The Mystery Behind The JonBenét Ramsey Case

#1 JonBenét Ramsey Still In The News

JonBenÃ©t Patricia Ramsey was a 6-year-old little girl who had so much life ahead of her. A child beauty pageant participant, her looks were often compared to those of an adult model. But in 1996 she was brutally murdered in her own home in a gruesome manner.

#2 Murdered On Christmas 1996

Her body was found in the cellar on December 26, but it is believed that she was murdered on Christmas night. The girl had duct tape over her mouth and a cord twisted around her neck, Her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, had reported her as missing 8 hours before looking for her in the basement of the family's Tudor mansion in Boulder, Colorado.

#3 Only Three People Were At The Scene Of The Crime

Although JonBenÃ©t's half-brother John, 20, had spent Christmas day with the family, the only people known to have been in the home that night are the little girl, Burke, then 9, and JonBenÃ©t's parents, Patsy and John.

#4 Parents Were The First Suspects

Right off the bat the parents were both suspected as the killers of their own daughter. The brother, Burke, was also suspected but that was later ruled out when it became evident that he was too young to have carried out the crime. After several weeks, police dropped their investigation of the parents and focused on finding an intruder instead.

#5 The Family Was Cleared Of Misconduct After Patsy's Death

In 2008, John, Patsy, and Burke were formally cleared of any involvement in the child's death. Then-District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote a letter to John, saying that DNA evidence cleared the trio. She apologized to the family for the scrutiny the family lived under as a result of the case. Patsy had passed away two years before the official word came clearing her of the crime, something she has been suspected of since it happened.

#6 The Ransom Note Found

The reason that Patsy was the main suspect was because of her lack of emotion in a press conference that she called the day after the body was found. Her initial statement said "I did not kill my daughter," though at that point she was not accused. It became evident at that time that a letter was left as a ransom note, and Patsy was accused of writing that note, though no other evidence aside from unknown male DNA was found at the scene of the murder.

#7 Police Failed To Keep Scene Clear

One of the main reasons for the lack of evidence found at the crime scene was because of the lack of professionalism while searching. Police never sealed off the scene, and police, detectives, even reporters, were left free to wander the home and take pictures and examine items. Former Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner told ABC News that since the crime occurred on Christmas Day, there were fewer people available to get to the scene.

#8 They Lived In A Shady Neighborhood

The Ramsey home was considered a mansion but was not located in a wealthy neighborhood of Boulder. There had been over 100 burglaries reported in the area just months before the murder of JonBenet. To make matters worse, the community also had a seemingly high concentration of potential creeps, with 38 registered sex offenders living within a two-mile radius of the family's house at the time of the murder.

#9 Patsy Accused Of Writing Ransom Note

That ransom note left behind was found after the fact, by Patsy. The two-and-a-half-page handwritten ransom note, written on paper from a notebook in the family's home, demanding the bizarrely precise sum of $118,000 for her daughter's return. According to police, it took 20 minutes to write and had deliberate misspellings and grammatical errors that were to make it appear it was written by someone who was not very intelligent. lines from the ransom note were actually lifted from movies, including Dirty Harry (1971) and Speed (1994). Experts believed that the note was penned by Patsy using her left hand instead of her right.

#10 Tabloids Suspected The Brother

Tabloids named the 9-year-old brother, Burke as the murderer. John admitted to ABC News that he was doing whatever was needed to protect his son, and evidence released said the cause of JonBenÃ©t's death was strangulation, but she was also hit on the head close to an hour before her asphyxiation, rendering her unconscious. It is believed that the scene was then staged, including the ransom note, and alleged sexual assault, to make it look like a botched kidnapping instead of just a murder.

#11 The Murder Weapon Disputed

Medical reports claim the girl was initially hit in the back with a stun gun, though that was later ruled out and then they decided it could be a toy train. Criminologist Werner Spitz gave a somewhat disturbing demonstration to show how a metal flashlight, one like that found in Burkes bedroom, could have easily caused her trauma.

#12 The Evidence Was Flimsy

Detective Jim Kolar claims that a trace amount of male DNA was found of JonBents leggings, and it did not match any of the suspects in the case. Initially, a damaged basement window was later investigated as a possible point of entry. However, Kolar claims that was impossible since a cobweb in the corners of the window were untouched. A shard of glass from the broken window was found resting on the window sill and that, too, likely would have been brushed away with the cobwebs by an entering intruder.

#13 She Was Unhealthy And Abused

Kolar claims that when he presented JonBenÃ©t's autopsy report and photos to pathologists and physicians, they agreed that she likely suffered from some sort of sexual assault before her death. The fact that she has visited a physician 27 times in three years before her death was discounted by authorities. The lawyer for John and Patsy claimed there was no evidence of abuse and that neither parent had heard about it before the findings after the murder.

#14 CBS Special Fingers Brother Burke Once Again

Family friends told 'The Case Of: JonBenÃ©t Ramsey', a CBS special report, that Burke attacked JonBenÃ©t with a golf club more than a year before she was killed. In a video of a police interrogation of Burke, he appears cheerful and unaffected and flailed an invisible weapon around to show how she may have been killed while smiling the entire time. The program also alleged Burke had "scatological" issues, often spreading feces around the house, including in JonBenÃ©t's bedroom.

#15 Leaks And Police Reports Were Manufactured For The Press

Several reporters on the case, including Paula Woodward, claim that most all of the police reports and 'leaks' were falsehoods and lies. She said, "There was no snow around the house, so no footprints. No handwriting expert has ever concluded that Patsy wrote the ransom notes conclusively. John didn't leave the home that evening, nor was any porn found in his room."

#16 John Kerr Confesses And Is Arrested

Ten years after the case first made headlines, the tragedy was in the news yet again in 2006 when John Mark Karr, a teacher living in Thailand, claimed he was guilty of JonBenÃ©t's murder, and that it was an accident resulting from a bizarre sexual encounter. The truth was that he had made the story up. DNA tests proved Karr was nowhere near the crime scene, and no traces of drugs were found in JonBenÃ©t's system as he claimed. In fact, authorities found photographic proof that Karr was in Georgia at the time of the murder, making his story impossible.

#17 Detective Insists The Case Could Have Been Solved Years Ago

It was considered a cold case but Detective Lou Smit worked on the case until his death in 2010. He had a spreadsheet that included up to 60 'persons of interest' and 20 possible suspects. He remained confident, according to his daughter for the CBS special, that Patsy was covering up the murder, perpetrated by their son Burke.

#18 Smit Believes The Murder Was A Cover Up

Smit said he had watched the initial interview with the Ramseys thousands of times and was convinced they were acting. Patsy offered a $1000,000 reward for the information on her daughter killer but maintained a cool, calm, and uncaring expression. He also points to the sum asked for in the ransom note, which was the amount that John had earned weeks earlier in a bonus that year. Something that nobody except the family would know and that has been rarely reported on or investigated.

#19 Burke Smirks During Dr. Phil Interview

Dr. Phil McGraw interviewed JonBenÃ©t's brother, Burke, in September 2016. Though McGraw remains confident that Burke was relatively forthcoming in his interview on Dr. Phil, his demeanor rubbed audiences the wrong way. Even during the interviews most heartbreaking moments, Burke couldn't stop grinning. Dr.Phil said that he is confident that Burke did not kill his sister, and his smiling was because of his nervousness, noting that people grieve in many different ways. Audiences didn't buy it, claiming that he was not grieving after 20 years and the footage of him in police interrogation was disturbing.

#20 Ramsey's Suing CBS And Dr. Phil

The Ramseys are reportedly suing CBS, the same network that gave Burke Ramsey an outlet to assert his innocence with Dr. Phil. Attorney, L. Lin Wood says he is filing papers against CBS and Dr. Phil on behalf of Burke Ramsey for "false and unprofessional attacks on this young man that are both disgusting and revolting." He claims the special, The Case of: JonBenÃ©t Ramsey, was false and an attack on the family.

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