Killing of JonBenét Ramsey

Killing of JonBenét Ramsey
Parent(s)	John Bennett Ramsey Patsy Ramsey

JonBenét Patricia Ramsey (August 6, 1990 – December 26, 1996) was a six-year-old girl found murdered in the basement of her parents' home in Boulder, Colorado, nearly eight hours after she was reported missing. The case drew attention throughout the United States when no suspect was charged and suspicions turned to possible family involvement. The tantalizing clues of the case inspired numerous books and articles that attempt to solve the mystery. Many details of the case, including her parents' wealth, her apparently violent death, and the fact that JonBenét had frequently been entered in beauty contests, enhanced public interest in the case.

On August 16, 2006, the case returned to the news when John Mark Karr, a 41-year-old school teacher, reportedly confessed to her murder. On August 28, 2006, the district attorney, Mary Keenan Lacy, announced that Karr's DNA did not match that found at the scene, and no charges would be brought against him.

Life

JonBenét Ramsey was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but the family relocated when JonBenét was 9 months old. Her first name is a combination of her father's first and middle names, John Bennett; her middle name is that of her mother, Patsy Ramsey, who enrolled her daughter in a variety of different beauty pageants in several states. In addition, she funded some of the contests in which Ramsey was involved. Patsy Ramsey was a former beauty queen, having held the title Miss West Virginia 1977; her sister also later became Miss West Virginia 1980. JonBenét Ramsey held a number of child beauty contest titles, including: America's Royal Miss, Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, Little Miss Charlevoix Michigan, Little Miss Merry Christmas, Little Miss Sunburst, and National Tiny Miss Beauty. John Ramsey, JonBenét's father, is a wealthy businessman, and former president and chief executive officer of Access Graphics, a computer services company.

JonBenét is buried in Saint James Episcopal Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia, beside her mother's grave.

Murder case

According to the testimony of Patsy Ramsey, on December 26, 1996, she discovered her daughter missing after finding a two and a half-page ransom note on the kitchen staircase, demanding US$118,000. Despite specific instructions in the ransom note that police and friends not be contacted, she telephoned the police and called family and friends. The local police conducted a cursory search of the house but did not find any obvious signs of a break-in or forced entry. The note suggested that the ransom collection would be monitored and JonBenét would be returned as soon as the money was obtained. John Ramsey made some arrangements for the availability of the ransom, which a friend, John Fernie, picked up that morning from a local bank.

In the afternoon of the same day, Boulder Police Detective Linda Arndt asked Fleet White, a friend of the Ramseys, to take John Ramsey and search the house for "anything unusual." John Ramsey and two of his friends started their search in the basement first. After first searching the bathroom and "train room," the two went to a "wine cellar" room (not actually used for that purpose) where John found his daughter's body covered in a white blanket. Later that evening, a search warrant was issued that authorized the police to remove the body. Normally this procedure would be performed under consent of the parents.

The results of the autopsy revealed that JonBenét was killed by strangulation and a skull fracture. A garrotte made from a length of nylon cord and the handle of a paintbrush had been used to strangle her; her skull had suffered severe blunt trauma; she likely was sexually assaulted either digitally or with a paintbrush, but there was no evidence of rape. The official cause of death was asphyxia due to strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma. The brush end of the paint brush was found in a tub of Patsy Ramsey's art supplies, but the top third never was located despite extensive searching of the house by law enforcement in subsequent days. Experts noted that the construction of the garrotte required a special knowledge of knots. Autopsy also revealed that the child had eaten pineapple only a few hours before the murder, of which her mother claimed to be unaware; some medical experts believe this could have happened in the afternoon before the Ramseys went to a party given by their close friends, Fleet and Priscilla White, whereas others say it must have been after the Ramseys came home (even though the parents claimed she had fallen asleep in the car and remained asleep while put to bed). The latter theory is the more plausible, since photographs of the home, taken the day JonBenét's body was found, show a bowl of pineapple on the kitchen table with a spoon in it. Neither Patsy nor John remembers putting this bowl on the table nor feeding it to JonBenét.

Clues

All blood evidence, including blood found in underwear worn by the victim, blood on a Barbie nightgown found on the floor next to the body, and blood on a white blanket, was sourced to JonBenét. However, police investigations within and around the residence discovered the following clues which can be interpreted as evidence of intrusion:

• Two dissimilar footprints in the wine cellar that did not match any of the shoes in the residence
• A third footprint of an unknown person on the outer part of the window of the room by the wine cellar (John Ramsey said the window was malfunctioning)
• A possible footprint on a suitcase, placed directly below the same window
• A rope that was foreign to the residence found on the bed of the guest room near JonBenét's room
• Physical marks on JonBenét's body suggested the use of a stun gun. There is, however, only one mark on her neck and the use of a stun gun is inconsistent with the mark.
• A DNA sample on JonBenét's underwear (believed to be saliva) that did not match any known suspect
• A DNA sample found under JonBenét's fingernails that also did not match any known suspect

Ransom note

Investigators determined that the lengthy ransom note was written on a sheet of paper that belonged to the Ramsey family . A Sharpie felt-tip pen similar to the one used to write the note was found in a container on the Ramseys' kitchen counter, along with other pens of the same type. A practice sheet of the ransom note was found on the same pad of paper, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No fingerprints could be detected on the note. The text of the note had many odd features, including the fact that $118,000 was demanded - $100,000 in $100 bills and $18,000 in $20 bills., a figure that closely matched a $118,117.50 company bonus that John Ramsey recently received., and his financial liabilities, recorded on a home computer, of $1,118,000 . The police regarded the ransom price as a suspiciously low amount of money in proportion to John Ramsey's income and net worth (in excess of $6 million, also reported on the home computer). The writer of the note claims "We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We respect your bussiness (sic) but not the country that it serves." The parents have always maintained that the crime was committed by an intruder, and a group of investigators in the employ of the Ramsey family favor that theory.

Handwriting samples were taken from a number of suspects who might have written the ransom note. Forensic analysis cleared everyone except for Patsy Ramsey, whose writing style bore some resemblance to the ransom note.

Later developments

In December 2003, forensic investigators extracted enough material from a mixed blood sample found on JonBenét's underwear to establish a DNA profile. The DNA belongs to an unknown Caucasian male. The DNA was submitted to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a database containing more than 1.6 million DNA profiles, mainly from convicted felons. The sample has yet to find a match in the database, although it continues to be checked for partial matches on a weekly basis.

Later investigations also discovered that there were more than 100 burglaries in the Ramseys' neighborhood in the months before JonBenét's murder, and that 38 registered sex offenders were living within a two-mile radius of the Ramseys' home, an area that encompasses half the population of the city of Boulder.

JonBenét's mother, Patsy Ramsey, died of ovarian cancer on June 24 2006, at the age of 49. She was first diagnosed in 1993, and had experienced multiple relapses. She had a recurrence in 2003. She was aware at the time of her death that the Boulder County (Colorado) District Attorney's Office was investigating a suspect in Bangkok, Thailand. John Ramsey stated in a show that aired in early December 2006 that Patsy appeared to believe that with the implication of Karr, the killer had finally been found and would be brought to justice.

Main article: John Mark Karr

On August 16, 2006, 41-year-old John Mark Karr, a former school teacher, was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand on five-year-old child pornography charges from Sonoma County, California. Authorities reportedly tracked him down using the Internet after he sent emails regarding the Ramsey case to Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado. Once apprehended, he confessed to being with JonBenét when she died, stating that her death was an accident. When asked if he was innocent, he responded, "No."

However, Karr's DNA did not match that found on JonBenét Ramsey's body. On August 28 2006, prosecutors announced that no charges would be filed against him for the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. In early December 2006, Department of Homeland Security officials reported that federal investigators were continuing to explore whether Karr had been a possible accomplice in the killing.

Much of the evidence used to link Karr to the killing was of circumstantial nature. For instance, handwriting samples taken from Karr were said to match the ransom note. In particular, his technique for writing the letters E, T and M were described by the media as being very rare. However, the handwriting samples in question showed letters written in a style of calligraphy that is very popular among people of artistic abilities.

Defamation lawsuits

Several defamation lawsuits have ensued since JonBenét's murder. Lin Wood was the attorney for John and Patsy Ramsey and has prosecuted defamation claims on their behalf against St. Martin's Press, Time, Inc., The Fox News Channel, American Media, Inc., Star, The Globe, Court TV and The New York Post.

In November 2006, Rod Westmoreland filed a defamation suit against a Keith Greer, who posted a message on an Internet forum using the pseudonym "undertheradar". Greer had accused Westmoreland of participating in the kidnapping and murder. Greer has defended his statement.

Speculation

Case speculation by experts, media and the parents has supported different theories. For a long time, the local police supported the theory that her mother injured her child in a fit of rage after the girl had wet her bed on the same night, and then proceeded to kill her either in rage or to cover-up the original injury. Another theory was that John Ramsey had been sexually abusing his daughter and murdered her as a cover. The Ramseys' son Burke, who was 9 at the time of JonBenét's death, was also targeted by speculation, and asked to testify at the grand jury. In 1999, the Governor of Colorado, Bill Owens, told the parents of JonBenét Ramsey to "quit hiding behind their attorneys, quit hiding behind their PR firm." Police suspicions were initially concentrated almost exclusively on the members of the Ramsey family, although the girl's parents had no prior signs of aggression in the public record, nor any suspicious behavior towards their children.

The Ramseys have consistently held that the crime was committed by an intruder. They hired John Douglas, former head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, to examine the case. While being paid by the Ramsey family he concluded that the Ramseys were not involved in the murder. He also concluded that it was unlikely that anyone would resolve the case. He detailed his arguments in his 2001 book, The Cases That Haunt Us. Lou Smit, a seasoned detective who came out of retirement to assist Boulder authorities with the case in early 1997, originally suspected the parents, but after assessing all the evidence that had been collected, also concluded that an intruder did it. While no longer an official investigator on the case, Smit continues to work on it.

With such contradictory evidence, a grand jury failed to indict the Ramseys or anyone else in the murder of JonBenét. Not long after the murder, the parents moved to a new home in Atlanta. Two of the lead investigators in the case resigned, one because he believed that the investigation had incompetently overlooked the intruder theory, and one because he believed that the investigation had failed to successfully prosecute the Ramseys. There have also been accusations of a cover-up in the district attorney's office.

It is also suspected that the incompetence of the Boulder police helped to destroy precious evidence that could have given some sort of legal proof to the case.

Trivia

On December 12, 2001, John and Patsy Ramsey were included in an episode of the animated series South Park, called Butters' Very Own Episode. In the episode, they are satirically implicated in the murder of JonBenet by their sarcastic responses to the steadfastness of Butters' parents' proclamations of ignorance. It turns out later that the Ramseys have befriended suspected murderers Gary Condit and O.J. Simpson.

References

• Hickey, Eric. Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime.
• M., Ronald and Stephen T. Holmes. Profiling Violent Crimes.

External links

• Complete Ramsey Case File from "Court TV"
• Denver AM 670 KLTT Talk Show Case Theory
• DenverPost's evidence list linking Patsy Ramsey
• JonBenet Ramsey Investigation About.com
• JonBenet - Crime Library
• The Smoking Gun - JonBenet Ramsey Case Documents
• FindAGrave.com: JonBenét Ramsey
• Crime Magazine: The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey