Hello Everyone!

Again, just as a warning before you read too far, there will be gruesome and gory imagery. If anyone is uncomfortable with that, please don’t feel bad about leaving!

JonBenét Ramsey was missing.

At least, that’s what her parents thought when they woke up to an empty bed where their six-year-old daughter should have been and a ransom note at the bottom of their stairs that demanded $118,000 and no police involvement for their daughter’s safe return to their Home in Boulder, Colorado.

The Ramsey’s called 911 just before six a.m. on December 26, 1996.

The ransom note to the Ramsey family.

When the police arrived at 5:55 a.m. and searched the house, there were no signs of forced entry. They did not, however, perform a full search of the house. A mistake that could have cost them the case.

JonBenét’s body was in the basement of the house the whole time.

JonBenét Ramsey was in many beauty pageants.

That wasn’t the only mistake that was made throughout the investigation. Before her body was even found, mistakes were piling up. Her room was the only one in the house that was sectioned off so officers, friends, and family members were able to roam around the entire rest of the house destroying evidence. People were coming in and out of the house, Patsy Ramsey’s (the mother)friends were helping her wipe up the kitchen (I can only suspect this was to get her mind off of things and moral support). The evidence that they did find, they shared with the parents; they also put off conducting the informal interviews with the parents for hours.

At 1:00 p.m., the officers instructed the family and family friends to go around the house and look for anything amiss. The first place they went to check was the basement, where they found her body. John Ramsey proceeded to pick her body up and take it upstairs, demolishing the evidence by disturbing the crime scene.

The Ramsey House.

John Ramsey said that…

“’She was lying on a white blanket. The blanket was wrapped around her. Her hands were tied above her head. She had tape over her mouth. … I immediately knelt down over her, felt her cheek, took the tape off immediately off her mouth. I tried to untie the cord that was around her arms and I couldn’t get the knot untied’” (Berman, Tom, et al.)

During the autopsy, the coroner concluded that she had died from strangulation with a makeshift garrote, a piece of long material (usually a string, wire, scarf, chain, fishing line, etc.) that is used to strangle someone. The garrote in this case was a string that was wrapped around one of Patsy Ramsey’s paintbrushes. Other injuries include an 8-inch skull fracture and shocks from a stun gun.

The garrote used in the murder.

There was evidence of sexual assault but there was no semen and her vagina had been wiped clean. Some sources say the assailant used a broken piece of the paintbrush from the garrote to assault her. The coroner also found pineapple in her stomach. That fact is interesting because her parents did not remember giving her any the night before. There was, however, a bowl of pineapple in the kitchen with her brother, Burke’s fingerprints on it. The fingerprints meant little at the time because fingerprints cannot be dated, so the prints could have been there for days. The parents also claimed that Burke was in his room asleep all night and there was no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Let’s take a look at the evidence.

• The Ransom Note

The note was two and a half pages long and found at the bottom of the kitchen staircase. The note demanded $118,000, an oddly specific amount that, according to John Ramsey, was almost identical to his Christmas bonus from the year prior, suggesting that someone who would have access to the bonus information was involved. The police also considered the idea that it was in reference to Psalm 118.

The FBI said that the ransom note was unusually long, especially for one that was written at the scene. This led the police to believe the note was staged. It did not have any fingerprints besides Patsy’s and the officers involved. There was also, reportedly, an unusual use of exclamation marks and initialisms within the note.

Both the note and the practice draft were written with supplies from the Ramsey house (yeah, that’s right, the perpetrator took the time to write a practice ransom note). A board-certified forensic pathologist said he has “never seen a not like it in his 60-year experience and that he did not think it was written by an outside stranger” (PEOPLE).

Six certified handwriting experts (four hired by the police, two hired by the defense) ruled it highly unlikely that Patsy wrote the note.

• The 911 Call and Initial Search

The only people confirmed to be in the house the night of the crime were the Ramseys.

The ransom note had specific instructions against police or friend involvement. So, of course, Patsy called the police at 5:52 a.m. and then proceeded to call family and friends as well.

The two officers who arrived at the house within three minutes in response to the call searched but found no evidence of forced entry. They didn’t look in the basement because they were looking for escape routes, and the basement door was locked from the entrance, which the criminal wouldn’t have been able to do. 

As I stated previously, there was no attempt to block off any part of the house except for JonBenét’s bedroom, leading to the contamination of the rest of the home.

The contamination was only furthered by the sheer amount of people there. There were the police, the forensics team, friends, family, victim advocates, and the Ramsey family’s minister all traipsing through the house and contaminating evidence. By the way, that is the complete opposite of the “no outside involvement” the assailant wanted. Not to mention that visitors went around cleaning things like the kitchen, where there could have been evidence.

There was never an attempt by anyone to claim the ransom money.

A police cruiser outside of the Ramsey residence.

• Discovery of the Body

She was found at 1:00 p.m. by her father.

As I stated earlier, her mouth was covered in duct tape, a nylon corder was around her twists and neck, her torso was covered in a white blanket.

The crime scene was contaminated (is anyone surprised at this point) when her father picked up her body and moved it upstairs.

All of the Ramsey family provided samples of their handwriting, blood, and hair to the police. The parents were in a preliminary interview for more than two hours and Burke was interviewed within the first couple of weeks after his sister’s death.

• Blood Samples

In December of 2003, technology had advanced to where enough material could be extracted from the mixed blood sample found on JonBenét’s underwear to put together a DNA profile. The blood belonged to an unknown male, and none of the Ramsey’s were a match. The sample was not in the FBI’s DNA index system that contained 1.6 million samples.

Then in October of 2016, technology was even further advanced and they could differentiate genetic markers from two unknown individuals, not including JonBenét. There were six additional traces of unknown male DNA found on the cord and paintbrush. Through all of the various stages of the forensic investigations show that there was an identical DNA sample that is believed to be from the killer. There isn’t any definitive evidence that the stranger is the murderer because trace amounts of evidence can be found on items through a bunch of nonsuspicious means.

Burke and JonBenét Ramsey.

By October 1997, the police had 1,600 persons of interest on their list.

There are two main theories, the family did it, or it was an intruder.

• The Family Member Theory

The main suspects in the case were the parents. A retired FBI profiler said that it is a “12-to-1” probability that it is a family member or a caregiver when a kid is murdered.

There was no evidence of a forced entry and there was evidence of the crime scene being staged.

The parents were also very uncooperative in helping the police solve their daughter’s death. Though, they claimed that it was because they wanted the investigation to be focused on an intruder and they felt they were hastily selected as suspects.

One of the branches of this theory involves Patsy hitting JonBenét in a fit of rage after she wet the bed and then strangled her to cover it up because she thought she had already killed JonBenét from the strike.

This is not very sound because Patsy never had a history of anger issues and Burke said that their parents never even spanked them.

Burke (who was nine years old at the time) was interviewed at least three different times by the police. They didn’t turn anything up though. A child psychologist, the Boulder police Chief, and the Boulder County District Attorney all said that he wasn’t a suspect.

A group of experts in September of 2016 on a CBS show about this case evaluated the evidence and theorized that Burke hit his sister in the head with a heavy object, possibly a flashlight, after she stole a piece of pineapple from his bowl, likely not intending to kill her. They suggested that the parents attempted to cover up the events that led to their daughter’s death by writing a ransom letter.

The program and many of its participants were involved in defamation lawsuits on behalf of Burke.

Another question in the case is, why would the family have to use a stun gun on their daughter. Stun guns are generally used to subdue or immobilize a person, JonBenét trusted her family, she would have no reason to fight against them so there would be no need for the use of a stun gun.

All in all, the evidence of family involvement is not concrete enough to convict.

• The Intruder Theory

Early persons of interest included the former family housekeeper Linda-Hoffman-Pugh, their neighbor Bill McReynolds, and a man named Michael Helgoth who reportedly killed himself after JonBenét’s death. No DNA match was made.

There were many possible places of entry for an intruder to get into the home, none of which involved forcible entry. There were two windows left slightly ajar for Christmas light cords to go through, a basement window was broken (before the crime), and one unlocked door.

There is some debate about the entry points though because the broken window and the steel grate in front of the window both had intact cobwebs. The foliage around the window was undisturbed and the dust on the window sills was untouched.

There are theories that JonBenét’s beauty pageant presence could have attracted child pornographers and pedophiles.

There were more than 100 burglaries in the Ramsey’s neighborhood in the months before their daughter’s death and 38 registered sex offenders lived within 2 miles of the family home.

JonBenét Ramsey’s gravestone.

We may never know who actually brutally murdered this young girl just starting her life. What we do know, is that this six-year-old girl should never have had to experience that horrifying event, nor should she have had to go so soon.

JonBenét Ramsey, 6 years old.

What is your opinion on the case? Do you think the parents killed her? What about her brother? Or was it an intruder?

Sources

Berman, Tom, et al. ABC News, ABC News Network, 13 Jan. 2021, 6:44 a.m., www.abcnews.go.com/US/killed-jonbenet-ramsey-investigators-dying-search-family/story?id=75186109

“Death of JonBenét Ramsey.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Feb. 2021, www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_JonBen%C3%A9t_Ramsey#Family_member_theory.

“JonBenet Ramsey Grave: Famous Graves, Famous Tombstones, Grave Marker.” Pinterest, www.pinterest.com/pin/301319031290692399/.

“JonBenét Ramsey.” Crime Museum, 15 July 2019, www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/cold-cases/jonbenet-ramsey/

Nolasco, Stephanie. “JonBenet Ramsey’s Half Brother Still Wants to Find Her Killer: ‘This Case Can Be Solved’.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 25 Jan. 2021, www.foxnews.com/entertainment/jonbenet-ramseys-family-still-hopes-find-killer-half-brother.

Obmascik, Mark. “Experts: Conviction a Long Shot in JonBenet Ramsey Case.” The Denver Post, The Denver Post, 23 Sept. 2016, www.denverpost.com/1999/10/17/jonbenet-ramsey-case-experts-conviction-long-shot/.

PEOPLE. PEOPLE TRUE CRIMES;CASES THAT SHOCKED AMERICA. PEOPLE, 2016.

“Ramsey Case – DNA Report & Miscellaneous Evidence.” Forums For Justice, www.forumsforjustice.org/forums/threads/ramsey-case-dna-report-miscellaneous-evidence.9867/.

“Real-Life Ransom Notes: Jonbenet Ramsey, True Crime, Ramsey.” Pinterest, www.pinterest.com/pin/105060603780938508/.

“Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?” ABC News, ABC News Network, abcnews.go.com/US/killed-jonbenet-ramsey-investigators-dying-search-family/story?id=75186109.