Criminology - JonBenét Ramsey Part 3

Episode Date: April 7, 2024

The Ramsey family, 53-year-old John, 39-year-old Patricia, 9-year-old Burke, and 6-year-old JonBenét, lived what appeared to be an idyllic life in Boulder, Colorado. That happy family life was shattered on December 26th, 1996, after JonBenét was found dead in the home. Join Mike and Morf for this third and last episode covering the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. We cover a number of people who have been viewed as possible over the years, both inside and outside of the family. You can help support the show at pareon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Everyone and welcome to episode 302 of the Criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mike Morford. How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. We were just talking before we got on here about being sick versus not being sick. And my wife and kids have been sick and I haven't. And with what we do, it's important not to be sick, especially if it concerns the voice.

And right now I just happen to be healthy and I'm thankful to be healthy. Yeah, health is important. But you're right about the voice. You know, the voice is kind of key. When that goes, it's really hard to record an episode. We've had that, that happened before. It's tough. Sometimes you need a secret weapon like you have.

Oh, you mean my honey? Yes, I use honey, raw honey, to try to coat my throat. That's what I do. you got to do whatever it works so let's go ahead and give our patreon shoutouts we had lindsay m and mario m so that's a lot of great new support we really appreciate it yeah thanks so much for the support for everyone that kicks in it really helps the show out and if you want to support the show head over to patreon dot com slash criminology to sign up all right buddy let's jump right into this we are on to our part three and final part

of our John Bonnet Ramsey coverage. So at the end of part two, we left off considering if John Bonae was killed by one of the people living in her home. Picking up on that, we have to look at what potential motives they might have had. So if it was one of the Ramses, why would they kill John Bonae? Or if there was some kind of accident, why cover it up instead of calling for help? for her. The motive depends on the perpetrator. You know, if you believe it was John, you likely believe he was responsible for the alleged prior sexual abuse. Either he was afraid that she was getting old enough to reveal his secret or something went terribly wrong during an assault. Despite the questions surrounding prior abuse, it seems like most people suspect Patsy of the murder.

Not John. One of the most popular theories is that Patsy snapped. It had been a late night. She had an early morning, and here's John Bonae wetting the bed and waking her up again for help. In June 1999, a former employee of the family was asked about Patsy's potential use of diet pills. The authorities wondered if they might make her snap or flip out during a bedwetting accident, which led to the Ramsies having to cover it up. Greg McCrary, a former FBI profiler, told Vanity Fair,

they're stimulants. So you're going to have all these things consistent with doing speed or anything that makes you manic. John Bonae did have accidents often. And most people agree it was no big deal. To the Ramsey's, in fact, Patsy would often have her bed stripped and the sheets in the washer before the housekeeper arrived. John Bonae wore pull-ups and a plastic sheet was protecting her mattress, but still, accidents

happen. The large urine stain outside the wine cellar, and on the Long John's, makes this theory extremely unlikely. How could she have a full bladder if she had already had an accident that night? Photos of her bed from the morning of the 26th show that it wasn't stained with urine, though some officers reported the odor of it. Instead of Patsy snapping, some theories combine two ideas and have Patsy discovering that John is responsible for the sexual abuse of her daughter, or that she caught him in the act, and in an effort to strike at him accidentally hit innocent John Bonnet, leading to the rest of the events

unfolded. But this theory would mean that she stayed with the man. She knew was molesting her daughter, and he stayed with the woman who attacked him and killed their daughter. To most of those closest to the family, Patsy was truly devastated by the death of her daughter. In the days following the murder, she needed help just to use the bathroom and shower. As for John, he walked around sobbing. He had now lost two daughters. Were these actions by John and Patsy, all for show, or were they truly grieving the loss of their little girl?

And I'll be honest with you, Morph, you know, some of these theories are really tough for me to believe. Now, we don't know exactly what happened, so it's hard to take anything off the table, but for me, I can't imagine Patsy snapping and killing John Bonae over some type of bedwetting accident. We know accidents can happen if she smacked her, say, and she fell and hit her head, something along those lines. You know, you can see something like that. You know, you can see something like that happened, things like that have happened in the past, but the only problem is this is just a theory. One of the many theories out there, there's no clear cut proof that any of these things happen. They're just theories and ideas that people have to try and explain what happened.

And then if you look at the, you know, Patsy discovers that John has been sexually abusing John Bonae and kind of snaps. That one's really tough as well. well because they stay together. They're united. And I just have a hard time imagining that they'd be able to do that in that scenario. So those are really tough ones for me. Yeah. Next, we have to talk about a popular theory, especially ones that have caught in traction lately. And that's that John Bonnet's brother Burke was responsible for John Bonnet's murder. Now, most people don't have him in their theory as being the author the ransom note in their version of events, but pretty much, every theory with

Burke as a suspect has him responsible for the blow to John Bonnet's head. Some theories also link his involvement in the Boy Scouts, his love of sailing, and his pension for playing with his Swiss Army knife, to the knots and the ropes used to bind and kill John Bonnet. In this theory that has Burke being responsible, one or both parents would have been alerted to the situation in the middle of the night, or very early in the morning. John Beney would have either been unresponsive with no outward signs of a fatal injury or already clearly dead with ligature digging into her neck. In the first case, one or both parents would have decided to, for whatever reason, not call for an ambulance, but instead to fashion the so-called garot and kill their own child before moving on the stage the rest of the scene. In the second scenario involving Burke, one or both parents would have found John Bonae brutally and I.

obviously murdered and would have decided rather than lose both children. They would protect Burke and keep him from being taken away and that a fake ransom note was the best way to do this. It's worth noting that in 2019, Burke Ramsey settled a $750 million defamation lawsuit that he filed against CBS after they aired the docu series, the case of John Bonae Ramsey, which prominently featured this theory. It's also worth noting that if Burke had killed John Bonnet, even on purpose, he was too young to be charged under Colorado law.

He couldn't even have been named as a suspect, only a witness because he wasn't yet 10 years old. He was about a month shy of legal responsibility, and it seems that he couldn't have been put away. But would the Ramses have known this? in the heat of the moment. Some theorized that they couldn't risk calling anyone. Maybe it would have been hard to look up very quickly the laws in Colorado surrounding a death caused by a child.

So people question whether these were the actions of desperate parents who weren't willing to lose both of their youngest children all at the same time. It's not a new theory by any means. In May 1999, Boulder County, district attorney spokeswoman Suzanne Lorian told the daily camera to this day burke ramsie is not considered a suspect so obviously you know this theory has been floating around for a long time because in 1999 they had to come out and actually say that he's not considered a suspect you know but i want to go back to this CBS docu series i remember when it came out it caused a huge stir and a lot of people were talking about, Burke, as John Bonnet's killer.

And I could see two siblings, roughhousing, you know, playing, something happens, an accident happens, or one of them strikes out in a fit of anger and why some people could buy into this theory. But again, there's no proof that this happened. But then the part that I really have trouble with is that the parents would go to these lengths to come. To call. cover it up to go as far as to writing a ransom note. And in one of these parts of the theory to to be the one that puts the ligature around her neck and doesn't, they don't call 911. I just have a hard time believing that all that would happen personally. Yeah, I really do too. I mean, to think that the parents would actually kill John Bonnet, finish her own.

off, so to say. I hate to say it that way. That is just seems really far fetched to me. And then you could see parents wanting to protect a child, but if this was some type of accident, why not just call the authorities and say that's what happened? I mean, he was, he was nine years old. What was going to happen to him that was so bad, they needed to protect him to that level? And I think that's where I really struggle with those type of theories. And I think we have to talk about some general problems or issues with these theories that point to the Ramses. Most people who knew the Ramses didn't believe that they could have any involvement in John Bonnier's murder. To those people, the Ramses were as they appeared to the outside world, good people who had a loving family.

One family friend told the Daily Camera, I don't know why the police asked me about abuse and the Ramseys. there was just no way they could have been involved in anything like that. People had lovely things to say about Patsy in her relationship with her daughter. Family friend D.D. Nelson Schneider, told the Daily Camera, they interacted beautifully. Patsy had all these pet names for her like sugar. It was just a special relationship. D.D. went on to say Patsy is a doting, loving, incredible mother. Another family friend who wished to remain anonymous said,

Patsy was just bubbly, full of life, and she was excited about going to Michigan the next day. Bill McReynolds, who played Santa at the Ramsey home said of Patsy, she's a very strong woman. I've always admired her very much. I've never seen such anguish in a person's face, as I did in Patsy's today. He added, she had put so much into that little girl. McReynolds also noticed how much John Bonaic cared for her big brother, Burke. He told the daily camera last year, she wanted to make sure I spent enough time with him. As for the relationship between Patsy and Burke, McReyald said the two of them just got along wonderfully. Even District Attorney Alex Hunter told the paper, it was more than mere love.

Speaking of the atmosphere in the Ramsey home, Joe Barnhill, who lived across the street, said neighbors in Boulder loved the entire family. They are such congenial people, the best neighbors. And Shirley Brady, their nanny in Atlanta said, the Ramses were the kindest, most loving parents that I've ever met. Their involvement in John Bonnet's death was absolutely unthinkable to her. She said, I've never heard them even speak a harsh word to their children. It's insane to think that the family could do anything like this. So no doubt, you had a lot of people, you know, talking to papers and the media. And it seems to me that people had nothing but really nice things to say about the family atmosphere. And I want to kind of zero in on the relationship between Patsy and John Bonae.

Obviously, we weren't there. We weren't inside. But it seems to me from the outside looking in that Patsy adored this little girl. You know, you bring in all the pageant stuff. And obviously, that was a huge part of the coverage of this case. It seemed they focused on. And, you know, it focused on John Bonnet's involvement in the pageants a lot. That's a lot of time, effort, and money. Anybody who's ever had a child involved in dance or pageants or anything like that knows how much is involved. And I think you don't go to those links unless you just, you love your child.

You want them to experience life and you want the best for them. And that's just kind of the thought that I had or the feeling that I got of the relationship between Patsy and John Bonae. And maybe that's why it's hard for me to believe that she would have had anything to do with the murder or the cover up or or anything like that. And although John had to travel a lot for business and he wasn't with the kids as much as Patsy was, most people described him as being as doting as he could be. One of Elizabeth's friends from college recalled a time that Elizabeth invited John to a father-daughter dance. The friend told the Daily Camera, he canceled his business meeting and flew out just so he could go with her.

So with all these growing reviews of the Ramseys by people that knew them well, how could these doting parents be indicted by a grand jury in relation to John Bonnet's death? I think that's why we need to turn to the findings of that grand jury. The exact wording of the grand jury indictment for count 4A, child abuse resulting in death, was did unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly, and feloniously, permit a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation which posed a threat of injury to the child's life or health, which resulted in the death of John Bonae Ramsey. For count seven, accessory to a crime, it was did unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly, and feloniously, render assistance to a person with intent to hinder, delay, and prevent, discovery, detention, apprehension, prosecution, conviction, and punishment of such person for the commission of a crime.

Knowing the person being assisted, has committed, and was suspected of the crime of murder in the first degree, and child abuse resulting in death. So that's a lot to take in, but my main takeaway from these indictments is that the grand jury belief, not that Patsy and or John killed John Bonnet, but that they allowed her to be in a situation, which enabled it to occur

and that they helped cover it up. I mean, that's what I really took away from those two indictments. Yeah, and I go back to all the people that came forward to say this was a loving family who supported John Bonnet. They would never do anything like this. There's no history of anything like this. The police have never been called.

There's never been any charges before, any innuendos of wrongdoing. But then we suddenly would have to buy into the fact that they played some kind of role in allowing this to happen and then helping the person. that did it to cover it up. It's hard for me to believe that. And I, at the end of the day, I'm asking, who is this other mystery person? Is it Burke? Is it some other person that we're not aware of that they think was involved? And it's frustrating that we just don't know who this mystery person is that the Ramsey supposedly helped. It's important to remember that a grand jury and a trial jury have different burdens in front of them. A grand jury needs probable cause for an

indictment, while a trial jury needs guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for conviction. Even one of the members of the grand jury that returned the indictments regarding John and Patsy didn't think there would be enough to convict either of them. The juror said to the Daily Camera, there is no way that I would have been able to say, beyond a reasonable doubt, this is the person. Count seven includes people suspected of a crime, and at the time, both Patsy and John Ramsey were suspects. There were multiple other charges, the ones that didn't return indictments that were not unsealed. We don't know exactly what the grand jury heard or suspected.

And this leaves some questions. Could there be a third person involved besides John and Patsy? Is that Burke Ramsey? But what if it wasn't the Ramses at all? And did investigators get tunnel vision and focus too hard on the family right from the beginning? Many people think that police had blinders on all along, targeting the Ramsey's. But if the Ramses weren't involved, let's talk about some other potential suspects or people who were maybe in the Ramsey's close circle. Or people who are maybe in the Ramsey's close circle that were considered looked into or have since been cleared. After all, in any murder investigation, you start out with people closest to the victim and work your way outwards. And we're going to try and do that right now. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work

and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed to investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. The Ramsey's themselves had pointed to a few potential suspects, whether they meant to or not. Linda Hoffman Pew was the Ramsey's housekeeper at the time of the murder. She was known to leave notes for Patsy on the spiral staircase. In fact, Patsy said she first thought the ransom note was a note from Linda.

Before she saw the words, we have your daughter. The placement of the note is one of the most peculiar things in the case. As someone could choose to leave the ransom note in the bed of the missing child, outside their door, or somewhere like a table or counter. Why a random step on the back staircase? It's also been said that Linda was in need. of money. Linda was the first person Patsy named as having a key to the home. On Christmas Eve, Linda had tearfully asked Patsy for a loan of $2,000 that could be deducted from her future

paychecks. Patsy agreed to write her check, which she planned to leave out on the kitchen counter for her before leaving for the airport. Linda was supposed to clean the Ramsey home on December 27th and would pick up the check when she came by to clean. Linda had also once asked Patsy if she was worried about John Bonae being kidnapped because she was so beautiful. Linda and her husband, Mervin, are each other's alibi. She claims she was asleep at the time John Bonae was killed, and Mervin was asleep on the couch. After learning she had been named one of the Ramsey's suspects, Linda seemed to turn on her former

employers. She was skeptical of the intruder theory. About a month before John Beney's murder, Linda remembers taking a Swiss Army knife away from Burke because he was using it to whittle wood inside the house, when he wasn't supposed to. She hid it in a cabinet over the sink outside of John Bonnet's room and didn't tell anyone where she put it. This knife was found in the basement after the murder,

on a countertop just down the hall from the wine cellar. Linda told the Daily Camera, I would stake my life that an intruder wouldn't know to get that out of the cupboard. Patsy would have stumbled upon the knife at some point when she was getting clean sheets, which she needed to do often since John Bonnet was having frequent accidents. In fact, most of John Bonnet's laundry was washed quite often,

and the blanket found with her body in the basement had been left in the dryer by Linda. Linda hasn't been shy with her thoughts. She told OK Magazine after testifying for a grand jury. At first, I didn't want to believe that Patsy could do such a thing. I loved her. But as time went on, things came to me that made me think she did it. She added, I want Patsy. I want Patsy, Ramsie tomorrow to look in the mirror and say to herself, I killed John Bonnet. So, I mean, Linda really did not mince words. It sounds like she firmly believed that Patsy had killed John Bonnet. Reportedly, both of the Pews submitted their DNA. And we're going to be talking about a number of people here. You know, first with Linda Hoffman Pew. You know, what would be the motive for her to

have had something to do with John Bonnet's death. Okay, it was said that she was in need of money. It sounded like Patsy was going to, you know, give her an advance unless there's some way that, you know, she was going to carry out a ransom. I just, I don't know, you know, where her involvement would be. I do think it's strange that she turned on the Ramses, but maybe it's because, you know, Patsy talked about her having a key to the home and maybe she thought, you know, Patsy had kind of thrown her under the bus. I don't know. In fairness to Patsy, if the police asked her who has keys to your home and she said the housekeeper, I mean, I don't think Patsy was going out of a way to frame her.

It's just, you know, natural that they would want to know who had access to the home. But, you know, the fact the letter was found where the housekeeper would, normally leave letters for Patsy is is interesting for sure. But then again, you would have to think if Linda herself was involved, you know, she wouldn't be responsible for what was done, the sexual assault that was done to John Bonnet. That would seem to point towards a male suspect. And that's where maybe some might theorize that her husband could be involved. But again, from what we can tell, they both provided DNA to police to help clear themselves. Yeah, so at the end of the day, I just doesn't seem like there's a lot there.

Another guy we need to talk about is Jeff Merrick. John Ramsey met Jeff Merrick in 1971 when they were both working at AT&T. By 1993, they both worked at Access Graphics. After he was fired, Jeff filed an ethical grievance with Lockheed Martin regarding John Ramsey and Patsy's father, Don Paul. Merrick told the Daily Camera, I have no doubt that Ramsey tried to set me up. It seems that if John Ramsey had any involvement in writing the ransom note, the two men who did not particularly like him, as mentioned in the note, were supposed to be Jeff Merrick and another former employee and friend, Mike Glynn, who had a rock-solid alibi in Tucson, Arizona. There are rumors that somehow access graphics owed Merrick $118,000, but we couldn't find a source on that exact amount in relation to Merrick outside of online message boards.

and reportedly Merrick submitted his DNA to investigators. So these guys were friends. Obviously, at one point they had a falling out. I did think it was interesting that, you know, Merrick told the paper that he thought John was trying to set him up. He obviously believed that that reference in the ransom note was related to him. Well, and I think if it's true and it was able to be proved that Merrick was owed $118,000.

Again, we're back to that ransom note, and it's been an awful big coincidence since that's the same amount in the note. But again, this is something that is out there as a theory and rumor and nothing to really prove that. We've talked about Fleet White Jr. In our John Bonnet coverage quite a bit, he was suspected by many people online,

mostly due to the fact that he had tried to check, the basement earlier in the day like John had, and due to how close he and John seemed to be, picking up the duct tape after John Bonnet was found, was seen by many as a way for him to explain potential fingerprints or DNA, not as the actions of a shocked man. Some people doubt that he could have missed her body in the wine cellar when he first opened the door, and they don't believe that he wouldn't have been able to find the light switch. By January 1997, there was information about a 911 call from the Ramsey home at 647 p.m. on December 23rd during the Ramsey Christmas party.

Whoever dialed the number hung up the phone before talking with the dispatcher. No one answered when police tried to call back. While the timing is suspicious, one police source apparently said to the daily camera, there's no indication that this call was connected to John Bane's murder. explaining that the call easily could have resulted from something like a person accidentally tripping the family's alarm. In fact, accidentally setting off the alarm too many times is precisely why the Ramses didn't always use their security system. It would later be explained that Fleet White had accidentally dialed 911 instead of 411 when he was trying to call in a prescription for his mother from the Ramsey's home during their party. The police responded to the home since it wasn't.

a hang-up call, but family friend Susan Stein answered through the intercom, told them everything was fine, and no officer was able to enter the home. Many find that extremely suspicious. First of all, why was Fleet basically doing an errand during a Christmas party? And if everything was fine, why keep the officers out of the home? Why not even open up the door for them? This call caused many to speculate that John Bonnet's murder was an extension of something that had happened at the Christmas party. According to the Daily Camera, in April 1997, Chief Tom Kobe made it clear that Fleet and Priscilla were considered key witnesses, not suspects. The chief added, the Boulder

Police Department appreciates the full cooperation. They have received from the whites since the beginning of their investigation. The White submitted their DNA and were reportedly clear. And it seems to me more if that, especially online, there's really no one involved with the Ramsies that has escaped suspicion. I mean, let's face it, people have been trying to figure this thing out for many, many years. And so there are theories out there about a lot of different people. And obviously, you know, Fleet White is mentioned, he was there. He was searching the home. He picked up the duct tape. So people theorize all types of different things about him. Yeah. And I think it goes back to looking at the people closest to the family and suspicion falling on them.

And it's no doubt that the whites were close and tight with the Ramses and constantly in their home. And so they had to be properly ruled out. And I really go back to motive. You know, what would be the motive? for some of these people to have wanted this little girl debt. And then, you know, you have to factor in the ransom note and all of that. Again, it's what makes this case so perplexing. Next, we have to talk about the Fernies. We mentioned that John Fernie claimed to have seen the ransom note and read it from outside the home when he went there and looked into the window.

Most people don't suspect the Fernies, though the claim that John Fernie could read the ransom note upside down and through a door gives some people pause. The Ramsey stayed with the Fernies in Boulder for some time after the murder, but eventually had a falling out. Barbara Fernie went on to tell the daily camera, I am the one doing the grieving. Something is wrong with Patsy.

Both of the Fernies reportedly provided their DNA to police. Yeah, I don't think there's much there really with the Fernies, but the falling out is interesting. And then this quote where Barbara Fernie is telling the paper, something is wrong with Patsy. There's obviously something there in that Barbara believes or believed Patsy was not acting the way she should have been or something along those lines. And I don't think Barbara was the only one.

I mean, there are a lot of people that don't believe Patsy was acting the way that a grieving mother should have acted or they thought she was kind of out of it. I just always thought that, you know, she was probably prescribed medications to to help keep her calm. And, and that caused her to act a little out of the ordinary. That's, that's what my thought has always been. For me, I wonder if it's one of those cases where we see somebody on TV who has a missing family member or a murdered family member. and we form a judgment about them as to how they're acting or not acting what they're doing, what they're not doing. And we try and read something into it. And in reality, people don't always react the same way to situations. We've seen cases where people might look like they don't care

or they might look guilty to some people. And then we find out they had nothing to do with the crime. So whatever Patsy was putting off to the Fernies, maybe it was. is totally innocent. Well, I think it's pretty natural that people do that. You know, they see someone on TV and they evaluate the way they're talking, acting, their mannerisms, and they make a decision. Does it fit with what I think they should be acting like? And sometimes I think that's really tough to do.

The one time where I will say for sure, it played out. correctly was with Chris Watts. There were a lot of people who looked at the way that that guy acted and thought he's hiding something. He's guilty. And it turned out to be correct. But it doesn't always work that way. Next, we have to talk about the Stein's.

Many people are suspicious of them as they were the last ones to see John Bonnet alive outside of the Ramsey family in a documentary called John Bonnet's America. Susan Stein said of seeing the Ramses that night. They came to our house and I talked to Patsy for a while, maybe 10 or 15 minutes and they all seemed perfectly normal. They were all the same, bubbly about Christmas and about where they were going. And we, my husband and I, waved goodbye to them as they were leaving. And that was the last time we saw them as an intact family. The Steins lived closer to the Ramses than the whites or the Fernies.

but Patsy didn't call them that morning. This makes many wonder if it was because they already knew what happened or because they were even involved. And the Ramses were trying to keep them as far away from the investigation as possible. Unlike many others, the Steins stayed loyal to the Ramses, even moving to Atlanta with them. Both of the Stein submitted their DNA to investigate. And again, more, I don't think there's a lot here. You know, we have to talk about some of these people because they, they get brought up a lot in the theories and, and all of that. But the fact that they weren't called that morning and the whites and Fernies were called, is that really something to make, you know, something out of?

I don't think so. Yeah. And Patsy may have just been in shock and was just randomly going through her mind thinking of people to call and for whatever reason didn't call them. but I think some people put two and two together that, hey, they were the closest, that she didn't call them. They had seen them the night before. So it just looks suspicious to some, but at the end of the day, they cooperated and provided their DNA. Well, and I think that's a really big point, not to overlook. You have all these couples, friends of the Ramses, who have submitted their DNA.

Now, if we were talking about someone and said, they refused to cooperate, They wouldn't provide their DNA. Okay, maybe you'd be a little bit more suspicious of them. Next, we have to talk about Bill McReynolds, aka the neighborhood Santa Claus, who spent time in the Ramsey home. John Bonae would have trusted him. John Bonae had mentioned a special visit promised to her by Santa after Christmas.

Could this have been Bill setting the stage for the murder? Or was it more likely that with a second Christmas celebration and a Christmas cruise coming up, someone told John Bonae Santa would be stopping back. by to Sear. The Santa angle isn't the only odd thing regarding Bill McReynolds, though. In 1976, Bill's wife, Janet McReynolds, wrote an award-winning play. The Daily Camera describes the play as being about the sexual assault, torture, and murder of a girl whose body was found in a basement. The play called Hey Rube is a fictionalized account of the 1965

torture and murder of Sylvia Likens in Indiana. Two years before the play was written, the McReynolds' nine-year-old daughter and her friend were abducted in Longmont, and their daughter was forced to witness the sexual assault of her friend before eventually making it the safety. Bill McReynolds was recovering from heart surgery during the holiday when John Bonnet was killed, stairs and especially crawling through windows may have been much harder for him at the time. Like Linda Hoffman, Pugh and her husband, Mervyn, his only alibi is that he was sleeping at home with his wife, Janet.

However, he also gave fingerprints, blood, hair, DNA, and handwriting samples. He was extremely cooperative with the investigation and devastated that John Bonnet had been killed. Bill McReynolds passed away on September 2nd, 2002. Despite his poor health at the time of the murder, his alibi and his DNA being shared with police, many people somehow have him as their number one suspect. And I get it. The Santa angle is there. John Bonnet would have trusted him. There's this whole thing about someone telling John Bonnet that Santa would be stopping back by to see her. You know, the play that his wife wrote, I thought was was kind of strange, to be honest with you. Their nine-year-old daughter was abducted. And then she writes a play about the sexual assault, torture, and murder of a girl. So I did think that was a little strange, but it sounds like, you know, this guy went over and beyond to cooperate. I mean, you know, you think about giving fingerprints,

blood, hair, DNA, and handwriting samples. I don't know what else you can do to cooperate with an investigation. Yeah. And I think a lot of people online have, you know, maybe hinted that he was using the Santa persona persona to get close to children, to get close to children, to get close to to John Bonnet with some ulterior motives in mind, as opposed to being just a person that likes to make children happy and enjoys playing Santa Claus. So I think a lot of that, along with that play really is what built him up as a suspect in many people's minds, despite all that other stuff that you mentioned as far as cooperation. Well, and there are a lot of people who do enjoy playing Santa, not all of them are doing it for, you know, some nefarious reason.

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Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0.00 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash book now to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash book now. Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Now that we've covered the people within John Bonay's inner circle, let's talk about some names from outside of it.

And one of those names is Chris Wolfe. Chris Wolfe's girlfriend, Jackie Dilsen, reported to authorities that he had been acting strangely around the time of John Bonnay's murder. reportedly police questioned Jackie Dillson's credibility, but they checked Chris Wolfe out anyway. When asked to speak about the case, Wolf got upset and had to be handcuffed, not only by his wrist, but his ankles, too. He eventually gave DNA and handwriting samples to the Boulder Police Department voluntarily. The DNA wasn't a match, though there were some handwriting samples of his online that looked similar to the ransom note.

These comparisons were done by civilians or cyber-sloose, and not by investigators, even though there were. compelling to some. So I did think it was strange that this wolf guy got so upset to the point that he not only had to be handcuffed by his wrist, but by his ankles as well. I did have a thought that, you know, how many people who were upset with their, let's say, boyfriend, husband called them in as potentially acting strange around the time of John Bonnet's murder? Yeah, they could have been doing that out of spite as payback for for something going wrong in the relationship or they may have really thought that the person they were with was acting strange and they were well-meaning and called in people. But I can imagine this probably happens in a lot of high profile cases.

Next up is John Mark Carr. And this is a guy that I think a lot of people will remember due to the 15 minutes of fame he received in this case, or maybe infamy would be a better term. On all August 15, 2006, 41-year-old elementary school teacher John Mark Carr was arrested in Thailand. He confessed that he had attempted to sexually assault John Bonnet and ended up accidentally killing her. He had been sending emails regarding John Bonnet and her family for at least four years. Prior to the arrest, there is no evidence that Carr was in Boulder in December 1996 and his DNA is not a match. to the unidentified DNA profile in John Bonnet's case. He was in Thailand hiding out from child pornography charges at the time he made his false confession.

So, you know, this guy was splashed all over the media, you know, obviously because he confessed to sexually assaulting and killing John Bonnet Ramsey. But it really seemed as though, you know, he was just someone who wanted to. grab headlines for whatever reason, but really had no involvement in the case. Yeah, and I remember the breaking news when this guy was splashed on TV and, you know, he looked really creepy and then he started saying this stuff. And then you find out what stuff he actually was responsible for as terrible as it was. But now he's being, you know, connecting himself to John Bonnet's murder.

At the end of the day, it was just a red herring. He had nothing to do with John Menace's murder. Another guy worth talking about is Gary Oliva. In 2016, Gary Oliva was arrested for possession of child's sexual assault material. According to Rolling Stone, when he was arrested, he had 335 images of or relating to John Meney on his phone. It was discovered that he had ties to a church to his 13 houses away from the Ramsey's home, and he attended a vigil for John Bonae on the one-year anniversary of her murder. A longtime acquaintance of Aliva's Michael Vail claims to have multiple.

confessions from him. According to the Daily Mail on December 27th, just after the murder, Val claimed that Oliva called him and cried, saying, I heard a little girl. I never loved anyone like I did John Meney, and yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half, and I watched her die. It was an accident. The Daily Mail wrote that of the reported confessions by his friend Gary Oliva, Michael Vail said, it was obvious to me that Gary had killed John. Bonnet. O'Leva's criminal history goes back before John Bonnet's murder. In 1990, he was charged with sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl in Oregon. In 1991, he was accused of attempting to strangle his mother with the court of a telephone. In December 2000, he was arrested for drug possession

and also had a stun gun and a poem about John Bonnet with him. Police have Gary Oliva's DNA. So I don't know what to make of this guy. I mean, he obviously Morp was obsessed with John Bonnet Ramsey. I mean, no grown man has 335 images of a little girl on his phone that he's not related to. That is very strange to me. Yeah, and he's clearly a scumbag based on his crimes. You know, he has an assault on a little girl. he tried to kill his own mom.

So some real bad stuff in his background that makes him seem at least capable of doing something really bad. And then there's the confessions that have been reported by, you know, this guy's friend Michael Vail. But at the end of the day, they have his DNA. And obviously, if there was a way to connect him to John Bonnet's murder, they would have done it. One man who is a favorite suspect of many people was a guy named Michael Helgoth, who took his own life on February 14, 1997, with one gunshot to his chest. He was 26 years old. This was just one day after District Attorney Hunter announced that the investigation was narrowing in on a suspect.

Helgoth had a pair of high-tech boots, and high-tech boot prints were found in the Ramsey home, and a stun gun was found near Helgot's body after his suicide. Some people believe that his suicide was staged and that he was murdered as part of a bigger plan or cover-up. The trajectory of the bullet and the fact that Helgoth was right-handed and the wound appeared to have been caused by someone that was left-handed, along with the appearance of a pillow used as a silencer, makes some people think a second person was at the scene and responsible for his death. A bullet to the heart on Valentine's Day sounds to many like a real suicide. Some reports say that Helgoth, who had no criminal record, was despondent over a breakup with his girlfriend and that his suicide was due to that breakup and not because he had anything to do with John Bonnet's death. Detectives eventually tested his DNA in the case and it was not a match. Investigators also analyzed his high-tech boots and nothing came of it and he was cleared as a suspect in John Bonnet's murder.

Well, I think a few things that really made him so interesting to people was the high-tech boots, obviously, a stun gun was found with him and the fact that he took his own life a day after the district attorney announced they were closing in on a suspect. So I think when you compile all that together, people just added that up. And so he looks guilty. and I think that just proves that that's not always the case just because things make someone look guilty doesn't always mean they are. Yeah, I think it's natural in some of these especially high profile cases for people to try to make connections. They just don't always add up. On the surface, it may seem as though they do, but then you find out that they really don't. There's some other odd things and weird people that are worth a mention for various reasons.

Early on, there was one suspicious person in the mix. 33-year-old James Michael Thompson stole multiple pages from the log in the morgue at Boulder Community Hospital, including the page with John Bonnet Ramsey's entry. He also confessed to trying to burn down the Ramsey home by lighting papers, including newspaper clippings about the case, on fire, and then pushing them through a mail slot in the home. Thompson also used the illist J.T. Colfax. It's not clear how closely police looked at him,

or if they have his DNA. 31-year-old John Brewer, Eustace was looked at in connection to the case after he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a two-year-old girl in North Carolina. Eustace also had a scrapbook about the John Bonnet case featuring photos of her from tabloids. He admitted to sneaking through the window of the home in North Carolina and attacking his victim. Authorities found that he wasn't even in Colorado.

at the time of John Bonnet's murder, in that he had no connection to the case. 35-year-old James Parton was looked at by Boulder authorities, even though he lived in Columbus, Ohio. He was arrested in December 1997 for distributing child pornography material online, and he happened to have a photo of John Bonay in his home. Authories also found a newspaper clipping about 14-year-old Beth Miller, missing from Idaho Falls since 1983. We're not really sure why police looked at him and John Bonay in. his case since he lived across the country.

So these last three individuals that we talked about, you know, they're strange. Some of them are horrible, in fact, committed horrible crimes. They're worth mentioning, but not really sure, you know, why they hit the radar, some of them, the way that they did. You know, the first guy, James Michael Thompson, you know, had ties to boulder, even confessed to trying to burn down the Ramsey home, these other two guys, you know,

lived across the country. Now they did horrible things. It seems as though the connection was that in addition to crimes against children, they had pictures or, you know, something like that of John Bonnet. And that's where the tie must have come in. Yeah,

I give them credit for checking some of these people out, you know, as against the odds as it were that they were connected to John Manny's case, they at least check them out. But I think at the end of the day, there's just really nothing to tie some of these people to the crime. And there were a couple guys that that I sort of look at. And I understand why people were most interested. One was Michael Helgoth.

And he took his own life, the timing, the stun gun. We mentioned it. The high-tech boots. All that stuff was of interest. and people might cling to that. And then Gary Oliva, he allegedly confessed to a friend of his. So those people, those two people above the rest of the people on that little list, I think caught the most attention because of those specific reasons.

But at the end of the day, like everyone else we've talked about, there seems to be no proof of anything as it relates to the murder of John Bonae Ramsey. So as we wind down this third and final episode about John Bonnet's murder, there are a few things worth mentioning that we haven't gone into yet. We didn't talk much about the rift between the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder County District Attorney's Office. There's so much to talk about in this case. And the paranoia, the accusations, and the resignations complicate the story. it's just a shame that they were basically working separate cases within the first few months instead of working together. It's possible that we may not be here with an unsolved case

if the investigation had been focused from the start and there was a unified front. Along the way, evidence was lost, secure databases were hacked, locked rooms were entered without permission. Tabloids were sold autopsy photos. Boulder County Coroner, Dr. John Meyer, speaking of the leaked photos, told the daily camera, this is something that has never happened before, to my knowledge, and it's one of the real nightmares of any medical examiner. Lawsuits were filed, books were published, TV shows were made, and none of it brought any progress in the case, as far as we can tell. What we are left with at the end of the day is mostly two divided camps, one that think John and Patsy Ramsey were involved in their daughter's murder or in covering it up.

That camp says there's no way a stranger came into the house and did what they did and took the time to write a ransom note. The other camp thinks that an intruder killed John Bonnet and has gotten away with it for almost 30 years. And they point to DNA evidence that does not match any of John Manet's family. And we probably could have spent an entire episode talking about the Boulder Police Department and the Bulldogs. Boulder County District Attorney's Office, they have from the very beginning received a ton of backlash. They've been criticized. I'm sure some of it is deserved. Some of it not, but we didn't want to get too far, you know, into the weeds with all that stuff. Suffice to say, it's thought by many that they could have done a better job. I'll put it that way for sure. And I think that's something that

is widely agreed upon by the two camps, the one that think the Ramses were involved and the one that thinks they're innocent. I think all of them or most of them would agree that a better job could have been done between all the investigators in this case and a unified front would have been something that might have helped solve this case. I mean, I think back to even the DAs. One DA would basically exonerate the family. And the other one that replaced her said, no, no, no, not so fast.

This doesn't rule the family out at all. So even in what they were saying to the public, there were mixed messages. Well, and I think anytime you have that, it's going to cause distrust by the public. And I believe that's what happened here. So where does the case stand today? Recently, the Colorado Cold Case Review team looked over the case for a year. They organized and digitized all of the materials in the investigation. and looked at leads and evidence to see what the best next steps would be.

According to the city of Boulder's own website about the case, the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder District Attorney are currently in the process, a reviewing and prioritizing the team's recommendations. John Andrew Ramsey said in a 2021 interview with ABC, I think it's really important for people to understand that this case can be solved. There's a narrative out there that this is an unsolved homicide and that we just have to accept that as fact. And that's not the truth. Anyone with information related to this investigation can contact the Boulder Police Department by calling 303-4411974 or by emailing Boulder's Most Wanted at Boulder, Colorado.gov.

I think it's only right to end the episode with a bit of discussion about John Bonae Ramsey. She gets lost in this story so often. She was more than a murdered child. She wasn't just a body to collect the evidence from. She was a beautiful little girl with a big smile that was robbed of her entire life. Pretty much everyone who had the chance to meet John Bonnet was touched by her presence. They could just tell us she was special. She liked talking to people.

Her older half-brother, John Andrew, told ABC News. John Bonnet was the kid that kept the conversation at the dinner table going. You know, she would go around and ask everybody how their day was. and what they did, and she was just an energetic and fun kid. John Bonae won the I Caught You Being Good Award at her school, High Peaks Martin Park Elementary. Lori Wagner, vice president for worldwide development at Access Graphics, told the daily camera about John Bonae.

She was a charming little girl. She was also intelligent. John Bonae attended a kindergarten program that was full time, five days a week, instead of the half days or every other day schedules. That can be common. But she had been moved up to first grade math. Although we mentioned it, we didn't go into deep detail about one of John Meney's greatest loves, beauty pageants.

It's really one of the catalysts that caused the case to become a circus in the first place. She was good at beauty pageants and had fun doing them. She won multiple titles, Little Miss Christmas, Little Miss Colorado, Little Miss Charlevoix. Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, America's Royal Miss, and National Tiny Miss Beauty. Despite the photos of her in the media and fancy dresses and makeup, she was a tomboy who liked playing outdoors. She was brave and athletic, once telling her parents she wanted to be a professional ice skater. Whatever John Bonae would have gone on to do, it would have accomplished in life, was never realized due to her brutal murder. So as we wrap this one up, Morph, you know, we've tried to stay pretty neutral in our coverage of this case.

But I think it's only natural that, you know, we have our own thoughts. We've shared some of those already. Yeah, for me, I go back to the very beginning of this case. And although I'm a big supporter of law enforcement, I think the Boulder PD messed up big time early on when they allowed several people to tromp through the Ramsey House instead of treating. it as a crime scene and sealing it off. And I think we mentioned it quite a bit. That area was not used to murders. You know, Jaminet's murder, although it was almost the end of the year, was the first murder that year. So I just don't think they knew about dealing with these serious crimes like murder. It just didn't happen there. And because of that, I don't think they had the right protocols in place

and didn't have the right reaction. So allowing all these people to, move around throughout the Ramsey home, they could have destroyed evidence, damaged evidence. If any of them were involved, they could have removed evidence or planted evidence. So you've now lost that control to have a pristine crime scene. And I think all these years later, maybe the case is unsolved in part due to that. Yeah, I think you're right about that. I don't think there's any doubt that mistakes were made in the handling. of the investigation, especially early on.

There have been, you know, accusations of them really kind of having the blinders on, locking in on the family, failing to look at other people. And that can really happen and does happen in many investigations. And obviously, it can have serious repercussions. It can cause a lot of harm to an investigation. And to be balanced and fair, I also think the Ramsies probably didn't do themselves any favors by luring up and sort of only agreeing to cooperate with the police on their terms. It didn't help them with public perception. They seemed like they maybe had something to hide.

I can understand why people would hire an attorney, but to a lot of people in the public, that looked shady on their part. Yeah, and it sometimes does. but did they go that route because they felt that they were being kind of looked at so closely and they were getting the feeling that police were only zeroing in on them. You know, at the end of the day, I struggle with believing that either John or Patsy had something to do with the death of John Bonae. Maybe that's the father in me, having a hard time thinking, that any parent could do that to their child.

We know that it happens. It just doesn't seem like there were any indicators, any precursors that would lead you to believe that they would do anything like that. Obviously, Patsy has passed away, but we know that John is still very active. And I think he's become even more active in recent years. To me, those are not the actions of someone who's guilty, really fighting to try to find out who killed his daughter. Now, some people could make the argument that that's a smokescreen, but I don't think it is.

Yeah, I agree with you. I tend to not think the parents had anything to do with this. They denied any wrongdoing, any connection to any of anything to do with this crime. and as you mentioned, John has been an advocate for the case. He was at CrimeCon. So he's tried to do his part to keep this in the spotlight and let people know he had nothing to do with this

and he wants the real killers to be caught. And I go back to the amount of people coming through the house that week leading up to the murder they had, as we mentioned, a thousand, two thousand people in that house showing off for the Christmas holidays. the public was just allowed to come in. Who knows what kind of people were coming in there? Criminals, thieves, sex offenders, anyone could have been coming in there,

you know, just mingling, acting like they were one of the people there to see decorations. Maybe they were casing the house, figuring out the layout of it, figuring out how they could come back and get in there. And to me, that just opens up endless possibilities of who might be responsible for this. Yeah, I've kind of always thought that, somebody became fixated on John Bonnet.

You know, whether that had anything to do with the pageants, I don't know. Maybe they saw her at a pageant. Maybe they saw pictures of her, but they became fixated on her. And they found a way into the home that night. Yeah. One big wild card in this entire case is the ransom note. You know, I tend to think if you are, the offender that has done this to this little girl, the last thing you want to do is sit there

writing this big long ransom note to leave it there to be found. But one interesting theory that's sort of caught fire recently is that there's a possibility that while the Ramsies were out on Christmas night, the killer got into the house, spent, who knows how much time there, maybe rummaged through, maybe found one of John's paste, subs, whatever. and wrote this note in advance of the crime as opposed to afterwards because I'm thinking that they might have wanted to get out there as fast as possible following the murder and perhaps this note was written ahead of time while they waited for the Ramses to come home and hid someplace in the house and that has gotten a lot of traction and that could make some sense I mean it really is that

ransom note that I think throws a lot of people off the intruder theory because to your point what person who commits this type of horrible crime in someone's house wants to take the time to sit there and write this kind of note that just normally does not happen. The good news is there's reportedly enough DNA in this case that a full DNA profile leading to genealogy that solves a case may be on the horizon. But the authorities in Boulder refuse to do that despite the technology being available to them to solve this case. And that angers me and it angers a lot of other people. In fact, on the website Change.org, there's a justice for John Bonnet-Ramsey campaign that is hoping to encourage Colorado

State Governor Jared Paulus to get involved and take action to help this case along. The campaign was just short of its 35,000 signature goal at the time we prepared for this episode. So please, if you want to make a difference for John Bonnet, head over there and sign the petition and make your voice heard. I don't think there's any doubt that, you know, this is one of the most infamous unsolved cases. You know, there are a handful of really big unsolved cases. And you have to put John Bonae Ramsey's murder up there. And there's a lot of reasons for it. You know, it received a ton of coverage. And let's face it, there are a lot of mysterious aspects to the case, suspicion on the family, the beauty pageant thing.

But like you said, Morf, when you detailed out some stuff about John Bonnet, this was an unbelievable little girl. And who knows what she would have gone on to do? I always have that thought in my head, that question. And she deserves justice. She deserves, we deserve to know who did this and they need to be held accountable. And even if they're deceased, they need to be named. They can't escape what they did. and I hope that they're uncovered one day.

But that's it for our coverage on the murder of John Bonae Ramsey. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review, but also keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, Ron X with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to Facebook.com slash criminology pod. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology podcast discussion and fans.

So that's it for another episode of criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.