Unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard about the JonBenét Ramsey case. This coming December, the day after Christmas to be exact, will mark 20 years since the little beauty queen's murder; that means that we are coming up on 20 years without justice for JonBenét.
The cold case has not been forgotten by anyone; this year alone, there have been multiple revisions of her case with tv documentaries, new interviews from the family, and a lifetime movie scheduled to air later this fall. There have even been rumors that JonBenét never even died, rather it was all a stunt and she is now Katy Perry; the only baseline for this conspiracy theory is that the child and the singer do look similar, as well as have similar looking parents. With all of the fame and attention surrounding the case, you would think that her killer would have been identified by now, but it still remains a mystery. For now, the only justice we can give is from what we believe to be true, so until we are able to point out the true murderer, here is what we know about her case.
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was born on August 6th, 1990 to Patsy and John Ramsey. Patsy was John Ramsey's second wife and mother to his two youngest children, Burke and JonBenét; he had three other children with his ex-wife, the oldest of the three died at age 22 in a car accident. You would think that the death of his eldest child would be the worst thing that could happen to a millionaire, but it wasn't; Patsy Ramsey was diagnosed with ovarian cancer one year after his eldest daughter's death, and three years after that JonBenét would be murdered in the family's own home.
The Ramsey children mainly grew up in Boulder, Colorado. They lived in a large, beautiful home, and were the picture perfect family. Patsy had been a pageant girl herself, so it is no surprise that JonBenét followed in her mother's footsteps. She was a very sucessful beauty queen, winning in not only her home state of Colorado, but in Charlevoix, Michigan, where the Ramsey's had a second home, as well. The pageants would come back to hurt the family when JonBenét died, as many saw Patsy as a stereotypical pageant mom who was bleaching her child's hair and forcing her into the industry; the public also thought that the family was sexualizing their six-year-old.
All in all, the Ramsey's were picture-perfect, all American, happy family; a happy family with a boat, a private jet, and two homes that is. It was shocking to the nation when the news broke that the child beauty queen was found dead in the family's home the morning they were meant to leave for Michigan, the morning after Christmas.
The night before JonBenét was found dead, the family had been to a Christmas party, and made there way home where JonBenét had fallen asleep in the car. Her brother, Burke, and her father had stayed up playing with some of his new toys while Patsy had put JonBenét to bed. Very early the next morning Patsy had gotten up and made her way down the stairs to the kitchen where she came across a long-winded, handwritten ransom note, written on paper from the Ramsey's home, stating that they had their daughter and would kill her unless they received $118,000. What an odd amount to ask for considering that the Ramsey's were millionaires, and that dollar amount was just about the exact amount that John Ramsey was going to receive as a Christmas bonus.
The 911 call was placed at about 5:45 am, by Patsy Ramsey; it was later found out that the call was not ended on the Ramsey's end, and until now they have not been able to decipher what was being said in the background noise, as well as who was speaking. The Ramsey's had made it a point to mention multiple times that Burke had been in his room the whole morning, and had nothing to do with anything that had happened. Recently, in one of the documentaries airing on CBS, new technology was used to amp up the voices in the background of the 911 call, and it is now believed that Burke was in fact not only awake, but downstairs with his parents before police arrived. Though no one is completely certain what is being said on tape, it is speculated that one of the voices is Burke asking "what did you find?", and the an angry John telling Burke that they are not talking to him.
From a scientific standpoint, the next few hours were a disaster. The family had many family friends through the home, mean that there was a lot of DNA being left and evidence being tampered with. Because the policed had no reason to believe that this was nothing more than a kidnapping, the large home was only partially searched, and people were allowed to move around freely. It wasn't until the time had come when S.B.T.C., the initials left on the ransom note, hadn't called that the police and the family had gotten a little anxious. This is about the time that John Ramsey was said to have stood up abruptly, with a family friend in tow, and head to the basement to look for his daughter. He was said to have marched almost directly to one of the rooms in the basement and throw the door open to find JonBenét's body laying on the floor. Her body was under a white sheet and she had a cord around her neck, and her hands were loosely bound together. He carried her upstairs and placed her in the living room on top of a well walked path, and then later moved her again onto another area of the floor. This means that there was a lot of evidence being transferred around, and the police department wasn't even able to take proper pictures of the crime scene.
JonBenét's autopsy proved that she had died of asphyxiation with evidence of craniocerebral trauma. There have been arguments of what came first, some believe she was hit on the head first and then strangled to make sure she was in fact dead. Evidence of nail marks on her neck make some think otherwise, believing that she was alive while being strangled and tried to save herself. What is known for certain is that she was hit in the head hard enough to break her skull, but not her skin; it has been assumed that the weapon was one of the family's flashlights. There is also the question of if she was tasered before death, as there were markings found on her back and head that indicate it is a possibility. Then, there is the most controversial belief that JonBenét was sexually assaulted before her untimely death. It was discovered that she had vaginitis at the time of her death, and had been plagued with yeast infections, and vaginitis throughout her six years of life. There is so much more than just the vaginitis that points to repeated sexual assault during her life, and during her murder; there were also fibers on her vaginal area, as well as a mix blood sample found in her panties that did not match any offenders in the police's database.
Following the murder of JonBenét, her parents did speak on local television a few times; they were ridiculed by the public for not behaving as expected, and then again when they hired attorneys. John, Patsy, and Burke Ramsey were all lead suspects in JonBenét's murder. In 2013, it was revealed that in 1999 a grand jury did indict John and Patsy for child abuse that resulted in murder. But it was too late to do anything about that as Patsy Ramsey died in 2006, and in 2008 the family had been exonerated. The same year that Patsy died a 41-year-old man made a false confession to killing JonBenét, but here we are 20 years later and still not sure of what happened that night.
There are theories that Patsy beat her after a bed-wetting incident, and then killed her to hid the abuse. It has also been mentioned that Burke killed her by accident and then Patsy and John decided to cover it up. There are also multiple versions of the kidnapping cover-up that involve an outsider, as well as the Ramseys. The Ramsey's gardner was said to have a poor alibi for that evening, so it is speculated that because he knew the grounds so well that it would have been easy for him to slip in and out of the home. Then there is the outrageous Katy Perry theory that is almost insulting to the little girl's memory.
JonBenét Ramsey would have been 26 years old this year. Who knows what the little beauty queen would have accomplished by now, and sadly enough the family, as well as the public, still doesn't have a name to identify who took her away all too soon. No matter what each individual believes happened that night, we can only hope that there will one day be justice for JonBenét Ramsey.
