FBI UCR discontinued reporting the age of offenders in 1980, but the National Center for Juvenile Justice reported a forcible rape rate of .02 per 1000 for 10 and 11 year olds in 1988.
1990 FBI and media reports in this time period indicate that among adults convicted of sex crimes, approximately 30% said they began offending before they were 9 years old.
A 1991 study revealed that some children engaged in behaviors that involved fire-setting, bed-wetting, animal mutilation, and scatological behaviors- (disturbed bodily functions related to urination and elimination).
A 1993 nationwide survey of SBP therapists identified preadolescent behaviors in 222 children that ranged from voyeurism to coercion: The more serious offenses involved digital penetration, penile intercourse, anal intercourse, bestiality, and ritualistic or sadistic sexual abuse.
Another 1993 survey conducted in the Northwest revealed that some offenders used physical coercion that included tying up their victims.
Offenders lack compassion, empathy, and exhibit inadequate social skills.
A victim may be the object of revenge or anger and could be viewed as the parent’s “favored child” by the perpetrator.
Families frequently attempt to portray themselves to the world as the “perfect” family.
Co-morbidity: SBP patients have a higher incidence of psychiatric disorders that include, but are not limited to, attachment disorder and separation anxiety.
Revelation of these clinical case studies and the emerging national recognition of this childhood behavioral disorder was in its infancy at the time of JonBenét’s death, but confirmed what I had occasionally witnessed in the District Attorneys’ weekly SART meetings: Children of Burke’s age had been proven capable of sexually abusing their siblings and others.
Moreover, these studies confirmed that children of his age were capable of committing horrendous acts of physical violence typically thought to have been reserved to adults.
It had been stated repeatedly that there had been no prior recorded history / incidents of abuse that would have suggested parental involvement in JonBenét’s death. As I pointed out in the case analysis report and Power Point outline completed in the fall of 2006, Burke had already exhibited one prior incident of violence against JonBenét.
The incident that involved a blow to the head with a golf club that took place in Michigan was claimed to be an “accident” by the Ramsey family, but it is interesting to note that this incident took place within a day or two of JonBenét’s birthday in August 1994.
One can only wonder whether sibling jealousy or envy may have played any part in that instance, and whether these feelings spilled over into the events of the Christmas holidays in 1996.
I had also found it interesting that the Paughs had reportedly purchased several books on childhood behavior for the Ramsey family. The titles of the books were intriguing:
The Hurried Child – Growing Up Too Fast, by David Elkind;
Children at Risk, Dobson / Bruer;
Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right From Wrong, Kilpatrick.
When exploring the nature of the content of these three books, I wondered what might have been taking place in the home that prompted the grandparents to purchase these types of childhood behavioral books for the family.
I had reviewed an investigator’s report that documented a 1997 interview with former Ramsey nanny – housekeeper Geraldine Vodicka, who stated that Burke had smeared feces on the walls of a bathroom during his mother’s first bout with cancer. She told investigators that Nedra Paugh, who was visiting the Ramsey home at the time, had directed her to clean up the mess.
There were other police reports in the files that documented what I thought could be viewed as related behavior. CSIs had written about finding a pair of pajama bottoms in JonBenét’s bedroom that contained fecal material. They were too big for her and were thought to belong to Burke.
Additionally, a box of candy located in her bedroom had also been observed to be smeared with feces. Both of these discoveries had been made during the processing of the crime scene during the execution of search warrants following the discovery of JonBenét’s body.
I wondered whether fecal material observed in pajamas thought to belong to Burke, and smeared on the box of candy in his sister’s bedroom, could have been related to the symptoms of scatological behavior associated with SBP.
I also contemplated the reasons why a box of JonBenét’s candy would have been smeared with human excrement.
As noted previously, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh had also mentioned finding fecal material in JonBenét’s bed sheets. It raised the question as to who may have been responsible for the deposit of that material in her bed – had it been JonBenét or was it Burke?
I readily admit that I am not a trained psychologist – psychiatrist, having taken only the most basic of courses during my college studies. But these observations pointed to indicia of some type of behavioral issue that had been taking place in the Ramsey household, and they appeared to have been taking place over some period of time. Incidents like these would not likely have become known to those outside the family, but could have been an underlying reason for the grandparent’s purchase of the childhood behavioral books discussed previously.
I eventually conducted a brief telephone interview with Dr. Araji in the late winter of 2007. I did not divulge the details of the investigation that I was working on, but wanted to know what more she could tell me about the treatment of children diagnosed with the symptoms of SBP.
Dr. Araji advised that treatment for young patients exhibiting signs of this behavioral disorder could be successfully concluded in as little as three to four months. Sessions frequently involved other family members, and appropriate role-playing exercises were part of the treatment curriculum.
I inquired whether treatment for SBP would last a year or more. Dr. Araji indicated that it was possible, but that treatment going on for an extended period of time might be due to the involvement of some other type of behavioral disorder problem. She advised that SBP symptoms could be intermixed with other childhood behavioral disorders, thus requiring greater lengths of treatment.
Once again, I came away with more questions than what had been answered. Though some described Burke as being a little withdrawn, the reports that I reviewed about his conduct and work at school appeared to be representative of a normal child in his age range. But these records didn’t correspond to the impressions Dr. Bernhard had formed during her interview with him, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had been going on behind closed doors at the Ramsey home.
It wasn’t clear from his parent’s interviews exactly how long Burke had been seeing a psychiatrist, but it seemed safe to assume that some type of treatment and psychological testing had been taking place after JonBenét’s death. Otherwise, neither of his parents would have made reference to his counseling sessions during their interviews.
I contemplated the demeanor that had been exhibited in the transcript of the first interview conducted of Burke by Detective Patterson, and the “affect” that had been described by Dr. Bernhard during the interview she had completed with him a couple weeks later. My review of the videotape of that particular interview raised concerns, and I wondered whether the co-morbidity of an attachment disorder should be considered in the grand scheme of things. It was something that Dr. Bernhard had expressed concerns about, and it had been an underlying reason for her thoughts that follow-up interviews should be conducted to further explore the matter.
In my review of all of the official interviews recorded with this boy, not once had he expressed concern about the welfare of his sister, nor had he ever asked investigators how their search for her killer was progressing.
The stress of his mother’s battle with a deadly disease could have accounted for a fear of being abandoned, and very well could have contributed to the emotions associated with separation anxiety. It is important to note this illness took place when Burke was at an early and imp
ressionable age.
In considering all of these circumstances, it seemed plausible to me that there were a whole host of things taking place in the home environment that could have influenced the events that eventually unfolded on the evening of December 25, 1996.
As a criminal investigator who was attempting to make sense of the clues that were presenting themselves in this inquiry, the question that arose is this:
• Under currently accepted behavioral science lore, was it reasonably possible for a 9-year-old, who was several weeks from turning ten years of age at the time of this murder, to have committed this type of crime without having exhibited symptoms of some type of behavioral disorder to teachers and others outside the home before and after the death of JonBenet?
The observations of family friends and Dr. Bernhard notwithstanding, I explored the Internet for updated studies on the topic of sexually aggressive children following my call to Dr. Araji, and observed that there were a number of more recently published articles on the disorder.
The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, authored a fairly extensive article in March 2001 that provided a comprehensive overview of research on the matter.
Juveniles Who Have Sexually Offended – A Review of the Professional Literature71 pointed out that sex offenses committed by juveniles continued to be a serious problem. The researchers who authored the article provided a comprehensive and annotated account of the many research projects that had documented the characteristics of juveniles who commit sex offenses. The article also explored the types of offenses committed, and the characteristics of the families of juvenile offenders.
Discussions regarding the characteristics of offenders included Offending Behaviors, Child Maltreatment Histories, Social and Interpersonal Skills and Relationships, Sexual Knowledge and Experiences, Academic and Cognitive Functioning, and Mental Health Issues.
Other headings of interest included Types and Classifications of Offenders and provided an outline of behaviors related to Sibling Incest, Girls Who Have Committed Sex Offenses, Young Children Who Have Committed Sex Offenses, Juveniles with Developmental Disabilities and Mental Retardation Who Have Committed Sex Offense, and Juveniles Who Have Committed Sex Offenses Versus Other Types of Offenses.
And lastly, of course, the article covered the results of research on the critical aspects of the Assessment and Treatment of this childhood disorder.
There were numerous articles and research studies that had followed on the heels of Dr. Araji’s comprehensive publication and some of the articles I reviewed included the following:
The California Social Work Education Center published an article titled Child Sexual Abuse in 2002.
The National Center On Sexual Behavior Of Youth published a Fact Sheet on the topic of “Sexual Development and Sexual Behavior Problems in Children Ages 2 – 12”, in January, 2004.
The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers published a report in 2006, titled Report of the Task Force on Children with Sexual Behavior Problems,72 which was intended to guide professional practices with children, ages 12 and under. The mission of the ATSA was to promote effective intervention and management practices for individuals who have engaged in abusive sexual behavior.
The point to be made is that the Internet offered an abundant amount of materials on articles that had documented research involving the emerging issue of children who were involved in problematic sexual behavioral.
The studies seemed to confirm Dr. Araji’s initial exploration of the matter, and revealed that we are all born as sexual beings. Research on sexual behavior of children ages 2 to 12 suggests that sexual responses are present from birth, and that a wide range of sexual behaviors for this age range are normal and non-problematic. Further, sexual development and behavior are believed to be influenced by social, familial, and cultural factors, as well as genetics and biology.
It is the sexual “acting out” that falls outside the norm of human sexual development that has created the concern about child, and juvenile offenders. What I found intriguing was that children exhibiting behavior associated with SBP ranged widely in their degree of severity and potential harm to other children.
Furthermore, researchers had determined that there was no universal characteristic, or profile, that could help identify the children who were most likely to offend.
And despite concerns that children who had begun offending at an early age would continue into their later years, evidence suggested that the bulk of children diagnosed with SBP were at very low risk for committing future sex offenses, especially when provided with appropriate treatment.
While a large number of children identified with symptoms of SBP were overtly exhibiting behavior that appeared developmentally inappropriate, others showed no outward sign of sexual problems.
It was noted in a number of studies that sibling incest was quite prevalent, but it often went underreported and ignored. Contrary to the studies involving extra-familial sexual abuse, research found that it was difficult for parents to report the abuse of one of their children when it has been perpetrated at the hands of another child in the household.
One 1991 study referenced in the U.S. Department of Justice article indicated that the duration of sex offending was greatest for sibling offenders. Nearly 45% of the sibling offenders studied in the research had been committing offenses for more than a year.73 Moreover, sibling offenders were more likely to vaginally or anally penetrate their victims than extra-familial offenders.
Research continued to find reports of scatological behavior that was associated with SBP diagnoses, and indicated that mental health issues relating to anger, depression, and anxiety were factors that offenders attempted to resolve by acting out sexually.
One particular set of studies caught my attention as I struggled with the significance of the absence of pronounced symptoms of a behavioral disorder. This body of research reported that as a group, juveniles who sexually offended typically experienced academic difficulties. One study, however, found that 32% of a sample of male juvenile sex offenders had above-average academic performance.74
The conclusions I drew from my review of these many studies was that coming to understand the dynamics underlying the causes of childhood sexual behavioral problems was extremely complex. Many variables figured into the equation as childhood psychotherapists, over the years, have attempted to understand and appropriately respond to the issue of this type of sexual behavior.
To me, the more pressing question to be resolved centered on the issue of whether children of Burke’s age were capable of committing acts of physical violence that included murder. Additionally, having committed such an act, could we expect to see some type of specific pre-offense, or post-offense behavior, which would alert us to the child’s propensity to commit this type of crime.
The FBI reported that there had been 15,848 people murdered in the United States in 1996. Seven-hundred and twenty-three (723) of those had been eight (8) years old and younger.
I conducted further research into crime statistics involving juvenile offenders75 and learned that two-hundred and fifty-seven
(257) children, who were fourteen (14) years of age and younger, had been arrested for murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the United States in 1996.
Sixteen (16) of those arrests had been for boys under the age of 10. Another fourteen (14) arrests involved boys aged 10 to 12 years.
The statistics for forcible rape were even more discouraging. Sixty-one (61) boys under the age of ten had been arrested for this offense in 1996. An additional three-hundred and thirty-five (335) boys had been arrested who were aged 10 to 12 years.
John Douglas’s thoughts about the perpetrator being a single-time offender struck a chord when I reviewed national homicide statistics. Douglas had rendered the opinion that the person who killed JonBenét was a “mission oriented offender” and would not likely kill again.
Thankfully, people
who commit serial murders are far and few between, but like those who perpetrate single offenses, offenders usually tend to blend in with the rest of us. They don’t advertise their actions by tattooing a scarlet “M” on their forehead, and it frequently takes a great deal of investigative work to identify the person responsible for committing this type of crime.
Additionally, given the fact that a great number of murders are never solved, it must be presumed that many perpetrators were able to successfully elude the attention of authorities and that their outward behavior did not give them away.
Was it possible for a perpetrator in this particular instance to have taken the life of another and go forward without necessarily drawing the attention of authorities, or that of the people with whom they interacted every day?
To date, no one has been arrested and convicted for the murder of JonBenét, so I would have to say that the answer to that question is a resounding “yes.”
It therefore must be acknowledged that there are many who walk among us, of all ages, sex and color, who have murdered someone at some point in their lives, and they have thus far successfully eluded identification and capture.
Whether it had been accidental, or intentional, I believed that the national statistics pointed to the real possibility that a 9 or 10-year old could have committed a crime as egregious as the murder of JonBenét. It was my belief that the possibility of Burke’s involvement in the events of December 25 – 26 warranted further exploration.
In coming to understand the family dynamic, I felt it was necessary to consider Patsy Ramsey’s view of the world. Striving for the image of perfection came early for her and was demonstrated through the various things she accomplished over the course of her lifetime.
As a high school cheerleader, she became drawn to being the center of attention and moved on to the competition of beauty pageants. She won the title of Miss West Virginia in 1977 and later competed for the Miss America crown.
Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet? Page 32