5 chilling details about JonBenét Ramsey's murder
JonBenét Ramsey was a six-year-old child who was found dead in the basement of her house in Boulder, Colorado on December 25, 1996. Her parents John and Patsy Ramsey were searching for their child, who had been missing. After seven hours her body was retrieved, shockingly from the Ramsey residence itself.
There were no signs of any forced entry into the house, someone had left a ransom note in the house, asking for a sum of $ 118,00. On the night of the murder, the only people residing in the house were JonBenét Ramsey's nine-year-old brother Burke, her father John, who was a computer executive, and her mother Patricia, who was former Miss West Virginia.
Initially, all the suspicions were directed to the parents, but even after rigorous investigation, no concrete evidence could prove their guilt. The murder of JonBenét Ramsey remains one of the most talked about cold cases in the history of Boulder, Colorado.
Netflix's upcoming docu-series Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey? brings this cold case back to the limelight after almost three decades. American filmmaker Joe Berlinger, known for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), and Watch Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019) is set to direct the three-part docuseries. It will premiere on Netflix on November 25, 2024.
"Rehearsed" 911 call, suspicious ransom letter, and other key details about the murder of JonBenét Ramsey
1) JonBenét Ramsey was found with a cracked skull and garrote strangled around her neck
Reportedly, JonBenét Ramsey's father John was the first person to discover the body. When the authorities arrived at the crime scene, they saw that the little girl's mouth was duct taped, and a garrot had been tied around her neck. The garrote is a weapon that was used for capital punishment, mainly to strangle a person.
When the autopsy reports came, investigators found that the cause of death was asphyxia, leading to craniocerebral trauma. Detectives could comprehend that JonBenét Ramsey was killed by strangulation.
2) JonBenét Ramsey was reportedly sexually abused before the murder
As per the autopsy report, the sexual assault could not be ruled out even though there was no clear evidence of the same. As per a People article, published on November 6, 2015, John was the first person to come under suspicion. When he was confronted with the suspicion, he found it to be "nauseating beyond belief".
The body of JonBenét Ramsey was found with a blanket on her torso. As per a Denver Post article, autopsy reports also revealed that the victim's i*timate areas were wiped with a cloth.
3) The murder scene initially looked fabricated and the 911 call sounded "rehearsed"
The parents of JonBenét Ramsey came under suspicion after the murder. Patsy was a former model, who made her daughter join a number of beauty pageants. The investigators found no visible signs of any break-ins into the house, and JonBenét's nine-year-old brother was ruled out of suspicion.
In another People article, published on October 4, 2016, Kim Archuletta, the 911 call operator who had received an emergency call from the Ramsey residence, revealed her thoughts. As per her records, Patsy was the one to make the call after 5 a.m. Archuletta said:
"I just remember having that sunken feeling, like something wasn’t right. The problem was, if you hear the frantic in her voice when she’s speaking to me, where she couldn’t even answer my questions, it immediately stopped. I had a bad feeling about this. To me, it seemed rehearsed… that’s never changed."
4) The retrieved ransom note raised more suspicions
Patsy was the first person who provided the ransom note to the investigators, which she claimed to have found on the kitchen staircase. Shockingly, as per John, the letter demanded the very same amount that he received as a Christmas bonus, on the previous year. The detectives suspected that the letter must have come from someone who had a good idea about the Ramsey family's financial details.
As per the ransom note, which stretched for two and a half pages long, the letter came from a group of individuals representing a small foreign party. Directed to John, the letter claimed the abduction of JonBenét Ramsey, even threatening to kill the girl.
Some investigators suspected the letter to be fabricated and indicated it was written by Patsy Ramsey herself.
5) John and Patsy were discharged from the case
Initially, the Ramsey family was suspected of murder, but due to the lack of concrete evidence, detectives were unable to directly charge the parents. Back in December 2023, medical investigators retrieved an unknown DNA sample, mixed with JonBenét's blood, but it didn't match any of the family members.
In 2008, the Boulder County District Attorney's office sent an apology letter to the parents, clearing them out of the case. Former Boulder, Colorado Police Chief, Mark Becker expressed his regrets on the case being mishandled. As per a People article, published on February 26, 2015, he explained:
“It was the Christmas holiday and we were short staffed, we faced a situation as I said earlier that no one in the country had ever seen before or since, and there was confusion at the scene as people were arriving before we had enough personnel on the scene.”
In 1997, the Ramsey family moved to Atlanta. Patsy Ramsey died of ovarian cancer in 2006, and John remarried again in 2011. The killer behind the murder of JonBenét Ramsey remains a mystery.
