WicketyWack

"It's King Snow. ... or is it King Jon?" "Doesn't matter"

If the character of Howard — professional, well groomed, conservative, handsome Howard — also sported a mullet or a spiky shag, we'd all be talking I think.

There was a bit of foreshadowing about Toby's collapse. When he came in initially, he was pretty sweaty and gasping for breath. When he came down the stairs with Kate, he was definitely gasping and wheezing, though that was to be expected given the timing I guess. Then in the ending montage you see him lifting the littler girl up and it looks like he's struggling. I wasn't surprised at all when he finally dropped the plates and hit the floor. Yeah I'll say it: when it comes to Toby, I'm firmly on the "bye Felicia" train. I will feel bad for Kate in the show but good Lord get off my screen and get her a better storyline. And, who grows up celebrating Christmas but doesn't know the name of Santa's reindeer? WTF Rebecca and Randall.

Erin's look was so hands-down the worst to me that I am still mad she didn't get the auf. Your mom has to wear a lab coat to work so you make her a 10 times bigger, uglier, permanent lab coat? And then the dress was a 70s preteen party dress. She has maxed out her credit with those early wins, time to get rid of her. Laurence's daughter looks like a young Whitney Houston to me. I was also surprised she was not in the top three or the winner strictly based on the fact that she's a teenager with a model figure, the gold standard for past "real woman" challenge wins. I found Laurence's look for her to be very boring tho. I was surprise she didn't step it up and make her something killer that only a teenager with a model figure could wear... she would've had this challenge in the bag. But the girl also did seem very reserved. i'm not a huge fan of hip-hop and never heard of Bahamadia until now. When I Googled her I was super impressed, she's very respected in the hip-hop community. I like her music and she was a trailblazer for women in hip-hop back in the day. There's not a lot of room in hip-hop for gay black men and I wonder if that has something to do with her and Mah-Jing's complicated relationship. The tension between the really was palpable. I'm glad they had this experience to bring them closer together. I have to say, I was not as crazy about her look as the judges were, it kind of reminded me of Darth Vader's helmet. But she asked for "origami" and to look like a ninja and Mah-Jing delivered on both counts. The origami top part looked a little contrived but hey, that's what she asked for. Glad Rik pulled out the win for mom, yeah he needs to pay her back! What a gift. I wonder why AARP went all out with this prize? They could've dropped 5K each on them and everyone would've still been delighted and no one would've been the wiser. And it's not like AARP got this great product placement, I mean… no one's going to look back on this as "the AARP challenge" but just the "real woman challenge of season 15." I don't know, I just feel like AARP's 50K could be better served helping… ya know… seniors.

She just doesn't strike me as the type of person who is going to wear party clothes from the night before on a plane ride but then go through the trouble of doing her hair showing that she did care how she looked that morning. Ahhh but remember, what's dressy in Boulder was casual to Patsy. A cashmere sweater and dress pants, to me, would be something she'd wear on a plane. And her stepkids would never know she'd worn those clothes the night before, so she wouldn't mind. Now, if they'd been at the dinner the evening before and would recognize the outfit? Never.

I don't put much stock in Patsy wearing the same clothes as the night before. As someone else pointed out, she was a secret slob and she might not have done laundry in a while. Also I believe she'd gained weight in the past year and maybe a bit more during the holidays ... she might not have had a lot of outfits that fit her properly. She mentioned in one interview coloring her own hair in the day or two leading up to JonBenet's murder. I would think that a woman of her means would never EVER allow her hair to come into contact with box color -- they make appointments in high-end salons. So her behavior was, to say the least, not predictable or consistent with someone of her wealth.

Ok -- if the scenario that this show presents is accurate, then the Ramseys were horrified to discover that their beloved older child had just accidentally killed their beloved younger child -- Patsy's favorite, by most accounts. Then they stage a kidnapping to cover up for him. If you look at JonBenet's throat injuries, you see the garotte was not just placed around her throat and pulled tightly. There is a deep furrow down her throat where the garrote was first applied and tightened, then abrasions (including one very deep one) indicating that the garotte was pulled higher and tighter up her throat to its final position. So the person choking her took some time doing it. The nail marks were found above and below the garotte, with the half-moons pointing in both directions (so the nails were above and below the item doing the choking) and I don't think this would have happened if it had been a shirt collar -- you would only have found nail marks above the collar, not below it, because a small child's fingernails wouldn't be able penetrate fabric enough to break the skin. Anyway, I would liked to have seen this show address the presence of those half-moon nail marks on her throat and they didn't touch on it -- didn't even mention it. That seems like a big omission to me. Also ... this is the big sticking point to me ... I'm trying to imagine parents or a parent who just found out their much loved child has been killed, and the first thing they do while her body is still warm is to rape her with a paintbrush and throttle her with a garrote to the point that it leaves abrasions and deep furrows up and down her throat? ... I just can't see that happening. The Ramseys have never shown themselves to be violent to that degree before or since that night, and that's not the action of a parent who has just suddenly and unexpectedly lost a much loved child. Most parents, if faced with an unconscious or newly dead child, would rush the kid to the hospital or call an ambulance to try to save her. They had no way of knowing how severe the head injury was. There was no swelling or broken skin. The pathologists at the autopsy didn't recognize there was a head injury with the naked eye. So parents who believe their much loved child was accidentally killed by a sibling, start an elaborate kidnap staging to protect the other, and in the middle of it the injured child revives to the point where she's clawing at her neck ... and they keep going? Instead of rushing her to the hospital because OMG she's not dead ... they decide to finish her off instead? I can't see that happening at all.

Ok so it was all touch DNA -- but still, found on 2 separate garments that had not been manufactured together. So it didn't get on the clothing during the manufacturing process. They ruled out law enforcement & the Ramseys as being the source of the DNA, and have not yet identified the unknown male that the DNA came from. This show never touched on that, though others have.

I never believed Burke did it, but now I do see the possibility. However. There are a few things that they did not address in this show that still has me leaning more toward an intruder: - the half-moon scratches all along JonBenet's throat, which has been described as marks from her own fingernails clawing to get the garrote off, indicating she was conscious when the garrote was applied; - IIRC, the stranger's DNA on JonBenet's underwear was not "touch" DNA but from a bodily fluid; i.e. semen; and the same DNA was found years later as "touch" DNA on the waistband of her pants. So 2 different garments, 2 different time periods, 2 different types of DNA, same person who wasn't a Ramsey; - the footprint found in the basement of someone wearing hiking boots that none of the Ramseys owned; - the footprint on the top of the suitcase; -The show's whole "JonBenet wasn't really sexually assaulted" position took me by surprise as it's always been reported that she was, with forensic evidence pointing to sexual assault. Lou Smit said her sexual assault was violent. Most notably, it has been reported that someone raped her vaginally with the paintbrush handle. I just can't see any parents doing this to their (favorite) child that had been accidentally killed just minutes ago, even to protect another child. If the BDI theory is correct, that means John or Patsy actually finished JonBenet off with the garrote ... and I can't see parents doing that to their golden child either. If there was any evidence she was alive after Burke supposedly hit her, I believe they would have rushed her to the hospital. - Going by what Lou Smit said, a blow to the head of that magnitude would cause immediate swelling that would be noticeable in a living person, and the swelling in JonBenet's head was minimal. That, plus the fingernail marks on her throat, led him to believe the blow to the head came after she was killed with the garrote. The one BIG thing that makes me think it could actually have been Burke was during the interview where they asked about the pineapple -- his "Oh" when it dawned on him what that was. That was recognition.

Neoprene is stiff and can be easily molded to create garments that hold their structure. Most of the neoprene garments I've ever seen are on the racks at Saks Off Fifth, Neiman Marcus Last Call or Nordstrom Rack. They started out as super high-end designer garments that ended up in the outlet store, mostly because they tend to develop annoying vertical snags and pulls in the material. I tried on a neoprene dress once and dare I say I liked it on me -- and I am very much an "everyday woman" size 12 and very picky about what I wear. But I didn't buy it because of neoprene's snag-run issues. I haaaaate, hate hate hate drop crotches and surprisingly I liked Jenni's look -- because the crotch was so dropped that it was practically a skirt. I have only ever liked one other drop-crotch outfit in my life, also on Project Runway, by designer Alexandria in Season 12 -- and also because it looked more like a skirt. So I guess I just like skirts.

According to the most recent round of shows, the duct tape put over her mouth and the cord used to bind and choke her were not found anywhere in the house.

I lost a child too. My infant son died suddenly and unexpectedly. I didn't react in the way I would have thought a "normal mother" would react to her baby's death. I went into a crazy state of shock. For 3 days after he died, I didn't cry. I was numb. I was polite. I was distant. It felt like I was standing outside of my body watching it be controlled by someone else. Everyone told me later that my behavior creeped them out more than anything. I learned later this is not unusual in situations like this, but it was BIZARRE for me. Had my son died under mysterious circumstances, I know now that I would have been the primary suspect, partly based on my behavior, and that thought terrifies me to this day. So, I will say that "behavior of grieving parent" is not ever a "clue" or a "tell" in my book. Not even close.

Because the #1 job of *any* business is (A) to get more business for itself. Any PR firm that specializes in crisis management would LOVE to have John and Patsy Ramsey as clients ... what better way to advertise your business than to have the entire world know that these people had the money to hire literally anyone else in the world and they chose YOU? If someone in a PR firm tried to tell John and Patsy Ramsey to take their super high-profile business elsewhere, that person would be fired, and for good reason. "Providing excellent client service" is a function of many businesses but that is (B). It might and should lead to (A), if the business is ethical, but let's not forget that (A) is the primary goal in EVERY business out there. John Ramsey was tipped off by a law enforcement insider that he and Patsy were being targeted from day one and that he should lawyer up and he did. And it was SMART of him to do so. The attorney, *I presume*, suggested they hire a PR firm because the Ramseys let's face it were WEIRD. They were never going to play well with the public and they needed help and they hired it. SMART. If you truly think the Ramseys did it, then you also have to acknowledge that they did not spend one second behind bars. So I would say that hiring attorneys and a PR firm right off the bat was pretty damn smart.

This second installment was hard for me to watch. More so than the first, I felt horribly sorry for Burke. I don't think he did it and I don't think he knows who did it. I could practically feel chronic anxiety coming off him in waves through the screen. If he and his family are truly innocent (and after nearly 20 years of being obsessed with this case, I have arrived at the conclusion that they are) ... what happened to all 3 of them after losing JonBenet is beyond traumatic. Burke struck me as someone who has lived with intense public pressure, scrutiny and scorn that none of us could possibly relate to. I think it has affected him in ways we can't even imagine.

This second installment was hard for me to watch. More so than the first, I felt horribly sorry for Burke. I don't think he did it and I don't think he knows who did it. I could practically feel chronic anxiety coming off him in waves through the screen. If he and his family are truly innocent (and after nearly 20 years of being obsessed with this case, I have arrived at the conclusion that they are) ... what happened to all 3 of them after losing JonBenet is beyond traumatic. Burke struck me as someone who has lived with intense public pressure, scrutiny and scorn that none of us could possibly relate to. I think it has affected him in ways we can't even imagine.

I do find it very weird that he's never read the ransom note in its entirety.

I'm convinced Burke had nothing to do with the murder and I feel sorry for him. I think he was a quiet, shy kid who was thrust into this insanely hostile, incredibly public pressure cooker that dogged him throughout his life, and the smiling is a nervous tic. I'd hide away from the public too if people were accusing me of sexually assaulting and murdering my little sister even after DNA evidence and the District Attorney's office exonerated me. The "smile mask syndrome" referenced above is interesting. From Wikipedia: Smile mask syndrome is a psychological disorder proposed by professor Makoto Natsume of Osaka Shoin Women's University ... Natsume proposed the disorder after counselling students from the university in his practice and noticing that a number of students had spent so much time faking their smiles that they were unaware that they were smiling even while relating stressful or upsetting experiences to him. (emphasis mine.)

I had a copy of "Flowers in the Attic" in my house for years ... so people could have said the same thing about me! I entertained "Burke did it" briefly until the DNA evidence pointing to an unknown male. The interviews with Burke at the time support that. A detective interviewed Burke before he was told his sister had died, and remains convinced he knew nothing about her death at the time. Child services interviewed him and nothing seemed hinky to them.

To buy himself time to get far away with her. The note told the Ramseys to sit tight and wait for instructions and obviously those instructions would never come. Someone whose mind is clearly not normal might actually think this might convince parents to wait a good long time before calling cops, instead of calling them immediately when they discovered she was gone.

I too have been obsessed with this case for going on 20 years now (omg) and I don't think the Ramseys did it. I think they were naive about Boulder being an idyllic safe bubble where you could leave windows and doors unlocked, and invite hundreds of strangers into your home like it was no big deal, and lead very visible lives of wealth and privilege and not think twice about who might be paying attention. I think a ton of people had regular access to their home whether inside (household help, repairmen) or out (delivery guys, lawn care), and they were careless about keeping track of who came and went, and it wouldn't have been too difficult for someone who set their sights on JonBenet to scope out the house. If not someone who knew the family, then a kiddie pageant creep or anyone who saw JonBenet as Little Miss Colorado in the paper or on TV or in the Boulder Christmas parade, and then jump on an opportunity to actually enter this same kid's house during a Christmas home tour. The DNA of an unknown male, non-related to the victim, was found on her pants and underwear. That's what I keep coming back to. Yes the Ramseys were weird, and yes a lot points to their involvement, but neither one of them ever showed past indications of such extreme violence that was visited on JonBenet that night. And someone else's DNA was on her pants and underwear. Word to the poster who said that the Ramseys were smart to lawyer up right off the bat. I'd do the same thing.

Yes, the thing about the pineapple is that it would have created a timeline: according to police, the parents said JonBenet didn't eat pineapple after they came back from the party --> pineapple was found in her small intestine --> i.e.the parents are lying. Here's a screen grab from the #NeverBeforeSeenDocuments that show the pineapple doesn't create as accurate a timeline as all that:

Ha! Jersey native, right outside NYC and I haven't lived there in years but I still say foe-ward. If they were going to have any designers from the abomination that was Under the Gunn then YTF couldn't they have had Oliver, Shan or Natalia? Likeable people, good designers and Natalia was treated horribly unfairly (to the point of bullying, by Asha, IIRC) and she deserves a second chance I think. I still bristle over her having been robbed in the steampunk challenge. Sam you have made me root for Ken of all people to win a challenge and that is not okay. You're dead to me. That dress was aight but the wickety-wack faux pearl trim was eleventy kinds of wrong. I loved Kini as a designer on his season but damn, son, stop making the umbrella skirt, it was only fabulous that first time. His dress this week was hideous. Dom should have won that challenge, her look killed.

From a 1995 article in People Magazine: [Nicole's] family has been scrupulous about not discussing the murders or poisoning Justin and Sydney against O.J. "We don't talk about Daddy being in jail," Nicole's sister Tanya Brown told PEOPLE on the eve of the verdict. "We just play jungle gym." At their private school, meanwhile, mention of the case has also been forbidden. Even the managers of Pavilions Place, their local supermarket, place cardboard over magazines that feature Simpson on the cover. Indeed, every effort has been made to keep the children's lives normal: Justin has taken karate lessons, and Sydney has continued with her dance classes. But for father and children, some tough adjustments lie ahead. According to family friend Sheila Weller, author of Raging Heart, Simpson had originally explained his long absence by telling Sydney that he was away helping the police. But the little girl learned from a classmate that Simpson was in jail and for three months refused to talk to him—"until he leveled with her," says Weller. Then last spring, adds Weller, "she asked her grandmother if he was in jail because he was accused of killing her mother." After consulting a psychiatrist, the family finally told her about the case.

What I remember most about OJ trying on the gloves was that -- even if he weren't the murderer, ha -- these are STILL the gloves worn by the man who stabbed his kids' mother to death, a woman he supposedly always loved. And he's mugging for the cameras and the jury like that. Zero regard for his ex-wife's blood all over these gloves.

I had the opposite reaction -- all I could see were the lights everywhere and Chuck actually making contact with electricity (cue Jimmy: "How many lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb?"). Not so long ago he was living such an elegant lifestyle, and now he's eating bacon out of an ice chest. Wtf happened, Chuck? I guess Jimmy happened.