Hey Hey,
I thought I’d share with you all a recent case study I researched for a uni assignment, as I haven’t posted in while (I know I’m slack). It’s a writing piece about the unsolved murder mystery of the american child beauty queen JonBènet Ramsey. It’s a little different to what I usually write but hope you enjoy!!
Name – JonBenèt Ramsey
Age – 6-year-old girl
Born – August 6th 1990
Died – December 25th or 26th 1996
Birth place – Atlanta, Georgia
Place of death – Boulder, Colorado
Cause of death – Death by asphyxiation
Time of death – between 10pm of December 25th and 6am December 26th
Jonbenèt was a 6-year-old child beauty queen who lived with her family in Boulder, Colorado. Her father, John, was a computer services company executive, and her mother, Patricia (Patsy), was a stay-at-home mom. She had one brother Burke, and an older half-brother, John. JonBenét was an active participant in child beauty pageants, winning many titles of America’s pageants.
On December 25th 1996, after a party, Patsy carried her 6-year-old sleeping daughter up the stairs to bed at approximately 09:00 pm. At 05:00 am the next morning, on her way to the kitchen, JonBenét’s mother found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for her daughter’s safe return as they had kidnapped the young girl. The note said that the kidnappers would monitor the collection of the money and that JonBenét would be returned as soon as it was paid. Patsy called the police, who did a search of the house, but couldn’t find any signs that someone had broken in. Interestingly, $118,000 is the exact amount that John received as a bonus that year from his company so whoever kidnapped their daughter, wrote the note and killed Jonbenèt must have known the family well enough to know the exact bonus Mr. Ramsey had received. After Patsy called the police JonBenét’s body was eventually found in the home’s basement eight hours later by her father John. The young girl was found with her wrists bound, duct tape over her mouth and covered with a blanket. A garret was twisted around her neck, and the cause of death was officially listed as asphyxiation by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma, a blow to the head, possibly from a large torch or baseball bat, about an hour before she was strangled, per a death certificate obtained by. It is also believed that she was sexually assaulted. John picked her up and put her in the middle of the lounge room floor which was a massive contamination of evidence as he removed the victim from the crime scene and placed her where there were people walking through the area she was placed. The case was really poorly handled from the start.
Theories
- There is one theory, that is the most popular, as it is believed that her brother Burke killed his sister Jonbenèt and their parents covered up the murder. This is believed due to people have pointed out that he behaved bizarrely during a recent show interview with Dr Phil, laughing and smiling when talking about the day his sister’s body was found. It is assumed that nine-year-old caused his sibling’s death when they were playing, but that it wasn’t on purpose. JonBenét was found with a broken skull and a garrote around her neck, with an autopsy confirming that she had been strangled. For many years, the public questioned whether John and Patsy Ramsey staged the rest of the crime to protect their oldest child.
- Another current theory stands that an intruder, with possible pedophilic motives, was responsible for her death. This could have been due to her being a pageant queen who would have been seen wearing provocative clothing while singing and performing while wearing lots of makeup. The possibility of JonBenèt Ramsey being murdered by a Colorado ‘child porn ring living in Boulder is being highly explored as a possible lead in solving this murder case but there is not much evidence that supports this claim. This lead was considered and proved to be untrue because there were no signs of forced entry of anyone breaking into the house at all.
- Another theory is the parents killed Jonbenèt is that Patsy Ramsey accidentally killed JonBenèt in a fit of rage after a bed-wetting incident. Proponents of this theory says she staged the crime scene and the ransom note, Burke Ramsey cleared all theories of this in his recent Dr. Phil interview. Others have claimed that John Ramsey abused and killed JonBenèt, this is something that the family has fiercely disputed. John and Patsy Ramsey were indicted by a Boulder County grand jury for child abuse resulting in death, but the district attorney at the time declined to file charges, saying there was insufficient evidence. Patsy and John Ramsey was cleared by touch DNA evidence in 2008. They also received an apology from the Boulder DA’s office.
Evidence
Ransom note
This crucial, strange and most important piece of evidence is an interesting one as it was nearly two and a half pages long, this is deemed odd as experts say that they have never seen or heard of a ransom note of this length. Police also determined that the ransom note was written with a pen and paper from the Ramsey’s house and also found what appeared to be a practice draft of the note in the house. It is quite bizarre for someone in a hurry and tense situation to stop and take the time to hand write out a note of that length. Proof of the letter being written at the time is that the letter was written on paper from a notebook in the family home, it had to be written at the scene. The professionals who analysed the note explain that at the beginning of the note it seems like the person who was writing the note was trying to change their handwriting so that police couldn’t determine who wrote it. Whoever wrote the note became sloppy with their writing by the end and it was apparent there was a change in the handwriting. In the note they have also spelt some easy words wrong, it seems on purpose as they have spelt harder words correctly previously in the note. Forensics explain that the people writing the note were trying to seem like they were foreign by purposely spelling words wrong. Professionals also determined that the letter would have to haven been written by a woman as it has a lot of maternalistic language throughout the letter which explains why some people though the mother Patsy wrote the note.
Pineapple
A very unusual second piece of evidence that came to light after JonBenét’s autopsy was the remains of what it seems to be undigested pineapple in her stomach that she would of eaten shortly before her murder. The most interesting thing was both parents denied giving her or seeing her eat any pineapple the day before or that night but after the murder occurred, police discovered a pineapple bowl in the kitchen with Patsy and Burkes fingerprints all over it. An idea that came to light with this evidence is that maybe JonBenèt stole some of Burkes pineapple out of the bowl and burke got mad at this and hit her on the head with a heavy object. Burke was never seriously considered a suspect by police as he was shielded by his parents, maybe to protect their child. This could also suggest that someone lured her into the kitchen with the promise of food, obviously someone she knew before being attacked and killed.
911 Telephone call
After JonBenét’s mother patsy called the police to report her daughter missing after she found the ransom note the 911 operator on the phone at the time described her as frantic and panicked but her tone soon changed after she though she had hung up the phone but it was hard to interpret what she said. After everything played out experts analysed the inaudible conversation and hear of two other voices, thought to be her father and brother John and Burke Ramsey, which is interesting because the parents stated that burke was in bed at this time. The conversation that was discovered after the 911 call had supposedly ended sounded rehearsed said Kim Archuletta, the 911 operator which gave her a really bad feeling at the time. Unfortunately, Kim’s claims were never addressed in court either.
They believed the conversation went something like this:
‘Okay, we’ve called the police, now what?’ – Patsy is believed to have said.
“We’re not speaking to you,” a male voice – which is believed to be John Ramsey.
“What did you do? Help me Jesus,” a female voice, believed to be Patsy, responds.
“What did you find?” A child’s voice, thought to be Burke, asks.
So, yeah that was all the information I gathered on this case study, just let that all sink in and hope that they figure out what happened to this little girl asap.
I hope y’all found this interesting, Cyaaaaa! (sorry it was hella long too).
Sophie xx
| sophie carmel | 