(PR 06-23-1998 Pg0309) Trip DeMuth asks Patsy, "Have you ever heard of the Hi-Tech brand footwear before?" Patsy answers, "I have heard that, this name is, you know, has come up. But I" Trip DeMuth asks, "How about prior to JonBenet's death?" Patsy replies, "No. Never heard of it" Trip DeMuth asks Patsy a second time, "Never heard of it prior to JonBenet's death?" Patsy replies, "No. Anytime I go in the shoe store I kind of look and see, you know, if there is a Hi-Tech." Trip DeMuth asks, "Have you ever found any?" Patsy replies, "No. I mean, is that like a brand name or is that a description?"
Sample of Handwriting Comparison: Can be seen better at this link: http://www.google.com/search?q=john+mark+karr+handwriting+sample&tbm=isch&tbo=u&sour ce=univ&sa=X&ei=GojoUpazMYjc2gWozICQBg&ved=0CCQQsAQ&biw=1190&bih=665
GRACE: OK. Let`s show the viewers what really stopped me in my tracks when I saw this because I find his intruder theory to be crazy, wacky and unbelievable, but you`ve got to see this. Do you have that graph for me?
The comparisons between the OK, we`ll start at the top. "Will" that is from the high school yearbook. Notice the curving in the parallel "L`s." "Still" got it in the ransom note. "All" the "a" with the umbrella, "a," umbrella, still the curved parallel "l`s." "Excellent" and I`m looking at the "t." Catch this for me, Dusty (ph). If you see the "t" has a tail. There`s a tail here. There`s a tail here in the ransom note. Same thing in these "t`s".
They`ve got tails and umbrellas over the "a." The umbrella over the "a" very unusual. Really unusual is the teardrop "d," as in "dog," "d" "around" and "delivery adequate." This is years later. The "w," the same.
And very importantly, the "a."You`ve all heard of handwriting analysis. Joining us tonight is a veteran handwriting comparison expert. His name, Don Lehew, and he believes Karr did, in fact, write the ransom note. Mr. Lehew, thank you for being with us.
DON LEHEW, HANDWRITING EXPERT: Glad to be here
GRACE: Sir, you have taken a look at not only the ransom note how many pages was that thing? I`ve got it right here. Let`s see one, two, three, and then there was the practice ransom note. That should give the police pretty good fodder to make a handwriting comparison. You`ve looked at that and his current known handwriting. What do you think?
LEHEW: I looked at that. I looked at a little of his known handwriting, and I also looked at handwriting from back when he was in his high school yearbook.
GRACE: And what did you see?
LEHEW: I found significant comparison documents that were adequate to convince me that he is the one that wrote the ransom note.
GRACE: Well, what really got me and Elizabeth, when you can, pull this up for the viewers. At first, I thought it was all bogus and there`s no way this guy was even remotely involved except in his own dreams. But if you take a look at his "d" specifically, the "a" specifically, with the umbrella over it, I find look there you go. Thanks, Liz. Take a look at that. To find the umbrella over the "a" is not that you don`t often find that. And the "d" I don`t know if we have the "d," but the "d" is like an upsidedown candy cane. It`s a very unusual marking LEHEW: That`s true.
GRACE: And what do you make of it?
LEHEW: Well, that`s part of what we look at to make the comparison to make the match on the handwriting. The lower case "l`s" are a little bit strange, to say the least. They`re not the typical lower case "l." And certainly, the "a" and the "d" are out of character from what we learned in school, typically. The "w" is a good match. And the lower case "t" has got a tail that comes off of the off into the right in both in the known and the questioned document.
GRACE: Don, when you make a handwriting comparison, how many similarities do you look for?
LEHEW: Well, in this case, as many as I could find.
37 37
38 38 GRACE: How many similarities does it take before you will deem it a match?
LEHEW: I don`t have a specific number. It`s kind of like fingerprints. They don`t have a specific number, and neither do we. But I like to get at least 10 or better, and once I`ve got 10 or better, I`m pretty convinced. Handwriting experts point finger at Karr 'At least a dozen traits' link ransom note and yearbook, he says Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 A wellknown national handwriting expert said Monday he is 99.9 percent certain John Mark Karr wrote the ransom note found near the scene of JonBenét Ramsey's murder.
"Most guys are riding the fence," said Curt Baggett, the Texasbased cofounder of the School of Forensic Document Examination. "But there are at least a dozen traits that match up perfectly, when comparing a (high school) yearbook signed by Karr and the ransom note." Some of those traits are fairly common, while others are rare, he said. That there are so many similarities pushes the odds up into the seven digits.
To put it another way, Baggett said, the "chances are a millionto one" that someone other than Karr wrote the ransom note. GRACE: OK, let me rephrase it. I`m a JD, not a DDS. When you say it`s a match, how many matches do you have? How many points of match do you have?
LEHEW: OK. You`ve actually asked two questions, Nancy. In this case, I had 13 letters that matched significantly. Typically, in a forgery, you are looking for differences, whereas in this case, I was looking for similarities.
This highly regarded linguist analyzed Patsy, JMK, Nancy aka Norma Files and the Patricia Letters against the ransom note. Her findings are scientific, not opinion based since they are put through a computer.
The Patricia Letters were included since both Lou Smit and the Ramsey's believed the author could be the killer of JonBenet. These were various letters written to close case followers, media and investigators by a person pretending to be Patsy.
JMK and Norma Files were included in this comparison because both of them professed to have written the ransom note.
Patsy insists she did NOT write the note yet some in BPD believed she was the author.
The findings were that Both Patsy and Norma Files could be completely eliminated.
The findings were that both JMK and the author of the Patricia Letters were one in the same
The findings were that JMK was that JMK was the author of the ransom note.
Carole Chaski:
Given the candidate pool of Patsy Ramsey, Nancy and John Mark Karr documents
prior to 2000, (including the Tracey emails), the statistical procedure
using discriminant function analysis with leave- one-out cross-validation)
obtains a model with 100% accuracy. This means that each Patsy document was
tested as an unknown and returned to the Patsy class; each Nancy document
was tested as an unknown and returned to the Nancy class, and each John Mark
Karr document was tested as an unknown and returned to the John Mark Karr
class. This statistical model, at 100% cross-validated accuracy, is
therefore very good at recognizing Patsy's, Nancy's and Karr's documents.
This statistical model is then used to classify the unknown document, the
ransom note. The ransom note is classified as John Mark Karr's.
Given the candidate pool of Patsy Ramsey, Patricia and John Mark Karr
documents prior to 2000, including the Tracey emails), the statistical
procedure obtains a model of 58.3% accuracy. This model is not accurate
enough to make a predictive classification (it is just a bit higher than
chance). In my experience in validation testing of this authorship
identification method, extremely low model accuracy usually indicates that
there is a mixture in the data. Therefore, I combined the Patricia and John
Mark Karr documents prior to 2000, including the Tracey emails.
Given the candidate pool of Patsy Ramsey and the combined dataset of
Patricia and John Mark Karr documents prior to 2000, including the Tracey
emails), the statistical procedure obtains a model of 100% accuracy. Out of
these two potential authors, the ransom note is classified as Patricia/John
Mark Karr's.
I then tested the Patricia/John Mark Karr excluding the Tracey emails
document against the Patsy Ramsey documents. Again, the statistical model
obtained 100% cross-validated accuracy, and the ransom note is classified as
Patricia/John Mark Karr's.
I conducted 16 tests, most using pairwise data, in total, but these are the
most important results. It is my opinion that:
John Mark Karr and Patricia are one author, Nancy can at this time and in
this author pool be excluded as the author of the ransom note, Patsy Ramsey
can at this time and in this author pool be excluded as the author of the
ransom note, and John Mark Karr cannot at this time and in this author pool
be excluded as the author of the ransom note.
The method cannot predict if the document was authored by an author outside
the author pool; the method can only attach the questioned document to one
of the authors in the candidate pool. This is the state of the art in
linguistic authorship identification and a limitation which no one has yet
solved (be very wary of claims otherwise). Therefore it is extremely
important that all possible candidates be included in the author pool, and
that testing be done on each one in relation to all the others.
Where luminarias and striped candy canes once said
“”welcome,” garish, yellow, crime-scene tapes tell passers-by
to keep moving.
In a neighborhood used to block parties and mutual help
during times of illness, residents skirted news cameras and
passed each other with little exchange about the slaying.
“”We are continuing the investigation, methodically searching
the principal residence,” said Leslie Aaholm, communications
director for the city of Boulder. “”Thirty officers are
involved. The family is cooperating. They are in Boulder under
protective custody. They are not under house arrest.”
Melinda Soppel posted on Facebook - moved here because things there tend to disappear...
Another interesting concept is the former owners of the home. The Oxleys The Ramsey's offered them a price for the home which was refused. It sat for awhile and didn't sell so they contacted them to see if they were still interested. The Oxleys were getting divorced and needed to sell. The Ramsey's then offered even less than the first time. The Oxleys reluctantly accepted but they were pretty angered about it---mostly the wife. I spoke with the son of the owner. The original owner is deceased but his former wife is still alive. I asked him if the difference in the price negotiation was anywhere near $118k and he thought it could have been but he wasn't sure. Both of the previous owners had lost children at a very young age. The wife was said to have connections with Israeli Mosel which caught my attention due to the foreign faction mention in the RN. I gave the son a copy of the RN to see if anything sounded familiar to him. His step mom was known for writing long threatening diatribes to family members but he said the handwriting didn't match. I sort of ruled this connection out but it's amazing how many types of possibilities there are in this crime.
According to some police files I have access to, Between September 19, 1995 and December 11, 1996 - FOURTEEN different maids cleaned the Boulder home of John and Patsy Ramsey. The Merry Maids would send teams of maids to work at the house together. They cleaned the house on 9/19/1995, 9/26, 10/3, 10/10, 10/17, 10/19, 10/24. Linda Hoffmann was hired late in 1995 (she had been a Merry Maid and left that job to work for the Ramseys) but John and Patsy continued to have the Merry Maids in from time to time.
The entire document is about 18 pages, The Daily Camera reports, nine of which relate to John and Patsy Ramsey, but it’s unclear how many of those will be released to the public.
“It appears that the District Attorney, presumably acting at the discretion of the grand jury, prepared a series of possible charges regarding John Ramsey and Patricia Ramsey based on the fact that the child had died and that there was evidence that a sexual assault of the child had occurred,” Lowenbach wrote in Wednesday’s ruling.
Earlier in the week, John Ramsey said he opposed the release of the document unless the entire grand jury record was also opened for the public. The judge denied that request on Wednesday.
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OK, so the question is - - why would the judge not release the entire grand jury record if the SUSPECT or TARGET is willing to have it all public? Is it to protect the witnesses? The case? Really? After 20 years? I personally think it is more to protect the persecutors who intentionally misled the grand jurors. I am so sorry the jury did not issue a report as they did in the Tawana Brawley case in New York.
