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It's not at the mark you said. It's at 8:52, for anyone interested in watching it. However, she told her to say good bye to her daughter. Honestly, it didn't matter at that point. John had already contaminated the evidence anyway. As I said, it's easy to be a backsit driver. It's easy to say what you would do. Now, would it go that way? I was in a room with teenagers one summer. These were mostly good kids. One day one kid had it in his mind he was going to harm another camper. I stepped in. I ended up getting an injury. I can imagine before this incident thinking "Oh, what a moron. I'd X,Y. and Z' it's really eye opening being the only person in authority and not being able to leave the situation (as I was with minors).
No, no, no, no, no! She was a detective, not a keyboard jockey in a forum. A crime scene isn't like an egg: once you've cracked it, you might as well just cook it, since you can't un-crack it. Every single individual degradation of the crime scene makes finding good, reliable evidence all that much harder. The corruption of evidence from JR was limited to his actions, his DNA, his fibers, and presented a finite number of complications to examining the evidence for investigators to sort through. But Arndt moved the body again herself, allowing her own DNA and fibers to be added, plus the fibers from the blanket and sweatshirt (and whatever was already on them), plus Patsy's DNA and fibers. This makes the collection and isolation of evidence more difficult by several orders of magnitude. It was a murder, and every single bit of forensic evidence might be crucial. She has no excuse.
I cued the video intentionally a little ways in front of her statement at a point where it would give the full context of the situation as described in her statement. I humbly apologize to everyone for that extra 32 seconds of your life you can't get back.
No lies that I know of. (Please don't believe Kolar's BS about the spiderwebs in the basement window. There were no photographs taken of the spiderwebs on Dec 26. Wait a minute, were there footprints in the snow? ) Helgoth may not have been tested before Smit resigned. Don't forget that the BPD had the DNA evidence to exonerate the Ramseys, but they would not (they did clear a lot of other people due to pressure, such as the Whites) until very late in the game. Lots of corruption in the BPD.
I recently read that just because Helgoth's DNA was cleared, it doesn't mean that he wasn't at the crime scene; only that his DNA was not found. He could have been the partner to the killer, who knew Helgoth would spill, so he had him silenced. Lots of theories out there...
I know he was filmed saying that on the A&E special. I don't know when he was filmed as I know he's been dead a few years.
No, no, no, no, no! She was a detective, not a keyboard jockey in a forum. A crime scene isn't like an egg: once you've cracked it, you might as well just cook it, since you can't un-crack it. Every single individual degradation of the crime scene makes finding good, reliable evidence all that much harder. The corruption of evidence from JR was limited to his actions, his DNA, his fibers, and presented a finite number of complications to examining the evidence for investigators to sort through. But Arndt moved the body again herself, allowing her own DNA and fibers to be added, plus the fibers from the blanket and sweatshirt (and whatever was already on them), plus Patsy's DNA and fibers. This makes the collection and isolation of evidence more difficult by several orders of magnitude. It was a murder, and every single bit of forensic evidence might be crucial. She has no excuse.
I cued the video intentionally a little ways in front of her statement at a point where it would give the full context of the situation as described in her statement. I humbly apologize to everyone for that extra 32 seconds of your life you can't get back.
We all know the context. The case and the house was getting out of her grip. I guess she and I were the only people to ever have a situation get out of our hands. Everything always goes how others plan it to. If it doesn't, it means you're incompetent.
I recently read that just because Helgoth's DNA was cleared, it doesn't mean that he wasn't at the crime scene; only that his DNA was not found. He could have been the partner to the killer, who knew Helgoth would spill, so he had him silenced. Lots of theories out there...
In a nutshell, you have just put your finger on the conundrum facing all of us, no matter which side we are on, no matter who we think did it, no matter how sure we are.
We all hope definitive proof comes to light some day, of course, but as of today, there is no conclusive proof, one way or another, no matter how you slice it. We all look at the evidence and interpret it, prioritize it, judge its validity and importance, accept or reject it, from our own unique perspective. But for every one of us, in order to get from the starting point of the known evidence to the destination of exactly who, in our own heart of hearts, we believe is guilty of this heinous crime, it takes some sort of leap of faith.
That involves faith, and it involves a leap. We might be right, we might not. None of us knows for sure, regardless of how certain we are in our minds. Until more conclusive evidence arises, none of us will ever be able to prove to the next guy that their conclusion is the truth.
This case seems to take on a different shape depending on what angle you view it from. That's probably what keeps it so fascinating that we go round and round about what this or that piece of evidence means. That makes it good as entertainment, but if what we seek is answers, resolution, closure, this case is a dead end. It is, as someone once said in a different context, a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma.
And with that, I'm going to step back a little. Tomorrow is my birthday, and in the past few days I realized just how much of my time and energy I've allowed this case and this forum to consume recently. No offense to anyone here, but I have lots of other stuff I should be doing. I need to step back a bit, and see if I can find some balance. Thanks for all the great discussion.
We all know the context. The case and the house was getting out of her grip. I guess she and I were the only people to ever have a situation get out of our hands. Everything always goes how others plan it to. If it doesn't, it means you're incompetent.
I find the thought that you seriously believe that to be profoundly depressing, but I recognize that you do, and that you believe you are right every bit much as I believe I am, and that if I haven't convinced you of my viewpoint already, I never will.
But there are few things in this whole tangled case of which I am more sure than that Detective Arndt was in way over her head and made mistake after mistake after mistake no police officer should make, on matters that affected the entire course of this case, and she refuses to admit it. But that's just the way I see it. I can't convince oanyone else of that if they don't see it.
I find the thought that you seriously believe that to be profoundly depressing, but I recognize that you do, and that you believe you are right every bit much as I believe I am, and that if I haven't convinced you of my viewpoint already, I never will.
But there are few things in this whole tangled case of which I am more sure than that Detective Arndt was in way over her head and made mistake after mistake after mistake no police officer should make, on matters that affected the entire course of this case, and she refuses to admit it. But that's just the way I see it. I can't convince oanyone else of that if they don't see it.
I don't think that's fair given the circumstances. I think it's easy to hear of something, anything, and say I would do it differently. Maybe someone might do it differently and the end result isn't much better. As I said, I don't believe she is some super detective or anything. I do feel she was over her head and maybe she gets a lot of flack because she is a woman in a mostly male field.
I don't think that's fair given the circumstances. I think it's easy to hear of something, anything, and say I would do it differently. Maybe someone might do it differently and the end result isn't much better. As I said, I don't believe she is some super detective or anything. I do feel she was over her head and maybe she gets a lot of flack because she is a woman in a mostly male field.
I concede that the actions of the Boulder Police Dept., leaving a single, inexperienced detective at the scene of a kidnapping, and dragging their feet on allowing the FBI to fully assist, are inexplicable and unwise, and contributed to a bad result. I also acknowledge that policing is a male-dominated profession that has a culture that often tends to be hostile and unsupportive toward women entering the workplace. However, I don't think either one of those factors has any bearing on how one judges Arndt's actions and decisions. Beyond that, I don't think it's worth debating further, we seem to understand each other's position.
I don't think that's fair given the circumstances. I think it's easy to hear of something, anything, and say I would do it differently. Maybe someone might do it differently and the end result isn't much better. As I said, I don't believe she is some super detective or anything. I do feel she was over her head and maybe she gets a lot of flack because she is a woman in a mostly male field.
I don't get why you keep defending Arndt and bashing Smit. Arndt was a incompetent over her head peranoid detective and Smit was one of the best detectives in the whole state with a 90% solve rate and the Boulder police chief personally asked him to go to Boulder and help them. Then they all turned on him when he said it was a intruder. What ever happened to Arndt? Did she stay with the force? Got fired? Quit? I never heard.
Smit was one of the best detectives in the whole state with a 90% solve rate and the Boulder police chief personally asked him to go to Boulder and help them. Then they all turned on him when he said it was a intruder. What ever happened to Arndt? Did she stay with the force? Got fired? Quit? I never heard.
On one of these websites, it says she ended up a tree trimmer for $8/ hour. That was probably awhile ago. I agree about the Ol' Boys Network at the BPD, though. It had to make her job difficult.
Let's remember why Lou Smit was even called in to assist with this case. From the Denver Post, March 4, 1999:
But in September 1998, Smit quit, convinced the Ramseys didn't kill their daughter and that investigators were ignoring evidence pointing away from the couple.
Since then, Smit has quietly carried on his own investigation and has enlisted the help of Russel and another Colorado Springs attorney, Greg Walta.
Russel served as district attorney from 1965 to 1985 in El Paso and Teller counties, and Walta served as former head of the Colorado Public Defender's Office from 1978 to 1982.
One of the first things Russel and Walta did for Smit, 64, was iron out a legal agreement with Hunter's office. The agreement, reached March 30, 1999, allows Smit to talk about the case if no one was charged by Oct. 1, 1999.
He chose not to make any statements while the grand jury was in session and has only recently started elaborating on his intruder theory with the media.
"I made sure that nobody can (come after) him legally because there was an effort to shut him up," Russel said. "He's not doing this for money. He's not writing a book. This is altruism on his part. We've given legal approval that he can start talking." On Sunday, Smit told The Denver Post that...."
Exactly, not only that she went on to screw up another investigation on a 14 yr old sexual assault case in Boulder when she should've been on desk duty after the Ramsey case.
Was she working on that case? I think Mark Beckner helped screw up that one.
Unbelievable that 9 months later, another girl, a 14 year old from the SAME dance studio where JB took lessons, was assaulted in her own home. Luckily her mother had a can of Mace. Apparently the suspect sneaked in before the alarm was set and hid out in the house before the family came home in the evening. No DNA, no evidence....
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) Helgoth may not have been tested before Smit resigned. Don't forget that the BPD had the DNA evidence to exonerate the Ramseys, but they would not (they did clear a lot of other people due to pressure, such as the Whites) until very late in the game. Lots of corruption in the BPD. 