On the morning of December 26th, 1996, Patsy Ramsey claimed to discover a ransom note on the back staircase inside the house and a while after, called the police to report her daughter missing.
It was later found that, this ransom note was written with a pen and paper from, inside the house and subsequently the family was under suspicion.
It was less than 8 hours after police were informed, when the body of JonBenét Ramsey was discovered inside the resident in the utility room in the basement. The body was found by the victim’s father John Ramsey. She was found with duct tape over her mouth and a smooth cord around her neck.
Police, when asked, told that they didn’t searched the house because they had no reasons to believe that she was to be found inside the house. Due to such a time-lapse, the crime scene was heavily contaminated because of people coming in and going out.
JonBenét Ramsey,
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey (August 6, 1990 – December 25, 1996) was an American child beauty queen. She died at the age of 6.
The investigation started.
The autopsy found that JonBenét was bludgeoned to death while the country coroner ruled that she died from asphyxiation caused by being strangled. A paintbrush from Patsy’s hobby kit was used to tighten the rope that strangled her. Additionally, DNA that belonged to a single unidentified man was found on her long johns and underwear. The DNA of this unidentified man, when compared to the FBI’s database of convicted violent offenders (2004) was not found. The search pool was 1.5 million convicted offenders. Further, there were two sets of unidentified footprints and a rope was found in JonBenét’s bedroom that doesn’t belong to the Ramsey’s. As of, 2006, the rope was never tested. No footsteps in the snow outside the house were found and no signs of forced entries.
It was found the note was written using a notepad and pen from, inside the house. Analysis of the notepad concluded that a practice letter was written, and a part of the practice note was found.
Suspects
The Ramseys were the initial suspects. Handwriting analysis rolled out Jon Ramsey (father) and Patsy Ramsey (mother) as “inconclusive”. The police initially suspected that the ransom note had been written by JonBenét's mother, and that the note and appearance of the child's body had been staged by her parents in order to cover up the crime. In 1998, the police and the District Attorney (DA) both said that JonBenét's brother Burke, who was nine years old at the time of her death, was not a suspect. John and Patsy Ramsey gave several televised interviews but resisted police questioning except on their own terms. In October 2013, unsealed court documents revealed that a 1999 grand jury had recommended filing charges against JonBenét's parents for permitting the child to be in a threatening situation. John and Patsy were also accused of hindering the prosecution of an unidentified person who had "committed ... the crime of murder in first degree and child abuse resulting in death". However, the DA determined that there was insufficient evidence to pursue a successful indictment.
In 2002, the DA's successor took over investigation of the case from the police and primarily pursued the theory that an intruder had committed the killing. In 2003, trace DNA that was taken from the victim's clothes was found to belong to an unknown male; each of the family's DNA had been excluded from this match. The DA sent the Ramseys a letter of apology in 2008, declaring the family "completely cleared" by the DNA results. Others, including former Boulder police chief Mark Beckner, disagreed with exonerating the Ramseys, characterizing the DNA as a small piece of evidence that was not proven to have any connection to the crime. In February 2009, the Boulder police took the case back from the DA and reopened the investigation.
Media coverage of the case has focused on JonBenét's brief beauty pageant career, as well as her parents wealth and the unusual evidence found in the case. Media reports questioned how the police handled the case. Ramsey family members and their friends have filed defamation suits against several media organizations.
Early persons of interest included neighbor Bill McReynolds, who played Santa Claus; former family housekeeper Linda Hoffmann-Pugh, and a man named Michael Helgoth, who died in an apparent suicide shortly after JonBenét's death. Hundreds of DNA tests were performed to find a match to the DNA recovered during her autopsy.
Another suspect Gary Olivia, a man who lived a few blocks away from the Ramseys at the time of the murder. In 2016, Olivia was arrested on charges of child pornography. In 2000, Olivia was arrested on unrelated drug charges and was found to be carrying a photo of JonBenét in his bag pack. He explained why he had that photo to “The Denver Post”. He said, “JonBenét’s murder touched me deeply. I felt she was an exceptional girl; whose death was an exceptional loss. I felt the need to build a monument, a shrine, to remember this little girl.” A high school friend of Olivia, Michael Vail revealed in an interview with the “InTouch” magazine that Olivia called him a day after murder occurred and said, “I hurt a little girl, I hurt a little girl”. He also revealed that Olivia told him, it was in Boulder, Colorado. Record shows that no other girl, other than JonBenét was harmed in that area, that night. Vale also revealed the way, JonBenét was strangulated, was close to how he tried to strangle his own mother with a telephone cord. But Olivia was rolled out, since he was not a match for the DNA evidence.
False Confession
John Mark Karr, a 41-year-old elementary school teacher, was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, on August 15, 2006 when he falsely confessed to murdering JonBenét. He confessed to the murders via emails to a journalism professor Michael Tracey, Tracey had emailed back and forth for four years to gain Karr 's trust. In his emails, Karr used similar wording as the ransom note. At one point, he called Pasty Ramsey by her nickname, Neddie. He would eventually write that he was in love with JonBenét and confess to hitting her in the head with a flashlight. Karr claimed that he had drugged, sexually assaulted, and accidentally killed her. According to CNN, "Authorities also said they did not find any evidence linking [Karr] to the crime scene."
In his confession, Karr had provided only basic facts that were publicly known and failed to provide any convincing details. His claim that he had drugged JonBenét was doubted because the autopsy indicated that no drugs were found in her body. DNA samples that were taken from Karr did not match DNA found on JonBenét's body.
DNA Fallacy
In a recent CBS program, DNA expert Dr. Henry Lee studied the DNA from the JonBenét scene. He concluded that JonBenét's underwear may have held DNA from the manufacturing process and proved this by testing an unopened bag of underwear. The CBS program concluded that the crime scene DNA was fallacious, meaning that any of the listed suspects could possibly be the killer.
THE CASE TRAGICALLY REMAINS UNSOLVED.
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