Nearly three decades on, the JonBenét Ramsey murder remains one of America's most notorious and disturbing cases. And as continued interest in the story shows, there are still a number of things about it that don't make sense.
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00:00Nearly three decades on, the JonBenet Ramsey murder remains one of America's most notorious
00:05and disturbing cases, and as continued interest in the story shows, there are still a number
00:09of things about it that don't make sense.
00:12To this day, opinion is split among both professionals involved in the case and armchair true crime
00:16enthusiasts as to what exactly led to the death of 6-year-old JonBenet that night in
00:20Boulder, Colorado.
00:21One of the most persistent theories is that it was a kidnapping gone wrong.
00:26Experts have noted that evidence such as duct tape on JonBenet's mouth points toward the
00:29possibility that the murderer had initially planned to incapacitate her and take her from
00:33the family home.
00:34Author and private investigator John Wesley Anderson, who had written a book about the
00:38case, told The Independent in 2023,
00:40"...the killer went into that house with a kidnap kit.
00:43He brought duct tape, he brought parachute cords, he brought a stun gun to immobilize
00:47the victim.
00:48So this was very calculated.
00:49It was a very methodically executed kidnap attempt that went wrong and ended up in murder."
00:54What might have led a potential kidnapper to kill JonBenet instead remains a mystery.
00:58Similarly, it's never been explained why her body was then left at the scene.
01:02However, others believe that the ransom note may have been a decoy, made to throw police
01:06off the scent during their investigation.
01:08John Ramsey himself has stated that he believes a masked intruder broke into the house and
01:12murdered his daughter.
01:14"...you think the killer is still out there somewhere?"
01:16"...he's either out there dead or in prison."
01:19John Ramsey has suggested that his daughter's killer may have been an unknown intruder who,
01:24nine months after the death of JonBenet, broke into another house in Boulder and sexually
01:28assaulted a 12-year-old girl.
01:29The fact that JonBenet's body showed signs of having been sexually assaulted supports
01:33this version of events.
01:34However, his theory seemingly overlooks the presence of the mysterious ransom note, and
01:39fails to explain one key detail about its demands.
01:42As many familiar with the case have pointed out, the $118,000 the apparent kidnappers
01:47wanted from the Ramseys happened to be the exact amount that JonRamsey had recently received
01:51as a bonus from his work.
01:53To many, this has always seemed unlikely to be a coincidence.
01:56Instead, it suggests that the would-be kidnapper and killer had knowledge of Ramsey's financial
02:00situation and may have been someone connected to the family.
02:03"...the father is the president of Access Graphics, located on Boulder's Pearl Street
02:08Mall."
02:09But as suspicious as the demand seems, the fact that the note was written on paper from
02:13inside the house makes the note seem more spontaneous.
02:17So does the fact that the murder weapon was also from inside the house — a broken paintbrush
02:21handle paired with a nylon cord used to strangle JonBenet.
02:24If the killer came into the house with such a specific plan, why does it also look like
02:28they needed to improvise so much?
02:30A missing child case, particularly one involving a ransom note, would seemingly prompt a large
02:35and sweeping police operation.
02:37But when it came to the JonBenet Ramsey case, the police response seemed surprisingly muted.
02:41The fact that JonRamsey was the one to find JonBenet's body is bizarre, especially after
02:45police were already under instruction to search the house for her.
02:48At the very least, it suggests poor work by the investigators in the hours after the alarm
02:53was raised.
02:54And the fact that Jon was able to search the house again at all, instead of the police
02:57clearing it of people and treating it as a crime scene, had major repercussions for the
03:01investigation going forward.
03:03On finding the body, the distraught father carried his daughter's body upstairs, leaving
03:07the door to the basement open.
03:08Doing so contaminated the crime scene and destroyed what might have been vital evidence
03:12that could have helped bring the killer to justice.
03:15Following the discovery of JonBenet's body and the beginning of what was now a murder
03:19investigation, the suspicions of detectives quickly turned toward the Ramseys themselves.
03:23Initially, the sum demanded by the ransom note drew some to believe that the child's
03:27mom Patsy was behind it.
03:28But all of the Ramseys, including JonBenet's older brother Burke, were taken in and made
03:32to give samples of their hair, blood, and handwriting, so that detectives could compare
03:36it to the ransom note.
03:37However, as The New York Times reported the year after the murder, for four months early
03:41in the investigation, the family stopped talking with the police.
03:44Instead, they circled the wagons, establishing a defense team consisting of eight lawyers,
03:49four publicists, three private investigators, two handwriting analysts, and one retired
03:53FBI profiler.
03:55The Ramseys say they were frustrated by the police lingering on the idea of them as suspects
03:59when they could have been investigating other potential suspects, and reportedly wanted
04:02to review evidence on their own.
04:04I believe it can be solved if the police accept help.
04:11The Boulder Police investigators have been keen to point out that they have investigated
04:14all avenues open to them.
04:16Since the murder, detectives have spoken to over 1,000 people in 19 states, acting on
04:21more than 21,000 tips.
04:23Jon and Patsy Ramsey would eventually be officially exonerated by a judge following the examination
04:28of DNA evidence.
04:30But several experts felt that declaration was unwarranted, including Boulder Police
04:33Chief Mark Beckner, who told People,
04:36"...exonerating anyone based on a small piece of evidence that has not yet been proved to
04:39even be connected to the crime is absurd."
04:42In 2013, four pages of sealed documents were released, which gave a new insight into a
04:47grand jury that had been set up to investigate the Ramseys back in 1999.
04:51It emerged that the jury had voted to indict Jon and Patsy Ramsey on charges of child abuse
04:55leading to death and being accessories to the murder.
04:58The grand jury claimed that the parents
05:00"...rendered assistance to a person knowing the person being assisted has committed and
05:04was suspected of the crime of murder in the first degree and child abuse resulting in
05:08death."
05:09The third party referred to in the documents
05:10is unidentified, and the unsealing raised fresh questions as to what the grand jury
05:14speculated had happened on the day of JonBenet's death.
05:18Patsy Ramsey died from ovarian cancer in 2006.
05:21But in response to the unsealing, Jon Ramsey's lawyer argued that all the remaining documents
05:25ought to be published to give a clearer view of the aborted grand jury, which in the end
05:29never indicted the Ramseys.