Delve into the haunting mystery of JonBenét Ramsey's tragic death. From the shocking discovery to the controversial investigation, we explore the twists and turns of this unsolved case. Examine the evidence, theories, and lasting impact of one of America's most infamous cold cases that continues to captivate the public decades later.
03:28And I said, for heaven's sake, she's six years old.
03:30No, she didn't just run away.
03:31Patsy Ramsey immediately defied the note's instructions and placed a 9-1-1 call to her local authorities who arrived just before 6 a.m.
03:39They were unable to find any trace of Jean-Benet or that anyone had forcibly entered the Ramsey's house.
03:45The officers who showed up at the Ramsey home have since been harshly criticized for their roles in failing to seal off the crime scene.
03:51Police combed the house.
03:53They were apparently not well, but but they did look down the basement, look everywhere.
03:58They were just supposed to look.
03:59Did they put that yellow thing they put around the house?
04:01No, no, never did.
04:03This allowed for visitors intending to support the Ramsey's to make their way into the house and disturb what was not yet known to them to be the active scene of a crime, possibly destroying evidence.
04:13A latched door in the basement that one of the responding officers had neglected to open was breached by John Ramsey in the early afternoon hours of the 26th.
04:22Inside, he discovered his six-year-old daughter's body and immediately contaminated potential forensic evidence by physically moving her upstairs.
04:31One of the detectives asked me and my friend who was there to go through every inch of the house, see if there's anything that was unusual or abnormal, looked out of place.
04:42Who did it?
04:43The first theory.
04:44Had we been asked to take a lie detector test?
04:46We said no.
04:47We were asked, would we?
04:48We said certainly we would.
04:51We would expect it to be fair and we would expect the results to be public.
04:56Unsurprisingly, initial reactions to the truly grotesque events of the case were swift and harsh, with investigators launching John and Patsy into the hot seat as the primary suspects.
05:06It didn't help their cause that the responding officers had not found any signs of forced entry on December 26th.
05:12When interviewed for The New York Times in 1997, Craig Silverman, a Denver prosecutor, mused that, quote,
05:18We either have a set of parents who are guilty of one of the most atrocious killings ever, or we have a set of parents who have been incredibly victimized by their daughter's killers and by the media.
05:28They never really reacted like parents.
05:31If it was my daughter that had been killed, I'd be sitting at the police department every day.
05:36Similarly, Greg McCrary, a retired FBI profiler also interviewed by The Times, shared that, quote,
05:43Statistically, it is a 12 to 1 probability that it's a family member or a caregiver.
05:48Conversely, John E.
05:49Douglas, a trailblazing criminal profiler whose life was later the basis for the Netflix series Mindhunter, believed in the Ramseys' innocence and chastised the news media for its sensationalism in targeting them.
06:01Should the Boulder community be concerned and vigilant?
06:05Yes. Should we be living in fear?
06:08No. Can I guarantee that this will not occur again?
06:12No, I cannot.
06:14Who did it? The second theory?
06:15Perhaps at first I leaned towards the parents doing it.
06:19But as I got into the case, I started seeing red flags which started pointing the other way.
06:23Despite the tainted nature of the crime scene that made it difficult to ascertain a number of details about what had happened to Jean Bonnet, police declined to discount the possibility that an entirely unrelated home intruder
06:34might have committed the grisly crime.
06:36One such reason was an unfamiliar boot print in the room where John Ramsey discovered Jean Bonnet, as well as several potential entry points for an intruder to make an illicit entrance.
06:46It really wasn't that difficult coming in that window.
06:49Other suggestions posited to support the so-called intruder theory include Patsy and Jean Bonnet's involvement in the Boulder child beauty pageant scene, which may have attracted the unwanted attention of adult men with criminal intent.
07:01The aforementioned Craig Silverman is quoted as saying,
07:04Once you have conceded the possibility of an intruder, I don't see how any Ramsey could ever be successfully prosecuted.
07:10There was a scuff mark down the wall.
07:13There was leaves and debris on the floor directly below that open window.
07:16Did John and Patsy do it?
07:18Well, first of all, we have never been deemed suspects.
07:22Yeah, but the public regards you.
07:23We've been said to be under the umbrella of suspicion, whatever that means.
07:29As we mentioned a bit earlier, Jean Bonnet's parents, John and Patsy, were the subjects of intense, unrelenting media coverage surrounding their daughter's unfathomable end.
07:38It was a veritable media circus due to the case's extremely dark nature.
07:42Each surviving family member was interviewed, including Jean Bonnet's older brother, Burke.
07:59Much was made of the role that Pineapple played in the events of the case.
08:03A bowl of half-eaten pineapple appeared in photos taken on the day of the crime,
08:08despite John and Patsy's claims that they had no memory of ever giving it to Jean Bonnet.
08:13I'm just wondering if at some point Jean Bonnet came back down to the kitchen, had gotten pineapple out, and Patsy just lost it.
08:25It was later found by police that Patsy's fingerprints had been identified on the bowl.
08:29In 1999, a grand jury convened the previous year recommended charging the Ramseys with neglecting to remove their child from harm's way.
08:37How about the theory that this was an accident?
08:41Somebody gets upset over a bad wedding?
08:44We're going down the wrong path, buddy.
08:46Jean Bonnet's parents are exonerated.
08:48John, his late wife Patsy, and their son Burke were formally exonerated by the Boulder, Colorado District Attorney.
08:57Much to John and Patsy's relief, Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter declined to press charges against them due to a lack of sufficient evidence.
09:06While the case remains open and under active investigation by the Boulder Police Department,
09:10years of investigation and advances in forensic technology led to the Ramseys being formally excluded as suspects in 2008.
09:18A controversial decision still protested against by certain employees of the Boulder PD.
09:23It's extremely unusual that a district attorney not sign an indictment when a grand jury returns a true bill.
09:29Patsy Ramsey died of ovarian cancer on June 24th, 2006, and is buried next to her daughter.
09:35John and Burke Ramsey have repeatedly filed defamation suits against news publications that implicated John and Patsy in Jean Bonnet's death.
09:43The author of the December 26th, 1996 ransom note has never been identified.
09:48I don't know the details, but I know the ransom note, they think the handwriting match.
09:54Have you seen it? Have you read it?
09:57I don't think I've read the whole thing.
09:59I've definitely seen pictures of it, though.
10:00What do you think of the Jean Bonnet Ramsey case?
10:03Let us know in the comments.
10:04It does appear that the theory they were looking at assumed that maybe someone other than the two Ramsey parents had been involved in what happened.
