<p>I also read recently that there is a bunch of squish room in an expert determining if 2 fingerprints match (how many points of similarity there are). The case involved a fingerprint that was determined by the local police department as a match that the expert witness (who was a former FBI fingerprint expert) said wasn’t close to being a match.</p>
<p>Made me rethink fingerprints also. I just hope that I don’t get called to serve on a jury…There was a recent case of a woman convicted of poisoning her husband with arsenic. Turns out that the test results were somehow contaminated–there wasn’t any arsenic in her husband’s body!</p>
<p>As a jury member, you look for “objective” scientific forensic proof and feel comfortable convicting on that basis. But if that evidence is wrong…</p>
<p>I have always been fascinated by the case, too. I hated (and still do) that the killer has not been found. I didn’t ever really think it was one of the parents, but I was really at a loss as to who did it. I’m glad the DNA has now cleared the parents.</p>
<p>I’ve always been of the theory that someone saw the child and coveted her. I saw a tv show recently in which the house was toured. It was such a large and complicated house that someone really could have hidden for a period of time without being seen. Morality of pageants aside, she really was a spectacularly beautiful and blessed child. Until she wasn’t.</p>
<p>Since we only know about these cases from the view of the media that likes to sensationalize, it is difficult to come to any conclusion as to who did what. It seems to me that the police have their ideas on how people react to a tragedy and if those reactions are not in line with those ideas, they become suspects. That they did not cooperate with the police made it even more of a problem. </p>
<p>I cannot see how someone could get into the house, take the child to the basement without anyone hearing anything. With teenagers sneaking around my house at all hours of the night, we are aware of such movements, and that is one reason that we have curfews and rules about being up all hours, as it hinders our (H and my) sleep along with some of our other kids. Also, we have a dog that would make a ruckus if anyone was roaming around the house, much less taking one of the kids out of his room. The little girl’s dog did not seem to figure in the picture which was suspicious to me.</p>
<p>I don’t recall if they had a dog or not but I can tell you that not all dogs react to intruders. Friends of ours were burglarized recently in the middle of the night. They cut through a screen, entered the main floor, turned lights on, gathered up a purse, a laptop, a bottle of rum, some dvds and apparently ate an apple (the core was left on the kitchen counter). Our friends, their three dogs, four cats, and two kids slept through it all!</p>
<p>Perhaps cloth holds touch DNA better than hard surfaces like you described. </p>
<p>Whatever. I never thought the parents did it and I’m glad law enforcement finally opened their eyes, instead of getting one theory and pursuing it to the exclusion of anything else, out what appeared to be pure stubbornness.</p>
<p>The case was a very strange one in very many ways. There are those who feel that the Ramseys were treated unfairly and those who feel that they were treated unfairly but in too favorable of a way by the DA’s office. There was evidence on each side to support. The thing that really got me about this case was that there were so many people in that house, so many who could have touched her that it is difficult coming up with a list. Many folks had keys and access to the home, there were several easy portals of entry, including windows already broken. The police did a lousy job on this case from the get go.</p>
<p>Consolation My thoughts were the same as yours. </p>
<p>I have relatives that are in law enforcement and the initial handling of the crime scene by the Boulder police was full of mistakes (failing to completely search the house). Im not sure why the Ramseys lawyered-up so quickly and stopped being cooperative with the police. So many things about the case seemed strange (like the 911 call coming from the house the night before JonBenet was killed). Im afraid we will never know what really happened.</p>
^^^ That is the kind of thinking, IMO, that leads to families contacting their lawyers so quickly. Suspicion. And sadly, the police aren’t always as trustworthy as we’d like them to be. If I found myself in the horrible position of being questioned/interrogated by the police (who do typically look at the family as the primary suspects, as I believe statistics support this) you’d better believe I’d call my lawyer, who would probably then advise me to let her do the talking to the police. Pretty reasonable to me.</p>
<p>This poor family has been through enough. Folks I know who lived near them in Boulder at the time of the murder said the police mishandled the case, contaminated the evidence, the crime scene, etc. While this is hearsay, it could also explain why they’d try to railroad the Ramsays, who, fortunately had the means to defend themselves. </p>
<p>Jonbenet and her mother are buried not far from my home. Let then rest in peace. I connot fathom what it must be like to lose a child, let alone to then be accused of being involved in their death.</p>