404 Not Found

404 Not Found


nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu)
News Magazine - Current Events
US News - National News - Political News
World News - Global News - International News
Business News - Personal Finance News - Tech News
Arts and Entertainment News - Books - Movie Reviews - Music Reviews
Science News Articles - Health News Articles - Science Articles - Health Articles
Magazine Articles - News Articles - News Reports
News Photos - News Pictures - Photo Essays
Web Graphics - News Graphics - Photo News - Online Photo Gallery
Magazine Newsstand - Current Issue - Current Magazine
TIME Magazine Covers - TIME Covers - TIME Magazine Cover Archive
TIME Life Books - Book Store - Photo Books
TIME Magazine Archives - TIME Archives - TIME Magazine Back Issues
Fashion Styles - Luxury Fashion - Fashion Magazine
Baby Boomer Generation - Senior Living - Retirement Living
International Business - Global Market - International Trade
Company Profiles - Business Information - Business and Economy
Notebook

Crime
Did an Intruder Kill JonBenet Ramsey?
Although no suspects other than JOHN and PATSY RAMSEY have been named in the 1996 murder of their daughter JonBenet, a key figure in the investigation remains convinced that the killer was a pedophile bent on kidnapping who broke into the Boulder, Colo., home and assaulted the six-year-old while her family slept.

LOU SMIT, a retired Colorado Springs homicide detective, worked on the case for 18 months before quitting in protest over the direction the probe was going. Smit formed another theory using key pieces of evidence. He believes the killer may have spotted JonBenet as she glided by in a convertible in Boulder's holiday Parade of Lights. On Christmas night, while the family was out, he entered through a basement window, roamed the house and penned a ransom note, using a legal pad and black Sharpie marker he found near the kitchen.

Around midnight, after the family's return, he slipped upstairs to JonBenet's room and, using a stun gun, temporarily immobilized her. He carried the youngster to the basement and sexually assaulted her while simultaneously choking her, apparently for the thrill, with a garrote--a favored tool of pedophiles, Smit says--fashioned from the handle of one of Patsy Ramsey's paintbrushes.

When JonBenet woke, tore the duct tape from her mouth and began screaming, Smit theorizes that the killer panicked and struck her, perhaps with a heavy flashlight. With no time to retrieve his note from upstairs, the killer broke a window and fled. Later, police found a scuff mark from what appeared to be a boot on the nearby wall as well as unidentified boot and palm prints.

From his experience with more than 200 murder and fantasy-stalker cases, Smit believes the killer intended to go to Mexico--that is why he demanded the odd sum of $118,000, which at the time was close to a million pesos, and some of it in $20 bills, for easy exchanging. "I believe the Ramseys are innocent," says Smit. "If it's an intruder, it's not the parents, and I think it's that simple." He adds, "The theory doesn't determine the evidence. The evidence should determine the theory."

Those were comforting words to JonBenet's family. JEFF RAMSEY, John's brother, told TIME, "We want to do whatever we can to find the killer, hopefully with the help of law-enforcement agencies."

Follow-Up
Air Force Disowns $32 Million T-3 Planes
The Air Force last week grounded forever the training plane that killed three rookie pilots and their instructors at the Air Force Academy. The service spent $32 million on 110 of the prop-driven T-3 Fireflies in the early 1990s. Its goal: to put fledgling pilots into acrobatic maneuvers that would screen out pilots who would have later failed at more demanding--and costlier--jets.

But after the six deaths at the academy, from 1995 to 1997, the Air Force "temporarily suspended" the T-3 training program and spent $6 million trying to fix the plane's engine woes. Air Force headquarters ordered a thorough investigation into the T-3 following questions raised by TIME in January 1998. Defending the plane after the article ran, GENERAL LLOYD NEWTON, chief of Air Force training, pledged to fly one of the planes before another rookie pilot did.

On Oct. 1 Newton told top Air Force officials that the T-3 fixes wouldn't be completed for up to two years, and the brass ordered the program scrapped. "For me, obviously, it's too late," said Linda Fischer, whose son Dan died in the first T-3 accident. "But it's good to know that no one else at the academy will suffer because of that plane."

For Left-Handed Caddies Named Gatlin: Payday!
Financing a higher education is easy if you are a lefty and attending Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa. Thanks to a southpaw benefactor who felt discriminated against, junior and senior lefties can get up to $1,000 a year as long as they need help. The scholarship is just one in a long list of odd grants, some tied to a specific school but most for the college of your choice. Which ones do you qualify for?

--Up to $9,000 for those who served as caddie at a Golf Association of Philadelphia club

--$8,000 for those named Gatlin or Gatling who attend North Carolina State University

--$3,000 for the children of licensed harness-racing drivers

--$1,000 for grain millers and their dependents

--$800-$1,000 for descendants of worthy Confederate veterans

--$250-$1,000 for those who grew up as "freethinkers"

--$300-$400 for greater New Bedford, Mass., residents whose ancestors were seafarers

--$300 for eagle scouts at Johnson & Wales University

--$3,333-$10,000 from David Letterman for telecommunications students at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

--Endowments for those named Hudson or Baxendale who attend Harvard

Numbers
1,021 Number of days between JonBenet Ramsey's murder and the inconclusive end of the grand jury probe

1,114 Number of days between President Clinton's signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and its rejection by the Senate

21 Years that lead paint has been banned

66% Proportion of American houses that still have lead paint in them

890,000 Number of children ages one to five who have "elevated" levels of lead in their blood

1 Lead-paint lawsuit filed by states

68 Percentage of doctors nationwide who have not exercised in the past year

5 Number of times doctors are more likely than computer programmers to have fast food for lunch; 57% of doctors eat it three times a week or more

1 Position of doctors in a survey to determine which profession would most like to see marijuana legalized

Sources: AP, Washington Post, New York Times, survey of 1,300 professionals

Special Treatyment
NOT PLAYING BALL The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons, which the Senate rejected last week, isn't the only international treaty that the U.S. has refused to sign or ratify. Here are some others:

TREATY Land Mine Ban Treaty
GENERAL PURPOSE To ban the use, stockpiling, transfer and production of antipersonnel land mines
OTHER HOLDOUTS Cuba, Finland, Turkey, China, Russia

TREATY International Criminal Court Treaty
GENERAL PURPOSE To establish a court with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes
OTHER HOLDOUTS China, Iraq, Libya, Qatar, Yemen, Israel

TREATY Kyoto Protocol
GENERAL PURPOSE To reduce greenhouse-gas emissions
OTHER HOLDOUTS China, India, Mexico, Brazil

TREATY U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child
GENERAL PURPOSE To protect children from human-rights violations
OTHER HOLDOUTS Somalia

TREATY Convention on Biological Diversity
GENERAL PURPOSE To protect threatened plant and animal species
OTHER HOLDOUTS No developed nation

TREATY League of Nations
GENERAL PURPOSE To maintain peace around the world
OTHER HOLDOUTS Germany, Italy and Japan signed but later withdrew

Talk About a Full Moon
Now any earth dweller can make his or her mark on our dusty satellite. For a mere $38, Applied Space Resources ) will etch one page of your text or photos on an "Eternity Disk," left, which will be left on the moon by Lunar Retriever 1 in 2002. With luck, future moongoers may be able to find it among all the other stuff left behind by 14 Soviet and 24 NASA spacecraft:

Six U.S. flags

Two golf balls hit by Alan Shepard

Leather-bound Bible

Six loads of garbage, mostly tools and bags

Five nuclear-powered experiments

Family photo left by Charles Duke

Rookie astronaut pin left by Alan Bean

Figurine commemorating astronauts who died on duty

Two plaques with Nixon's signature

Vial containing astronomer Eugene Shoemaker's ashes

Three lunar rovers




October 25, 1999 Vol. 154 No. 17




Quick Links: Home | Nation | World | Business | Entertainment | Sci-Health | Special Reports | Photos | Current Issue | Archive

Copyright © Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Subscribe | Customer Service | Help | Site Map | Search | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | RSS Feeds
Terms of Use | Reprints & Permissions | Opinion Leaders Panel
TIME Classroom | Press Releases | Media Kit | Try AOL for 1000 Hours FREE!

EDITIONS: TIME Europe |TIME Asia | TIME Pacific | TIME Canada | TIME For Kids