The Last Game

Some sort of trickery

Hi and thank you to all the Readers who commented that you want to hear my theory on who killed JonBenét Ramsey. You spoil me rotten, guys, and I love you for it! 💋

Left to right: Patsy, JonBenét and Burke Ramsey. Click pic for video.

To everyone else, I hope you enjoy this fictional essay nonetheless. It’s not my typical fare and I am not trying to bait and switch you I promise. Communicating the truth in whatever genre—with an eyeball trained on justice—is the overarching theme here at Mrs. Miller.

👁️

A little about me: When I was born my big brother Robert* is reported to have said, “Ugh a girl? Put her back.” Then he ran off to swing the cat around by the tail.

Robert was almost a decade older than me. He had a different dad, my mom’s first husband. I was a newcomer—an intruder—and my brother was not pleased especially since he already had two older sisters. He also had a learning disability and emotional issues. He went to a special school but that didn’t seem to help.

Robert and I were left to entertain ourselves for hours when we were young. My dad didn’t know how to relate to anyone, especially children, and he lost his temper when we made messes or forgot to turn off the bathroom light. He especially disliked Robert, who talked back and stole. Our mom was the opposite. She wasn’t a hands-on parent either, but we kids could do practically anything without consequences. When we were too much for my dad, he’d blow up. When life got to be too much for our mom, she’d hide in a closet and sob.

Like my own parents, John Ramsey was known for being cold and controlling while Patsy seemed to be permissive, overwhelmed and neurotic.

Me at 3 years old, 1972.

Sometimes I tell people I was raised by wolves.

🐺

Every memory I have of Robert and me “playing” involved trickery. In the ten years I lived with him before he moved out, I remember getting locked in closets, tied up, left to play dead, coerced into performing fellatio, walked on, punched, vandalized and terrorized—and I agreed to all of it. It got me thinking about JonBenét and Burke, how maybe she worshipped her big brother like I worshipped mine, how maybe she volunteered to play all of his ‘games,’ no matter how diabolical, and maybe—just maybe—it could explain her death.

One of the most frustrating things about the killing of JonBenét Ramsey is that there’s just enough circumstantial evidence to implicate almost any suspect, yet not enough physical evidence to exonerate them. Most people familiar with the case know that much of the crime scene was contaminated. Because of this and other unverifiable information, there are multiple prevailing theories: JDI (John did it), PDI (Patsy did it), RDI (Ramseys both did it), BDI (Burke did it), BDIA (Burke did it all) and IDI (an intruder did it.)

🔎

What you are about to read is a fictional narrative of the death of JonBenét Ramsey based partly on my experience as a victim of sibling abuse within the confines of a chaotic, dysfunctional household. The story strives to remain faithful to research which includes but is not limited to: the 2016 CBS true crime series, the recent Netflix series (which smells—not only to me—like red herring), a 2016 ID docuseries, this Crime Junkie podcast episode and a host of YouTube videos that offer multi-faceted analyses, grisly autopsy photographs and source content featuring the original cast of characters at different stages of the investigation. And of course, Reddit.

Hopefully I’ve created a plausible and thought-provoking, if previously unexplored scenario.

Thank you again for indulging me.

🎁

It was Christmas Night and we got put to bed, Burke and me. I’d fallen asleep in the car on the way home from the White’s but woke up later in bed because I was so excited after Santa and missed my doll and my bike. I wished I could SLEEP with them. I wanted to keep believing in Santa but Burke told me the truth and I felt mad at myself for being babyish and not knowing like he did, but I was only a kid then.

I laid in bed trying to sleep. I turned over and over and over. Then Burke came in. He couldn’t sleep either. “Let’s go play with our presents!” he whispered, leaning over me.

I wanted to but said we’d get in trouble. Daddy was already mad at him like always since Burke couldn’t follow rules.

Burke said, “I’ll make you pineapple,” and I sat up and stuck my tongue and paws out. Sometimes I was a puppy. Burke didn’t usually do nice stuff—nice stuff for ME, from HIM.

I was Burke’s helper. He called me Slave. I was supposed to call him Master but I kept forgetting. Burke never wanted to play my games so I had to do his rules, which meant losing things—like my dolls or piggy bank or candy—and getting hurt. That’s why pineapple from Burke was almost as good as Santa, who was fake anyway. At least Burke was real.

🎅🏼

Most games started with a bet. “Betcha can’t play dead for an hour!” he said one time and left me in the basement with the lights off. Mommy ran around the house screaming my name but I told Burke I could too play dead for an hour, even if I didn’t know how long an hour was, but I didn’t tell Mommy even when she screamed, “JonBenét! WHERE ARE YOU?”

We played a lot of games like that. And he put his poo on my things. On my walls. On my candy. It was gross. But I still wanted to play.

That’s how it started the night I died. We got down to the kitchen. To the pineapple—YUM! But he tricked me because he said it wasn’t for me anymore, just for him. He poured milk on it. YUCK. But it was his favorite.

Burke said I could have ONE PIECE if I let him do The Thing with his whittle stick. He got in trouble before for that, not for touching me with it… down there… but because he took Mommy’s paintbrush and broke it in pieces and then did his whittling on it. Mommy didn’t like it when Burke touched her things or made messes.

“You said I could have some,” I said.

“You can have ONE,” he laughed. “But first you have to pay the toll.”

I groaned.

“On your knees Slave,” he said, pointing at me with the stick like it was a sword.

I obeyed.

Burke said I had to take the toll for the basement. That I had to close my eyes and open my mouth and he’d put his thumb in which was the ticket and if I opened my eyes he’d stab me in the head with his whittling stick. He pushed the stick into my jaw and scratched me and put his thumb in my mouth and I scrunched my eyes really closed but his thumb felt like a weird tube and I knew it was his thing. YUCK.

After he took it out I still wasn’t allowed to open my eyes. “Can I have some pineapple now?” I asked him. My knees were starting to hurt from all the kneeling.

“I said ONE, not SOME,” he said.

“Burke,” I said. It came out babyish.

“Master,” Burke said.

“Master,” I said. Then I waited a little while.

“Open your eyes Slave,” he said and when I did he was eating the pineapple at the table.

Burke FINALLY gave me TWO PIECES OF PINEAPPLE. YUM!

He made me sit on the floor to eat it because I was a slave.

🍍

After, we went down to the basement with his big flashlight.

Burke took me to the presents hiding place for our next Christmas in Charlevoix. Mommy hid them. Burke said for me to tear a little bit of wrapping and then he would tear a little bit, just to peek but mine tore way more than his and he said I was going to get in gigantic trouble but he wouldn’t tell if I did all his games. That’s how I got the underwear. Because the wrapping tore so much and Burke said I could have them. They were brand new and only for bigger girls and had the days of the week on them from Bloomingdale’s. Mommy complained that the stores were sold out of size six but I didn’t care. I just wanted the underwear SO BAD I begged and begged for them. These ones said WEDNESDAY.

We went to Burke’s train room. He said, “Lie down Slave. Or I’m telling.”

It wasn’t that bad because the underwear kept falling down when I was standing.

Burke got the stick inside my tinkle with my underwear on. I wanted to get to the part where I could go back to sleep because I was getting tired. Also I didn’t want my new underwear to get a hole. Also it scratched and hurt. OUCH.

He did the stick thing a little more, poking it in my tinkle and looking between my legs. I don’t know what was so interesting down there.

And then it was over, just like a real doctor visit except my brand new underwear had BLOOD on them and I felt mad.

“Can we go back upstairs now?” I asked. I yawned. I was SO tired. And my tinkle hurt.

Burke took a laundry string rope thing and wrapped it around the stick, right in the middle a whole bunch until it looked like a big white caterpillar. He knew how to make it because in Boy Scouts he learned it.

“Betcha I can twist the stick around your neck a hundred times!” Burke said. “It’s called something I forget,” he laughed. “It’s for torture.”

I said, “A whole hundred?”

He said, “A hundred or I’ll tell Dad you tore the presents. And that you stole the underwear. Also I have your fingerprints.”

“But Burke you promised!” Tears were starting to get in the corners of my eyes.

Burke said he was MASTER and that I was a crybaby but also he promised this would be the last game and it wouldn’t be a big deal but my hair got tangled up in the stick thing at twenty-four turns and it pulled really hard and my neck hurt a lot.

I started wiggling and he grabbed my shirt. He put his face up right next to mine and breathed hard. “If you move,” he said, “I’ll tell.” I stopped moving. He grinned and started twisting again. “Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven…”

At thirty-three turns the whole world went black. I was going away, up to the sky.

Burke saw how frozen I got and untwisted the string. Then I started coughing and came back down to myself. I opened my eyes and didn’t know where I was. The whole world looked like make-believe. Like a dream. I started crying. “This game is bad,” I said.

“You’re the biggest baby,” Burke said. He laughed so hard he fell over.

“I’m telling Daddy,” I said, tears sliding down my cheeks, bumping over the scar Burke gave me that time he hit me with the golf club when I was little.

I tried to get up. Burke made me so sad not loving me like a nice big brother, especially when I always did everything he said. I tried to get the string and stick off my neck. I know the fancy word for it now—garrote. But back then it was just a dumb stick and some white rope stuff.

I stood up a little bit and then everything went black again.

I fell down and started floating up to the sky all at the same time because Burke hit me on the head with something really hard.

My brother killed me a little with the garrote and killed me all the way with his big flashlight.

He told the truth about one thing—this was the last game.

🔦

Burke tried to wake me but I was dead.

I could see everything now. I was an angel.

“JonBenét,” Burke cried. “Dad’ll take my Nintendo.” He shook me, but I didn’t move or cough or anything. I didn’t even breathe. “Quit playing, JonBenét,” he said. “I was only kidding about the fingerprints.” He sounded scared for the first time.

I didn’t care anymore if he got in trouble. I was gone. There was no feelings. Just watching. Just quiet and okay and watching. God says there’s a word for it. Detached. That’s what angels are. We’re too far away to be sad even though we’re close too. We’re not mean though. It’s hard to explain.

Burke was not detached. He got one of his train tracks and started poking me with it. He thought I’d wake up from a sharp poke.

Poke. Poke. Nothing.

Burke found a piece of duck tape and stuck it over my mouth in case I woke up and told on him. Then he dragged me by my hands—he couldn’t carry me—from his train room into Daddy’s wine room which was dark and a good hiding spot and had a lock on the door. He found a blanket in the dryer and threw it on top of me because my face almost made him cry.

Almost.

🪽

Burke got into his poo bed but he couldn’t stop thinking about not being able to play Nintendo so he decided to tell our mom and dad. He would tell them it was just an accident. Everything would go back to normal in the morning.

He walked into Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom at the top of our house and stood next to Daddy’s head.

“Dad,” he said.

Daddy woke up a little. Mommy was still asleep and snoring. She likes wine and special pills for helping with her nerves and cancer and it makes her sleep a lot.

“This better be good,” Daddy said. He didn’t like being interrupted when he was sleeping.

“Something happened to JonBenét,” Burke said.

“What do you mean ‘happened to JonBenét?’” Daddy said, pushing his head up from the pillow.

“She’s not waking up,” Burke said. “It was an accident!”

“What time is it?” Daddy said. He scrunched his eyes and looked at his clock with the glowing red numbers. It was already the next morning—December 26—but still dark.

My mom woke up and said, “What happened?” Over and over. Her hair was messy.

“Where is she?” Daddy said. He kept blinking because now the lights were on. Burke pointed out the door.

“Follow me,” he said.

Daddy grumbled all the way down the stairs and Mommy complained about all the packing she still needed to do for Charlevoix.

When they saw me my mom screamed so loud the neighbors heard and my dad cried. I never saw him cry before. My dad started yelling at Burke. He cussed and everything.

“What the hell did you do?” my dad yelled at the tops of his lungs. “WHAT DID YOU DO!?”

Mommy fell on me and grabbed for the tape and the garrote but Daddy stopped her.

“Patsy, stop. Stop!” He dropped down next to her.

“What are you talking about!?” She screamed in his face.

She kept trying to get the string.

Our dad yelled at my brother to go to his room.

“Can I still have my Nintendo?” Burke asked and Daddy shouted, “GET OUT OF HERE!” He was like a lion.

Burke ran upstairs and then Daddy took Mommy’s hands and they cried and cried. Then he told Mommy he had an idea. If they could make my death look like a bad guy came and kidnapped me, Burke wouldn’t have to go to jail so they’d still have one kid to be with. Daddy always thought three steps ahead. He was smart. He said so all the time. And anyone who didn’t see things his way was CRAZY.

Mommy started nodding a lot, her face going up and down so fast her cheeks shook. “Okay John. Okay. Tell me what to do. Oh God! Oh God!”

That’s how the note got written. Daddy told Mommy to make her handwriting sloppy and he told her what to say but she wanted to add her own ideas and Daddy let her because she was crying so much and that’s how the note got so long and why it’s not like other notes. Ransom notes.

It’s also why the note didn’t scare Mommy from calling the police. It was all made up. Also I was already dead.

📝

Daddy came back to see me again. He put his fingers all over my head and could feel the part that sunk in where Burke hit it with the flashlight, so he went up to Burke’s room to ask him what he hit me with so he could wipe all the fingerprints off. He wiped me too—my hands, my tinkle, my neck with the stick and string. He fixed the tape back on my mouth and tied my hands together to make it look like a real bad guy did all the things Burke did. Then he went back to Burke’s room.

Daddy told Burke he could never tell anyone what happened or he’d go to jail for the rest of his life, along with Mommy and Daddy, and Burke would never play Nintendo again. But if he kept the secret, even from all the police who my dad said weren’t even good guys in real life like we were, he could have Nintendo ALL THE TIME, and anything else he wanted for his WHOLE LIFE.

Burke said, “I promise! I promise!” Even though he told the police lady he knew what happened. Then he fell asleep, dreaming of playing Nintendo. I could see his eyes rolling around even though they were closed, and then his lips curved up in a smile.

He’s been smiling ever since.

🙊

Hundreds and thousands of people think they know what happened to me—that a bad guy snuck into our house, or my dad did it, or it was Mommy pushing me in the bathroom because I peed in my bed, or Burke got mad because I ate his pineapple and then Daddy did the garrote to make it look like a bad guy came in. But the truth isn’t fancy like all that. The whole thing was a game. It was just a silly old game.

I didn’t get in trouble for tearing the presents wrapping and Burke didn’t get in trouble for making me dead. My daddy is playing his own silly game for all these years after the day I died and he thinks he’s winning, but God and us angels know he lost a long time ago.

♟️