point to know about little JB.

What I'm wondering is this: Did JB ever go to Barnhill's to play with her dog? Could that be where the kiler first laid eyes on her. She might have even talked with him.

Not really.
It is likely though.
Draft of note: We have your (son/daughter) in our possession.

Now, quite frankly, I think he knew about her in advance. And I also think there most likely was some 'observation' of the premises. Maybe prolonged such as by a neighbor or maybe fairly briefly such as from a distant vehicle, etc.

I think he saw them troop out on their way to FWs party, simply because no one has been identified as the person who was seen approaching the house in a non-furtive manner.

If the two year old article with red ink is related to the crime, that might have biographical material. If not, it certainly shows he knows how to obtain such information. I feel confident he selected who he was going to kill in advance. I just don't think JonBenet was the real target of his crime. She was just an enjoyable means to an end: creating pure hell for the parents.