I’ve been glued to my couch for the past couple of days watching various specials on Jon Benét Ramsey. I’ve always had an interest in this case because even from a young age, I felt that something wasn’t adding up. I don’t even know how I first discovered the case but I went as far as to do a multi-genre project on the case my junior year of high school. I could have studied the case for hours, trying to piece evidence and clues together. My husband and I joke that I should have been a private investigator because I’m always figuring things out. At one point I wanted to grow up and study criminology because I’ve always had some sort of draw to crimes and solving cases. But that’s a story for another day…
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But in case you don’t know anything about the case, I’ll give you a quick rundown. On December 26th, 1996, six-year old Jon Benét Ramsey was found dead in her home. When Patsy Ramsey woke up and came downstairs, she found a three-page ransom note and immediately went to look for her children. Her son, nine-year old Burke Ramsey, was sound asleep in bed (so they said.. but we will get to that) but six-year old Jon Benét was missing. She called 911 and shortly after, called friends and family to come over and wait with them. After a few hours of waiting for a call from the kidnappers and not hearing anything, John Ramsey (the father) and a friend are told by a detective to search the house from top to bottom. And that’s when they discover Jon Benét’s body in the basement.
This entire case is so messed up it makes me angry just thinking about it. So many things don’t add up and after watching these specials, I have no doubt in my mind that it was her parents or brother. I’m not sure which one of them killed her but they were all in on it and helped one another cover it up. Why? Well a lot of reasons. But here are the biggest things that stick out to me:
The 911 call; Patsy thinks she hangs up the phone but there are six seconds of inaudible noise. Using current technology, they are able to dissect it on the specials I watched. And they are pretty sure they hear John say “We’re not speaking to you.” And then Patsy says “What did you do? Help me, Jesus.” And Burke says “Well what did you find?” The Ramseys swore that Burke was sleeping the entire time but this new technology would tell us differently.
If you think your daughter has been kidnapped, why are you calling people over to your house? By doing that, you’re contaminating the crime scene and making it harder for law enforcement to do their job. AND get the correct DNA from important pieces of evidence.
A three page ransom note was found on the back stairs. Why would it be left there? How did the supposed “intruder” know that was the staircase they used to come downstairs everyday? Why wouldn’t it be placed on the kitchen table or kitchen counter?
The ransom note was written on Patsy Ramsey’s notepad with a Sharpie from the house. No kidnapper is going to come into a house to commit a crime and sit down to write a three page ransom note. The note itself is also a huge red flag; after having Patsy Ramsey provide a handwriting sample, they found a ton of similarities in her writing and the writing on the note. They also found that there were purposeful spelling errors in the note because bigger words than the ones that were spelled wrong, were spelled correctly. The note contained a ton of movie quotes (the Ramsey’s loved movies and had movie posters everywhere in their basement) from movies that involved kidnappings. I could go on and on but those are the biggest red flags.
Next, they found that Jon Benét died from a brain injury. She was struck in the head with a blunt object which caused her to die. But when her body was found, she had a garrote (strangling device) around her neck, her hands were tied up, and she had blood in her underwear. However all of these seem staged and were unnecessary because that’s not how she died. The strangest part? They found undigested pineapple in her system. Her parents had said that she went right to bed after they got home from a Christmas party… so why was their undigested pineapple in her system?
They had proposed that an intruder came in the house but there were no signs of forced entry. There was a broken window in the basement that John had broken months prior and never fixed. However after watching two investigators go through the window in the specials and comparing a picture from the crime scene, there’s no way someone came in and went out that window. The picture clearly shows a cobweb and deterioration of paint, wood, and debris that had been there for months. Had someone come in and out the window, the cobweb would have been disrupted.
They also disproved theories that she was sexually abused and that the DNA didn’t belong to anyone in the household. Or the other perpetrators that they had taken into custody as suspects. With new technology that was unavailable 20 years ago, they were able to test brand new underwear from a package and find multiple traces of DNA on the underwear. Obviously from the workers that had handled in the production. So the fact that they dismissed the Ramsey family as suspects because the DNA on the underwear didn’t match their DNA, doesn’t hold up.
John and Patsy Ramsey both hired their own lawyers (weird…) and refused to be interviewed right away. That’s like the first thing that’s happens when there is a crime. You interview any suspects (separately) and get statements. They didn’t do that! And months later when they finally did get interviewed, they seemed very rehearsed. What stands out to me after watching all of the specials is the brother, Burke. His interviews are very weird; he has no sense of fear that he was in the home when his sister was “kidnapped”and then murdered. He isn’t sad and is very playful. I know he’s only 9 but he demonstrates how he thinks his sister might have been killed and just very eery. He says he’s not thinking much about it and “just going on with his life”. Like I’m sorry, I would be terrified to sleep at night and sad as hell if my sibling was brutally murdered when I was in the house.
What the investigators, forensic specialists, etc think is that Burke did it, accidentally, and then John and Patsy Ramsey covered it up. And I agree with that. They were a very wealthy family and were able to intimidate or possibly even pay the DA Office to dismiss indictments from the grand jury and hush hush the police department. They think that Jon Benét possibly walked downstairs, grabbed a piece of pineapple from the bowl Burke was eating out of and without even thinking, Burke struck her with a flashlight out of anger.
Apparently Burke was interviewed by Dr. Phil and I have yet to see that, but I’ve heard he’s been criticized for smiling during the interview. And that Dr. Phil dismisses his behavior as anxious behavior. I’m calling bullshit. From everything I’ve seen, he comes off as pompous and entitled. As someone who got away with a crime he committed, not on purpose, but a crime none the less.
This whole thing upsets me because some poor little girl lost her life and has yet to get the justice she deserves. And I don’t know that she ever will. Patsy passed away from Ovarian Cancer in 2006 and John and Burke still deny any involvement. So who knows. All I’m saying is that all clues and evidence point to someone inside that house.
If you’ve been following the case, what are your thoughts? What do you think really happened to Jon Benét Ramsey?
