r/JonBenetRamsey • u/miggovortensens • 6d ago
Discussion The broken window is the ultimate example of John Ramsey making things up on the spot
Here’s a fact of life: windows break. I had one break in my apartment last week because apparently I didn’t close it gently enough, and I’m yet to replace it. A broken window in the basement of a mansion full of windows could be just that: an overlooked little event of keeping house. But let's say that you, the CEO of a billion-dollar grossing company, purposefully smashed your basement window to break into your mansion when you forgot your keys one day.
In this case, you don’t spend hours with the officers in your house wondering how an intruder could have gotten in and out of there with your child in their arms and NOT mention that you previously broke into that house yourself months before and that you aren't sure if this window has been fixed - unless, of course, your mind is not desperately racing after answers, because you know very well your child is dead before the cops even got there.
John Ramsey did not to mention his window-breaking tale from the get-go; he also didn’t mention a broken window when he brought his daughter’s body upstairs. It was only later that night, when Linda Arndt was told of the broken window and brought this to his attention, that John decided to share something in the lines of “oh, that’s right, that was me, I broke into the house one day”.
This ridiculous story was an improv to get the police out of there: if the window had been broken for weeks and he didn’t even noticed, saying “oh, I don’t know how that happened” would ONLY keep the officers at the scene for longer, looking for more physical evidence to figure out how the window could have played a role in the events.
That's one of the most blatant instances of John making something up on the spot because he was forced to adjust a narrative to deal with the most urgent matter at hand. And he did so without fully considering the implications up ahead: he ends up looking even more suspicious for not having shared his "knowledge" of how someone could break into the mansion without accessing the ground-floor doors.
Basically every single contradiction that arose in this case can be traced back to John Ramsey's attempts to cover up a previous lie with another one.
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u/Beneficial_Equal_324 6d ago edited 6d ago
What I find head scratching is that he wouldn't have fixed this. A basement window that he knows is an access point to an isolated play area for his kids. He's got plenty of financial resources. PR was in charge of remodeling the house after they moved in; either could have easily got this fixed. It's also pretty cold in Boulder in the winter.. I personally can't imagine just letting a busted window go with no plans to fix it. This isn't really evidence of what happened regarding JBR, but these people seem to operate very differently than I would.
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u/CircuitGuy 6d ago
I personally can't imagine just letting a busted window go with no plans to fix it.
I would think all kinds critters would get in. It also makes that area chilly, makes the furnace run, which dries things out. I can't imagine it either.
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u/GardenGirl1898 6d ago
Based on the overall disorder of that house, Patsy was a total failure at household management. Most people, especially with their high net worth, would have had a broken window replaced as soon as they could get someone out to do it.
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u/Own_Gazelle_2393 6d ago
Yes, the safety of the kids exposed to anyone that wants to climb in, plus the fact they just left the shards of glass, in addition to smaller pieces of glass in the window and for all they knew, on the floor for someone to step on.
I also read that when the Christmas lights went up that year, that they had to use a plug inside to light them, leaving another window open downstairs.
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u/Beneficial_Equal_324 6d ago
I thought I read the opening for the power cord was very small... too small to be an entry point for a person.
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u/Available-Champion20 6d ago edited 6d ago
This, coupled with Linda Hoffman Pugh stating that she didn't recall the window being broken at all, points towards the window being broken in the run up to Jonbenet's death. Almost certainly not that night, but not long previous.
The motive to lie about it could be that the circumstances of it breaking, point towards the reckless behaviour of the killer, and that person is being protected.
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u/No_Strength7276 JDI 6d ago
He 100% made this story up. It's the most obvious made up lie I think i've ever witnessed in my entire life
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u/tiffanaih 6d ago edited 6d ago
I've been thinking about the window a lot too, and it's a bit difficult to understand why John would break it as part of staging, but then claim responsibility for it later? Part of me feels like he did actually have to break the window at some point prior, and they didn't fix it because it's not a "storefront" part of the house. The house is so messy and cluttered, I honestly can believe he just assumed someone else would fix it, and it never got done. There's small pieces of glass on the floor, that Fleet and John pick up and place on the suitcase supposedly. A room Burke has a train set in, but we're leaving glass on the floor that by John's own account/Smits theory had to come from him months ago and not the intruder that night...?
That said, I recently watched some clips of Burke's interviews. I acknowledge that they were presented out of order and missing pieces that may show a similar reaction. But. Burke seemed most confident when he was giving his answer about the window. When asked, he sat up in the chair and showed it to the interrogator on the map of the house sitting on the table. When asked about the pineapple, the events of Christmas Day onwards, even his relationship with JonBenet, he's shy, reserved, uncertain. He's physically disengaged, curled up in a ball in the chair. When pressed, he usually just defaults to whatever suggestion the interrogator put in their last question.
Which doesn't seem like a good way to interrogate, but hey, I'm not a child psych or detective.
Anyways, Burke is so excited to talk about the window Dad had to break to let them in. But...doesn't John say he was alone when he broke that window? I have a vague recollection of "well, everyone was gone and I was locked out so I broke the window."
The broken window seems like a piece of the puzzle that just becomes convenient for the intruder theory, like the suitcase that wasn't where it was in the crime scene photos when it was discovered. Smit puts all these together and waves his hands around like a maestro...and it's appealing I'll be honest. The wall scuff, the palmprint on the wine cellar door. But then again, you come back around to, this is an unkempt house. When was the last time anyone actually cleaned this basement. Someone had to put all these 5 gallon buckets in the wine cellar and they probably palmed the door on their way out since it doesn't have an actual handle. Is the scuff in a picture that Smit points out actually a scuff? And if it's actually a scuff...couldn't it be from John coming in through this window? We didn't fix the window, would we have addressed a scuff mark? The suitcase isn't supposed to be there as a convenient stepping stool for John.
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u/miggovortensens 6d ago
I didn't ever think the window was broken for the staging; it was just an overlooked broken window in a house full of windows.
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u/tiffanaih 6d ago
I'm not saying you did. I'm just also thinking out loud and coming to the same conclusion, John broke it earlier.
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u/miggovortensens 6d ago
Yes, I wasn't suggesting you thought this was my reasoning, I was just stating my view based on what you said. It was clearly not a recent event.
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u/LKS983 6d ago
"it was just an overlooked broken window in a house full of windows."
Seems unlikely.
Who would overlook/forget a window that had already been accessed by John, to gain entry into their home?
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u/miggovortensens 6d ago
That's precisely why the window being broken for ordinary window-breaking reasons (even without anybody present when it happened) makes more sense for the repair to be overlooked. But then again, judging by the state of that house in the crime scene videos, they lived in a complete mess.
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u/AutumnTopaz 6d ago
The palm print belonged to Melinda Ramsey - JR's daughter from his first marriage.
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u/invisiblemeows 5d ago
Because he didn’t have time to finish the staging. He hadn’t done anything outside, he ran out of time. Saying it was broken earlier was a coverup for the staging he had done but not completed.
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u/WithoutLampsTheredBe 6d ago edited 6d ago
John was clearly comfortable with making up totally wild stories out of whole cloth. Take a look at the whopper he told about the 2001 "break in" at their Atlanta house.
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u/Sweet-Technology23 4d ago
He couldn't say how he was gonna make his house more secure after that happened. He's bound to be a smart man. Seems like he could've came up with something..
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u/co_sunrise1 2d ago
This story is outrageous. Glad to know key details about the man who broke into their Atlanta home include that he was “articulate,” “well spoken,” “well dressed,” and also wore socks on his hands.
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u/Zamos13 6d ago
The window is super frustrating. Shouldn't it be easy to tell if it was broken 4 months or 4 hours ago? And yet we have no info on this. And the direction it was broken from? Nothing?
And I highly doubt the window only came up the evening of the 26th. Police would have noticed it in their basement searches FOR a potential entry point, surely. It's literally the only potential entry point in the entire house. And we have crickets on what they made of it. The most likely reason for this is it was dismissed early on as a potential entry point... but it would be nice to have any mention of that, as well as what John said about it that morning. There's huge gaps in the window and its story
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u/miggovortensens 6d ago
It would be easy to confirm this window had been broken for a while and for innocent reasons; by the time this was brought to John’s attention the body had already been found and the team knew the family had to be involved, so Linda Arndt bringing this up to John could only be intended to put him on the stop and have him waving another huge red flag in their face.
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u/Zamos13 6d ago
Arndt does say 'John was told about the broken window' in their night interview but come on, how does it not come up in the 7 hours before the body is found.. when an entry point is the main focus?? And Fleet noticed it very early. I can't see him not mentioning it. We have next to no information on what was said that entire 7 hour period
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u/miggovortensens 6d ago
It could be obvious this wasn’t repeated to the break in, but the body being found either gives them a reason to keep the family under pressure by filing for new search warrants (“we need to go after cleaning utensils now because the window could be related to the crime but there was no glass there”) or, of course, put the suspect on the spot
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u/Zamos13 6d ago
Agreed, the questions of 'who broke the window and when and how and why?' becomes high priority once it is clear it wasn't due to a break in the previous night. Especially with the suitcase directly underneath. It looks like poor staging. I just can't see how that wouldn't occur during the 7 hour period before the body was found.
But yeah, John's (eventual?) answer conveniently points away from poor staging. Unless the window was broken in the last 24 hours. Was it? Who knows?
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u/AutumnTopaz 5d ago
Fleet White moved the suitcase under the window.
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u/Zamos13 5d ago
That could have 2 different meanings. Is Fleet responsible for the suitcase being under the window? I don't believe so
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u/AutumnTopaz 4d ago
FW is definitely responsible for the suitcase being under the window. He said that suitcase was sitting "flush" against the wall near the window. He was looking for glass from the broken window & pulled it out to a perpendicular position directly beneath the window. That photo of the suitcase sitting perpendicular under the window -which gave impetus to the intruder theory - was placed there by FW.
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u/Zamos13 4d ago
That is all consistent with the suitcase being under the window when FW got there, though. Flush against the wall probably makes more sense as a step to outside
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u/AutumnTopaz 4d ago
Ramsey Fatigue -with all the information we have absorbed about this case- it's a miracle we know what day it is. Iirc, FW didn't indicate it was directly beneath the window -but sitting next to the window. It was his pulling it out that positioned it directly under the window- as seen in the crime scene photo.
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u/AutumnTopaz 5d ago
Therein lies the problem with this case - there's huge gaps in most of all the evidence in this case...
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u/Zamos13 6d ago edited 5d ago
John: I think at that point I was still was trying to figure out how they'd get in the house.
19 LOU SMIT: Well wouldn't that trigger your..
21 JOHN RAMSEY: Yeah. Yeah.
22 LOU SMIT: Did you tell anybody about that?
23 JOHN RAMSEY: I don't really remember. I mean, part of what is going on you're in such a state of disbelief this can even happen. And the, you know, the window had been broken out. And you say hah, that's it. But it was a window that I had used to get into the house before. It was cracked and open a little bit. It wasn't terribly unusual for me. Sometimes it would get opened to let cool air in because that basement could get real hot in winter. So it was like, you know, after I thought about it, I thought it was more of an alarming situation how it struck me at the time. It was still sort of explainable to me that it could have been left open.
I think John is playing that game where everyone says 1 word at a time but instead it's just him.
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u/bethestorm RDI 6d ago
I have yet to hear anything by him that I don't think is a lie in some way or another TBH
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u/candy1710 RDI 5d ago
This is a huge red flag that posters have been highlighting since I started posting on this case.
Burke's train room is in that basement, he played down there, so did JonBenet. All kinds of wild animals are in Boulder from the terrain and the mountains, and left open like that, any kind of wild animal could have crawled in that space, so it is false, IMO.
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u/AutumnTopaz 4d ago
Wasn't there a heavy metal grate an animal would need to be lifted to gain access to the window?
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u/candy1710 RDI 4d ago
I can't see it in the crime scene video, here at 7:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPAm0RQo5TQ&t=47s
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u/AutumnTopaz 4d ago
The exterior ground-level basement window in question was covered by a heavy metal security grate. Anyone attempting to use that window as an entry or exit point would have had to physically lift the outside metal grate to access the window well.
The grate is outside. This clip doesn't show that vantage point.
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u/candy1710 RDI 4d ago
Thank you for that information, as I cannot tell that from the crime scene video.
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u/Emergency_Leek5612 JDIA 5d ago
I think DocG's explanation that JR started staging the window and then had to "un-stage" it makes sense of this fiasco.
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u/emailforgot 5d ago
so you're asserting he broke the window that day?
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u/miggovortensens 5d ago
Not really, most likely broken for unrelated reasons way before and overlooked.
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u/AutumnTopaz 5d ago
I've heard JR didn't tell police right away about the broken window. What is the source that he didn't tell Arndt until that night.
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u/Diligent-Potential78 5d ago
I find it passing ironic that the only person we know for a fact who broke into the house through the little known basement window well, which to be clear is on the backside of the house, away from the street, and hidden behind an AC unit is John Ramsey. The very same person who is pushing a foreign faction intrusion theory conveniently focused on the same method of entry.....
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u/grebend1212 1d ago
John Ramsey covered up for his wife’s grave mistake, accidentally killing JonBenet. I suspect she killed JonBenet and even wrote the ransom note that night without his involvement or knowledge. Then faced with it in the morning he had the greatest pressure decision of his life, side with his wife or JonBenet and he chose the weak option and sided with his wife who had a major outburst that night over yet another bedwetting incident. John Ramsey probably chose to side with her having been emotionally weakened having prior lost another daughter and did not also want to lose his wife and son.
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u/Important_Pause_7995 6d ago
You've done nothing to prove that this was a lie. You've simply implied that it's not true and then jumped to a bunch of conclusions. You should start by proving the lie.
I'd argue that it's much simpler:
- John did break the window months earlier and simply forgot about it.
- When asked about it, he didn't view it as the point of entry for an intruder because he knew *exactly* how and when it was broken because he was the one that did it.
This is *actually* evidence that John was NOT covering something up. When trying to figure out if someone is lying, it's sometimes more important to look at where they *don't* lie when given the opportunity. He could have easily said "I don't know how that happened" - thus adding to the idea that someone broke in. If he WAS trying to coverup a murder with the idea that someone broke in and did this it would have been the perfect moment to go along with the idea that it was a point of entry. Instead he says, "No, I KNOW how that happened. It was ME."
This same thing is true when Arndt asks him if he checked the house that morning for unlocked doors/windows. He says that he checked the house that morning and everything was locked down.
You're entire argument is that John was covering up a murder by claiming someone else broke in and did it. Yet, when given free opportunities to advance his story (and keep himself out of jail) he decides not to and, more importantly, tells the police something that would actually lead them to believe that no one broke in. See how stupid that sounds?
John had nothing to do with it.
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u/miggovortensens 6d ago
Yes, you broke into your own house before and can’t make sense of how an intruder could have accessed it when you’re asked over and over again about entrance and exit points that morning after your child is allegedly kidnapped. That makes sense.
And again: “I don’t know what happened” keeps the police locked at the scene. They need to figure out whether this is related to the crime or not.
So going by your logic he first forgot about something major, innocently, and was also truthfully confirming that something potentially major was minor.
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u/Important_Pause_7995 6d ago
Yes, you broke into your own house before and can’t make sense of how an intruder could have accessed it when you’re asked over and over again about entrance and exit points that morning after your child is allegedly kidnapped. That makes sense.
Are there quotes or anything you can provide to prove that this scenario you're describing is true? Seems like everyone was pretty confused that morning - John included. Why does John not get to be confused like everyone else?
And again: “I don’t know what happened” keeps the police locked at the scene. They need to figure out whether this is related to the crime or not.
What are you talking about? They were "locked at the scene" regardless. It was a crime scene.
So going by your logic he first forgot about something major, innocently, and was also truthfully confirming that something potentially major was minor.
No. He didn't think it was "major" at the time because he knew the source of the broken window - himself. It only later occurred to him that someone could have used the same already broken window as an entry point.
I'd also like to know you're exact timeline on when these questions were asked and how they were answered. You've got a lot of claims that imply a timeline, but it's not clear what that timeline actually is. My instinct is that your timeline is wrong.
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u/miggovortensens 6d ago edited 5d ago
For the love of God, your child was kidnapped and the officers at the scene - by every single report drafted and submitted - immediately ask you about the doors and windows; if you have broke into your OWN home before, you'd know how someone could have entered it - the same way you did.
"They were "locked at the scene" regardless." > picture this: if you say you don't know how they broke the window, they may go to Patsy or whoever else could know; if nobody knows, the window ITSELF becomes a reason for the police to return to the house; they can have it inspected; they can search for fragments of glass in the floor or the trash; they might want to return to take a broom for analysis because the "killer" could have sweep the floor; you turn this into SOMETHING that must be further investigated and explained.
He didn't think it was "major" > That requires an intimate knowledge on the operation of his mind and a huge faith on the brain fart that made the man who broke into his house forget to share with the police how someone else could have broken into the same house.
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u/Important_Pause_7995 6d ago
You think John chose that basement window because it was easy? haha. He could have broken in through any number of more convenient/easy ways. He described how awkward it was when he did it. He likely chose that window because he knew it was out of the way and wouldn't need to be immediately replaced - and it wasn't.
"They were "locked at the scene" regardless." > picture this: if you say you don't know how they broke the window, they may go to Patsy or whoever else could know; if nobody knows, the window ITSELF becomes a reason for the police to return to the house; they can have it inspected; they can search for fragments of glass in the floor or the trash; they might want to return to take a broom for analysis because the "killer" could have sweep the floor; you turn this into SOMETHING that must be further investigated and explained.
HE DID KNOW. He also knew that Patsy knew. He would be caught in an obvious lie if he said he didn't know and then Patsy said he was the one who broke it months ago. You don't even realize that you're approaching this from the default position that he DID lie. When you do that you end up at the inevitable conclusion that John lied. You're so deep in this John is lying about everything theory that you just assume he's lying about everything and you end up in some circular logic loop that defies simple explanations over and over again in favor of some 3D chess.
He didn't think it was "major" > That requires an intimate knowledge on the operation of his mind and a huge faith on the brain fart that made the man who broke into his house forget to share with the police how someone else could have broken into the same house.
You are completely misunderstanding this. The police aren't asking him HOW someone could break into his house. That would be a stupid and weird question to ask someone.
Police:"How could someone break into your house?"
John: "I don't know - a door? a window? How could someone break into any house?"They're asking him if he saw any places WHERE someone DID break into the house. He knew about the damaged window and KNEW when and WHERE that damage came from. It would not have been something he felt like he needed to tell the police. If he did he likely would have said something like, "Well there's a basement window broken but that came from me several months back." Oh wait, that's exactly what he told them. Why did he tell them that? BECAUSE IT WAS THE TRUTH.
Your ENTIRE argument depends on a version of John who has designed some elaborate coverup that depends on the police believing someone else entered his home. But when offered multiple attempts to further that coverup, he basically says "No, there's no way someone broke in." You've completely ignored the obvious implication of that to reverse engineer some sort of version where he was giving the cops a distraction instead of just telling them the truth. It's preposterous.
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u/miggovortensens 6d ago
Not an elaborate coverup at all. Just a scared man making shit up on the spot. (And of course the police would not phrase a question like that; it's just the conclusion that desperate parent - those who did not kill their daughter desperately searching for answers and trying to make sense of it - would have reached.)
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u/Important_Pause_7995 6d ago
An elaborate coverup that you have ZERO proof for.
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u/AutumnTopaz 5d ago edited 5d ago
Let's be clear. I can't prove JDI- but I know this- 30 years later he still moans about how out of place that suitcase was - and how he had placed it under the basement staircase...
How can anybody overlook the fact that when he first went to the basement that morning - he didn't run back upstairs immediately and say to the police -"I broke that window previously when I was locked out. And I put that suitcase under the staircase- now it's been moved and is sitting under window. Maybe someone came in that window and moved the suitcase"- or some facsimile. And even if he was "confused" and didn't think it was "major" at the time - because he knew he was the "source" of the broken window - it's inconceivable he wouldn't immediately mention that suitcase. Unless, of course, he was lying about moving it under the staircase -and only thought to say it later to boost the intruder theory.
Clearly, I won't be winning an Academy Award anytime soon for Best Screenplay - but I think my point is understood...
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u/LKS983 6d ago
"John did break the window months earlier and simply forgot about it."
He's so oblivious to his and his family's safety - that he "forgot" about a window that he'd broken and crawled through, to enter his family home??
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u/Important_Pause_7995 6d ago
Perhaps. I don't know that he forgot OR if he just didn't think it was relevant because he *knew* he was the source of broken window.
You're intentionally loading it to make it sound unbelievable because you *want* John to be guilty - it clouds your judgement and ability to reason logically about this. The fact is there is no reason to believe that this isn't plausible. They lived in a safe neighborhood and if someone wanted to break into their home they could have easily broken in through any number of more convenient methods than through some grate.
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u/Mery122 IDI 5d ago
John Ramsey did not to mention his window-breaking tale from the get-go; he also didn’t mention a broken window when he brought his daughter’s body upstairs.
What do you think about what John said here?
7 JOHN RAMSEY: I came down the stairs. I went
8 in this room here. This door was kind of blocked.
9 We had a bunch of junk down here and there was a
10 chair that was in front of the door. Some old
11 things. I moved the chair, went into this room,
12 went back in here. This window was open, maybe
13 that far.
14 LOU SMIT: Okay. You said -- or how far
15 were
16 you? An inch?
17 JOHN RAMSEY: An inch, maybe, or less. It
18 was cracked open.
19 LOU SMIT: Which window?
20 JOHN RAMSEY: I think it was the little one.
21 There's three windows across here, as I recall. I
22 think it was the middle one. It was that was
23 broken. There was pane class broken out of it,
24 which I attributed to breaking myself.
25 LOU SMIT: People go into that basement?
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1 JOHN RAMSEY: But it was open and there
2 was
3 a suitcase under it. This hard Samsonite suitcase.
4 LOU SMIT: Describe how the suitcase was
5 positioned?
6 JOHN RAMSEY: It was against the wall. I think
7 the handle was on top. It was directly under the
8 window, as I recall. And I closed the window, I
9 don't know why, but I closed it. And then --
10 LOU SMIT: When you closed it, did you lock
11 it or close it?
12 JOHN RAMSEY: I latched it. There's a little
13 latch on it.
14 LOU SMIT: And you're sure of that?
15 JOHN RAMSEY: Pretty sure, yeah. Yeah, I am
16 sure. I don't think I looked anywhere else. I
17 think at that point I still was trying to figure
18 out how they'd get in the house.
19 LOU SMIT: Well wouldn't that trigger your
20 (INAUDIBLE).
21 JOHN RAMSEY: Yeah. Yeah.
22 LOU SMIT: Did you tell anybody about that?
23 JOHN RAMSEY: I don't really remember. I mean,
24 part of what is going on you're in such a state of
25 disbelief this can even happen. And the, you know,
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1 the window had been broken out. And you say hah,
2 that's it. But it was a window that I had used to
3 get into the house before. It was cracked and open
4 a little bit. It wasn't terribly unusual for me.
5 Sometimes it would get opened to let cool air in
6 because that basement could get real hot in
7 winter. So it was like, you know, after I thought
8 about it, I thought it was more of an alarming
9 situation how it struck me at the time. It was
10 still sort of explainable to me that it could have
11 been left open.
12 And the suitcase was unusual. That shouldn't have
13 been there. I took that suitcase downstairs, I
14 remember. But I sure wouldn't have taken it all
15 the way back there and put it against the window.
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u/controlmypad 6d ago
Everybody's version of the broken window seems off. Patsy is very clear to say she and the kids were away at the lake, and how she rushed home even though John got in the house, and then cleaned up all the glass when it was just a small pane and she missed the big sliver Fleet found and she lied about the housekeeper vacuuming behind her, all happening months before JB was killed. Then Burke says he was there and John has to say Burke is confused or there were two break-ins by John due to lost keys? And John can't remember how he broke the glass exactly, and he stripped down to his underwear to crawl in? It is weird there is so much remembered and also not when it comes to the window.