Murder of JonBenét Ramsey

Some material in this article may contain graphically explicit material; that may upset certain viewers.

JonBenet Ramsey was a young American child beauty pageant contestant who was found murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado in December 1996. The six-year-old's body was found about eight hours after she was reported missing, in the basement of the family home, during a police search of the home. She had been struck on the head and strangled. The case remains unsolved, even after several grand jury hearings, and continues to generate public and media interest.

Evenets

On Christmas Day 1996, JonBenet and her family opened presents and delivered presents to friends and neighbors. JonBenet and her family went home and went to bed. Early in the morning of December 26, 1996, around 5:00 a.m., Patricia Ramsey woke up, discovered that JonBenét was missing and found a two-and-a-half-page-long hand-written ransom note addressed to Mr. Ramsey claiming that their daughter had been kidnapped by "a group of individuals representing a small foreign faction". It demanded a ransom of $118 000, with very specific instructions about the size of the bills and how they were to be delivered, and was signed "S.B.T.C.". Mrs. Ramsey called the police, who came and searched the house and found no obvious signs of forced entry, and also some friends of the family. In the meantime, the Ramseys made preparations to pay the ransom. In the afternoon of the same day, the body of JonBenét Ramsey was found in the house's wine cellar by Mr. Ramsey and a family friend, Fleet White. Her own white blanket was wrapped around her torso, her hands were bound with a wire, there was a ligature around her neck and her mouth was taped over with black duct tape. Mr. Ramsey quickly picked her up, loosened her bonds and carried her into the living room, but she was already long since dead. The postmortem examination and autopsy of the body revealed that Ramsey had been strangled twice with a nylon cord, which had been tied to a piece of a paintbrush from the house, presumably for leverage. The brush had belonged to Mrs. Ramsey and had been in the basement. There were also clear signs of blunt force trauma to the head, possible signs of sexual assault, and electrical burns on the cheek, suggesting that she may also have been tasered with a stun gun. The cause of death was ruled as asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma.

For years John and Pasty have been accused of the murder, in 2004 Pasty died of cancer and in 2006 they were cleared not guilty. 

Theroies

There are two theories on the murder;

• The Ramseys did it and the evidence can't be linked to them to them because they live in the house.
• An intruder did it, but the Boulder Police contaminated or missed what he left.

Legacy

The Ramseys passed lie detector tests, their DNA does not match the DNA of an unknown male; even many psychics espically those on the show Haunting Evidence say that it was an intruder. The balance of evidence suggests that JonBenet was killed by an intruder and that the Ramseys were innocent but the truth may never be known.

Triva

• The South Park episode strongly implied that Patsy Ramsey with her husband were responsible for the death of JonBenét Ramsey. In a 2011 interview, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone stated that they regretted how the Ramseys were portrayed in the episode.