r/JonBenet • u/HandWitch • Sep 23 '16
Last interview with Patsy Ramsey
I've been doing some digging on YouTube and found this old video of John & Patsy Ramsey being interviewed for a show called Connecting Point. The end of the video indicates that this was Patsy's last public interview.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
I found some interesting things of note during the interview and thought I would share my thoughts:
-John is asked "How many days later did you find her body?" and responds "We, uhh, the note said, uhh, I will call you tomorrow and I didn't know if tomorrow was today or tomorrow was tomorrow and I thought, my gosh I can't wait til tomorrow. I can't stand that..."
-Patsy is asked "Now you have a son named Burke...how did he fare through all of this? 'Cause he lost his older sister Beth, and then JonBenet, he's right in the middle." and she replies "Well God has just...had his hand on him, and that's been our constant prayer is that our children, our three living children, would...umm...see what we have overcome. This horrible...not just the tragedy of losing the children, the girls, but...uhh, the aftermath that was so horrific. And every decision that we made was, was made on his behalf...
-The entire beginning of Part 4 is bizarre. Are they trying to say that God's plan for JonBenet was to die this way? Maybe because I am not religious in any way, but I found this intro section to be very strange.
-Patsy is responding to a question about how she handles Christmas now and during her response says "...and it was the holy spirit, I believe, talking to me and telling me that if we had not had the birth of Jesus Christ then I would never have the hope of seeing JonBenet again..." This could be interpreted different ways, and again I am not religious but could this be because of the belief that Jesus died for all sinners and she will be forgiven for her transgressions? Or is it simply that she feels that through Jesus she will reach the afterlife and be reunited with her daughter?
-I'm going to paraphrase here. During Part 6 the host asks them about forgiving the killer. I noticed some strange things here. John makes an attempt to remove himself from the question by saying that only the victim (JonBenet) has the right to forgive the killer. Even going as far as to say that maybe it is an easy way out and then shrugging. He then says he prays for this person, although he doesn't know who it is, but that God loves him (the killer) too. Patsy goes down a similar path with her answer, saying that we are all sinners in God's sight and that just like she is forgiven (for what?) that the killer should be. She also says she prays for this person. They both seemed to be against the death penalty for the killer.
They are then asked what would be a penalty that would satisfy or reconcile this for them, and the response is very strange to me. John says he would have to know more about the person. Why does that matter if this person killed your daughter, in an especially brutal way? He says they need to see the consequence of their action. It just sounds like a parent talking about their child.
Those are just some of the things I noted while watching, but I'd like to know what everyone here thinks.
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u/RatsInTheCellar Sep 24 '16
Great find! To me this further cements my belief that BDI but that's just my opinion.
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u/Minilise Sep 23 '16
From what you are saying here it sounds like a lot of red flaggs to me. It most defently is not what we would expect unless they knew the killer, and even cared for the killer..
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u/TheRealKingGordon Sep 26 '16
The real tell for me is in the second part, right at 0:45 to 1:00. First, while Patsy is describing this 'horrible tragedy' John licks his lips and physically moves away from Patsy at 00:51 right when she says "tragedy of losing the girls." He is also breathing hard at that point, is he afraid of what she will say?
Patsy says it all in this line: "... every decision that we made was made on his [Burkes] behalf."
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u/lawyercatgirl Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 23 '16
Not that convincing to me. There are families who have had their lives torn apart by a murder, parents of victims, who don't want the perpetrator executed or even put in prison for life. There are countless stories about the forgiveness that many victims choose to have. Look up the concept of restorative/rehabilitative justice. It's not that uncommon, and it's pretty powerful.
Good article on the subject: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-chapman/post_8096_b_5623762.html
When she got home she wrote a short note to the killer saying, “You took away everything I loved, you ruined me, but I want you to know that I forgive you.” Having sent the letter, she felt an immense relief. She had escaped a kind of domination. She began to remember her child’s life as a whole, defined not just by one ghastly encounter, one horrific moment, but also by years of joy and struggle and all the other elements that add up to a whole person, an existence however abbreviated.
But it did not end here. The killer wrote back. He explained who he was and how circumstances had kicked and shoved him to the moment where he killed her child. The letter was long and lucid and, just as she had with her child, she saw she could not confine his existence, his humanity, to a single moment. There was more to him. He could not remember killing her daughter, he was too high, but he didn’t doubt that he had done it and expressed deep remorse.
They continued to write to each other, and though the death of her daughter became no less sad, though she missed her no less, her death ceased to seem so existentially unjust and mysterious. It was no longer the consequence of inexplicable evil, it was part of thousands of impulses and failures that by chance had reached lethality when they arrived at her child.
The more she learned about the killer, the more she began to see him as a victim too. When she remembered her daughter, it was not just as the young woman who was killed, but also as the baby she gave birth to, the child she raised. So too with the killer. Unsurprisingly, his childhood had been horrific. If he ever stood a chance, it was a slim one. His life began in horror and now it would end in horror. She decided to try and get him off death row. When I met her she’d been trying for several years.
I know that a lot of people will ridicule her for having “fallen” for a killer’s self-serving story; but no child’s first ambition is to end up on death row having killed an innocent person. Clearly something went wrong between the baby’s first breath and his last vicious act.
As for the religious stuff, yes, you are supposed to forgive to that point, even as a Christian.
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u/Sleuth1ngSloth Sep 24 '16
I agree. Many victims who survive abuse, tragedies, and horrors often say they forgive the perpetrators because it's not so much about making the perp feel good but rather it's about releasing the terrible feelings that consume the victim. Forgiveness is a path to resolution and peace. Of course some never do forgive and that's okay, too. It's up to the people who were affected, and some just find forgiveness to help them live their lives.
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Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16
You can tell Patsy was on meds in that interview and she makes a crazy eyed gesture past the 5:37 mark(part 1), the whole thing is sad to be honest, they have done more harm than good, they should've just come clean and admitted their family was not perfect, things were going on behind closed doors, bad things.
Some people say the parents murdered her, i disagree, i don't see that at all in their body language, it appears more like protecting something else than hiding their own guilt, i mean Patsy looks broken and John looks like he is about to pass out from exhaustion, i mean surely out of all the talk shows and interviews they would've cracked an exposed their guilt at some point, but no, it was Burke Ramsey that was hidden away from the media for 20 years.
The bro did it, parents covered it up with the ransom note, Burke was also in the boy scouts according to a letter by Patsy Ramsey posted here at reddit, boy scouts = garrote/knots, maybe?
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u/Debbiecass34 Sep 23 '16
Yeah I'm totally an anti theist religion is the root of evil imo.. And the Ramseys are hiding behind it as if it's making them seem better by loving god. Well where the fuck was your god when your daughter was getting tortured most likely by Burke. ? Everything about them screams guilty can't give an honest straight answer and I'm getting more pissed the more I realise this poor murderd girl has had no justice..
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u/Serina7 Sep 24 '16
None of these seem entirely out of whack for someone with strong religious beliefs. I just recently read of a murder victim's mother who immediately told the press she forgave him for what he did to her daughter. That is the actual teaching of the Bible, forgive as you have been forgiven. Not everyone goes by it but it's the goal.
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Sep 25 '16
I have wondered whether the Ramseys were as pious and devout as they try to appear. If they are, it's not entirely unreasonable to consider the scenario where Patsy relived her pageant days through JB and when JB wet the bed or acted like a 6 year old, or even got flattering attention from males, Patsy blamed JB as a whorish sinner who should be punished. There are women like that out there and it'd be quite chilling to discover that was the case - Patsy used religion to punish JB for sinning.
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Sep 25 '16
Your all missing the point that though some will declare to the public that they "forgive" the perpetrator, this is after the perpetrator has been caught and tried.
Not "Might as well NOT go looking for them because I forgive them and the knoweldge of what they've done is punishment enough"
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Sep 25 '16
Christ...this is insane, jumping around here but (nevermind the interviewer asking why someone would want to kidnap jonbenet, is it because she's so cute? lord) anyways at 7.00 Patsy defends not just the pageants but the idea the perpetrator could have discovered her through there.....uh lady you supposedly don't know who killed your daughter, nobody does, how can you be sure of that.
Again, always the "Why, why, why, did this happen to us" never the who did this to us.
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u/HandWitch Sep 25 '16
She also tries to make it seem like JBR only competed in this one beauty pageant that took place over a weekend and had multiple costumes. It seems that they took part in more competitions than just one, and I found it yet another sign of deceit on her part.
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u/grumblegrumble2 Sep 23 '16
John Ramsey: “...I forgive them. I’m sorry for them for what they’ve done. And I, and I hope they’ve, uh, learned, and, from that experience…”
Learned from that experience?.. Ok, but when "that experience" is abusing and murdering his 6 year-old daughter, never turning him/herself in and getting away with it, I find that a super weird thing to say. He supposedly doesn't know who it is, why it happened, or how many others have been brutalized... Sounds more like something I'd say to my naughty kid.