Evidence that Healed of Cancer - NIV Study Bible connections help explain the Ramsey note, Patsy’s behavior and parts of the crime scene

I agree with those who say that Cina Wong’s analysis of the handwriting in the Ramsey case is excellent and perhaps the best expert analysis given on any aspect of the case because we can actually check her work (for as much as it is available) and see that it makes sense. This is not the case, for example, for the result that Patsy’s jacket fibers were consistent with the ones found in the wine cellar or that the ink of the sharpie pen was unique. Not that I doubt either of those results; I trust and believe that those analyses were based on perfectly solid, reliable evidence and reasoning. But I think having actual relevant data available and readily accessible to be checked is always better than taking experts at their word or reputation. Cina Wong’s findings by themselves are very convincing and in combination with the lack of evidence of an intruder proves, I think, beyond a reasonable doubt that Patsy took part in staging the crime scene, and therefore very likely also was responsible for JonBenét’s death. But I want to emphasize here that, even if we take away ALL of the evidence of the handwriting, if for example we supposed the note was typed in some untraceable way that couldn’t be matched to any particular person on the planet, with all people having an equal chance of having produced the physical note itself, even in that highly contrived scenario it would still be evident beyond a reasonable doubt that Patsy was majorly involved in writing the note. This is because of the evidence by which I claim that we can trace parts of the staging, both the content of the note and other (staged) physical evidence in the house, to sources to which Patsy’s behavior on the 26th can be tied. This means she showed guilty knowledge. The behavior I refer to is mostly verbal but there are also non-verbal examples. I think a careful consideration of the evidence leaves absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Patsy deliberately and actively sought and used the advice she found in Dodie Osteen’s book Healed of Cancer, in conjunction with the NIV Study Bible (NIVSB) present in the Ramsey home, both to come up with the general outline of the ideas of the ransom note as well as to stage the physical scene of JonBenét’s body and items in the wine cellar and elsewhere around the house. The possible link between the ransom note’s ‘$118,000’ plus ‘Victory! S.B.T.C’ and Healed of Cancer was first pointed out by Jeff Shapiro. However, I think he did not compare the book and crime scene thoroughly enough and I think his interpretations fall short of explaining how Patsy really used the book. Other parts of the ransom note and the physical crime scene were filled in on the basis of other (fictional and non-fiction) books that Patsy used for inspiration (e.g. the Dirty Harry and Speed material), as I also describe in other articles. I want to make it clear that this is an evidence-based theory that slowly grew and was fleshed out after an initial (more modest) hypothesis that Patsy believed in and was focused on the possibility of the actual physical resurrection of JonBenét that night and on the 26th before her body was discovered. This hypothesis was originally only based on the observation of Patsy’s words asking Jesus to raise her from the dead like Lazarus immediately upon first being faced with her daughter’s body and the later description by John in his police interview that he found JonBenét wrapped in the blanket like “an Indian papoose.” A comparison of the Lazarus and indian papoose iconographies (as well as reading the Lazarus story in John 11) and seeing the similarities is what led me to the hypothesis. The evidence-based theory that grew out of this hypothesis is not just an intuition or only an opinion based on a wild guess. It is an interpretation supported by many pieces of different kinds of evidence from different sources, any one of which can be debated separately as to its merits or credibility/plausibility, but which taken all together I think cannot be argued to be coincidence and paint a rather clear and convincing picture of what Patsy did that night and subsequent morning and why. I don’t claim that the theory can perfectly explain every single thing or that some of the individual pieces of evidence and their interpretations cannot be challenged or indeed mistaken, but I do claim that it is extremely unlikely, if not downright impossible, to get this much converging evidence pointing to the Healed of Cancer/NIVSB method of staging being used by Patsy if this is not indeed part of what happened that night and morning. The only caveat I'll make for now is that I believe Patsy relied on several faith healing/religious books and that some of these share highly similar ideas and advice so that there is some difficulty attributing some of Patsy's apparent beliefs to a single book or passage when there are several viable options. However, this can also be viewed as a strength as it shows that Patsy was likely to be influenced by these ideas which she would have encountered in several places. Let’s take a closer look at the evidence for the influence of this Healed of Cancer/NIVSB combination showing up in the crime scene.The first thing to note is that the idea that after the initial blow to JonBenét’s head, whatever the cause, Patsy tried to use faith healing to save her daughter, can explain why the medical experts say that there was a significant time between the head blow and the strangulation. This time gap is conspicuous and often wondered about. It is an unexplained variable that most interpretations of the night’s events just take for granted. If Patsy indeed did try to use faith healing to save JonBenét, it is clear that she would spend at least a bit of time, more than a few minutes, to try to create the right conditions while holding out hope that her plan would work. After she sees that it’s not working, she has to change her plan. This is where the first evidence linking Patsy’s behavior on the 26th to material found in Healed of Cancer becomes apparent. It is not just that the indian-papoose-like wrapping of the blanket resembles the Patsy-invoked story of Lazarus, it is that Dodie Osteen actually mentions precisely this biggest of Jesus’s pre-crucifixion miracles at the end of her book to suggest that really no form of divine intervention is off-limits in one’s life, depending on what one’s need is. The only thing that is needed is faith in and complete devotion to God’s instructions and his Word (Jesus Christ), which can be found in Scripture. Note that the Lazarus reference showing up in Healed of Cancer was not obvious from the initial observation that Patsy’s remark seemed to be tied to John’s description about the indian papoose. Rather, it is a first corroborating piece of evidence that Patsy can be tied to the physical evidence of staging in the wine cellar through her connection to the book and her verbal as well as non-verbal behavior upon seeing JonBenét’s body. Patsy’s utterance about Lazarus upon seeing the lifeless JonBenét is a near-verbatim repetition of the one line in Healed of Cancer mentioning him: Dodie Osteen in Healed of Cancer: “When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He told the disciples to roll away the stone.” Patsy Ramsey, according to Linda Arndt’s police report: “Jesus! You raised Lazarus from the dead, […]” The only thing she changes is that she addresses Jesus directly by inserting ‘you’, rather than giving a third-person account as in Healed of Cancer. This too makes sense in light of what Healed of Cancer says because Osteen recommends in several places in the book to address Jesus directly. Indeed, Osteen at one point says in the book: “Just raise your hands and say, ‘O Jesus, […]’”. This too is echoed by Patsy’s behavior as Arndt describes that Patsy “lifted her arms straight into the air” before uttering the words about Lazarus. Now, as a first example of individual pieces of evidence that could be debated, one could argue that this description about Lazarus is a very general one, indeed it is the one fact that Lazarus is most known for, so that the two descriptions mentioning this same person were likely to resemble one another regardless of direct influence. But note that Patsy could have said many similar things that are more different from the thing she is reported as saying, e.g. only saying “Bring my baby back like Lazarus!”, or “Lazarus was resurrected by Christ, let him also resurrect my baby!”, or “JonBenét! Stand up from the grave like Lazarus through the power of Jesus!” etc. But, according to Arndt, she didn’t. She used virtually the same wording as Osteen did in Healed of Cancer, a book that Arndt presumably would not have been reading from at the time of her writing her report in the weeks following the murder. Another point one could argue is that Patsy was reported to have read from Healed of Cancer zealously every day during her battle with cancer. So perhaps she was innocent and surprised to find JonBenét dead (or had been fearing this outcome during the course of the morning), but she recalled the phrase from Osteen (engraved in her long-term memory) only after seeing JonBenét dead for the first time. Indeed, such a thing is technically possible, but is it more plausible than her having been exposed to the line only a short time earlier that night (especially considering the indian-papoose-like-Lazarus-resembling blanket-wrapping)? Is it plausible that she so quickly conveniently recalled the advice appropriate for "healing" a dead person when up to that point the Ramseys had received no indication that JonBenét would turn up dead if they made a sincere attempt to pay the ransom and follow the kidnappers' instructions? I think not. But this is actually not the first time that day that Patsy uses words taken directly from Healed of Cancer at an important moment during the unfolding of events in the case. On the 911 call, although there has been much debate about what words, if any, can be discerned in the (enhanced) recording after Patsy fails to hang up, arguably the most reported statement that people say they can hear (and I am one of them, I think this part is actually quite clear and not as ambiguous as it is made out to be) is “Help me Jesus, Help me Jesus”. (I believe she says “JC? Help me Jesus, help me Jesus, help me…”. The “JC?” could possibly be “JB?”) What do we find in Healed of Cancer? Osteen recommends uttering precisely these three words (in slightly different order) at a moment when one feels weak (underlining is mine for emphasis):

“Just reach up and take hold of the Lord’s strength. I’ve done that so many times! I’ve reached up and said these three little words, ‘Jesus, help me.’ And He has never failed to help me. He’ll never fail to help you either.”

Again, one could argue about the generic nature of the utterance, especially for a devout Christian, but again, Patsy uses the exact same words Osteen recommends in virtually the same way as it is prescribed at a moment that very closely matches the context of the recommendation: if Patsy indeed staged the scene, and was responsible for her daughter’s death, the moment she (believes she) hangs up the phone after the 911 call is the first moment that she has gone public with her deception and at which point there is no return. She has falsely claimed her daughter kidnapped and missing to police while keeping her dead body hidden from them, a very serious felony. Even if she had spent the previous hours preparing for this moment with her staging, making her plan a reality in this way would no doubt cause serious anxiety and feelings of weakness and worry, worry about both the likelihood of her daughter’s resurrection as well as the possible legal consequences for her and the damage that her reputation would suffer, not to mention about having to come clean to John (in a scenario where he doesn't know yet. I now believe he did already know by this time) about what happened to his daughter (or having to lie about it). With these two close paraphrases of Healed of Cancer by Patsy on the 26th established, as well as the link with part of the physical staging of JonBenét’s body with the blanket, let’s now back up a bit and consider: if Patsy was using Healed of Cancer the night before in an attempt to save her daughter, before she even commenced staging an intruder crime scene (as suggested by the time gap between head blow and strangulation and Patsy’s verbal behavior echoing the book the following day), and if she was showing signs in her behavior on the 26th (by following the book’s advice at crucial moments) and at night during the staging of JonBenét’s body (with the blanket) of still believing in the possibility of saving her during and after staging a supposed intruder crime scene, what does it suggest about what may have been going through her mind while writing the ransom note that claims to be from an intruder? It suggests that she was of two minds that night and was writing a ransom note that tried to serve two purposes at the same time: a primary purpose of trying to save her daughter through performing a religious ceremony by following instructions from God (a magical thinking, delusional mind-state), and a secondary purpose of coming up with an excuse for why her daughter was found dead in her home if she in fact did not succeed in having her resurrected (a more practical, rational, self-serving and deceitful, as well as felonious mind-state). In other words, the words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs of the ransom note had dual meaning in Patsy’s mind. Using this dual meaning hypothesis, how can we find further (new) evidence to support it so that the hypothesis can become a theory that actually explains substantial parts of the already known evidence and open questions from the case? This is where we need to do a closer reading of the entire Healed of Cancer book and see what Patsy would have encountered in it if she indeed was actively using the book that night to guide her behavior in trying to save JonBenét after the initial head blow. Luckily, the Healed of Cancer “book” is more of a glorified pamphlet, containing less than 80 small, easily digested, pages. Although Patsy only would have needed to quickly skim through the book looking for useful advice that jumped out at her, it is worth noting that with such a small book she could have actually read a substantial part of the book that night and still have had time to do all her other staging. Another thing to consider is that the book is so small that she could have easily hid it, either on her or somewhere in or around the house, with the book being roughly the size of a very thin smartphone that easily fits in the pocket of a pair of jeans, for example. So she could have even consulted the book on the morning of the 26th in a moment where she briefly wasn't being watched by anyone in the house. As I will argue later, there is some evidence that Patsy changed her behavior about something that morning in a way that is consistent with some of the advice in the book. What are some of the things that are significant about Healed of Cancer’s content? After some introductory chapters telling the story of her own miraculous healing of cancer, Osteen goes on to describe 40 verses of Scriptures that she says were particularly helpful to her and that she recommends her readers to rely on also. These 40 verses each have a short paragraph or two with Osteen’s interpretation and recommended use. It is these 40 verses and their explanations that have to be examined especially carefully to discern how they may have influenced Patsy’s thinking and staging. Osteen refers to the places in the Bible where these verses occur. Although Osteen herself mentions using a New King James Version and The Living Bible, there are good reasons to believe that Patsy actually used the NIV Study Bible to look up the references that night. That book was not only known to be present in the house that night, it also contained “circled” verses that John brings up in a police interview which suggests that the book itself may also have been used as a staging prop or at least appeared conspicuous or appeared to have been used somehow that night by the person staging the scene (Patsy). So although it was found upstairs in John’s office part of Patsy and John’s upper floor of the house that they had to themselves, I assume that Patsy was able to use the book that night without waking or raising suspicion from John. I now believe John was involved in writing the note also so accessing the Bible would not have been a problem. Even in a scenario where John wasn't involved, it would be possible that they had a second copy of the book (the book has a portable edition which is smaller than the version that appears to be on John’s desk, and Patsy later claims that they had lots of bibles in their home). So going through Healed of Cancer we have to look both at what Osteen herself says there as well as look up the references in the NIVSB and try to ascertain where in that book Patsy likely would have directed her attention in order to discern the influence these passages likely read by Patsy would have had on the ransom note and the crime scene. Note that such an exercise contains both an interpretive aspect (speculating what Patsy may have thought while reading these passages) as well as a more fact-based, hard data aspect (what passages in the Bible are referenced by Healed of Cancer, what is said about them and how are these passages rendered in the NIVSB and what is said about them in the footnotes?). Let’s first consider the idea of her writing a ransom note in the first place. I have argued in another place that the three books about detective Alex Cross (by James Patterson) that were published at the time of the murder were also used as inspiration by at least Patsy for staging that night and by both Patsy and John as inspiration for their intruder theory post-26th. In broad strokes, the Ramsey note/crime scene can be seen as an amalgam of three different themes that correspond to the three slightly different themes in these three books: one book deals with a killer duo who targets the rich and the elite to punish them for collaborating with a corrupted government that has betrayed the interests of the common people (while leaving taunting notes at the crime scenes), as well as dealing with a separate killer who brutally kills small children (including a six-year-old girl with the right side of her face mutilated). Another book deals with a kidnapper-killer who kidnaps children and sends their famous parents a note with a ransom demand. And the third book deals with another kidnapper-killer duo who attack exceptionally beautiful women, one of them usually brutally murdering them and leaving them dead at the scene and another kidnapping them and taking them to an underground cellar complex where he provides them with a long rambling note detailing his strict rules that need to be followed or else they will be executed in short order. Another early James Patterson pre-1997 book that was re-published in the years before the murder after the success of the Alex Cross stories was a story about a faction attacking targets within the United States. I hope it is obvious which of these elements echo which specific parts of the JonBenét Ramsey murder. I go more in-depth on this elsewhere in other articles. So only one of these stories (Along Came A Spider) has the ransom element that appears in the Ramsey note. But if we compare the ransom amount asked for in the book’s story, or indeed the ransom note(s) in the story itself, we find that there are significant differences with the Ramsey note. The kidnapper in that story actually does ask for a large sum of money, in contrast to the oddly low and specific number of the Ramsey note. So it appears the idea of a kidnapper who asks for a ransom was an element from the stories that appealed to Patsy; it was something that could be used. But one of the questions that has always puzzled people familiar with the case is: if she staged the scene to look like a kidnapping for ransom, why then would Patsy (or anyone) leave the body in the home? People usually try to “explain” the missing attempt at removing the body from the home by guessing that the stager must have either run out of time or perhaps they were surprised by the other parent insisting that 911 be called so that the plan to get rid of the body was foiled. I counter that Patsy (who to me is clearly for certain involved in staging) never planned to remove JonBenét’s body from the home because she purposely and carefully staged the scene precisely in the (delusional) hope that JonBenét would be resurrected inside the home, emerging alive from the wine cellar (somehow not bothered by the latched door), similar to how Lazarus emerged from his tomb. But we can ask the question in a slightly different way: if Patsy was indeed borrowing from the three stories that I mentioned, and two of the stories involve killers who leave their victims dead at the scene without asking for ransom, then why did Patsy feel the need to include this element in the note when it wasn’t necessary and didn’t fit a scenario in which JonBenét wouldn’t come back to life and would be found dead in their own home? The answer can be found by searching for the use of ‘ransom’ in the NIVSB. Although the word doesn’t occur in Healed of Cancer, it does occur dozens of times in the NIVSB and after determining which occurrences may have influenced Patsy’s thinking we can check which of them could have been encountered either close to a passage referenced in Healed of Cancer or by a look-up action in the NIVSB inspired by advice from Osteen. [NOTE: I have since writing this discovered and realized just how central and well-known this concept of 'ransom' was/is in the religious beliefs of the movement that both Patsy and John Ramsey were heavily influenced by. I leave the below method of uncovering the role of the concept in the crime as an example but note that there are more direct and convincing methods to show that this was an idea that the Ramseys were very likely to have been exposed to and familiar with before the murder, making the ransom amount in the Ramsey note even more suspicious and incriminating.] As it turns out, ‘ransom’ is used a fair number of times in the running text of the NIVSB itself as well as in the accompanying footnotes to express a very specific idea. Here is a non-exhaustive sample: - Genesis 22:13 (footnote):

“instead of Substitutionary sacrifice of one life for another is here mentioned for the first time. As the ram died in Isaac's place, so also Jesus gave his life as a ransom "for" (lit. "instead of") many (Mk 10:45).”

- Romans 3:24 (footnote):

“[…] redemption. A word taken from the slave market — the basic idea is that of obtaining release by payment of a ransom. Paul uses this word to refer to release from guilt, with its liability for judgment, and to deliverance from slavery to sin, because Christ in his death paid the ransom for us.”

And the part that comes before the above part of the footnote:

“3:24 justified. Paul uses this verb 22 times, mostly in 2:13-5:1; Gal 2-3. It is translated ‘justify’ in all cases except two (2:13; 3:20, where it is translated ‘declared righteous’). The term describes what happens when someone believes in Christ as his Savior: From the negative viewpoint, God declares the person to be not guilty; from the positive viewpoint, he declares him to be righteous. He cancels the guilt of the person's sin and credits righteousness to him. Paul emphasizes two points in this regard: 1. No one lives a perfectly good, holy, righteous life. On the contrary, ‘there is no one righteous’ (v. 10), and ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (v. 23). ‘Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his [God's] sight by observing the law’ (v. 20). 2. But even though all are sinners and not sons, God will declare everyone who puts his trust in Jesus not guilty but righteous. This legal declaration is valid because Christ died to pay the penalty for our sin and lived a life of perfect righteousness that can in turn be imputed to us. This is the central theme of Romans and is stated in the theme verse, 1:17 (‘a righteousness from God’). Christ's righteousness (his obedience to God's law and his sacrificial death) will be credited to believers as their own. Paul uses the word ‘credited’ (and related terms) ten times in ch. 4 alone. freely by his grace. The central thought in justification is that, although man clearly and totally deserves to be declared guilty (vv. 9-19), because of his trust in Christ God declares him righteous. This is stated in several ways here: (1) ‘freely’ (as a gift, for nothing), (2) ‘by his grace,’ (3) ‘through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus’ and (4) ‘through faith’ (v. 25).”

- Ephesians 1:7 (footnote):

“1:7 redemption. See v. 14; 4:30; Ro 3:24; Tit 2:14. The Ephesians were familiar with the Greco-Roman practice of redemption: Slaves were freed by the payment of a ransom. Similarly, the ransom necessary to free sinners from the bondage of sin and the resulting curse imposed by the law (see Gal 3:13) was the death of Christ (called here ‘his blood’). through his blood. Cf. 2:13; 1Pe 1:18-19.”

- Colossians 1:14 (footnote):

“1:14 redemption. Deliverance and freedom from the penalty of sin by the payment of a ransom — the substitutionary death of Christ.”

I analyze the overlap between the Ramsey note elements with passages containing this word and use of ‘ransom’ more in-depth elsewhere. But for now, I hope it is clear that ransom has a very specific religious meaning in various places in the NIVSB that the Ramseys had in their home as well as in many other religious books that fit the Ramseys' religious background. And as we will see, some of these places where 'ransom' occurs in the book are very close to verses that Osteen refers to in Healed of Cancer. The concept that ‘ransom’ is used to express is also very closely related to the concept of ‘Saved By The Cross’, the phrase that many people for a long time have suspected was intended by Patsy with the note’s sign-off of ‘S.B.T.C’. Moreover, although Shapiro, when first discussing Healed of Cancer’s possible influence on the note, pointed out that ‘Victory!’ is a closely related concept as well because in faith healing circles it is used to refer to victory over Satan and disease, ‘victory’ is actually also used more broadly (or rather, more specifically) in the Bible (especially in the New Testament) to refer to victory over sin. And as we just saw in the above passages about ‘ransom’, that idea too relates to this very specific idea of overcoming sin and guilt through Christ’s (symbolic) death. But Shapiro was right to make the explicit connection with Satan and disease as well because this indeed too is a major emphasis in many of the religious authors and thinkers that I will argue later Patsy was likely to have been exposed to. So now we start to see why the Ramsey note was designed to be a ransom note by Patsy. It wasn’t just a random trope that she picked willy-nilly from the collection of cliché kidnapper-killer elements that she either remembered from movies (as envisioned by the movie buff theory) or that she encountered in the (fictional) crime story books that she skimmed through looking for inspiration for staging (as in my theory). It was an element that she very deliberately chose because it served her dual purpose so well. She needed it because it was the best way to establish an overarching framework in which several hidden religious references could be added in a way that she believed would please her Lord’s commands that she was interpreting from what she read in Healed of Cancer and the NIVSB. But because she had to stick to this ransom theme, while at the same time using inspiration from several kinds of fictional stories, including stories without a ransom theme, the Ramsey note and staged crime scene came out as weird as it did. It was composed from a mix of story elements and religious influences that don’t all go together well. Patsy probably could have written a more believable ransom note if that had been her only goal. But because she was deliberately forcing the issue with the religious dual meaning obeying all sorts of specific commands, the note came out rather weird and not very believable. So what kinds of advice did Osteen give in Healed of Cancer and how can we trace it back to specific parts of the note and the crime scene? One inescapable theme in Healed of Cancer is “the Word of God” or “God’s Word” or “His Word” or just “the Word”. In the 59 pages that Osteen herself writes (the other pages are testimonials from other people) in the book, a lot of them containing quoted scripture, the word ‘word’ (with or without capital letter, mostly with) occurs 59 times, almost all of them referring to some form of the concept of God’s Word. So it has an average of one occurrence per (short) page. The plural ‘words’ occurs an additional 9 times. In the 13 pages of testimonials by others neither the singular or the plural occurs even a single time. What are the kinds of thing Osteen says about this Word of God? - “One of the most important things that helped me to be healed was the unshakable confidence I had in the Word of God.” - “1. PROVERBS 4:20-22: The Word of God will save your life.” - “The reason the Word of God is so important when you're fighting a battle for your health is because in many cases it’s the only hope you have. That was so in my case. Give God’s Word first place in your heart because it is life and health to your body.” - “I am one of God’s children just like you are. God wants to help you. He wants you to live. He wants you to live a long, healthy, productive life. But your healing doesn’t just automatically happen. You must fight your sickness with God’s Word and your faith.” - “If you do not know the Word of God, you need to learn it. Many people suffer and die needlessly because they do not know what the Word of God says about healing.” - “Don’t condemn yourself if you don’t know the Word. Just get in the Bible and seek the Lord, and He will show Himself strong on your behalf.” - “7. EXODUS 15:26: Obey God’s Word and be healed.” - “God’s promises are conditional, and there are some things we must do. Hebrews 11:6 says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. If you are not diligently seeking the Lord, I encourage you to start today. Read and listen to God’s Word. Seek Him with all your heart. Keep His commandments and change will take place in your life.” - “12. PSALM 107:20: God’s Word is healing.” - “He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” - “O God, our Father, Your Word says that You are a very present help in the time of need. I come to You now on behalf of this person who is suffering with cancer, or some other serious disease. Father, I ask You, in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, to touch and heal them.” - “2. JOSHUA 21:45: God’s Word will not fail.” - “If you are having symptoms, you can bind those symptoms here on earth and they will be bound in heaven. Rest assured God will keep His Word.” - “Even so, I never gave up confessing the Word of God, because I had an unshakable confidence in God’s Word. I knew Jesus would not lie to me, and I knew that if I kept on believing, I would receive. And I did!” - “It is important to worship God. Maybe you’ve not been used to worshiping God in your church. If not, you can worship Him right now. Just raise your hands and say, ‘O Jesus, I love You and I worship You. I come before You today, thanking You that Your Word hasn’t changed.’” - “The devil is the one who is the accuser of the brethren (see Revelation 12:10). When he tells you anything, believe just the opposite, and you'll have the truth. I learned not to condemn myself any more. I would say, ‘I thank You, Father, that I am holding fast to my confession without wavering. I don’t waver in my spirit man because I know Your Word works.’” - “Put your confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word no matter what happens. He is your hope. God will surely reward your trust in Him!” - “Then we got over into Hebrews where it said Jesus didn’t change. So we prayed, in just the simplest way we knew how, ‘Jesus, Your Word says You haven’t changed. Here we are faced with a little child that has cerebral palsy and brain damage. Father, if You don’t change, then You are still the same now. You can touch our little girl and make her whole. Would you touch her and heal her?’” - “Do you know how your soul will prosper? By putting the Word of God in it. Then you will know how to stay in good health. The Lord wants you to walk in divine health. And you can do that by getting the Word of God into your heart. Then when sickness tries to come upon you, you'll be prepared to stand against it.” - “Whatever your need is, find the promise you need in the Word of God, then ask according to His will. God’s will is His Word.” Four main ideas keep coming up throughout the book: 1. The Word saved Osteen’s (and Patsy’s) life from cancer and can save a life now in a new case too 2. Jesus is the Word of God 3. One must look for it in Scripture and 4. One must obey God to get what one needs/wants through His Word Several things can already be pointed out from just the above quotes alone.We can see in some of these quotes one of the other recurring pieces of advice that Osteen gives: to keep/obey God’s command(ment)s. This is stressed several times throughout the book: “7. EXODUS 15:26: Obey God’s Word and be healed.” “10. MALACHI 3:10: Obey all God’s commandments and receive all His blessings.” “In order to diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, you must follow all of His commandments.” “When I was sick, I had to cast down my imaginations concerning symptoms, and you will, too. Make your thoughts obey you. Bring them into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” This, of course, is echoed conceptually in the Ramsey note by a very similar focus on the concept of obeying and following instructions, including using that idiom multiple times (“follow our instructions” (2x), “my instructions”, “I will call you […] to instruct you”). The NIVSB in dozens of places, including close to places referred to by Healed of Cancer, talks of the more verbatim match with the Ramsey note in the context of God either speaking himself or people speaking about what He or Moses or a prophet wants people to do (in either the running text or the footnotes and introductions): “follow my instructions”, “the Lord’s instructions”, “disobeyed the instructions”, “await his arrival and instructions”, “has not carried out my instructions”, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.”, “‘I have sinned. I violated the Lord's command and your instructions.[’]”, “he violated the clear instructions the Lord had given”, “as representatives of the Lord's rule, had all given final instructions”, “The Lord said to him. Giving instructions to Elijah that revealed his sovereign power over people and nations.”, “in view of Jesus’s instructions”, “He who obeys instructions guards his life, but he who is contemptuous of his ways will die.”, “his obedience to God's instructions, given through dreams”, “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions”, “Further instructions” [header of a section], “For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.”, “I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household”, and on and on. Another thing that can be seen from some of the quotes about God’s Word in Healed of Cancer and the quotes above from the NIVSB is that, in addition to “follow” “instructions”, there are other verbatim elements that occur in passages which also match the Ramsey note. For example, Healed of Cancer uses “you must” seven times in her 60 pages, and all of these occurrences are precisely in passages which can link her advice to what Patsy would have needed to do to stage the note and physical scene to hope for JonBenét’s resurrection: “One night, in the early hours of the morning, God spoke to my heart: ‘It is not your husband’s faith; it is not Oral Roberts’ faith; it is not Kenneth Hagin’s faith; it is YOUR faith that you must go on now.’ I knew it was between me and Jesus from that time on.” “[…] you must follow all of His commandments.” “You must fight your sickness with God’s Word and your faith.” “You must decide that you want to live.” “How can you pray and ask God for healing in confidence if you don’t know that it is His will for you to be healed? You can’t! You’ve learned in the world that if you get sick, you must suffer. And if you're lucky, you might get well. Now you must renew your mind with healing scriptures.” “You must have on the whole armor of God every day. Resist the devil each day by saying, ‘Devil, take your hands off me and off my body in Jesus’ Name.’ Then remind your body to line up with the Word of God. It will work!” The Ramsey note has “you must follow our instructions to the letter” echoing the “you must follow” from Osteen’s “you must follow all of His commandments.” The concept and word of ‘representatives’ (of God, church, nations, among other things) is also used a couple of dozen times throughout the Bible, as well as the word ‘represent’ (found in the Ramsey note) in the context of people. For example in the following footnote to Psalm 80: “Israel's prayer for restoration when she had been ravaged by a foreign power. It seems likely that "Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh" (v. 2) here represent the northern kingdom.” Healed of Cancer has a reference to Psalm 75, which is found four page flips before this footnote. The word ‘country’ also occurs hundreds of times throughout the Bible as well as the concept and word ‘serve(s)’. Many of the Ramsey note’s particular words have second meanings with clear religious counterparts in the Bible. But instead of approaching the note from the point of view of this general sort of overlap, can we discover some of the specific passages and verses that Patsy likely based herself on? I think we can. First, let’s consider the Ramsey note’s opening line after addressing the note to ‘Mr. Ramsey’: “Listen carefully!” How does this tie in with the previously established theme of obeying commands and following instructions? Certainly Osteen stresses the importance of paying close attention to what the Lord commands to do, but she doesn’t actually use this phrase (she only says “Read and listen to God’s Word.”). So what is the connection? One of the 40 “healing scriptures” that Osteen recommends relying on is the following: “7. EXODUS 15:26: Obey God’s Word and be healed.If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians [in the permissive sense]. For I am the Lord who heals you. Are you doing what is right in God’s sight? Are you giving attention to His commandments and keeping them? God’s promises are conditional, and there are some things we must do. Hebrews 11:6 says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. If you are not diligently seeking the Lord, I encourage you to start today. Read and listen to God’s Word. Seek Him with all your heart. Keep His commandments and change will take place in your life.” Clearly, this is one of the crucial pieces of advice that I claim Patsy took to heart that night and used for her staging. But the verses cited in italic by Osteen still don’t actually contain “listen carefully”. That’s because she is using the New King James Version translation for her bible quotation. If we look up the same verse, Exodus 15:26, in the NIVSB (with the NIV translation), the one the Ramseys had in their home, we find: “He said, ‘If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.’” Notice that the words, including ‘listen carefully’ are spoken by the Lord Himself. One page flip before the reference to this passage in Healed of Cancer we find the advice: “The reason the Word of God is so important when you're fighting a battle for your health is because in many cases it’s the only hope you have. That was so in my case. Give God’s Word first place in your heart because it is life and health to your body.” Patsy seems to have taken this advice quite literally: she gave the words she found Him speaking “first place” in her ransom note (after the addressing part). She was trying to “obey” everything that she interpreted as a “command” and trying to “follow” “instructions”, in the hope that it would bring “life and health” to JonBenét through “the Lord, who heals” her. How else could Patsy try to obey commands when no one was actually speaking to her? Osteen recommends to “[r]ead and listen to God’s Word. Seek Him with all your heart.” and “Now you must renew your mind with healing scriptures. Whatever your need is, find the promise you need in the Word of God, then ask according to His will. God’s will is His Word.” and “Don’t condemn yourself if you don’t know the Word. Just get in the Bible and seek the Lord, and He will show Himself strong on your behalf.” and “I gained hope and encouragement from the precious promises that God revealed to me through His Word. I clung to my Bible and its healing promises. The Word became my life. I read and confessed the Scriptures daily.” So Patsy had to seek the Word of God in the Bible. How could she do that? It just so happens that the NIVSB had three convenient places in the back of the book where she could look for it: an Index to Subjects, an Index to Notes and a Concordance. The Index of Subjects conveniently has an entry both for “Word of God” (under ‘W’) as well as an entry for “God’s word” (under ‘G’, although this entry only contains one irrelevant reference that cannot be interpreted as a command). The Index to Notes does not have an entry for “God’s Word” but it does have an entry for “WORD OF GOD” where there is conveniently also an entry for “WORD OF LIFE” underneath it, which is another word Osteen emphasizes several times in Healed of Cancer, and which, we will see, is also a word identifying Jesus. The Concordance has neither an entry for “God’s Word” (only “God’s”) nor for “Word of God” (only “Words”). So the first two indexes’ entries for “Word of God” seem like her best option, the ones that would have spoken to her most and seemed to be a sign from God. Let’s look at what Patsy would have seen looking up these entries:

We see that the Index to Subjects entry has two references which clearly potentially could have a link with the 118 number (Jn 1:1-18 and Jas 1:18). There are a few more ways to get to a 118 number with the other references but I’ll leave aside looking at them for now. But we see that the Index to Notes entry also has a reference that is very close to a possible 118 reference (the one that I think, for different reasons, Patsy used): 1Jn 1:1 which is seven verses before 1Jn 1:8. (the Jn 1:1 reference is technically also possible as it is 17 verses away from Jn 1:18, which is the same (end) verse referenced under the Index to Subjects). Again, for now I leave aside other possibilities such as the Psalm 119 reference being close to Psalm 118 which has been speculated about in the case before. But before getting to why and how 118 possibly came to be used, let’s take a look at what these other referenced verses and their passages are actually about and how Patsy may have interpreted commands from God from them that she would have tried to obey. You’ll note that the Index to Notes entry has the shorter list of references, with 6 bible books being referred to. This probably would have appeared like a more manageable group of references to Patsy who was under a severe time constraint. It would have been a welcome small group of places to look through to look for commands that she could focus on so that she could convince herself that it was still possible to hope for a miracle through the Lord’s rewarding of her obedience. What do we find under these references? Psalm 119 is the most extensive reference because it specifies no less than 176 verses. The psalm starts out repeating some of the same phrases Osteen also uses (“blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart”, “You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.”, “I will obey your decrees; do not utterly forsake me.”), which would have appeared to Patsy like she was on the right track: the Lord was confirming what Osteen had been recommending. But we also start seeing new elements that have close thematic and verbal counterparts in the Ramsey note and crime scene: “who walk according to the laws of the Lord”, “as I learn your righteous laws”, “with my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth”, “I will not forget your law”, “Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you”, “do not let me stray from your commands”, “I have hidden your word in my heart”, “I have set my heart on your laws”, “your servant will meditate on your decrees”, “Keep me from deceitful ways”, “though the wicked bind me with ropes”, “that I may keep the commands of my God!”, “Uphold me, and I will be delivered”, “You reject all who stray from your decrees, for their deceitfulness is in vain.”, “let no sin rule over me”, “I call with all my heart; answer me, O Lord, and I will obey your decrees. I call out to you; save me and I will keep your statutes. I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word. My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.”, “Look upon my suffering and deliver me, for I have not forgotten your law. Defend my cause and redeem me”, “I look on the faithless with loathing, for they do not obey your word.”, “I follow your commands”, “May my supplication come before you; deliver me according to your promise.”, and on and on with similar words and themes. Many of these can already be argued to be fairly close to their counterpart words and concepts in the Ramsey note and crime scene. But for now let’s take them as just priming a particular set of words and concepts that happen to share a lot of thematic characteristics with the Ramsey note (and some parts of the crime scene) if one reads the note (and Patsy’s actions on the 26th) as having hidden religious meaning. What started as a blank page for Patsy on which she could have written anything, now is starting to become a framework of ideas that have to do with listening carefully to the word of one with power, obeying commands, following instructions, knowing about law, not straying from commands, looking out for deceit, relying on faith instead of reason, offering a symbolic ransom, asking for delivery, focusing on one’s heart and hiding a message in it, watching out for wicked people who use ropes to bind things. These are words and concepts that Patsy would have encountered reasonably early during or even before her staging as she was trying to use faith healing to heal JonBenét’s head wound. In my theory the skull fracture would have occurred fairly early somewhere between around 21:15 and 22:30. As I argue in my theory, Patsy also (a little later in the night) looked through novelizations and other fictional books to look for inspiration for her staging. In some of these books she encountered words and concepts that seemed to echo partially some of the material she encountered while looking for God in Osteen and the Bible. This caused her to select some of that material and it is mostly those words and phrases that filled out the conceptual framework with specific verbal elements. Let’s move on to the next reference in the “WORD OF GOD” entry from the Index to Notes. It says to look up Luke 3:2. What do we find there in the NIVSB?

We find that Patsy’s attention would have been directed to repenting so that sin could be forgiven and the repentant person could be delivered. If Patsy had been responsible for the skull fracture, it is not difficult to see how reading such a passage while looking for commands from God, she would’ve felt an incredible feeling of guilt and pressure to repent for the sinful nature of her actions. We also see that a great reward was being offered to her if she did repent: she would receive God’s forgiveness and avoid the “penalty” for her sin. What is hard to miss as well is the very explicit connection to the meaning of the phrase ‘Saved By The Cross’: “Christ” would deliver her “from sin’s penalty by dying on the cross.” So rather than the phrase being meaningful in relation to beating cancer and overcoming Satan and/or his disease (as originally suggested by Shapiro and the Seraph profiling report), Healed of Cancer appears to have pointed Patsy to a passage in which the phrase would have meaning in relation to overcoming her own sinfulness. Now why would she sign off the note with the acronym of the phrase that is here related to being sinful? The answer seems rather clear: she may felt personally responsible for the action(s) that had caused JonBenét’s skull fracture (and the subsequent strangulation), rather than blaming John or Burke. In her private world of meaning in which she communicated with her Lord, she fully acknowledged that she was the responsible, sinful and guilty person who had brought about her daughter’s death. So where would the ‘Victory!’ part of the sign-off have come in in this context? Although there are a number of ways to explain this, as we will see later, for now I’ll just show one way to explain it that is very obviously related to this passage: if Patsy interpreted this passage as her Lord commanding her to repent for her sin, and if she was looking for further “instructions” to follow, a very logical course of action would have been to look up ‘Sin’ in the index(es) to look for some more references that could help her along with that. What would she have seen if she looked up ‘Sin’ in the Index to Notes?

So now both the meaning of the phrase ‘Saved By The Cross’ as well as the term ‘victory’ are related to the concept of overcoming sin through connections between Healed of Cancer and the NIVSB. Patsy’s observed behavior on the 26th (as well as testimony about her behavior in the years before the murder) ties her firmly to the first book. The second book was found open in the Ramsey home. Moreover, in the sub-section of ‘victory over’ we see that two verses it refers to are 1 John 1:7 and 1 John 1:9. Now we can see part of the reason why I believe that the 118 ransom amount is possibly tied to 1 John 1:8, the verse right in between the two listed verses relating to achieving victory over sin. That verse can be taken as an explicit expression that one is sinful, which is what Patsy arguably came to believe she needed to acknowledge/confess in order to obey God’s commands. That would allow her to hope to receive from Him according to her need and what she asked of Him. The verse reads: 1 John 1:8: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” It is her confession to being sinful. It also has two words we find in the Ramsey note “You can try to deceive us”. Why might Patsy feel it was important to incorporate such a confession of sinfulness into the note? Precisely because of what 1 John 1:9, one of the two verses listed here under ‘victory over sin’, prescribes: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The other verse listed, 1 John 1:7, is also telling: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” Here we see the suggestion that blood can purify from sin. JonBenét had only a small cut on her genital parts from which she bled. Although this was not a massive wound, many items around her in the wine cellar were found to have blood or traces of blood products on them. What this suggests is that Patsy through some sort of ceremonial ritual turned the blood from JonBenét’s wound into “the blood of Jesus” which “purifies us from all sin”. We will see further evidence later that suggests that she came to believe this was a meaningful and appropriate thing to do. For now, we need to consider some of the additional information she would have encountered on this page in the footnotes (which she may have used as clarification of God’s “instructions” to her) and which can be tied to her later behavior: - The footnote to the verse (1 John 1:9) that ‘victory over sin’ lists explains: “will forgive us. Will provide the forgiveness that restores the communion with God that had been interrupted by sin (as requested in the Lord's Prayer, Mt 6:12).” John describes in The Death of Innocence how at their daughter’s memorial service when the Lord’s Prayer was being offered “Patsy raised her hands in prayer” and “suddenly Patsy got up and went down by JonBenét’s coffin and knelt to pray. I don’t know why she did that.” I think when taking $118,000 as (partially) referencing 1 John 1:8 in the NIVSB, it is very clear why she would do that. She was receiving her “forgiveness” and restoring her “communion with God that had been interrupted by sin” to crown her “victory over” sin, as “requested in the Lord’s Prayer”. Another footnote on the same page reads:

“1:2 The life ... the eternal life. Christ. He is called "the life" because he is the living one who has life in himself (see Jn 11:25; 14:6). He is also the source of life and sovereign over life (5:11). The letter begins and ends (5:20) with the theme of eternal life.”

We will see shortly that it is significant that Christ is called “the life”. Osteen in Healed of Cancer also emphasizes this word quite a bit. Also significant is that the header on this page for the beginning of 1 John is “The Word of Life”. Jesus is described as both “the Word” and as “the Life” so we can see just how pregnant with meaning this phrase would be to one who is looking for Jesus and God in scripture and who is hoping for restored life for her daughter through Jesus as promised to her. In the outline of the letter of 1 John, given on the facing page to 1 John in the NIVSB, Patsy also could have seen:

“2. Confession of sin (1:8–2:2)”

which supports what I said earlier that 1 John 1:8 seems like a good place to start if one wants to confess one’s sin(s), which is what Patsy was being shown by the “WORD OF GOD” was important to do. Back to the Luke passage from the “WORD OF GOD” entry: we find some further priming possibilities: “a distant country” resembling somewhat the possible origins of the foreign faction. “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” could hint at why the pineapple might have been used if it had been staged, but my personal sense is that it is more plausible that the eaten pineapple piece wasn’t staged symbolically but had a different reason for being part of the crime scene, which I'll argue elsewhere. In some obscure sources it is sometimes mentioned that pineapple had symbolic meaning for Christians in relation to fertility and such, so we shouldn’t completely discount the staging possibility either, especially since the piece found was relatively intact for a piece of eaten and partially digested food. What is the next reference in the ‘WORD OF GOD’ entry? John 1:1, the beginning of the Gospel of John:

Mostly we see the same theme repeated again that Jesus is the “Word” and identified with “life” also. We get another identification of Christ with “light”. (Patsy makes it a point in her 1997 police interview to suggest that it was normal that they would leave a light on at night in both JonBenét’s room and in the sunroom—the room Patsy associated with God and where she chose to be between 8 and 10 am that morning—which is what she may have done that night with a religious purpose). But we also find the header of “The Word Became Flesh” and a footnote that says about Christ being “the true light” that it “is referring to the incarnation of Christ.” If we go back to the outline of 1 John on the facing page of 1 John 1:8, we find that the first description in the outline there is “I. Introduction: The Reality of the Incarnation (1:1–4)”. We can find other places in the NIVSB, related to passages in Osteen, that also describe Christ as the incarnate word. Why is this significant? Because the page that was found to be earmarked in the Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary on a coffee table in the room Patsy was in when JonBenét’s body was discovered and everyone but her ran to check on JonBenét, was described by Steve Thomas as having the word ‘incest’ close to the lower left corner. On the same page of editions of that book where ‘incest’ is in that location, the word ‘incarnation’ is a little above it in the same column. Despite Thomas’s description, the word ‘incest’, I believe, was not being targeted, it was ‘incarnation’.

What reason is there to believe this? Patsy was copying what she had read in Healed of Cancer:

Now that we know that ‘incarnation’ is yet another word signifying Christ, who is the Word of God, it is no wonder why Patsy would want to “supernaturally” highlight the page with that word: Osteen had said/referenced “The Word of God will save your life.”, “God’s Word will not fail.”, “God’s Word is healing.”, “You can find strength in God and in His Word.”, “What you say will make a difference.” Accounts vary on how long Patsy was alone in the den when everyone ran to see JonBenét’s body (Patsy seems to be the only one who suggests she wasn’t alone for any time). But according to some descriptions it could have been “minutes”, indicating that perhaps she had at least a good moment of privacy to herself in which she could have done a thing like this. And it’s very telling that these few minutes around the discovery of JonBenét’s body, when push came to shove and Patsy was about to find out if all of her efforts had worked and her hope would become reality or her world would come crashing down, there is a cluster of behaviors by Patsy that are attested to which all in some way or another can be tied to the advice in Healed of Cancer and its references in the NIVSB. This, in my opinion, makes it very likely that the earmarked page was Patsy’s work, and not that of someone trying to point to incest or a chance irrelevant circumstance. There is also the possibility that she earmarked it earlier when she was in the room before the body had been discovered and people were not paying close attention to her in an unguarded moment. What is the next reference listed under the “WORD OF GOD” entry? Hebrews: 4:12. What would Patsy have seen around that verse?

We see here a cluster of elements containing ideas that overlap with kidnapper counterparts in the Ramsey note. They help explain why some of its awkward phrases were included. As I mentioned earlier, this happened because Patsy was forcing the issue of including lines that had religious significance to her, which made some of the lines sound very contrived, illogical and unbelievable from the perspective of a real kidnapping scenario, all the more so because she used some words and phrases from various not so realistic fictional stories to fill out the religious concepts. We find here in the Hebrews passage something which must have sounded very much like a command to Patsy in her desperate state: “Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.” Disobedience, she had already been told by Osteen, was the last thing she needed to show if she wanted to have any chance that her prayers would be answered. She had already encountered the idea that Christ’s death had paid for her own sins and that Osteen had recommended to rely on Christ (the Word) to receive according to her need. Now, in the footnote to this verse here she reads that the verse is an “exhortation to enter salvation-rest by faith” and that “the believer” can and should “gain salvation” by resting “in the finished work of Christ on the cross”. She translates the “exhortation” to “I advise you” in the ransom note and her stipulation “to be rested” is yet another reference to her acceptance of Jesus Christ, her Lord and Savior, and the concept of his death on the cross that will redeem her from her sin., which is the “the delivery” part in the note (a word and concept, we saw, that she also encountered in the Psalm 119 reference). By incorporating this line into the note, she is showing God that she is trying hard to “listen carefully” and making every effort to obey every command that she can find in the verses she finds herself directed to. Note also the “, therefore,” in the sentence above which is a synonym for “and hence”, which Patsy likely copied from the book Catnapped as I have argued elsewhere, but this way of speaking may have been first primed by the biblical verse. The line “I advise you to be rested” has been much commented and speculated on, from reading feminine concerns into it to taking it at face value as part of a master plan to trying to sound like Scorpio in Dirty Harry. Although I believe Patsy (and/or John) did consult the novelization version of Dirty Harry and the idea about getting sleep in the context of a kidnapping delivery is certainly raised there, as well as in several other stories that I claim Patsy used for inspiration and seeing this element used is what inspired her to write it into the note in the way that we find it, what we find here in the Hebrews passage is what I think actually explains why Patsy took notice of that particular element of the crime stories and why it was important to her that she adapted it to include the line in the note. It was not a thoughtless throwaway line but actually was very significant as part of her own understanding of and purpose for the note with dual meaning. Something similar can be said for the “constant scrutiny”, “monitor” and “catch you” lines: although there are certainly fictional story passages corresponding to this kidnapper trope in the material that I claim she borrowed inspiration (and verbatim phrases) from, the reason why she paid attention to that story element while browsing those books is because here just below the ‘rest’ passage she found a very explicit description of God’s all-seeing, all-penetrating sight and judgment, identified here also with Jesus as the “incarnate Word”. This is why she was so susceptible to taking the perspective of the cliché bad guy who is in complete control of the situation and exercising total power over his targets. What the line meant to Patsy was that she acknowledged that the Lord would immediately know if her intentions in following His instructions and putting her faith in Christ were not completely sincere and if she did not fully believe in His divine authority and power over matters of sin and righteousness, life and death. She includes the “family” part not just because it also plays a central part in Catnapped! (which she is borrowing part of her phrasing from), but also because in a footnote here it states that “a family” is part of offering a sacrifice for one’s sins (one can’t take it upon oneself) and that one “had to be called by God.” How fortunate for Patsy then that her Lord, who had opened the letter speaking Himself with “Listen carefully” also mentions that “I will call you”, which is precisely what she reads here is required. The timing of “between 8 and 10 am” may well be a reference to 1 John 1:9 (9 being between 8 and 10) which had told her under the ‘victory over’ part of the ‘Sin’ entry in the index that if she were to “confess” her “sins”, He would be “faithful and just” and “forgive” her “sins and purify” her “from all unrighteousness.” But there are still more inspirational elements from this one page: we find here also that “we must give account” to God’s all-seeing and all-penetrating judgment. Patsy writes in the note that “You will withdraw $118,000 from your account”, which, when one realizes that 118 refers to the "ransom" that Jesus paid with his life for our sins and to confession of her sinfulness via reference to 1 John 1:8, comes out to mean that God orders her to subtract her sinfulness from His “account” of her because she has faith in Jesus. In other words, she will have to confess her sin privately (“tomorrow” according to the note) so that He can remove it from His account and she can be forgiven, precisely as 1 John 1:9 says is required to achieve “victory over” sin and to “purify” her and clear her “from all unrighteousness.” It is mentioned that people who are “ignorant and going astray” have to be dealt with by a priest who represents the people in “matters related to God” and who offers “sacrifices for” himself “as well as” (also verbatim in the Ramsey note and in Catnapped) “the people”. So “astray” is associated with falling short of the knowledge needed to sacrifice for sins correctly. Patsy writes that “If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies.” This is another creative way for her to create a phrase with dual meaning. In another place in the NIVSB that is related to an Osteen reference and a Patsy behavior from that morning (to be discussed later, inspired by her reading the last page of the Bible, the end of the book of Revelation), a footnote mentions that “dogs” was “[a] term applied to all types of ceremonially impure persons.” So “a stray dog” is meant to convey that if she were to be ignorant of the requirements of the ceremony of sacrificing for her sins, her daughter would die (or rather: remain dead). The connotation of ‘dogs’ is again described in another telling footnote:

“dogs. A harsh word for Paul's opponents, showing their aggressive opposition to the gospel and the seriousness of their error and its destructive, ‘devouring’ results (cf. Gal 5:15). Their teaching was probably similar to what Paul had to oppose in the Galatian churches (see Introduction to Galatians: Occasion and Purpose), mutilators. Again a strong, painfully vivid term; the false teachers have so distorted the meaning of circumcision (cf. v. 3) that it has become nothing more than a useless cutting of the body.”

So the ceremony concerned, as we will also see from other references, was that of circumcision, precisely a ceremony that would match the one (unexplained) bleeding injury JonBenét suffered on the night of her death (peri-mortem). We will see that Patsy likely came to believe that such a symbolic circumcision would establish a (personal) new covenant between her and her Lord, as “commanded” by him through the verses she encountered. Some of the facts about the physical evidence found in and around the wine cellar can best be explained by understanding Patsy to have performed some such ceremony. 'Ceremony' to some may sound like a heavy word, associated with vague conspiracy thinking, but in this context all it would mean is that Patsy was carrying out some acts that had private, symbolic religious meaning to her with a specific purpose and intended effect in mind. The possible motif of a religious ritual being involved was mentioned early in the case by the outsider’s profiling report by Seraph (Dale Yeager's company), but they seemed to be thinking along the lines of a possible (pre-meditated) sacrificial offering by Patsy in exchange for her own health or to be together with a pure version of her daughter in the afterlife or some such interpretation. I think a pre-meditated Patsy interpretation is a real possibility and in my opinion is a better avenue for exploration than any IDI, BDI, JDIA ‘theories’, which in my opinion have no chance at all of being correct. We also find on the page of Hebrews 4:12 that “since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess” and “[l]et us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” with one of the footnotes explaining that it “suggests that the readers were in danger of letting their faith slip (see similar admonitions in 2:1; 3:6,14)”. We find similar emphasis on the importance of “confidence” in Osteen’s advice in various places. The reliance on faith and emphasis on its importance for salvation in the Ramsey note is translated by the Ramsey note author(s) into “Don’t try to grow a brain John.” (borrowed from Speed in the way I describe in another article), followed two lines later by “Don’t underestimate us John” and “Use that good southern common sense of yours.” (the latter which I believe possibly borrowed inspiration from John Grisham’s book A Time To Kill). ‘Don’t try to grow a brain’ I believe for Patsy meant ‘rely on your faith instead of on reason’ and ‘good southern common sense’ meant ‘faith’. She (and possibly John) intentionally wrote these lines to imbue them with this dual meaning that she believed had spiritual, religious potency. Although it wasn’t rational for her to believe that John would get any of this meaning from reading the note (if he weren't involved), it was more of a personal message from her to her Lord that she was well aware of what was required and what was being asked of her and her family to receive the miracle she needed. I argue more extensively elsewhere that the entire last paragraph received special attention from Patsy and that she tried to imbue it with a lot of religious meaning because it was the climax of her note which was to bring about the miracle and it was capped off with the highly meaningful ‘Victory! S.B.T.C’ sign-off whose hidden meaning was the crux (no pun intended) of the whole note and staging operation. Finally, we find an occurrence of ‘represent them before God’. The concept of ‘represent’ of course is also used by the ‘kidnapper’.For now I will leave aside the question of how Patsy may have thought it important to include it in the note. All in all, this one page around Hebrews 4:12 (which also has another occurrence of ‘victory’ in the context of Jesus’s temptation and ordeal on the cross in a footnote on the facing page) significantly adds to the collection of very specific set of ideas found expressed in the Ramsey note which are also found in the passages referenced by the ‘WORD OF GOD’ entry. That brings us to the last two references listed by that entry, both in the same bible book: 1 Peter 1:23,25 and 1 Peter 2:2, which are both located on the same page. What would Patsy have found there? The actual verses themselves in this case are not as interesting as what it is we find elsewhere on the page. For one, one of the footnotes is another, in fact arguably the best, example (that I didn’t list in the earlier examples) of an explanation in the NIVSB of the religious interpretation of Jesus’s death as a “ransom”. So now we have one way of explaining how Patsy came to see this concept and where she got the inspiration for writing a “ransom note”. Not only that, the footnote is to the verse 1:18. So again we have a very strong candidate for motivating the $118,000 amount. Although it means we now have more than one good candidate verse/footnote to explain the amount (1 John 1:8 and 1 Peter 1:18), I want to argue again (as I have in the methodological part of my theory) that there doesn’t necessarily need to be one absolute “meaning” (as in: a single reference) of the amount. Meaning is something complex which can best be described by explaining the dynamic process which causes us to use particular symbols that are significant to us. This does not require that we think of this meaning as a sort of definition that uniquely describes the symbol in one way. Patsy could well have noticed both the 1 John 1:8 connection with 118 as well as the 1 Peter 1:18 connection and considered it meaningful, or a divine ‘sign’ that the number was appropriate to use. In any case, these two different verses/footnotes are very much related in the meaning of what they express. The footnote here to 1 Peter 1:18 states:

“1:18 redeemed. In the Bible, to redeem means to free someone from something bad by paying a penalty, or a ransom (see e.g., Ex 21:30 and note; see also Ex 13:13). Likewise, in the Greek world slaves could be redeemed by the payment of a price, either by someone else or by the slave himself. Similarly, Jesus redeems believers from the ‘curse of the law’ (Gal 3:13) and ‘all wickedness’ (Tit 2:14). The ransom price is not silver or gold, but Christ's blood (Eph 1:7; IPe 1:19; Rev 5:9), i.e., his death (Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45; Heb 9:15) or Christ himself (Gal 3:13). The result is the ‘forgiveness of sin’ (Col 1:14) and ‘justification’ (Ro 3:24; see note there), empty way of life . . . from your forefathers. Some maintain that the recipients must have been pagans because the NT stresses the emptiness of pagan life (Ro 1:21; Eph 4:17). Others think they were Jews since Jews were traditionalists who stressed the influence of the father as teacher in the home. In the light of the context of the whole letter, probably both Jews and Gentiles are addressed.”

So again it is very clear what the concept of ‘ransom’ represents and how it is related to “Christ’s blood”. On the facing page the opening verses of the letter of 1 Peter and a footnote makes it even clearer how his blood can be used to be redeemed from sin:

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.”

And the footnote:

“1:2 chosen. See note on Eph 1:4. foreknowledge. See note on Ro 8:29. Father . . . Spirit . . . Jesus Christ All three persons of the Trinity are involved in the redemption of the elect. sanctifying work. See note on 2Th 2:13. The order of the terms employed suggests that the sanctifying work of the Spirit referred to here is the influence of the Spirit that draws one from sin toward holiness. Peter says it is ‘for’ (or ‘to’) obedience and sprinkling of Christ's blood, i.e., the Spirit's sanctifying leads to obedient saving faith and cleansing from sin (see note on ICo 7:14). obedience to Jesus Christ God's choice or election is designed to bring this about. sprinkling by his blood. The benefits of Christ's redemption are applied to his people (cf. Ex 24:4-8; Isa 52:15; Heb 9:11-14,18-28). Grace and peace. See notes on Jnh 4:2; Jn 14:27; 20:19; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2.”

This footnote could hardly make it any more explicit that the “sprinkling of Christ’s blood” “leads to obedient saving faith and cleansing from sin”. Obedience is the theme that Osteen had already emphasized, as had some of the other references, and which Patsy was trying to achieve to get JonBenét resurrected and which she also made a major theme of her ransom note. Here it is very explicitly tied to “sprinkling of” “blood” enabling the “cleansing from sin”, which is exactly what would have been necessary to get small drops of blood on so many of the items on or around JonBenét’s body in the wine cellar, considering the amount of blood coming from the wound would have been relatively limited. Note also that the opening verses in the running text very much echo the concept of a “foreign faction” that “a group of individuals” “represent”. A footnote to the phrase “strangers in the world” makes more clear what this could have meant to Patsy in her dual meaning reading of the note: “People temporarily residing on earth but whose home is in heaven (cf. 1Ch 29:15; Ps 39:12; Heb 13:14).” The term “God’s elect” is also rather close to the concept of ‘represent’ as well as that of the other meaning of ‘attaché”. “God’s elect” here refers to the “strangers of the world” who are the people on earth chosen by God to be saved. So in the Ramsey note the “group of individuals who represent” them would appear to be these apostles whose letters she is taking advice from for achieving redemption from her sin so that she can receive from her Lord according to her need, which is JonBenét being healed and resurrected. The connection to the other sense of ‘attaché’ also becomes more apparent when we consider why the full phrase in the Ramsey note is the odd “adequate size attaché”. This can be explained by a description that is found in the introduction to the letter of Colossians, a letter that is also referenced by Osteen and a letter which also has one of the occurrences of ‘ransom’ being described with the religious interpretation. In the introduction to Colossians we read:

“Thus Christ is completely adequate. We ‘have been given fullness in Christ’ (2:10). On the other hand, the Colossian heresy was altogether inadequate. It was a hollow and deceptive philosophy (2:8), lacking any ability to restrain the old sinful nature (2:23).The theme of Colossians is the complete adequacy of Christ as contrasted with the emptiness of mere human philosophy.”

This is one of only ten occurrences of the word ‘adequate’ in the whole NIVSB. So here we find yet another word that signifies Christ, a common theme in Patsy’s religious reading and/or references that night, and again we find it in the context of overcoming sin. An “adequate size attaché” in the second meaning of the dual meaning of the letter therefore seems to mean either ‘make sure you bring someone who represents Christ” (which Patsy did by inviting the Fernies, the people who brought her into her church and which is also recommended by a passage in Osteen) or ‘be a representative of God’s elect who is truly a follower of Christ’. In any case, the odd phrase is again not a random, throwaway line but a line that was deliberately used to incorporate a religious meaning that Patsy was imbuing the ransom letter with. The concept of the size of the ransom container is also primed in several of the fiction books that I claim she used. Note also that 'Thus' is close in meaning to 'hence', the term used close to the line with 'adequate' in the Ramsey note. Two more footnotes on this page are worth considering:

“1:13 prepare ... for action. The first of a long series of exhortations (actually imperatives) that end at 5:11. This one is a graphic call for action. In the language of the first century it meant that the reader should literally gather up his long, flowing garments and be ready for physical action. grace to be given you. The final state of complete blessedness and deliverance from sin. Peter later indicates that a major purpose of this letter is to encourage and testify regarding the true grace of God (5:12). 1:14 children. Christians, born into the family of God (see V. 23), are children of their heavenly Father (v. 17) and can pray, "Our Father in heaven" (Mt 6:9). Believers are also described as being adopted into God's family (see Ro 8:15 and NIV text note).”

The flowing garments remark may have been interpreted by Patsy as a command (especially because of the description about being “imperatives” and “a graphic call for action”) to leave a garment (the nightgown Barbie) with JonBenét. We know that this was the item that appears to have had the most blood samples on it, and I argue elsewhere that the pattern of the suspected blood drops seems to be consistent with a shape resembling a cross. The word ‘grace’ is explained to refer to the “deliverance from sin”. ‘Grace’ is the first word on Patsy’s tombstone. Compare the remark about Christians being “children of their heavenly Father” to Patsy’s remark in the CNN interview that JonBenét “[...]loved her daddy. She was daddy’s girl.” Although this also seems to echo a phrase that John had used for his daughter Beth after her death, so perhaps Patsy was trying to help John with his grief by speaking in similar terms about JonBenét. Although not hugely significant, let’s take a look at the actual verses from 1 Peter referenced in the ‘WORD OF LIFE’ entry: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1:23) “but the word of the Lord stands forever. And this is the word that was preached to you.” (1:25) [(2:1)]“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.(2:2) Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,[(2:3)] now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” The concept of avoiding deceit is found in the Ramsey note and slander is arguably avoided as well by (strangely) mentioning “respect” for John’s business in a note aimed at punishing him. Osteen too mentions the importance of submitting to one’s husband. The milk reference is a long shot possibility for possibly being a reason for being added to the pineapple, although it’s not clear that there was milk in the bowl, but I still maintain that the pineapple bowl was likely not staged but prepared for a different purpose which I will discuss another time. So now we’ve seen a lot of evidence for how the ‘WORD OF GOD’ entry in the Index to Notes may have played a large part in shaping Patsy’s thinking to compose the ransom note and stage the crime scene in a very particular way. Outside of the possible confession elements about the nature of the crime near the beginning and at the end of the note (which I argue for more extensively elsewhere), there is one more major piece of evidence found in the Ramsey note that I think thoroughly ties Patsy’s later behavior to the note and again shows guilty knowledge on her part. Underneath the ‘WORD OF GOD’ entry we found that there was a ‘WORD OF LIFE’ entry as well, which references 1 John too. We also saw that Patsy would have seen Jesus being referred to as not only ‘the Word’ but also ‘the life’ in several places. And since she was following Osteen’s advice to look for God’s Word in the Bible, and she was in my hypothesis using the index(es) to do so, it makes sense that she also would have looked up the word ‘Life’ in the index(es). If she did, she would have found that it was listed in the Index to Notes on page 1997 and that the entry for ‘Life’ had a sub-entry for ‘resurrection’. Osteen in Healed of Cancer told her under a reference to a verse in 1 John that says “Be confident in your prayers.” that: “Now you must renew your mind with healing scriptures. Whatever your need is, find the promise you need in the Word of God, then ask according to His promise for your need, and pray that promise, you will have the confidence that He will hear and answer your prayer.” Patsy, in my opinion, solves the problem of following this advice without giving herself away to police in the ransom note by using ‘1997’ with dual meaning. She found the promise she needed (‘resurrection’) as a sub-entry in the entry for ‘Life’, which is ‘the Word of God’ (namely, Jesus) and asked (“want her to see”) according to His promise for your need (the “promise” for her “need” is listed on page 1997): “if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter” → ‘if you want her to be resurrected by Jesus, follow instructions found in the letter(s) of the Bible that the entry references’ Patsy incorporates (either consciously or sub-consciously) the “you must” phrase that Osteen uses in the Healed of Cancer passage right before recommending this course of action. The “instructions to the letter” refers not only to the instructions that we have been looking at so far in the letters of the New Testament listed under the ‘WORD OF GOD’ entry, but also some of these and other letters listed under the ‘resurrection’ sub-entry on page 1997. That Patsy is fully aware that she did this is, incredibly, alluded to by her in The Death of Innocence when she makes it a point to describe what she experienced at JonBenét’s memorial: “I heard the organist begin a familiar melody, ‘I Am the Bread of Life,’ a praise song that had given John such strength after Beth’s death and a favorite we had often sung as we took communion as a family. John had already told me, ‘I want this song to be sung at my funeral.’ Little did we realize we would be alive to sing this worship song at our daughter’s service. Now the song seemed unusually meaningful to me. I am the resurrection, I am the life. They who believe in me, even if they die They shall live forever. And I will ra-aise them up. I will ra-aise them up, I will ra-aise them up on the last day. Those words blessed me. I knew I would see my daughter again someday, sometime in the future.For some reason (I do not know why; maybe it was the medication), I began walking up the aisle toward the altar, with Burke dutifully following me and John holding me up. The music seemed to lead me forward, just as we did at communion, just as we had done that Christmas Eve. John gently guided me back to my seat in the pew, aware that my overwhelming grief was making me delirious.” This is an understandable experience in case my scenario of how the line about 1997 came about is correct. It is, indeed, an embedded confession and it mentions also the communion concept that is described in the footnote on the page of 1 John 1:8. John actually says she moved forward during the Lord’s Prayer, Patsy seems to remember this song instead. Both would have been incredibly meaningful to her in the moment because of what she read the night of her staging and how she interpreted it.The ‘Bread’ part in ‘I Am the Bread of Life’ is actually yet another word used to refer to Jesus in a passage that she would have encountered that night. It is explained on the page after the page with the ‘listen carefully’ command spoken by God that she was referred to by Osteen, which I have already argued was her main inspiration and reason for including it as her opening line in the note. There is yet more evidence to tie her to that specific page with the explanation about Jesus being identified with ‘the bread’. Although there is more to be explained about how Patsy’s behavior on the 26th ties into her reading in Healed of Cancer and the NIVSB on the night of JonBenét’s death, for now I will end this exposition about all the connections between the ransom note, crime scene, Patsy’s behavior and these two books by explaining something that I believe, very likely, not even John Ramsey or Burke Ramsey (or anyone else alive for that matter) currently knows about something Patsy did on the 26th and why she did it. This is the power of an evidence-based theory. Although it is often assumed, by people who like myself are certain that no one outside the family was involved, that either John or Burke (or both) knows everything there is to know about this crime and could tell us every single thing about what happened and why if somehow they became inclined to do so, my theory suggests that this is very likely not the case. Although I do believe Patsy would have had to have told John at least the gist of what she really did and why, I hardly believe that she or John would have liked to spend analyzing and discussing the details of Patsy’s motivations that night in any great detail, simply because it would have been way too painful for them to do so (not to mention embarrassing for Patsy). So if my theory about Patsy using the connections between Healed of Cancer and the NIVSB to write a dual meaning ransom note are correct, then it is very unlikely that John would have ever tried to figure out all these little connections in as much painstaking detail as I have been trying to do, if he knew about it at all. That’s why I don’t believe he or Burke or anyone would know about the following detail because it’s not likely to be something that Patsy would have shared with anyone, as it has to do with her delusional magical thinking state of mind that night, when she still had hope that JonBenét would be resurrected. I only discovered this connection myself very recently, and I think it captures very well how Patsy thought and operated that night. I have already argued how and why I believe Patsy came to incorporate the ‘listen carefully’ part from the Bible verse she found in Exodus 15:26 in the NIVSB into the Ramsey note. But I think, believing that this was God speaking to her to give her commands, she also read a little further in this part of the NIVSB to look for more commands and ideas about how to proceed next. What would she have read on that page and the next one in the book? Exodus 15:26 is the second to last verse of Exodus 15. So on the same page just after it, Exodus 16 starts. It’s not crazy to think Patsy would have looked at Exodus 16 to see if the message from her Lord about obeying commands continued there. Exodus 16 runs from the last column of this page to just past the next page. What is it about? Its header reads ‘Manna and Quail’. It tells the story of how the Israelites are led by Moses to the Desert of Sin after having escaped Egypt. They become increasingly frustrated with Moses because at least in Egypt they had food but here in the desert they are starving. But the Lord tells Moses “I will rain down bread from heaven for you” and “I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.”

Already we see how Patsy was likely influenced by this passage to incorporate her own focus on “follow our instructions” at the end of the same opening paragraph of the Ramsey note that has “Listen carefully!”. In the NIVSB on this page the two terms are almost next to each other, in opposite columns. In a footnote on this page we find what I mentioned earlier, the explanation that Jesus is the “bread”: “16:4 bread from heaven. Jesus called himself "the true bread from heaven" (Jn 6:32), "the bread of God" (Jn 6:33), "the bread of life" (Jn 6:35,48), "the living bread that came down from heaven" (Jn 6:51) — all in the spiritual sense (Jn 6:63). For a similar application see Dt 8:3 and Jesus' quotation of it in Mt 4:4. go out each day and gather enough for that day Probably the background for Jesus' model petition in Mt6:ll; Lk 11:3. test See notes on 15:25; Ge 22:1.” We already saw that there is evidence that Patsy used this word ‘life’, that also is used to refer to Jesus, in a symbolic way to imbue the ransom note with extra religious and spiritual potency through the ‘Life > resurrection (p.) 1997’ connection. I argued that she also used ‘adequate’ to refer to the power of belief in Christ and that she earmarked the page of the Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary to mark ‘incarnation’, another word used to refer to Jesus Christ. The term ‘the bread of life’ described here in the footnote, was also found in the title of the song played at JonBenét’s memorial that Patsy talked about in The Death of Innocence, that had the allusions to Jesus with ‘the resurrection’ and ‘the life’. So we see a clear part of the m.o. for how Patsy seemed to try to imbue the scene with religious significance that was meant to increase her chances to be heard by Jesus and have her Lord resurrect JonBenét: simply by invoking one of his many names in meaningful places and moments she believed she was increasing her chances to bring about the miracle. This is also seen in the example of her repeating Osteen’s recommended three words asking for help from Jesus immediately after her 911 call. This is quite literally also what Osteen had recommended: “Put your confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word no matter what happens. He is your hope. God will surely reward your trust in Him!” Note that if these interpretations are correct, two of Patsy’s mentions of Jesus occurred around the time JonBenét’s body was found: the ‘incarnation’ page just before going out to see her body and invoking the actual name of Jesus right after being faced with JonBenét’s lifeless body. She was also observed clutching a crucifix and praying while she was in the den, not long before JonBenét was found, which is a third (non-verbal) reference to Christ. But there is actually yet another, hidden, deliberate invoking of Jesus just before going out to see whether all of her efforts from the night before and that morning had worked. She was hearing a lot of commotion coming from the basement and kitchen area and this was the moment of truth for her: she was about to find out whether the miracle she had tried so hard to bring about had really occurred or whether she had been delusional about interpreting signs from God and whether she was going to have to face responsibility for what she had done and whether perhaps her Lord had judged and forsaken her. It was the most desperate moment of her life. As we know, even though the other people ran to check and see what had been found and what was going on, Patsy stayed behind in the den. I speculated that possibly this is the moment when she earmarked the page. But what else do we know about what was going on during exactly this crucial moment? When people came back in the den, she was observed to be watching out a window, which itself actually might be tied to a passage in Joshua 2 about binding a “scarlet cord in the window” where it is explained that: “[t]he function of the red marker was similar to that of the blood of the Passover lamb when the Lord struck down the firstborn of Egypt (see Ex 12:13,22-23). The early church viewed the bloodcolored cord as a type (symbol) of Christ's atonement.” and “2:19 his blood will be on our head. A vow that accepted responsibility for the death of another, with its related guilt and the retribution meted out by either relatives or the state.” The possible presence of such an otherwise unexplained cord in the crime scene photos should be checked by investigators. Another possible explanation for this behavior by Patsy, however, is a passage that Osteen quotes under Scripture quotation number 10 that she recommends: “10. MALACHI 3:10: Obey all God’s commandments and receive all His blessings.‘Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and prove Me now in this,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.’” The moment JonBenét was found was of course for Patsy supposed to be the great miraculous moment of receiving her blessing, with JonBenét somehow emerging alive from the basement. So perhaps this promise, here associated with a (metaphorical) window being opened is what made Patsy look out the window to look for a sign. But this behavior is actually not what I wanted to draw attention to here. It is the words Patsy is meant to have spoken when she remained behind in the den. How do we know these words? They are, in fact, only reported by Patsy herself in her 1997 police interview (it is unknown if statements by the Fernies or Whites or anyone else present in the house at the time back up her account of this part of the unfolding of events). What does Patsy say she said at precisely this moment of truth?

“and then I heard John scream, screaming and uh, then he just screamed uh, I think Fleet came running and said call 911 and get an ambulance or something and I kept saying ‘What is it? What is it?’ And, and uh I think Fleet ran up and John Fernie took the phone and said send an ambulance. ‘I don’t know what it is, just send help’ or whatever he said and, and I think Barbara had a hold of me and she wouldn’t let me, she wouldn’t let me go in there. And then people were coming, coming back in”

Whether or not other people present in the home have reported hearing her speak those words, I believe Patsy is telling the truth here about what she recalled saying. Why? The story about the Lord raining down “the bread from heaven”, which as the header hinted at in the Old Testament was known mostly as a substance named ‘manna’, continues:

“Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: 'Each one is to gather as much as he needs. […] [’] […] The people of Israel called the bread manna.”

And a note to this last sentence explains:

“Manna means What is it?”

So on the page of and the page after the verse with ‘listen carefully’ spoken by the Lord in the context of obeying commands, which Osteen refers to, which also has “follow my instructions”, Patsy learns that “the bread” refers to Jesus, that the Lord provides the bread in times of great need, that the bread was also called ‘manna’, and that ‘manna’ means ‘what is it?’. And according to her own words, at the very moment that was arguably the most important moment of her life after her cancer diagnosis, when she was about to find out what her daughter’s fate was, she repeated those same exact words: “What is it? What is it?”. Yet another occasion that morning where Patsy appears to be invoking Jesus, her Lord and Savior who she believed had cured her of stage four cancer, at a critical moment in the case, that can be tied to the Ramsey note. Another footnote to the same sentence about the people of Israel calling the bread ‘manna’ refers to a page of Numbers 7, where a footnote reads:

“The Lord became exceedingly angry. The rejection of his gracious gift of heavenly food (called "bread from heaven" in Ex 16:4) angered the Lord. God had said that the reception of the manna by the people would be a significant test of their obedience (Ex 16:4). In view of the good things he was to give them (10:32), the people were expected to receive each day's supply of manna as a gracious gift of a merciful God, and a promise of abundance to come. In spurning the manna, the people had spurned the Lord. They had failed the test of faith. Moses was troubled. The people's reaction to God's provision of manna was troubling to Moses as well. Instead of asking the Lord to understand the substance of their complaint, Moses asked him why he was given such an ungrateful people to lead.”

It’s clear then, if Patsy read this too, why she would try to make a conscious effort to include a reference to this ‘manna’/Jesus/‘what is it?’ because she was desperately trying to avoid being perceived by her Lord also disobedient. Now, to be fair, Patsy does use ‘What is it’ one more time in her 1997 police interview, saying that the 911 operator also “just kept saying, ‘well, what is it’”, which as we can hear now is a paraphrase of what the operator actually said (“what’s going on?” (3x) ). So one could argue that it was just Patsy’s regular way of speaking when telling a story and that there was no other reason for saying the words. But note that when recounting what she herself said she repeats and acts out the phrase twice herself “what is it, what is it”, which is similar to how she repeated the ‘help me (Jesus)’ three times after the 911 call, as if using it to conjure up a spiritual power (as advised by Osteen). And she puts a paraphrase of the phrase on either John Fernie’s or Fleet’s lips by claiming that one of them said “I don’t know what it is […]”. Both times she quotes the phrase, first as her own words, then as Fernie’s or White’s, she folllows her statement with a double ‘and...and…’, which is arguably a marker for deception or at least additional cognitive processing time. After quoting her own words, the most significant part of the story in my interpretation, it’s even a ‘and...and...uh…’. In other words, in this part of the interview her mind is really focused on this phrase, as if the phrase itself was somehow important to the story. In her paraphrase of the operator’s words she kind of plays down the phrase with ‘well…’. In any event, according to Patsy’s own words in the moment she realized her daughter had likely been discovered she used a phrase that we can tie to a reference to Jesus, mediated by a connection between Healed of Cancer and the NIVSB. Patsy was thoroughly involved in writing the note. She was involved in the composition of every single idea found in it and aware of its intended meaning. She staged the scene in a hurry, but very deliberately, on the basis of inspiration she took from material in written sources. Even if there were no evidence whatsoever that tied her handwriting to that of the note (which there is in fact a lot of), it would still be absolutely certain that she was involved in writing it. And we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that John knows full well about her method of staging and joined in on her lies from the 26th on to protect both her and himself from possible legal consequences. He could, and should, still be indicted and prosecuted successfully for his involvement in the cover-up of the circumstances surrounding his daughter JonBenét’s death. I advise him not to be rested, but to take accountability. Happy would-be 34th, JonBenét.