Psychic picture in JonBenet Ramsey case

[elliotfc]

Hey I'm new to this corner. I also find psychic detectives unpalatable. Having said that, this picture picqued my interest, halfway down the page...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/ramsey/epilogue_12.html

The jaw appears to be all wrong, but the sketch is askew. The hair is wrong, but hairstyles change. Other than that, not bad. Not bad at all. I mean the artwork. Surely there's nothing psychic about the picture, no way! -Elliot

[gfunkusarelius]

are you saying it resembles the man that was arrested? i havent seen a side by side, i suppose i could look for one

edit to add: okay, here is a side by side i just made. got to admit, i have seen worse, but if someone just followed the standard FBI profile they would likely come up with something like this.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b16/gfunkusarelius/jbr.jpg

[Miss Whiplash]

I saw that too, today. There is a similarity but the psychic was a friend of Patsy Ramsey. No doubt this is the man the Ramsey's suspected all along.

Psychic Pic (http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/notorious_murders/famous/ramsey/12a.jpg)

John mark Karr (http://www.wral.com/2006/0817/9692781_480X360.jpg)
The woos will run with this one though.

[kedo1981]

I’m sorry but how is this drawing even close
One point maybe, the skinny neck.
The chin is completely different, Karr has wide deep set eyes the sketch shows narrow set eyes.
Karr has a Vladimir Putin hair-do, the sketch, a Hitler comb over.
The ears are not even close
Karr has a prominent (you could even say, sensual ;)) lower lip, the sketch almost no lips at all.

[Goshawk]

The thing is, John Ramsey, while never an official suspect, was widely suspected at the time by people in general of having been involved in the killing, if not actually having killed her himself. And it's also widely known that according to homicide statistics, you're much more likely to be killed by a family member than by a total stranger.

So the psychic, not surprisingly, came up with a picture of the only adult male caucasian closely associated with the case. He's got the pointy chin and the hair parted on one side and swept over. It's a win-win situation for her: if, statistics being on her side, it turns out the dad did it, she gets to count a "hit", and if not, she loses nothing.


http://www.bouldernews.com/extra/ramsey/photos/family_portrait.jpg

http://www.bouldernews.com/extra/ramsey/photos/john_portrait.jpg

It reminds me of the way the police sketches of the man Susan Smith said abducted her children looked uncannily like her husband in blackface...

[Outhere]

John Mark Karr would never have been arrested if all the police had to go on was the psychic's sketch. They'd have been looking for an individual whose egg-shaped head, with its smooth domed forehead, very pointed chin, small nose and slit of a mouth might be a Roswell Grey after plastic surgery. John Mark Karr's head is more of an oblong, he has a noticeable brow ridge, fairly thick lips, and might even pass for an all-American scoutmaster or a schoolteacher. Schoolteacher!!??

[fuelair]

I’m sorry but how is this drawing even close
One point maybe, the skinny neck.
The chin is completely different, Karr has wide deep set eyes the sketch shows narrow set eyes.
Karr has a Vladimir Putin hair-do, the sketch, a Hitler comb over.
The ears are not even close
Karr has a prominent (you could even say, sensual ;)) lower lip, the sketch almost no lips at all.and, re:hair, Karr has widow's peak while drawing is high/receding at front.

[Orphia Nay]

I saw that too, today. There is a similarity but the psychic was a friend of Patsy Ramsey. No doubt this is the man the Ramsey's suspected all along.

Psychic Pic (http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/notorious_murders/famous/ramsey/12a.jpg)

John mark Karr (http://www.wral.com/2006/0817/9692781_480X360.jpg)
The woos will run with this one though.

I agree. I think it's very likely a case of hot reading, or rather, hot drawing.

The crimelibrary article states:

To this day, John and Patsy Ramsey have lived up to their promise and continue to search for their daughter's killer. They have posted a composite sketch of a suspect compiled by the late psychic, Dorothy Allison, on their Internet site with the attached message:

"Have you seen this man? This man may have been in the Boulder area in December 1996. ... We firmly believe that this most horrible of killers will be caught based on information provided by people who care about right and wrong. ... Please help, so another innocent child will not be a victim and another family will not suffer unbearable grief."

Allison, who claimed to have assisted police investigations, came up with her vision of the suspect during an April 1998 appearance on a network television show. She died on December 3, 1999. Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner declined to comment on the late psychic's work.


The Ramsays might have used the 'psychic' (or rather the psychic's artistic abilities) to appeal to the public for information the only way they could - without naming names or providing concrete evidence - by describing their suspect as well as they could remember, or the way they remembered.

[Loss Leader]

Surely there's nothing psychic about the picture, no way! -Elliot

Especially since it's looking more and more like Karr is just a very sad man who had nothing to do with JonBenet until after her disappearance. It looks like he's not the guy. In which case, the psychic wins again - the sketch is vague enough to be him if he's guilty and to not be him if he isn't. Talk about confirmation bias.

[Orphia Nay]

The newspaper I'm reading says (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20165536-661,00.html):

"Karr's arrest still left plenty of mystery, including his possible relationship to the Ramseys.

Some reports said he lived in Boulder at the time JonBenet was killed.

Others said he lived near the Ramseys in Atlanta when she was a toddler.

Mr Wood [the Ramseys' lawyer] said the that Ramseys gave information about Karr to police before he was identified as a suspect.

He would not say how the Ramseys knew Karr."

[I'll_buy_that]

the sketch looks nothing like him. How many details need to be wrong before someone says, that's not him?

[steve s]

Has anyone noticed he dresses a lot like Ed Grimley, I must say.

Steve S

[CardZeus]

Who else does it look like?

http://i8.tinypic.com/24wu1qt.jpg http://i8.tinypic.com/24wvn0i.jpg

[Flange Desire]

the sketch looks nothing like him. How many details need to be wrong before someone says, that's not him?

Interesting point.
When I first saw the side-by-side in this thread, I thought "That really DOES look close".
But then I read on and acknowlegde the obvious differences!

It must be that parieria (watchacallit) thing at work.

[alfaniner]

I won't be surprised when the psychics who are currently saying, "I knew that guy did it all along!" will be negated by finding out that he didn't do it after all, and is just some wannabe pervert.

[gfunkusarelius]

Who else does it look like?

http://i8.tinypic.com/24wu1qt.jpg http://i8.tinypic.com/24wvn0i.jpg

haha, MUCH better match. that is amazing.
at least i scaled mine correctly tho :D

[Almo]

They don't look much alike to me. Well, they both have a nose and two eyes and a mouth and some hair, I guess.

[bignickel]

Aside from the differences in chin, lips, nose, eyes, and hairline, the photos are eerily similar!

Wooooooooooo....!

[JamesM]

Another thread on the subject:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=61920

[I'll_buy_that]

Timothy McVei?

[KingMerv00]

How many psychic sketches were there? Surely at least one of them had to be of a thin white guy. The real question is, how bad are the rest?

[Navin]

news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20165536-661,00.html"]The newspaper I'm reading says:

"Karr's arrest still left plenty of mystery, including his possible relationship to the Ramseys.

Some reports said he lived in Boulder at the time JonBenet was killed.

Others said he lived near the Ramseys in Atlanta when she was a toddler.

Mr Wood [the Ramseys' lawyer] said the that Ramseys gave information about Karr to police before he was identified as a suspect.

He would not say how the Ramseys knew Karr."

I'm aware of no reports saying Karr lived in Boulder. Nada. In fact, that sentence no longer appears in the linked article. I've been quite fascinated so far by the lack of any hypothesized connection in 1996 between Karr and the Ramseys or Boulder.

There's a good discussion on this in Current Events. Not the psychic angle, but just discussing the case and evidence released to date. (Can't link URLs yet)... forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=61905

[Foolmewunz]

That's Karr TODAY. What did he look like ten years ago?

The woos are going to take this even farther.... The psychic was so brilliant that she described what the perp would look like when he was caught in about a decade! MEGO (journalists' acronym for "my eyes glaze over", popularized in Pentagon briefings during the 60's)

[Tamazon]

The had the psychic that drew the picture on "The Insider" this evening. They were raving about the striking and uncanny resemblence. Well, the psychic wasn't actually on the show, just clips of her making the "prediction" 10 years ago on the Leeza show.

[Foolmewunz]

Wow (I mean Woo)! I must by psychic.

[KelvinG]

Of course, the sketch wouldn't have even been necessary if the psychic had been able to tell police the name and whereabouts of Karr.

But, that would actually prove something and we can't have that now, can we.

[Orphia Nay]

The newspaper I'm reading says (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20165536-661,00.html):

"Karr's arrest still left plenty of mystery, including his possible relationship to the Ramseys.

Some reports said he lived in Boulder at the time JonBenet was killed.

Others said he lived near the Ramseys in Atlanta when she was a toddler.

Mr Wood [the Ramseys' lawyer] said the that Ramseys gave information about Karr to police before he was identified as a suspect.

He would not say how the Ramseys knew Karr."

I'm aware of no reports saying Karr lived in Boulder. Nada. In fact, that sentence no longer appears in the linked article. I've been quite fascinated so far by the lack of any hypothesized connection in 1996 between Karr and the Ramseys or Boulder.

There's a good discussion on this in Current Events. Not the psychic angle, but just discussing the case and evidence released to date. (Can't link URLs yet)... forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=61905

Wow, they've totally edited that article since I cut and pasted that!

I wonder where they got the statement from their lawyer that says the Ramsays gave information about Karr to police, and whether that was fabricated.

Thanks for the heads-up.

[Tamazon]

From the latest e-mail I got from CSICOP. Looks A LOT less alike now! The author uses "forensic caricaturing" to emphasize the pictures. Pretty cool.



karr side by side.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=2811&stc=1&d=1156486567)2811