The JonBenét Ramsey Murder
On Christmas Day in 1996, John and Patsy Ramsey attended a party a few blocks from their Boulder, Colorado,
home along with their 6-year-old daughter, JonBenét. The Ramseys arrived home from the party around 9:30 P.M., carried JonBenét to her room, and put her to bed. Then the adults also went to bed.
Patsy awoke around 5 A.M. the next morning, went downstairs, and headed into the kitchen to make coffee.
On the stairs she found a ransom note, addressed to John, that demanded $118,000 for the return of JonBenét.
The letter further stated that the girl was kidnapped by a “small foreign” faction and warned John to comply with the ransom demands or the child would be beheaded. The note also instructed John to expect a call between 8 A.M. and 10 A.M. the next day. Patsy called Police at 5:25 A.M., and police arrived shortly after.
Boulder police focused on the ransom note and its instruction that a call would be forthcoming. The police waited for the call, along with John and Patsy, until the afternoon, but no call ever came. Despite the failure to receive any message from the purported kidnapper, the police did not mount a search of the house at this time.
By late afternoon, the police instructed John and a family friend to search the house for anything “unusual.”
They were not accompanied by a detective or police officer. Unfortunately, John found the body of his slain child in the basement of the house. JonBenét had been beaten and strangled with a garrote fashioned from a rope and the handle of a paintbrush later found in the Ramsey basement. At this point the case was transformed from a kidnapping to a murder. Investigators who were brought to the crime scene found two different boot prints, fibers, the ligature used for the garrote, and DNA evidence.
Almost 10 years later, in 2006, John Karr confessed to authorities that he had murdered JonBenét. DNA tests were performed to ascertain the truthfulness of his admission. DNA results proved that Karr was not implicated in the crime, however.
This case remains unsolved.
