by Cottonstar & Juror13
THE PARTIALLY WRAPPED PRESENTS AND THE PREVARICATION OF THE PINK NIGHTGOWN
“It’s a clue.” – John Ramsey to Barbara Walters, March 2000
For far too long, JonBenet’s pink Barbie nightgown that was found next to the victim spattered with her blood, has been known as an anomaly of sort, a paradox. It has been one of the most ignored pieces of evidence in any theory involving the still unresolved death of JonBenét Ramsey. We have studied the nightgown in search of not only the physical evidence but also the circumstantial. We have looked at the statements, interviews and depositions over the years to discern what the gown could tell us, if anything.
In her first interview with investigators, Patsy Ramsey said “I am not quite sure this is hers” in the hopes her dismissal of the gown would deem it insignificant. John’s revulsion of it had a different intent altogether.
“It looks like it’s a shinier material than I remember. That looks more like what I kind of remember was on the Barbie doll itself…. God, I can only imagine it. That, that, was something very perverted.” – John Ramsey to Lou Smit in 1998
Given what we believe, that the Ramseys were equal in their misdirection, the nightgown has been stranded on a moldy wine cellar island with other misfit toys for over two decades. Partially opened gift boxes from FAO Schwarz, a Batmobile Bicycle with only one working wheel. A fancy set of unwrapped LEGOS with no wrapping paper or card for its new owner. And a pink Barbie nightgown, all by its lonesome, now without a princess to love it. It’s clinging to JonBenet’s body on the cold cellar floor, like a soldier’s service dog at his casket.
The truth is, each item in the cellar is significant. Some more so than others. We’ll show you precisely why we believe the Ramseys, in an attempt to evade culpability, were left with no choice but to mislead everyone, not only about the gown, but also the swanky gifts found in the cellar room.
PATSY, PAM, AND PRISCILLA
Nedra Paugh’s early declaration to investigators that the pink Barbie nightgown was JonBenet’s favorite clearly put a crimp in John and Patsy’s narrative. If the nightgown were just a set of every day pajamas and nothing more, then it would have been easy for them to say, yea, JonBenet owned the nightgown and we’re not sure why it’s there. But a young child’s favorite possession that she dragged around with her everywhere she went, well, that’s an entirely different story with different implications, and Patsy and John had to deal with that.
Don’t let Patsy fool you. We believe her indifference to the gown was all an act to make you think it wasn’t relevant. However, her bitterly defensive stance tells another story. There’s no better illustration of that than in this exchange:
HANEY: When would she have worn that last, do you know?
PATSY: Well, she didn’t wear it that night because she had her – she had the long underwear pants and her little white shirt.
Do you see it? Patsy doesn’t answer Haney’s question. She pauses mid-sentence to carefully consider how she wants to address it. Her biggest goal is hammering down the point that JonBenet did not wear the nightgown on Christmas night. Her emphasis on it draws an enormous red flag. If JonBenet did wear the nightgown then the entire Ramsey story falls apart.
When Patsy’s sister, Pam, spoke publicly about the gown in 1999, she confirmed what Nedra said. JonBenet had an affinity for the gown.
“It is my information that this gown was found in a closet….and yes, she (JonBenet) was fond of it because it had a Barbie picture on the front which looked like her. My mother purchased it here in GA at a local Kmart. I was with her.” – Pam Paugh,1999
The detail about the gown being purchased at Kmart is something that intrigued us, and we wanted to see if we could verify that. We also wanted to analyze why Pam would say this:
“I am aware of one woman who hated the nightgown, was terribly jealous of Patsy’s life and hated JonBenet’s success… go figure??? The police have been told of this and say it is on NO Concern….yea right.” – Pam Paugh, 1999
The jealous woman Pam is referring to is Priscilla, Fleet White’s wife.
Pam had her own habit of misdirection. Can you say Santa Bear? But it wasn’t just simple misleading on her behalf, she was calculating in her attempt to connect the Whites to the crime. Interesting that she uses the nightgown, this supposed insignificant evidence, to try and achieve that goal.
“Patsy knows how much JonBenet loved that nightie,” said Linda, who’s been notified she’ll be a witness before the Grand Jury. “I did the washing three times a week – and the Barbie nightie was always there.” – Linda Hoffman-Pugh
I’M A BARBIE GIRL, IN A BARBIE WORLD
No matter the pervasiveness of the leaks in this case, some crime scene photos have gone unleaked. They’ve been locked away, like the 2008 DNA testing of the nightgown and other clothing JonBenet was wearing, courtesy of Mary Lacy. If we couldn’t get our hands on the crime scene photos of the nightgown, we agreed, we were going to hunt this thing down by other means. It became imperative for us to see the gown in its entirety.
So, we set out on a nearly year-long search, becoming Barbie experts along the way, using the photo from the 2016 Daily Camera article as a reference.
Trust us when we tell you, it’s been a maddening, painstaking, process to find and verify the gown. With that said, we were finally able to hunt and pin down the actual nightgown/design of the pink Barbie nightgown found next to JonBenét’s body. At first glance, it didn’t look like the bubblegum pink, glared-out, half-tilted picture shown in the Daily Camera.
However, for the first time we are sharing exactly what JonBenet’s pink Barbie nightgown did look like, and what we believe, JonBenét was wearing the night of her death.
While our research (as of yet) has not revealed exactly who bought the nightgown for JonBenet, we can tell you this, as fact…
- This nightgown was made exclusively for Macy’s / Bloomingdales and sold in their stores in November of 1995.
- We also have it from an internal source at Kmart that this is not a Kmart-sold gown.
- This wasn’t a gown made for a life-sized Barbie doll.
We looked at upwards of a thousand vintage gowns from all over the world. Among them, we also found many pictures from the 90s of little girls posing proudly in their own Barbie gowns with siblings and friends. Many of them posing for their pictures on Christmas Day.
In 1995, the FAO Schwarz store in New York City opened a newly designed two-level Barbie boutique and hundreds of other department stores followed suit. Back then, every girl on the planet wanted to own Barbie gear, and JonBenet was no different. Can you imagine how JonBenet’s eyes must have lit up when she saw that boutique on Fifth Avenue? Patsy, Pam and Nedra were all there with her to witness it.
It wasn’t just the Kmarts and Walmarts of the world carrying Barbie, the brand crossed over into the luxury market, where Patsy loved to shop.
From the October 1995 article in Ad Age:
The latest moves are putting Mattel back in a market it has largely given up – high-end department stores. Boutiques are planned for May Department Stores Co., Carson Pirie Scott & Co., Bloomingdale’s, Filene’s, Kauffman’s, and R.H. Macy & Co. stores.
Little girl-size Barbie nightgowns will be sold alongside adult-priced Nicole Miller silk scarves.
One of the things that helped us to identify her gown was the vintage Barbie logo found on the dress portion of the graphic. It was consistent with the Barbie collectors campaign mentioned in the article.
If you haven’t put it together yet, you may be wondering the significance. We have a nightgown that’s been purchased at Macy’s/Bloomingdales alongside other gifts purchased at the same exact stores, just a month prior on a family trip.
Take another look behind the half-torn FAO Schwarz gift boxes and what do you see? A LEGOS parking garage / ramp system that’s completely unwrapped, which stands out from every other gift in that room. Why are the LEGOS unwrapped?
We know from Patsy that those LEGOS were Burke’s.
“…lately he (Burke) had taken baths in his father’s bathroom. She (Patsy) knew for sure, because his LEGOS were always at the bottom of the tub when she drained the water.” – PMPT
“You could make Burke behave by telling him no, she said, but sometimes JonBenet had to be given a “time-out” for doing things such as stomping on Burke’s LEGO creations.” – Suzanne Savage, former Ramsey nanny
“Burke plays downstairs in the living room by the Christmas tree. He’s trying to assemble a mechanical robot made of the LEGOS he got for Christmas, so I sit down on the floor to help him put it together, but it’s way too complicated for tonight.” – John Ramsey, The Other Side of Suffering
“Yeah, I had some toy I wanted to put together. I remember being downstairs after everyone was kinda in bed and wanted to get this thing out.” – Burke Ramsey on Dr. Phil, 2016
These items in the cellar were gifts from a special trip, purchased for special people, wrapped in special gift wrap, within weeks of JonBenet’s death on Christmas. So many of these prized and pristine, specialized packages surrounding JonBenet’s body. The mostly white, adorned-with-rocking-horses, gift wrap is instantly recognizable as being from FAO Schwarz. It’s coveted by kids, just like Tiffany’s blue boxes are by adults.
Who’s most drawn to gifts, like a magnet to metal, on Christmas? Who would, as a kid, use a flashlight after the lights were out and everyone else is in bed, to become a spy kid; sneaking, peeking, and peeling at wrapped Christmas presents inside their home?
It also deserves stating again – there’s no way the Ramseys used that moldy, decrepit cellar to store any of their valuables. No, those valuables got there a different way.
“I don’t know why that would be there. I mean that room was usually full of Christmas stuff. It’s a nasty room. Just you didn’t go in there.” – John Ramsey, 1998
PULL UP YOUR BIG BOY PANTS & DEAL WITH IT
“JonBenet was in the TV room, sitting at a small table, in her nightgown…” – Linda Wilcox, former Ramsey babysitter, talking about JonBenet in August 1995
In the numerous stories shared about JonBenet, it’s clear, she primarily wore nightgowns to bed. You see it in the photos and videos of Christmases past. On the random occasions she didn’t, she wore something that was girly and pink. Perhaps not so ironically, in the measly three photos of Christmas that the Ramseys reportedly took on Christmas day 1996, JonBenet is wearing a long john set, but it’s pink and has lace detail at the shoulders. They’re pajamas for a girl.
That’s why it’s so hard to rectify the clothing she was found in. She was in the same shirt she wore out to a party that night, pants that were obviously designed for a boy, underwear that was 6 sizes too big. It’s a nonsensical scene. While we assumed for years, after seeing a picture of them, that the long john pants were boy’s, we’ve now received confirmation that they were.
In a summary of the DNA testing from Bode in 2008, in which they tested the waistband of the long johns, it’s noted:
“S6-8 Boys Arctec Long Johns”
Why is JonBenet wearing her brother’s long johns?
We shared in a previous post, The Pink Nightgown Paradox, it’s our belief JonBenet was wearing her nightgown on Christmas night when the attack occurred. If this is true, that means the long johns, and way-too-big Bloomies were nothing but staging. If they were staging, and JonBenet was redressed, who was the most likely in the family to choose this nonsensical outfit for redressing?
There are two primary reasons why we believe JonBenet was wearing the gown. As stated in this post, it was her favorite and she wore nightgowns almost every night. But second, the cut-outs made by DNA technicians tell an important story. There are five pieces of fabric cut-out (17 A, B, C, D & E) and they’re spread out across the front. What that implies is the stains weren’t smears or transfer, instead, they were individual droplets. The most logical source of droplets on the front of a garment is the nose or mouth.
When the DNA tests came back, it was confirmed the blood belonged solely to JonBenet. However, it was later revealed in subsequent tDNA testing, that Burke and Patsy’s DNA was identified on the shoulders and hem of the nightgown.
DNA testing from January 9, 1997
As far as the GAP silver sequin-star top that JonBenet was found in, it contained two spots that indicated blood (5 A & B). One is them is visible in the following rare crime scene photo.
The stain appears to be a smear on the bottom left hand corner of the shirt, which could indicate a transfer while re-dressing. Another critical question to address at a later time – Is there an absence of urine on the bottom of the sequin-star shirt?
8,027 days, or nearly 22 years ago, a girl smitten with her gifts and the magic of Christmas was killed on Christmas night inside her own home.
But, as the world turns and time fades away, there continues to be a foggy, surreptitious snow blanketing the truth of what happened that one cold, silent night. It’s not just this blanket of snowy slush preventing lady justice to speak, but the hush underneath it all.
Shovel off a few layers and one will find miles of mountainous misinformation and misdirection. But, it’s the silence and continued secrecy, mixed with a medley of malfeasance, that continues to hinder the case today.
All opinions and conclusions included in this post are our own and we don’t claim to know the killer of JonBenet. Our goal is to uncover and bring to light the lesser-known truths of this case.
“The match of male DNA on two separate items of clothing (the underwear and long johns) worn by the victim at the time of the murder makes it clear to us that an unknown male handled these items. Despite substantial efforts over the years to identify the source of this DNA, there is no innocent explanation for its incriminating presence at three sites on these two different items of clothing that JonBenét was wearing at the time of the murder.”
Juror13 