Christmas 1996- less
than 24 hours before
she was brutally
murdered
Victim:
JonBenet Ramsey
DOB: August 6th, 1990
Birthplace: Atlanta, Georgia
Occupation: Child
Pageant Star
Awards:
•Little Miss Colorado
•National Tiny Miss
Beauty
•Little Miss Christmas
Patsy Ramsey
• JonBenet's mother. Patsy, is a former
Miss West Virginia who competed in the
1977 Miss America pageant.
• She was active in volunteer and charity
work in Boulder and moved to Vinings, an
Atlanta suburb, with her family shortly
after the murder.
• In June 1999, the Ramsey's reportedly
moved out of their Vinings home. Patsy
remains a suspect in the case, and has
not been ruled out as the author of the
ransom note.
•
Patsy Ramsey died after a long
battle with cancer at her father's
Roswell, GA home on Saturday June
24, 2006. She was buried at same
cemetery as JonBenet
PATSY RAMSEY
John Ramsey
• Multimillionaire father of JonBenet
John was CEO of Access Graphics,
a billion dollar Boulder computer firm
he had helped build.
• After the murder of JonBenet he
moved to Atlanta, where he became
CEO of Jaleo North America, a
branch of Comunication Integral, an
international computer software firm
based in Madrid.
• He left that position in March of 1999
and Jaleo closed its Atlanta office.
John Ramsey
• John, who
discovered his
daughter's body in
the basement,
remains a suspect in
the case.
Burke Ramsey
• Older brother of
JonBenet, son of
John and Patsy.
Burke, born 1/27/87,
was almost 10 at the
time his sister was
killed. Burke testified
before the Grand
Jury on May 19,
1999.
Burke Ramsey
• The following day,
the Boulder DA
officially announced
that Burke was
"cleared" as a
suspect in the
murder of his sister.
Today he is a
computer
programmer.
Investigation Team:
Detective Arndt
Head of Investigation upon arrival to the Ramsey house
One of few officers that first arrived at the home
Only officer present when the body of JonBenet was found
Removed from case a year later in May 1997
filed lawsuits against her former police chief for placing undue
blame on her for the way the case was handled
Forensics Expert Scientist Dr. Henry Lee
Head of the Forensics Unit working on the body of JonBenet
PhD: Biochemistry (1975)
BS: Forensics Science (1972)
Worked on other casing including OJ Simpson
Attorney Mike Bynum
Former Boulder assistant DA
Was attorney for John Ramsey’s Computer Business
Close friend to Ramsey’s
The Perfect Murder…
•On the morning December 26th, 1996, in
Boulder County, Colorado, Patsy Ramsey
was walking downstairs when something
caught her eye; a piece of paper. She
picked it up and realized that it was a
ransom note.
•Patsy panicked and quickly ran to
JonBenet’s room; she wasn’t there.
•She phoned the police at 5:52 AM, and by
the time the police had arrived to the home
of the Ramsey’s at 6:10 AM, the family
had already called in a few of their friends;
there was no way of securing the crime
scene.
The Amt.
Requested
was the
exact amt.
John just
received for
his bonus
Handwriting Analyzes
• Only one person tested-- Patsy -- could not
be ruled out as the author because the way
the As in the letter match Patsy's As.
• Thomas said that Patsy was known for
signing letters with acronyms.
• She would almost consistently sign off with
the exclamation point and then a double
indented closure to the point that you could
almost overlay the ransom note and some of
Patsy's previous writings.
Cont’d
• No proper search was conducted, but 7 hours after
the police arrived, John Ramsey and Fleet White,a
family friend were told to search for anything that
seemed out of the ordinary.
• In the basement,John found the body of JonBenet
covered with a white blanket.
• She had a rope tied around her wrist and neck.
• He carried her body upstairs.
•Right side of face and bruising on
neck.
Neck showed small pin like hemorrhages above and
below the ligature furrow
Why was the knot so loosely tied? Or was
it just staging?
Reports of the body show that she had an 8-inch
crack in her skull, 2 stun gun marks, vaginal
infection.
Police Report
• According to the police report, JonBenet was
last seen alive at approximately 10:00 p.m.
on December 25, 1996. And found dead at
1:05 p.m. on December 26, 1996.
• When police first sighted the body, they
observed that the body was affected by
advanced rigor mortis
• This was murder in boulder that year and the
police were inexperienced
• By the time the body had left the house
suspensions about the parents being involved
had already been leaked to the press.
Suspect: Family vs Intruder
•Many investigators pointed their fingers at the
Ramsey’s, believing that it was John or Patsy
(or maybe even both) that murdered their own
daughter
•both of them refused to take a lie detector
test after the crime was committee
•John and Patsy Ramsey wrote a book about
the murder called “Death of an Innocence.”
•In the book, they talk about the murder of
their daughter, the emotional disbelief they
felt, and how they thought the crime
should have been handled. They also
mentioned about the intruder theory
The intruder theory
• It was said that an outside individual snuck into the
house through a window in the basement on
Christmas Day when the family was out at a dinner
party hosted by one of their good friends. The
intruder was to wait until the family returned home
and went to asleep. Once it was safe, the intruder
used a stun gun to kidnap JonBenet quietly from her
bedroom, took her to the basement, where she was
sexually abused, and then killed her.
The Opinion of the media and the
police
• Clues were reported that directed blame
toward the Ramsey’s and were never
retracted once proven wrong
– Reported-No footprints in the snow around the
house indicating it had to be an inside job
– Police were quoted as saying “ Strange no prints”
– Pictures showed that on the morning of the crime
there was not snow near the front of the house so
someone could have easily approached the house
without leaving prints
The Opinion of the
media and the police
• Vanity Fair quoted a police officer
saying that on the morning of the
crime, Patsy while weeping “ had been
peering at him through splayed fingers
• Friends and Family members who were
also present described Patsy as so
overcome with grief that she was
unable to talk with out crying
Moving Away from the Ramseys
• Homicide investigator Lou Smit left the case
in 1998, writing in a resignation letter that
"John and Patsy Ramsey didn't kill their
daughter." In 2003, a federal judge dismissing
a libel suit against the Ramseys ruled that
evidence in the case was more consistent
with an intruder
Due to failure of securing the scene upon arrival by the
police evidence was compromised. The evidence
included:
•two unidentified shoeprints
• an opened window
•fabric from Patsy’s sweater,
•unidentified male DNA
• a ransom note.
A shoeprint was found near her body. The type
of shoe was Hi-Tec, The other shoeprint was
found outside of the house near the basement in
the snow. It was not a set of prints, but two
separate shoeprints. Therefore; it is not known
where these shoeprints were headed to or how
they got there. John Ramsey reportedly said
that the prior Thanksgiving, construction
workers were remodeling the kitchen and could
have gone to the basement to obtain tools or
water.
Not actual shoeprint found
• Palm prints were also found on the door leading to
the room where the body was found.
• A nail had been put as a door latch.
• The intruder must have had to open the door, but
there were no prints on the doorknob.
• There was no other prints found anywhere near the
house.
• So did the intruder wear gloves for everything, but
latching the door?
According to the intruder theory, the murderer climbed
through a window in the basement on Christmas night,
waiting for the return of the Ramsey family.
•The window was said to have been broken previous ;
therefore, it could have been easier for the intruder to enter
and exit.
•John Ramsey was reportedly said to have closed the open
window on the day he found the body .
•Why?
•It is also said that a pile of dust had been formed near the
window, which the intruder should have stepped into;
however, if the intruder stepped into the dust, then
shouldn’t have more prints been found around the house?
•A briefcase was also found in front of the window acting
a step for the intruder to hoist himself up through the
window.
•When John found her body, he is said to have taken duct
tape from her mouth before carrying her upstairs.
•When he laid her down upstairs, Patsy cried out and hugged
her. As she did, fibers from the red sweater Patsy was said to
be wearing fell onto JonBenet.
•But it was said that the tape from JonBenet’s lips also
contained the red fibers from the sweater; the same tape that
John Ramsey left in the basement, a place where Patsy did
not go that morning.
•Photographs from the Christmas party the night before
showed that the red sweater Patsy was wearing that morning
was also the same sweater she had worn to the dinner party
the night before.
DNA in panties
In the autopsy report, DNA was found in the panties
JonBenet was wearing and under her nails.
•The DNA was from a male.
•The testing concluded that JonBenet was sexually
molested before being dying.
•DNA sampling from friends and family did not
match.
•other tests show that JonBenet seemed to have a
vaginal infection.
•Her pediatrician, who JonBenet had visited more
than 30 times in a few months period, reported that
he noticed it, but concluded that it must have come
from bubble baths.
• Till this day, the DNA is still remains unidentified.
TodayFor nearly a decade, the family battled
investigators and public perception,
insisting that an intruder — not a parent
or sibling — beat and strangled the 6year-old beauty queen on Dec. 26, 1996.
The intruder theory has gathered
momentum in recent years, culminating
with the arrest of John Mark Karr on
Wednesday Aug. 16th in Thailand.
.
Karr
• The investigation that led law enforcement to
41 year old, John Mark Karr can be traced to
a single e-mail, sent about four years ago.
• Karr sent the correspondence to University of
Colorado journalism professor Michael
Tracey after viewing the first of three Traceyproduced documentaries on the JonBenet
Ramsey case.
About Karr
•Karr taught at a variety of foreign
schools and worked as a tutor and
"caregiver" for young girls, according to
an online resume.
•It appears that his foreign employment
began after his April 2001 arrest in
California for possession of child
pornography. Karr, who went on the run
while awaiting trial, worked as an English
teacher in Asia and Europe during 20012002.
•He appears to have bounced between
teaching and nanny jobs in the following
years before landing at a school in
nd
Honduras, where he worked as a 2 grade
Quote from Mark Karr:
• "I was with JonBenet when she died,"
Karr told reporters Thursday, visibly
nervous and stuttering as he spoke.
"Her death was an accident."
Asked if he was innocent of the crime,
Karr said: "No."
Evidence not matching up
• Karr is reported to have told Bangkok
officials that he drugged her before
rapping her – autopsy tox. Tested were
negative
• His second ex- wife claims to
have been with Karr in his
fathers house in AL.on the night
in question.
• He told the media that he
had picked JonBenet up
from school
DNA Evidence
• DNA was taken from Karr in Thailand, before
leaving, then taken again in Boulder
• It did not match
• the arrest was based solely on Karr's
alleged confession via emails to Michael
Tracey and a recent press conference in
Thailand where he told the media that
he was with JonBenet when she died
and that it was an accidental death.
False Confessions
• More than 200 people falsely confessed
to kidnapping Charles Lindbergh's baby
in 1932, about 50 falsely claimed to
have slain the Black Dahlia (1940s film
star Elizabeth Short) and several falsely
confessed to killing O.J. Simpson's
estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson.
Why Falsely Confess?
• Some people put themselves in the limelight
out of a pathological need for notoriety.
Others have an unconscious need to deal
with residual guilt for other transgressions.
• A third type cannot distinguish facts from
fantasy because they are delusional. They
have read or heard enough about the case
that they've committed the facts to memory.
These individuals can sometimes pass
polygraph tests because they truly believe
they are guilty
Unanswered Questions
• Whose DNA?
• Who other than John or Patsy would
know about the amt. of the bonus
• How did they know about JonBenet
• How did they know the details of the
house
• Who wrote the ransom note?