Exploring the AOL Search Logs, Part 6: JonBenet Ramsey Obsession

With John Mark Karr’s arrest putting JonBenet Ramsey back in the news, I thought I’d check our old friend, the AOL search logs, to see how much JonBenet search activity there was earlier in the year when nobody was talking about her any more. Well, ok, nobody except a few tabloids, probably. Did they ever finally get tired of that? It’s like an SAT problem: Dog : Yummy Bone :: Tabloids : JonBenet Ramsey.

When I did my grepping for JonBenet searches, the results were completely dominated by one person, AOL user 59920. Such a low ID, they must be as proud as somebody in Delaware with a low-numbered license plate. Weirdos.

59920 has 3,766 entries in the AOL logs from this period, so it’s a little tedious going through everything, and I’ll definitely skip over a bunch. That’s just the way I roll. If you don’t like it, get out of the kitchen.

Now that “those” types are out of my kitchen, and it’s just you and me, let’s see what we have. First she does a bunch of searches trying to find out how to sew a bikini. Ms. 59920 spends three hours total that first day searching for that. I sure hope she got somewhere.

Next up? cats skinned in fort lupton co and cats killed in fort lupton co. The cynical part of me jumps to the conclusion that this person is a serial cat killer and is looking for anyone who’s found his/her handiwork. I guess there’s always the possibility that they’re innocent, but if they were, why were they using AOL? Can’t answer that one, can you?

Then we have searches like gene matthews boulder co perfessor. Like 20 of those, all with that spelling of professor. This is obviously someone whose intelligence puts the rest of us to shame. Our brains cower and hide when her brain walks onto the Internet.

Up next, 90 minutes of searching for sewing information for this swimming suit. Another hour later that day. We’re up to 5.5 hours of searching so far.

On March 5th the endless JonBenet searches start. Can you say obsessed? In my best Mr. Roger’s voice, I knew you could. Just for completeness and to really get a feel for the obsessiveness, I’m going to list all the JonBenet searches. I’m probably skipping some that are related just because I don’t recognize the connection, so there are probably others (for those of you who are like me and don’t know every single detail about her murder, it turns out that Linda Hoffman Pugh was the Ramsey’s housekeeper, which is why she’s on this list so often). And I’ll skip over some typos and multiple searches for similar things as they figure out what to search for. This should be enough to scare you, though (skip to the bottom for the weird, non-Benet searches, if you want):

March 5
where is linda hoffman pugh
the pughs that live in fort lupton co
i know the pughs from fort lupton co
i know the mervin pugh from fort lupton co
i know the araina pugh from fort lupton co
mervin pugh
john ramsey inc

March 6
mervin pugh
araina pugh
the pughs for fort lupton co
richard pugh fort lupton co
did geraldo play the ramsey 911 tape before it was out
jonbenet’s autopsy photos
who knows jonbenet ramsey

March 7
barbie found on the lawn at ramseys house
ariana pugh
does any one know ariana pugh
does anyone know linda hoffman pugh
who found mindhunter in the ramsey’s house

March 8
linda hoffman pugh
linda hoffman pugh family
ariana pugh family
mervin pugh family
linda hoffman pugh worked for the greenley turbune
jonbenet would alway paint and use magic markers
linda hoffman pugh said jonbenet would paint and use markers
linda hoffman pugh made 72 dollars a day working for the ramseys
linda hoffman pugh worked for john and patsy ramsey

March 9
red swiss army knife in jonbenet’s case
linda hoffman pugh interveiw
mervin and linda hoffman pugh
pedigree pf mervin pugh boulder co
family tree of mervin pugh boulder co
family tree of linda hoffman greeley co
john ramseys court document

March 10
why does the ramseys ramson note sound like a lawyer

March 11
patsy ramsey’s christmas card
patsy ramseys christmas card list (getting more and more obsessive here, aren’t we?)
who was at the christmas party on the 23 at the ramseys
crime scene photos of the crawl space and duffle bag in ramseys house

March 12
judith phillips about the ramsey’s
john ramsey’ pickup truck
jeff ramsey
linda hoffman pughs interviews
access graphics artical of john ramsey
ramseys christmas message
christmas message from the ramseys

March 13
i worked for the ramsey’s for 72 dollars s a day said linda hoffman pugh
linda hoffman pugh the ramsey’s housekeeper
pughs from colorado
linda hoffman pugh
mervin pugh worked for the ramseys
jonbenet use to like to watch shirley temple movies
what does linda arndt know about jonbenet

At this point, she finally takes a day off from trying to search for JonBenet information. Only to resume the day after, of course:

March 15
scott gibbons and jonbenet ramsey
the barbie left on the ramseys lawn
picture of barbie left on the ramsey lawn
picture of baby left on the ramsey lawn

March 17
did linda hoffman pugh kill jonbenet
don davis book on jonbenet ramsey

March 18
linda hoffman pugh family boulder colorado
mervin pugh boulder colorado
mervin pugh the abuser
linda hoffman pugh is insane
i know arianna pugh from fort morgan co
when did they release the ramseys 1996 christmas letter
linda hoffman pugh work for 72 dollars a day

March 19
linda hoffman pugh worked for merry maids
ariana pugh

March 20
linda hoffman pughs statements
linda hoffman pugh worked for the ramseys
ramsey housekeeper worked for merrymaids
jonbenet’s fur boots
linda hoffman pugh
hoffman construction colorado
linda hoffman pughs brother owed a construction co
mervin pugh
articles on linda hoffman pugh
did jonbenet have beaver trim boots

March 21
linda hoffman pugh i have a lawyer my ladies
linda hoffman pugh family
construction business fort morgan co
was jonbenet found with makeup on

March 22
ramseys christmas letters released
linda hoffman pugh works at safeway in colorado
did any of the pughs work at the safeway market
linda hoffman pugh works for lawrence schiller
safeway 2798 arapahoe ave colorado

March 24
crime scene photographer for ramsey case
jonbenet’s teacher

March 25
is jonbenet really dead (ooh, nice, get some hyper-tabloidian conspiracy theories going! i’m impressed!)

March 28
girls that look like jonbenet
i look like jonbenet

March 29
what jonbenet would look like today

April 1
was jonbenet found hanging

April 6
jonbenet ramsey pictures

April 9
who served in subic bay with john ramsey

April 10
lt jb ramsey pnbc subic bay
crew list of the uss ramsey for subic bay

April 11
lou smits interview with the ramseys

April 13
jonbenet’s barbie nightgown

April 17
lou smit interrogation with john ramsey

April 18
jonbenet’s underwear came from bloomingdales
where did patsy ramsey get jonbenet’s underwear from
jonbenet’s underwear size 12

April 25
jonbenet pictures (spent 30 minutes looking for this)

April 30
jonbenet
candy cane man and ramseys
hanging angel jonbenet

May 2
jonbenet’s bed sheets
beauty and the beast sheet sets

May 4
when did john ramseys daughter beth die
when was beth ramsey born john ramsey daughter

May 9
jonbenet ramsey photos

May 10
article found in ramsey’s home of john

May 13
patsy used a flashlight to check on jonbenet at night
jonbenet in her casket

May 16
jonbenet ramsey photos
jonbenet’s photographer colorado
randy simons photographer colorado

May 19
rope found in john andrews ramseys bedroom
photo of john andrew ramseys room

May 20
john ramsey use to drive a pickup truck
jeff merrick of ramsey case
jeff merrick talks about john ramsey
jeff ramsey talks about john and patsy

May 21
sighed just western ramsey note found in graveyard (sighed note??)
john and patsy ramsey
brad donley of ramsey case
john andrew ramsey’s friend brad
john andrew ramsey

May 26
cnn interveiw john and patsy ramsey

May 28
picture of jonbenet’s my twinn doll
john ramsey’s daughter beth ramsey

May 29
linda hoffman pugh
kristen pugh colorado
fbi and ramsey case
i was adopted by the pugh family in colorado
i was a foster child by the pugh family in colorado

May 30
jonbenet ramsey lights of december parade

May 31
did patsy ramsey go to the access graphics christmas party
john andrews ramsey’s friend brad

I’m sure they kept going and going after the AOL search logs stop. And let me tell you, I skipped over a lot of searches that I think were probably Ramsey-related (e.g., “mm dead body transport boulder colorado”), but I didn’t want to take the time to look up the person or place to find out for sure.

I think a search he/she did on May 13th sums it all up pretty well: “obsession”.

Now, this person also was into all kinds of other murder and death searches. Maybe disturbed and obsessed, a great combination. For example, pictures of murder by strangulation and other similar searches for several hours. Or nicole simpson had spaghetti in her stomach. How about i feed her something to eat before i was going to kill her? Or rope to use to hog tie someone? Better get that special hogtie rope, wouldn’t want to wind up in some BDSM faux pas for using the wrong rope. That’s almost as bad as eating with the wrong fork.

Or this sequence that show conspiracy theories, confusion, and awesome spelling:
laci peterson
laci a mob hit
sapranos

I have no idea what gay slang for fat cat means, though, or why they were searching for pimp hats black and white fur. Change of careers, maybe?

Oh, and did I mention how brilliant they are? where is denmark. Yes, good luck with that.