In the early morning hours of December 26, 1996, shortly after 5:00 AM, Patsy Ramsey woke up in her Boulder, Colorado home to find a ransom note on her kitchen staircase. The note, addressed to her husband, stated that their daughter, six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey had been kidnapped. The kidnappers, according to the note, demanded a ransom of $118,000 for JonBenét’s safe return,which was almost exactly the same as the bonus that Patsy’s husband,John Ramsey, had recently received. When Patsywent to JonBenét’s room and discovered that she was not there, she and John called the police to report JonBenét missing at 5:25 AM, despite the ransom note’s threat that JonBenét would be killed if the police were notified.
According to the ransom note, the kidnappers would be calling John Ramsey to give him instructions to deliver the ransom money, which he and Patsy were already working on gathering when the police arrived to their home. That call never came. However, police immediately suspected that John and Patsy were somehow involved in their daughter’s disappearance. From the moment that police began investigating the case, they made a number of errors that are suspected to be the cause for the continued cold case status. First, they did not do a full search of the property. Second, the investigators did not seal off the area, which allowed friends and family of JonBenét to come and go as they pleased, potentially corrupting a crime scene. Third, one of the detectives assigned to the case asked John and a family friend, Fleet White, to search the house on their own that afternoon. John and Fleet began their search in the basement, and it ended there when they found JonBenét’s body, eight hours after she was reported missing.
JonBenét’s body was covered in her white blanket. Under the blanket, she had a nylon cord wrapped around her neck, her wrists were tied up above her head, and she had duct tape covering her mouth. An autopsy was performed, which determined that JonBenét had died of strangulation.
The garrote showed an advanced knowledge of knots. The autopsy also found that while there was no evidence of rape, there was the possibility of sexual assault. The autopsy also determined that JonBenét had eaten pineapple several hours before she was killed. In addition, JonBenét’s body had entered advanced rigor mortis. This led investigators to the conclusion that the time of death was between 10:00 PM on December 25 and 6:00 AM on December 26. In addition, because JonBenét’s remains had already begun to exhibit signs of decomposition by the time they were found – approximately 1:00 PM on December 26 -investigators believe that she died closer to 10:00 PM than 6:00 AM.
At the crime scene, investigators found several pieces of key evidence JonBenét’s digestive system,the Ramseys’ claims that they never put pineapple on the table, and that Burke was sleeping during the entire events of the crime, there is a significant break between the story that the Ramseys provide and the physical evidence. Police also found a broken paintbrush in the basement’s boiler room, the other piece of the paintbrush that was used to create the garrote. In addition, there were fingerprints, handprints, and a boot print that have still not been identified to the Ramseys or anyone of over 400 people that have been investigated. There was also a pubic hair on the blanket that JonBenét was wrapped in that has not been identified. Around the broken window in the basement, there were pieces of of broken glass and scuff marks, though there were no signs of
disturbance on the windowsill.
Because the Ramseys enjoyed entertaining, and the murder occurred during a time with a great deal of holiday parties, the killer could have been just about anyone who associated with the Ramseys during that time. Lead investigators have stated that they believe JonBenét knew her killer, and therefore trusted them enough to leave her bedroom, possibly with the promise of pineapple. However, despite the large pool of potential suspects, the media immediately focused on JonBenét’s parents. Both John and Patsy Ramsey spent years under the harsh limelight of the media. Despite this, neither of
JonBenét’s parents was ever officially named as a suspect in the murder. All three members of the immediate family were questioned
by investigators, in addition to submitting handwriting samples to try to connect them to the ransom letter. Both John and Burke were cleared of any suspicion of writing the ransom note, but Patsy could not be cleared.
In the months and years following the murder, the case began to go cold. John and Patsy made numerous media appearances in an effort to clear their names. There were several Grand Jury hearings held, but none led to an indictment. In 2013, court documents were opened which revealed that a 1999 Grand Jury had voted to indict JonBenét’s parents for child abuse resulting in death, but the district attorney refused to sign the indictment, claiming a lack of sufficient evidence. As the case grew colder, files were moved into storage, investigators were assigned to new cases, and the District Attorney’s office announced that it had run out of the $500,000 that they had to solve the case, and did not apply for additional funding.
In 2003, investigators extracted a DNA sample from blood on JonBenét’s underwear. Tests determined that this DNA belongs to an unknown male. The DNA was submitted to the FBI’s CODIS system, which contains DNA from convicted felons and sex offenders. The sample has yet to be matched. On June 24, 2006, nearly 10 years after JonBenét’s death, Patsy Ramsey died after a long battle with ovarian cancer. She is buried next to JonBenét, in Atlanta, Georgia, where the family lived before moving to Colorado. In 2008, the Boulder District Attorney’s office announced that due to recent developments in DNA technology, the Ramsey family is-no longer considered to be involved in the murder of JonBenét Ramsey.
The District Attorney wrote a letter to John Ramsey, publicly apologizing for the public trial that
the Ramsey family had undergone in the aftermath of JonBenét’s death. The JonBenét Ramsey case remains open to this day. Does it really?
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