intruder files: the killer of Jonbenet Ramsey relied on these historical ransom notes

       Dear Sir:
        As you no doubt know by this time, your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. You need fear no physical harm for him, provided you line up carefully to the following instructions and to such others as you will receive by future communications. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions, even slightly, his death will be the penalty.
        1. For obvious reasons make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either police authorities or any private agency. Should you already have communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigations, but do not mention this letter.
        2. Secure before noon today $10,000. this money must be composed entirely of old bills of the following denominations: $2000 in $20 bills, $8000 in $50 bills. the money must be old. Any attempt to include new or marked bills will render the entire venture futile.
        3. The money should be place in a large cigar box, or if this is impossible, in a heavy cardboard box, securely closed and wrapped in white paper. The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax.
        4. Have the money with you, prepared as directed above, and remain at home after one o'clock. See that the telephone is not in use.
        You will receive a further communication instructing you as  to your final course.
        As a final word of warning, this is an extremely commercial proposition and we are prepared to put our threat into execution should we have reasonable grounds to believe that you have committed an infraction of the above instructions.
        However, should you carefully follow out our instructions to the letter, we can assure you that you son will be safely returned to you within six hours of our receipt of the money.

        Yours truly,
        George Johnson

Sir, your daughter has been kidnapped by us and we now
hold her for ransom. She is quite safe, if somewhat
uncomfortable. We offer no proof of our possession of her
at this time. It will arrive by mail in a few days. Barbara is
presently alive inside a small capsule buried in a remote
piece of soil. She has enough food and water and air to
last seven days. At the end of the seven days the life supporting
batteries will be discharged and her air supply will be cut off.

The box is waterproof and very strong-fiberglass reinforced
plywood-she has little chance of escaping. The box is in an unusual and lonely place. She has no chance of being accidently stumbled upon.

Contemplate, if you will, the position into which this puts
you. If you pay the ransom prior to seven days,
we will tell you of her whereabouts. Should you catch the
messenger we send to pick up the ransom, we will simply
not say anything to anyone and ergo Barbara will
suffocate. The messenger knows only one of us and he will report to us via radio from the pickup site. We will
immediately know his fate.

Should you catch all, of us we will never admit anything as to do
so would be suicide and again-she will die. As you can see, you don't want to catch us for to do so would be condemning your lovely and intelligent daughter to death. The police may allow you to have a free hand prior to the return of your daughter
should you be so callous as to contact them. If you ask the police to advise you in this matter please be aware that
their very presence will scare us off. We can see no way for you to secure the safe return of your daughter other than to obey instructions explicitly.

1) Although we will always anticipate the involvement of the police in this situation, be assured that if your communication with them or their actual presence is detected, we will break off negotiations with you immediately. We have tied into several
of the possible means of communications that you have with the police and feel that you will be unable to contact them without our
knowledge.

2) The ransom will be $500,000 in recently issued $20 bills. Here are the requirements you must meet in this matter:
The notes must not be older than 1950 issue.
No more than ten notes must have consecutive serial numbers; ie., the notes must have a great variety of serial-numbers and not be merely shuffled.
The notes must be Federal Reserve notes of standard configuration.

No more than one-half of the notes may be uncirculated.

No form of marking on the bills is acceptable. Please note that the bills will undergo a minimum of eight hours of intense examination before we allow you to have knowledge of the subject's whereabouts. We have planned a series of 44 tests on a large representative of the bills. These tests include every chemical and physical test of any remote applicability.


No omission, shaving, spotting, cutting, counterfeiting, irradiating, ad nos will go undetected.

3) The bills should occupy no more than 400 cubic inches and thusly fit into a standard large suitcase of inside dimensions 31.5" longx18.75" highx6.25" deep. Purchase such a suitcase and lock the bills inside.
When you have the money in readiness, call all the Miami
area major newspapers and place the following ad in the "personal" section of the classified advertisemsnts:

"Loved one-please come home. We will pay all expenses
and meet you anywhere at anytime. Your Family."

Prepare your car for a trip and on the night of the ad's first appearance we will call you at home after midnight to advise you of where you must go to deliver the money. You must be the one to deliver the money, Robert. You will dress yourself in an all-white outfit. You must use the Lincoln to deliver the money.

In order to prevent the instructional call being traced it will be very brief and no portion of it will be repeated. If the phone rings more than three times or the connection takes longer than 15 seconds we will not contact you. You will have a limited period of time to make the rendezvous so you should be ready to leave your house within one minute of receiving the phone call in order to be within the time limit. You will proceed to the area of the meeting within the legal speed limit as if you were in no hurry. We will not meet you if you fail to show within the time limit which is only a short time longer than you will require to drive to the pickup site. Any unusual police activity or other activity in the area of the pick up will cancel the appointment.

When you arrive at the pick up site you will know it by a signal of three short flashes repeated continuously from a flashlight directed at the windshield of your car. When you see the signal you will stop the car and immediately take the suitcase toward the light. The light will be mounted on the top of a box. The suitcase should be placed within the box. You will then return to your car and proceed back up the street, in the direction from which you came and go home.

Any deviation from this outline will result in your death.
Our messenger will have you in his sights from the time you leave your car. Within twelve hours after you deliver the money you will receive another call advising you of your daughter's whereabouts. A letter will be sent also to insure the findings of your daughter.

allan wrote:

    MOST VERY IMPORTANT MOST URGENT PLEASE.

   Dr. Danto

   I am dsperite and nearly gone crazy and havnt got no place left to turn. I am going to comit suicide if you cant help me. Please dont give up the killer to the police. You must help me as there is no one else I cant turn to. This is for real I know who the killer is, I live with him I am his slave. He whips me and beats me all the time. And he will kill me if he finds out that I have written this letter. I have been with him in his car when we go out looking for boys but I swear I have never never never been with him when he picks up the ones he killed But I amin it in it so deep I am just as juilty to the law as he is I stayed with them here here right here in our apartment during the day while he is working. That makes me just as guilty. And no one can hear them as they gagged all the time. You know he brings them in stuffed inclothes hamper no one here knows the differences. You keep saying Oakland county not true. He has delivery rout in Oakland and Birmingham places but we live in detroit. You want to know people in this building? Primps and hookers and fags, you name it. Like on Gremlin he had it sure Grimlin until last boy but no one stops him in Detroit. He junk it out in Ohio to never be found ever. I tell you what makes him do it it Vietnam, we there together, Frank and me, oh Frank not his real name I call him that here. Nam screw up your mindtoo. Tell you something else he killed lots of little kids then with medals for it. Burned them to death bombed them with napalm it's real becautiful there doc. He wants the rich people like people in Birmingham to suffer like all of us suffered to get nothing back for what we did for out country. Hes not a monster like you think he really loves children especially that little girl for 3 weeks not doing it because he hates childrens but doing it because he hates everybody else out there and this be his way to get even and get back at everybody.

   But I cannot do it any more he says he wonts but I just know he is going to kill some more. I swear I had no idea no idea he going to kill that first little boy the one with blond colored hair. I shouldn8t ever never helped but trapped too late helped him stay uncaught, I am just as guilty as he is. I cant go on like this I fell I like to die.

   I will turn him in if you will swearnto help me. I dont want any of reward I am so afraid if I turn him in I be killed or do forever to jail for what so something I didn8t want to or didn't start. If you be real doctor you must help me. If you promise and what really promise that you not punish me like you call it immuty I meeting with you this Sunday night, I swear, I swear I tell you all of it everything I have to tell someone have to tell someone. Please please please not print this in paper he Frank kill me. I am his slave and he owns me like whatever he wants almost killed me once. I be only one alive know it him. Nobody else know. I so scared all the time policeman come to door never happen. He say we never be caught but I am scared to die. I be guilty too. I not ge be call you araid police trace all your calls back to here. But if you will onluy please please help me help me and promise me not to go to jail in writing I tell you all of it everything everything and it all be over. I never never want it to be like this with little children dead. If you will help me please please. There be no toher hope. You tell me it be all right with code in sunday papers, this sunday, news freepress. You do like other letter you write on front page of papers this sunday, it be to say, Weather beuau say Trees Bloom in 3 weeks, I know you get my letter and understdna. It mean I can trust you. I set up meeting with you, no more little childrens die. Please help me please. I feel so bad like garbage not deserve to live any more. Maybe I kill self first must get out of this some way. Please help me.

   I signed Allen

Content

In The Elements of Style (1918), William Strunk concentrated on specific questions of usage—and the cultivation of good writing—with the recommendation "Make every word tell"; hence, the 17th principle of composition is the simple instruction: "Omit needless words." The book frames this within a triplet credited to an influential lecturer:

   Omit needless words
   Use active voice
   Use parallel construction on parallel concepts

[9] The 1959 edition features White's expansions of preliminary sections, the "Introduction" essay (derived from his magazine feature story about Prof. Strunk), and the concluding chapter, "An Approach to Style", a broader, prescriptive guide to writing in English. He also produced the second (1972) and third (1979) editions of The Elements of Style, by which time the book's length had extended to 85 pages.

The third edition of The Elements of Style (1979) features 54 points: a list of common word-usage errors; 11 rules of punctuation and grammar; 11 principles of writing; 11 matters of form; and, in Chapter V, 21 reminders for better style. The final reminder, the 21st, "Prefer the standard to the offbeat", is thematically integral to the subject of The Elements of Style, yet does stand as a discrete essay about writing lucid prose.[3] To write well, White advises writers to have the proper mind-set, that they write to please themselves, and that they aim for "one moment of felicity", a phrase by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94).[citation needed] Thus Strunk's 1918 recommendation:

   Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.
   — "Elementary Principles of Composition", The Elements of Style[10]

Any deviation from this outline will result in your death.

Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter.

Mr. Ramsey,
   Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We respect your bussiness but not the country that it serves. At this time we have your daughter in our posession. She is safe and unharmed and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter.
   You will withdraw $118,000 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 a.m. tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence an earlier pickup of your daughter.
   Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation such as police, F.B.I., etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us, but be warned we are familiar with law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to outsmart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny, as well as the authorities. Don't try to grow a brain, John. You are not the only fat cat around so don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't underestimate us, John. Use that good, southern common sense of yours. It's up to you now, John!
Victory! S.B.T.C