Cops said I tortured & murdered my beautiful daughter JonBenet Ramsay, 6… pageant snapper’s denial led to chilling twist
IT was a case that gripped America and made headlines around the world.
But the murder of the six-year-old beauty pageant star JonBenet Ramsey has never been solved.
The family’s horrific grief was compounded when suspicion fell on her mum and dad – and even brother Burke, who was just nine years old.
Now a new Netflix documentary – Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey – criticises the botched police investigation and the media for presenting the family as the prime suspects.
Police sent a letter of apology to the Ramsey’s in 2008 saying that DNA evidence proved their innocence – but it was too late for mum Patsy who had died of ovarian cancer two years previously.
Dad John Ramsey, now aged 80, says that no matter if their daughter’s killer is caught or not, there will always be people who believe they are guilty, saying: “We could have the killer arrested convicted and in prison and there would still be five to ten per cent of the population thinks we are guilty.
“And that is not surprising based on what they were told. I get letters from people for years saying I am so sorry I thought you were guilty, I was wrong. And I write back and say how could you have believed anything else, that is what you were told by the media, by the police.”
It was the morning after Christmas at 5.52am when distraught Patsy called 911 saying her little girl had been kidnapped out of her bed and a ransom note left in the house.
The family had enjoyed a big family Christmas Day celebration and were due to leave early on Boxing Day to fly to Michigan to spend time with dad John Ramsey’s older children.
Dad John explains: “I was shaving in the bathroom when I heard Patsy scream. She had gone downstairs to the kitchen and found this ransom note. And it was just unbelievable.”
The note said “we have your daughter”. Patsy told police she ran up the stairs and threw open JonBenet’s bedroom door and she was gone.
The note claimed to be from a foreign faction which disagreed with American policies.
It demanded the family withdraw $118,000 from the bank and said they would call the next day to instruct on delivery and how to get JonBenet back unharmed.
If the family didn’t follow the instructions and spoke to police, JonBenet would be beheaded.
But the family immediately decided to call the cops.
Bob Whitson, retired police detective from Boulder County, Colorado, got a call to say they had had a reported kidnapping of a six-year-old girl.
He recalls: “I knew initially this was a very rare case. Kidnapping for a ransom, we had never had a case like this.”
Two detectives were sent over to search the Ramsey’s huge house – but they found no obvious crime scene and, crucially, no signs of JonBenet.
An officer collected the ransom note and the Ramseys were asked to provide samples of their handwriting and they handed over their note pads.
And when the police handwriting expert examined the books – he found what appeared to be a first draft of a ransom note in Patsy’s pad.
The focus was now firmly on the Ramsey family.
FBI agent Ron Walker says in 2006: “The first thing that struck me about the note was the length of the note. It is quite unusual to see this magnum opus. Your typical ransom notes are short and to the point.
“The next thing that really jumps out at you is the $118,000. Really odd number to ask for. The $118,000 is a low figure but it is also a very unusual figure because it is just not typical of what you expect to see.
“You expect to see $200,000, $300,000, $250,000, a million, half a million – but not $118,000. All of this really in aggregate sort of indicated to me that the note was essentially bogus. It was not truly a kidnapping note.”
Meanwhile the family were enduring an agonising wait for the kidnappers to call, so they decided to search the house again where John Ramsey and his friend discovered one of the basement windows was smashed with a suitcase under the window as if it had been used as a step.
The detectives looked for a pulse, looked at me and said she’s dead
John Ramsey
They then went into another room in the basement – and immediately found JonBenet’s body.
John Ramsey said: “She had tape over her mouth and her hands were tied behind her back. I immediately pulled the tape off and I tried to untie her hands but the knot was tied really tight, I couldn’t get it undone. So I just screamed and I picked her up and carried her upstairs just to try to get her help.
“The detectives looked for a pulse, looked at me and said she’s dead.”
Media trial
The world’s media descended on Boulder – and started looking into the family. Jon Ramsey was boss of a billion dollar computer business – but all their friends went to ground and refused to talk.
John had three children from his first marriage, and then had JonBenet and her older brother Burke with second wife Patsy.
The family seemed to live an idyllic life until John’s second daughter Beth was killed in a car accident in 1992.
The following year Patsy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and underwent a year of brutal chemotherapy, determined to live for her children.
The autopsy on JonBenet’s body showed she had been tied up and strangled with a rope and a garotte which had been made from one of Patsy’ Ramsey’s artists’ paintbrushes that had been kept in the basement.
Red marks beneath her throat were consistent with tragic JonBenet desperately trying to use her own fingers to release the pressure from he cord wrapped around her neck.
But she had also been hit over the head and part of her skull had caved in.
And there was also evidence to suggest she had been sexually assaulted with an object.
Police found two items that they believe could have been used to hit JonBenet – the family baseball bat which was found outside the house, and the family’s torch which was left in the kitchen – but there was no physical evidence found on either item.
Investigative reporter Paula Woodward who covered the case says: “Such anger, such fury. She was tortured and she was murdered.”
Pictures and videos of JonBenet taking part in beauty pageants flooded the newspapers and news channels.
How the case unfolded
August 1990
- JonBenet Ramsey born to parents John and Patsy
January 1992
- John’s second daughter, Beth, is killed when her car collides with a truck
1993
- Patsy is diagnosed with ovarian cancer and undergoes chemotherapy
Boxing Day 1996
- A ransom note is found claiming JonBenet has been kidnapped, leading to her parents calling the cops.
- Later that day, JonBenet’s body is discovered in the basement.
1999
- A Grand Jury trial returned a true bill to charge the Ramseys with placing the child at risk in a way that led to her death – but they avoid prosecution due to lack of evidence.
2002
- Messages sent to Professor Michael Tracey lead to the arrest of John Mark Kerr
2006
- Patsy Ramsey dies of cancer.
2008
- Police send a letter of apology to the Ramseys after DNA evidence proved their innocence.
2010
- Investigator Lou Smit dies.
2022
- The Ramsey family petition the government to take more action to solve the murder.
2023
- The Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s panel of experts recommend steps for the police to take.
The Ramseys were heavily criticised for what some saw as the sexualisation of JonBenet through the pageants – but the Ramseys maintained they were just innocent fun and JonBenet loved to perform.
John Ramsey says: “We were being prosecuted in the court of public opinion and of course by that time we were pretty much convicted. Gallop the poll people did a poll in that period, 70 per cent of those polled felt the family killed their daughter.”
Three days after the murder the Boulder police – inexperienced in handling big murder inquiries – still had no leads.
And the media started questioning their competency – particularly why JonBenet’s body was not found during the initial search of the family home.
Police didn’t immediately seal off the house as a crime scene, meaning vital evidence could have been lost.
Fearing they were being treated as suspects not victims, the Ramsey family hired lawyers and stopped talking to police, which raised suspicions further.
One of the first detectives on the scene, Linda Arndt, even gave a TV interview detailing her belief that John Ramsey had killed his daughter.
But in January DNA samples taken from JonBenet’s body were found not to match anyone in the Ramsey family – instead it belonged to an unidentified male. But police did not reveal that vital information to either the DA’s office or the media.
Speculation about the Ramsey’s involvement continued to circulate, with TV chat show host Geraldo Rivera even holding a mock trial of John and Patsy Ramsey for their daughter’s murder – which shockingly finding them liable.
The police were also feeding information to the media which were discrediting the family, including that John Ramsey flew the jet carrying his daughter’s coffin to her funeral in Atlanta. It was totally untrue.
Family accused
Then claims started to circulate that JonBenet had been a previous victim of sexual abuse – not just on the night she died.
British Professor Michael Tracey, who works at the University of Colorado in Boulder, says: “The logic seemed to be, she’s in the pageants, her parents have put her in the pageants, she’s kind of sexualised, Jon Ramsey’s her dad, therefore John Ramsey must be sexually abusing her. It is impossible to connect the dots, but a lot of people did connect the dots.”
Heartbroken John and Patsy publicly denied the claims, and even JonBenet’s own paediatrician confirmed she had never been the victim of sexual abuse, but the rumours persisted.
It was just nonsense. It didn’t pass the sanity test
John Ramsey
But most distressing for the family were claims that JonBenet’s nine-year-old brother Burke had killed his little sister.
Burke’s older brother John Andrew Ramsey says: “It is just simply not fair to him. If you look back to pictures of nine-year-old Burke, I mean it is just absolutely absurd to think he’d have killed his sister and delivered this level of violence. It is just crazy.”
But despite the lack of DNA evidence, the police continues to believe the family were involved.
John San Agustin, retired sheriff’s office commander, said: “One of the initial theories that were developed by the Boulder police was that Patsy Ramsey in a fit of rage killed her daughter because she had soiled the bed.”
John Ramsey says: “I have five children, they all wet their beds when they were little I’m sure. That is no big deal, it is just part of little kids. Patsy had just recovered from stage four ovarian cancer, she was grateful to be alive.
“Do you think that her child wetting her bed would be a big deal? No. She was happy to be alive and have some more time with her children. It was just nonsense. It didn’t pass the sanity test.”
And to complicate matters further there was a split between the Boulder police and the District Attorney’s office – with the cops focused on the family, and the DA’s office believing JonBenet was killed by an intruder.
Stun gun marks
The DA’s office brought in experienced investigator Lou Smit – and his review of the autopsy on JonBenet revealed stun gun marks on her body.
John San Agustin, who was brought in by Lou Smit to help on the case, says: “Those stun gun marks never sat well with Lou. Why would a mum or dad stun gun their daughter multiple times? To take her to the basement?”
Reporter Carol McKinley says: “When they brought Lou Smit in I think people were open minded. But then police started realising he was starting to believe that the Ramseys were innocent. That was not what they thought, they felt he was going down the wrong road.
“They called him a delusional old man, that they felt he was just a bumbling guy who was trying to make a name for himself by presenting a different theory.”
John Ramsey was convinced the intruder had got in through the broken basement window.
John Ramsey says: “I firmly believe that when we took the kids Christmas night and went for dinner with some friends at 6ish and got home about 9ish, and I believe the killer came into our home while we were gone and waited until we were asleep. I think that’s for sure.”
Retired detective Bob Whitson says that at the time there had been a series of incidents in the Boulder area where an intruder had gain access to homes to commit sexual assaults.
I am going to be hammering on to you until I die if you don’t find this creature who did this to do our daughter
John Ramsey
In diaries he recorded at the time, the increasingly frustrated Lou Smit said: “There is evidence of an intruder. I say this over and over again but nobody wants to listen. And as a result of that there is a very good chance that tragedy could again strike this family.”
It was decided to put the case before a Grand Jury – where the prosecution would present their case but there would be no defence – who would decide whether to indict the Ramseys for charges related to the case.
In 1999, after a year of testimony, the grand jury returned a true bill to charge the Ramseys with placing the child at risk in a way that led to her death.
But Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter did not prosecute them, because he did not believe that he had enough evidence.
No justice
The Ramseys had pretty much used up their life savings on their legal battle, and believed the police were not properly investigating their daughter’s murder because they had fixated on the family.
John and Patsy continued to give interviews, with John explaining: “The whole purpose of engaging with the media was to put pressure on the police, we are not going away, I am going to be hammering on to you until I die if you don’t find this creature who did this to do our daughter.”
But John Smit continued to investigate, believing a paedophile intruder had killed JonBenet, maybe after seeing her at one of her beauty pageants.
Police investigated paedophile Gary Oliva, but his DNA did not match that found at the scene.
Beauty pageant photographer Randy Simons had taken many pictures of JonBenet and sold some of them to a photo agency.
After her murder he told many of the pageant mothers that he did not kill JonBenet, which raised questions because nobody had suggested he had.
He was later arrested for child pornography and jailed for 10 years- but his DNA was not found at the JonBenet murder scene.
In 2002, someone contacted Professor Michael Tracey to say he had killed JonBenet and the messages continued for four years. Michael took the information he had to Mary Lacy, the new District Attorney.
It was later found to be a 41-year-old teacher in Bangkok called John Mark Karr. He was arrested but his DNA did not match.
By this point Patsy’s cancer had returned and she died without ever being truly exonerated of involvement in her daughter’s death or finding justice for her.
But many experts in the case believe the police’s failure to adequately seal off the crime scene in the hours after JonBenet’s body was found may have caused issues with the DNA evidence.
JonBenet knew she was loved. I know she would be sad for her family, she cared for her family
Michael Tracey says: “I think if the DNA is faulty a lot of people could still be a suspect.”
In 2022, the Ramsey family petitioned for the government to take more action to solve JonBenet’s murder.
John Ramsey says: “What we are advocating for is we know there are five or six items taken from the crime scene that were not DNA sampled so we want those items sampled.
“We want the items that have been sampled to be retested and then use the public genealogy database to look for not only a match but also for a similar relative. That has been used very successfully in the last three or four years by police departments to find the killer of very old cold cases.”
In 2023, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation assembled a panel of experts to conduct a cold case review on JonBenet’s murder.
They recommended steps the police should take to find the killer. But the police won’t release those recommendations.
Lou Smit also had cancer and even when he was in the hospice he was still trying to solve Jon Benet’s case. He died in 2010.
John Ramsey believes JonBenet would be devastated for the trauma her family have been through adding: “JonBenet knew she was loved. I know she would be sad for her family, she cared for her family.”