Brother of JonBenet Ramsey sues CBS for $750M over series

[inanna]

Source: Associated Press

6:53 p.m. EST December 28, 2016

DENVER — The older brother of JonBenet Ramsey is suing CBS and others for $750 million, saying his reputation was ruined after a television series that concluded he killed his 6-year-old sister two decades ago.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, Burke Ramsey claims that the network, its production company and the experts interviewed in the series on the unsolved murder conspired to defame him for publicity and profit. The series, called "The Case of JonBenet Ramsey," aired in September ahead of the 20th anniversary of JonBenet's death.

<snip>

CBS spokesman Dustin Smith declined to comment on the lawsuit, which is the second Burke Ramsey has filed over the television series.

In October, Ramsey, 29, sued a forensic pathologist featured on the show who said he bludgeoned his sister to death. The pathologist is also named in the latest lawsuit, which was filed in Michigan, where Burke Ramsey lives.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/story/news/2016/12/28/jonbenet-ramsey-brother-burke-lawsuit/95934056/

[OKNancy]

1. good

[BigDemVoter]

2. +100000

This kind of shit has gone on long enough.

[skylucy]

3. I actually support Burke Ramsey going after the network etc. Anyone who has followed the JonBenet

Ramsey murder case knows that the PARENTS were the killer and the accomplice in the cover up. Patsy Ramsey was most likely the killer, although she probably did it in a fit of anger and did not mean to seriously injure her daughter. Then,either with or without the help of her husband, she staged the kidnap/murder scene. The police bungled the entire investigation because they were incompetent and also because they were dealing with well-to-do white folks who lawyered up immediately. This new focus on Burke as the 20th anniversary of JonBenet's murder approached is disgusting and is just more lousy fake "journalism".

[pnwmom]

6. Anyone who has followed that case knows that none of us will ever know who killed her,

and neither the parents nor the brother should be tried in the media.

[SharonClark]

16. Agree

[Iggo]

17. This.

[csziggy]

18. True - the way the police completely failed to secure the scene

Destroyed any chance of an investigation. They allowed the Ramseys to stay in the house and to invite many friends over. And they allowed the Ramseys and their friends to participate in the search of the house that found JonBenet's body.

The house was a crime scene, whether before or after the crime was known to be murder. It should have been secured, the family should have removed from the location - or if needed for a possible ransom call, they should have been restricted in their movements while the police searched and secured any area that showed irregularities.

The police were completely incompetent and I believe their persecution of the Ramsey family has been to cover up that fact.

[33taw]

10. The Boulder DA was a democrat and so were all subsequent DAs. The govenor (Roy Romer)

Was the former head of the DNC. The GOP did not cause this mess. The police were understaffed on 12/26 causing initial issues for the department investigators. I hate the GOP, but I don't think this was about them.

[MFM008]

27. I dont know

They have said she may have written the note (writing comparisons)
BUT to tie a tourniquet around your own kids neck and keep twisting
And the sexual assault?
If I would have accidentally killed my kid it could have been by pushing
or hitting or shaking.
Its a sad strange ok, BIZARRE case.

[DeminPennswoods]

49. she was already dead

The garrot was part of the cover up, allegedly, it was applied after she was already dead.

[Skittles]

47. complete nonsense

[still_one]

4. Can fox be sued for their lies?

[MicaelS]

19. WTF does Fox have to do with this?

CBS is being sued.

[still_one]

20. I understand that. I brought fox into the picture because they are a media outlet who have lied

certain people whose reputation has been ruined because of those lies

[JenniferJuniper]

42. The Ramseys did sue Fox

back when Patsy was still alive. They've sued practically everyone.

Fox won. Judge dismissed the case on First Amendment grounds.

[still_one]

43. not surprised and this one will probably go the same way

[RKP5637]

5. Good! He might as well get back some of the money they made off of this tragedy, the sycophants,

CBS, etc.

[Skittles]

8. it's terrible what was done to the Ramsey family

and it seems like they're still trashing them

[Mosby]

9. i didnt see the show

But I always thought Burke was the most likely culprit, and his parents tried to cover it up.

[Matilda]

12. Me too.

Father control freak, mother weak. But Burke plain weird.

But if they can't prove it, silly to put it out in public.

[lostnfound]

15. At 9 years old I don't consider him morally culpable

Whether a brain condition or screwed up family dynamics or most likely both, he was not old enough to have formed an identity of his own, understood death, and discovered the fullness of his own free will. If he did it, he was also a victim of circumstances.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

36. Me too. The series further encouraged that suspicion.

Nothing shown proved that Burke killed her, of course, but the CBS series presented heaps of circumstantial evidence that didn't look good for him. The argument was that the parents later tried to cover up his involvement.

It also presented evidence against the outside intruder argument, like the broken basement window. It was broken months earlier by Mr. Ramsey! Undisturbed cobwebs in the window (documented by early crime scene pics) also seemed like an impossibility if an intruder entered/exited that way.

[MicaelS]

11. I always thought he did it.

And the parents covered it up. Will be interesting to see how this turns out.

[elmac]

13. That would of been my best guess

If you can believe the investigative reporting, which made him out to be a little sociopath. I guess we will never know for sure. Who knows, maybe he will become president some day if we still have a country in 4 years.

[milestogo]

14. I think he did it accidentally

and the parents covered it up because they didn't want to lose both children. But keeping a secret that big has devastating effects.

[JenniferJuniper]

22. He almost certainly did do it

The Ramseys have been spinning and lying and distorting for so many years now, aided and abetted by the media that it is no wonder people believe some random stranger killed her.

There was no intruder.

A couple of good books:

https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Carefully-Evidence-JonBenet-Ramsey-ebook/dp/B01NCKGIHV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483032971&sr=8-1&keywords=listen+carefully

(excellent place to start)

And:

https://www.amazon.com/Foreign-Faction-Really-Kidnapped-JonBenet/dp/098476321X/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483033014&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=foreing+factoin

A book by a lead investigator who came on board later in the investigation but had access to everything.

[LisaL]

28. 9 year old couldn't be prosecuted.

How were his parents going to lose him? And don't tell me they didn't know. Those are rich people with means. One call to a lawyer and they would know he couldn't be prosecuted due to his age. So why would they have covered it up?
And obviously a 9 year old couldn't have staged the scene by himself.

[milestogo]

29. This was the response of panicked grieving parents

In the middle of the night. They were.not thinking clearly. At worst Burke could have ended up in juvie.

So dad staged the scene and mom wrote the ransom note. Burke was told to shut up and go back to bed.

A big messy lie.

[LisaL]

31. A 9 year old wasn't going to end up in juvie. To young.

So I don't buy it.

[milestogo]

33. But the parents were panicked.

This was a nightmare and they were in total shock.

[LisaL]

34. It took some time to come up with a ransom note. Shock would have worn off.

And why would somebody cover up with the bizarre intruder scenario complete with a ransom note as opposed to some sort of an accident?
Fall down the stairs seems to be a rather popular cover up scenario. Ransom note and garrote, not so much.

[elehhhhna]

55. The parents lawyered up the day after the murder

And for a time, refused to be questioned. I think they were covering for Burke.

I literally ran into John Ramsey at the grocery store on Grand Cayman may be a year or two after she was killed. The Enquirer, the following week, noted that John and Patsy flew in on a private plane on a Sunday, went home on a Tuesday and what they didn't mention was that John and Patsy then announced that they had no money. Funnily enough, they were there in time for the banks to open Monday morning, and left on Tuesday. Question: how often do broke people rent a private plane and visit the Cayman Islands for 36 hours? Why?

I wonder if they offshored their money in case they had to flee the country with Burke...

[LisaL]

26. Why would parents cover for him? At 9 years old, he couldn't have been prosecuted.

That makes no sense to me.

[MicaelS]

30. Because of the shame.

"What, your son killed his sister? What kind of monster did you raise? What kind of parents are you? What is wrong with you people?"

Plus, they would have been forced to go through months of legal issues, and the media would have lapped it. Especially since the girl was a "beauty contestant."

That sort of thing.

Better to blame an intruder, and gets lots of sympathy.

[LisaL]

32. And they didn't go through months (actually years) of legal issues?

And people didn't suspect them? And media didn't "lap" on it?

[MicaelS]

37. Sure, they did.

Put yourself in their shoes. You son just killed his little sister. What do you do?

[LisaL]

40. I know what I would not do.

No freaking way would I be staging a sexually suggestive crime scene with a garrote and no way would I be writing a bizarre ransom note. Please don't try to claim that is somehow a normal response and everybody would do it.

[MicaelS]

50. They panicked, that is clear.

And I never claimed it was normal.

[LisaL]

51. That's a lot of baseless speculations.

There is nothing clear about this case.

[JenniferJuniper]

38. they had no way of knowing that in the middle of that night

He was only a few weeks away from being old enough to be prosecuted for murder and in some jurisdictions kids as young as 7 can face some type of charges. They didn't want their son taken away from them and the internet wasn't going to give them a quick answer in 1996 if they'd even thought to look it up.

Besides, Patsy was incredibly socially image-conscious. Incredibly.

[MicaelS]

52. Excellent.

That is the phrase I was looking for.

[politicat]

57. They may not have known that at the time, and what they did know of...

The state of Colorado juvenile mental health services at the time was not good. Cleo Wallace in those years was a name to conjure nightmares. Not that they could have known that their 10 year old couldn't have been admitted, and who could they call? Without that number being on their phone history?

Add in some sleep deprivation, maybe some hangover, possibly some benzo based sleeping tablets or anxiolytics, maybe a little pot (local strains then tended to be sativa, so paranoia, and pot was An Offense back then), Lockheed Martin (the parent company by then) being a little shaky...

If they did cover up, I don't excuse it, but I can understand what motivated them.

[MichMary]

54. It's completely plausible that he did it.

Got mad at her, impulsively grabbed the flashlight, swung it at her, maybe a little harder than he intended, and killed her. All in an instant.

I can also believe that the parents covered it up. The wording in that ransom note is mostly just silly. "We're a small foreign faction." What kidnapper would write that? The ransom amount being exactly equal to John Ramsey's bonus. The length of it. The fact that it was written at the scene of the crime, on Patsy Ramsey's stationery. And so on . . .

The part where I draw the line is the sexual abuse and the garrote. No way would a parent desecrate her body in that way. Maybe they called a close, trusted friend to stage her body. Maybe.

Or--maybe something else happened.

[DeminPennswoods]

21. Was this the 3 part series?

The one with the retired FBI child sex/child abuse investigator the English woman from Scotland Yard?
If so, that was a really good show. The clincher to me was the undisturbed spider web in the corner of the window that was supposed to be where the killer entered that was shown in an original evidence photo. The investigators recreated the window and spider web exactly, then showed how there was no way the web could still have been there intact if an intruder had, in fact, entered/exited through the window.

They also showed the boys very odd behavior and body language in the interview tapes from the original investigation.

They also had the leaked grand jury document that showed the GJ had recommended indicting John and Patsy as accomplices, but not as the killers. That would lead one to believe they covered up for the boy and to surmise JonBenet's death was accidental.

[chelsea0011]

23. It was a good show. And they used filtering devices to the 911 call by the mother

that was unavailable at the time to show that there was another voice on the tape that sounded like a childs' voice. The Ramseys say the child was sleeping all through this. Of course it doesn't prove anything but it is different info.

[DeminPennswoods]

24. Burke can't be prosecuted under Colo law anyway

Colorado's law is that anyone under 10 years of age cannot be prosecuted for any crime they may commit. IIRC, it's based on research showing a child's brain simply isn't developed enough. Burke was 9 when his sister was killed. Even if he came out and admitted it today, he couldn't be charged or prosecuted.

[LisaL]

25. So why would have parents covered for him (as some allege) in such bizarre fashion?

That theory makes no sense to me. He couldn't have been prosecuted anyway, due to his age.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

41. Maybe they didn't know the law at the time and they panicked?

Another part of the story that CBS revealed... a grand jury wanted to try the Ramsey parents for covering up the crime, but the lead prosecuting attorney didn't do it! He made comments after the grand jury decision that IMPLIED they didn't want a trial, but he just worded it in a clever way to make it seem that way at the time. The grand jury members weren't supposed to talk about it or they'd face punishment.

[forthemiddle]

53. Spider web

It only takes an average spider an hour to make an elaborate spider web, so having one that is undisturbed proves nothing.
http://topics.info.com/_2288

[DeminPennswoods]

56. Except nothing else was disturbed outside or around the window either.

nt

[rollin74]

35. Good. I hope he wins

[sarcasmo]

39. Burke Ramsey reminds me of Richard Jewell.

[JenniferJuniper]

45. He shouldn't

There aren't any common areas there.

[sarcasmo]

46. Name slung through the mud by the media, that's a pretty common theme.

[Raine]

44. I can see that he would, they all but called him a murderer...

I watched the series and they certainly left you with the belief that he killed his sister out of jealousy.

[JI7]

48. this is what many people thought since the beginning

that the brother did it and the parents were covering for him.

[sarcasmo]

58. Kick.