The Death of JonBenét Ramsey

 Disclaimer -  This blog is for educational and awareness purposes. I mean no disrespect to anyone spoken about in this blog. 

JonBenét was a 6 year old girl from Boulder Colorado, USA. JonBenét was the youngest of two children to Patsy and John Ramsey, her older brother was named Burke and was 9 at the time of her death.

JonBenét was a beauty pageant girl, she took part in many pageants over the years and was known for that. JonBenet had curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

On December 26^th 1996 JonBenét was tragically murdered inside her home in Boulder Colorado. JonBenéts cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma. JonBenét was found with a Garrote around her neck, duck tape on her mouth and her hands tied behind her back.

Timeline of events📆

December 25th

•       10 PM - The Ramsey’s arrive home

•       10pm -  JonBenét is put straight into bed 

•       11PM – 3 AM Neighbours hear screams and loud bangs from the Ramsey house as well as bright lights and movements from the kitchen
December 26th

•       5.30 AM Patsy Ramsey wakes up and finds a ransom note on the staircase

•       5.52 AM Patsy makes a 911 call to report her daughter missing 911 CALL

•       5.59 AM - Boulder police arrive

•       6 AM – 8 AM The Ramsey’s invite their friends over

•       8 AM -1PM – Different investigators arrive 

•       1.05 PM – John Ramsey and his friend go down to the basement and find JonBenét's lifeless body and brings her up to the Livingroom floor.

Ransom note📜

The ransom note which Patsy found was 2 ½ pages long. It was written inside the house with Patsy’s notepad and pen. 

Investigators timed writing this note and took approximatly 20 minutes. 

The ransom note demanded that the Ramsey’s hand over $118,000 and were not to phone the police. $118,000 was the amount of John Ramsey’s bonus for the year, investigators say it is such a specific amount of money that it must have been someone close to the family to know this information.

John and Patsy Ramsey both took handwriting tests to see if their writing matched the note. John Ramsey was cleared however, Patsy’s was undetermined.

DNA 📎

When JonBenét's body was examined, DNA from 2 males and 1 female was found under her nails, however it was too small and degraded to identify. Male DNA was found on her leggings and fibres from Patsy's jumper were found on the duck tape which was around her mouth.

Theories 🔎

Patsy and/or John Ramsey
 The garrote was said to have been made from one of Patsy’s paint brushes. It was snowing quite heavy and there was no sign of any snowy footprints outside or inside the house to suggest an intruder. Many people believe Patsy Ramsey or John killed JonBenét on purpose or even by accident and staged the kidnapping to cover it up. When John found JonBenét he was told to leave her where she was found, as it was a crime scene. However, John picked up his child, lifted her up the stairs and placed a blanket over her, thus contaminating the crime scene. Hours after his daughter was found, John tried to book a flight out of town immediately.

Burke Ramsey

The Ramsey's claimed Burke was sleeping when the frantic search began for his sister, despite there being 3 voices heard on the 911 call. On the morning of her disappearance in the kitchen was a bowl of Burkes pineapple. After the autopsy of JonBenét came back it showed she had an undigested piece of pineapple in her stomach. This would then contradict the Ramsey’s claim that the child was put straight to bed. The theory which follows this is that Burke was angry that JonBenét took a piece of his fruit and out of rage hit her over the head with the nearby flashlight. The parents then staged it as a kidnaping to protect their only child left. Burke had a history of violent outbursts as it was reported he had hit JonBenét with a golf club only 12 month prior, leaving her with a scar on her face. JonBenét had cuts on her back, which resembled her been poked with a piece of Burkes train track. Burkes interview with police also raised many questions, see below for the video.

An Intruder

This theory is the one which the Ramsey family strongly contested was the only option. That someone broke into their basement from the window and killed JonBenét. They wrote the ransom note in an attempt to throw investigators off the murder, which did work to an extent. This theory was looked into and many local pedophiles and people who had contact frequently with JonBenét were looked into, however no evidence of this was found.

Due to the reasoning behind this blog, I have left out a lot of valuable information, if you are interested in this case, I encourage you to watch the following documentary 

I invite you to voice any further information and theories you may have in the comments.