I toyed with the idea that Burke might have slammed her down the stairs and the parents did this macabre sort of cover up, but how could a parent even pretend to do that....its unfathomable.....
I think it was an intruder.
I think theb intruder probably broke in when they were out and snooped around, found soemthing alluding to the 118K wrote the note.
I only found out today about Burke's previous attack on JBR. The Ransom Note, if you think about it, with all the obvious references to cliches taken from movies, was written by someone really immature. Someone who might think all the kidnap plots he had watched in the movies were really cool. A ten year old who watched movies could write that note. Was Burke's handwriting ever analyzed? Not that I hold much stock in handwriting analysis, it's mostly voodoo nonsense, particularly if an effort is made to disguise the writing, which it appears was the case.
A very bright, but disturbed youth like Burke could be, could write that note. Then what do the parent's do? Try and protect him, possibly. Or build a wall that makes it impossible for them to see that it was Burke.
So Jon Ramsey wants to leave the country now? And take Burke with him? As to the knots, I know I was tying a whole series of knots as a boy scout around that age. It was a big deal that we had to learn a lot of the knots. And if memory serves me, we even had to make some kind of garrotish thing of some sort.
Unlike the Ramseys, we've never heard a word from Burke. Who shielded him so completely from the media?
And it also explains why PR would say JBR was asleep when they got home-- no interaction with Burke. I only wish they'd checked Burke's fluids that day to see if he had had pineapple as well.
Burke knew the layout of the house. He knew the bonus figure. He could get JBR in the cellar in a heartbeat. Maybe it's just been too difficult to think a little boy would do that to his sister, but apart from your concerns about the intricacies re the garrotte, what else naming him a suspect doesn't fit?
I saw one of the talking heads on tv say that the garrote method is not used by parents who kill their children in this country. I got the impression it's something used by assassins.