Christmas 1996- less than 24 hours before she was brutally murdered

Victim:JonBenet Ramsey

DOB: August 6th, 1990Birthplace: Atlanta, Georgia

Occupation: Child Pageant StarAwards: •Little Miss Colorado•National Tiny Miss Beauty•Little Miss Christmas

Patsy Ramsey• JonBenet's mother. Patsy, is a former

Miss West Virginia who competed in the 1977 Miss America pageant.

• She was active in volunteer and charity work in Boulder and moved to Vinings, an Atlanta suburb, with her family shortly after the murder.

• In June 1999, the Ramsey's reportedly moved out of their Vinings home. Patsy remains a suspect in the case, and has not been ruled out as the author of the ransom note.

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PATSY RAMSEY

Patsy Ramsey died after a long battle with cancer at her father's Roswell, GA home on Saturday June 24, 2006. She was buried at same cemetery as JonBenet

John Ramsey• Multimillionaire father of JonBenet

John was CEO of Access Graphics, a billion dollar Boulder computer firm he had helped build.

• After the murder of JonBenet he moved to Atlanta, where he became CEO of Jaleo North America, a branch of Comunication Integral, an international computer software firm based in Madrid.

• He left that position in March of 1999 and Jaleo closed its Atlanta office.

John Ramsey

• John, who discovered his daughter's body in the basement, remains a suspect in the case.

Burke Ramsey• Older brother of

JonBenet, son of John and Patsy. Burke, born 1/27/87, was almost 10 at the time his sister was killed. Burke testified before the Grand Jury on May 19, 1999.

Burke Ramsey

• The following day, the Boulder DA officially announced that Burke was "cleared" as a suspect in the murder of his sister. Today he is a computer programmer.

Investigation Team:Detective Arndt

Head of Investigation upon arrival to the Ramsey houseOne of few officers that first arrived at the homeOnly officer present when the body of JonBenet was foundRemoved from case a year later in May 1997 filed lawsuits against her former police chief for placing undue blame on her for the way the case was handled

Forensics Expert Scientist Dr. Henry LeeHead of the Forensics Unit working on the body of JonBenetPhD: Biochemistry (1975)BS: Forensics Science (1972)Worked on other casing including OJ Simpson

Attorney Mike BynumFormer Boulder assistant DAWas attorney for John Ramsey’s Computer BusinessClose friend to Ramsey’s

The Perfect Murder…The Perfect Murder…•On the morning December 26th, 1996, in Boulder County, Colorado, Patsy Ramsey was walking downstairs when something caught her eye; a piece of paper. She picked it up and realized that it was a ransom note.

•Patsy panicked and quickly ran to JonBenet’s room; she wasn’t there.

•She phoned the police at 5:52 AM, and by the time the police had arrived to the home of the Ramsey’s at 6:10 AM, the family had already called in a few of their friends; there was no way of securing the crime scene.

The Amt. Requested was the exact amt. John just received for his bonus

Handwriting Analyzes• Only one person tested-- Patsy -- could not

be ruled out as the author because the way the As in the letter match Patsy's As.

• Thomas said that Patsy was known for signing letters with acronyms.

• She would almost consistently sign off with the exclamation point and then a double indented closure to the point that you could almost overlay the ransom note and some of Patsy's previous writings.

Cont’d

• No proper search was conducted, but 7 hours after the police arrived, John Ramsey and Fleet White,a family friend were told to search for anything that seemed out of the ordinary.

• In the basement,John found the body of JonBenet covered with a white blanket.

• She had a rope tied around her wrist and neck. • He carried her body upstairs.

•Right side of face and bruising on neck.

Neck showed small pin like hemorrhages above and below the ligature furrow

Why was the knot so loosely tied? Or was it just staging?

Reports of the body show that she had an 8-inch crack in her skull, 2 stun gun marks, vaginal infection.

Police Report• According to the police report, JonBenet was

last seen alive at approximately 10:00 p.m. on December 25, 1996. And found dead at 1:05 p.m. on December 26, 1996.

• When police first sighted the body, they observed that the body was affected by advanced rigor mortis

• This was murder in boulder that year and the police were inexperienced

• By the time the body had left the house suspensions about the parents being involved had already been leaked to the press.

Suspect: Family vs Intruder•Many investigators pointed their fingers at the Ramsey’s, believing that it was John or Patsy (or maybe even both) that murdered their own daughter

•both of them refused to take a lie detector test after the crime was committee

•John and Patsy Ramsey wrote a book about the murder called “Death of an Innocence.”

•In the book, they talk about the murder of their daughter, the emotional disbelief they felt, and how they thought the crime should have been handled. They also mentioned about the intruder theory

The intruder theory

• It was said that an outside individual snuck into the house through a window in the basement on Christmas Day when the family was out at a dinner party hosted by one of their good friends. The intruder was to wait until the family returned home and went to asleep. Once it was safe, the intruder used a stun gun to kidnap JonBenet quietly from her bedroom, took her to the basement, where she was sexually abused, and then killed her.

The Opinion of the media and the police

• Clues were reported that directed blame toward the Ramsey’s and were never retracted once proven wrong– Reported-No footprints in the snow around the

house indicating it had to be an inside job– Police were quoted as saying “ Strange no

prints”– Pictures showed that on the morning of the

crime there was not snow near the front of the house so someone could have easily approached the house without leaving prints

The Opinion of the media and the police

• Vanity Fair quoted a police officer saying that on the morning of the crime, Patsy while weeping “ had been peering at him through splayed fingers

• Friends and Family members who were also present described Patsy as so overcome with grief that she was unable to talk with out crying

Moving Away from the Ramseys

• Homicide investigator Lou Smit left the case in 1998, writing in a resignation letter that "John and Patsy Ramsey didn't kill their daughter." In 2003, a federal judge dismissing a libel suit against the Ramseys ruled that evidence in the case was more consistent with an intruder

Due to failure of securing the scene upon arrival by the police evidence was compromised. The evidence included:

•two unidentified shoeprints• an opened window•fabric from Patsy’s sweater, •unidentified male DNA• a ransom note.

Not actual shoeprint found

A shoeprint was found near her body. The type of shoe was Hi-Tec, The other shoeprint was found outside of the house near the basement in the snow. It was not a set of prints, but two separate shoeprints. Therefore; it is not known where these shoeprints were headed to or how they got there. John Ramsey reportedly said that the prior Thanksgiving, construction workers were remodeling the kitchen and could have gone to the basement to obtain tools or water.

• Palm prints were also found on the door leading to the room where the body was found.

• A nail had been put as a door latch. • The intruder must have had to open the door, but

there were no prints on the doorknob. • There was no other prints found anywhere near the

house. • So did the intruder wear gloves for everything, but

latching the door?

According to the intruder theory, the murderer climbed through a window in the basement on Christmas night, waiting for the return of the Ramsey family. •The window was said to have been broken previous ; therefore, it could have been easier for the intruder to enter and exit. •John Ramsey was reportedly said to have closed the open window on the day he found the body .•Why?•It is also said that a pile of dust had been formed near the window, which the intruder should have stepped into; however, if the intruder stepped into the dust, then shouldn’t have more prints been found around the house?•A briefcase was also found in front of the window acting a step for the intruder to hoist himself up through the window.

•When John found her body, he is said to have taken duct tape from her mouth before carrying her upstairs. •When he laid her down upstairs, Patsy cried out and hugged her. As she did, fibers from the red sweater Patsy was said to be wearing fell onto JonBenet. •But it was said that the tape from JonBenet’s lips also contained the red fibers from the sweater; the same tape that John Ramsey left in the basement, a place where Patsy did not go that morning. •Photographs from the Christmas party the night before showed that the red sweater Patsy was wearing that morning was also the same sweater she had worn to the dinner party the night before.

DNA in pantiesDNA in panties

In the autopsy report, DNA was found in the panties JonBenet was wearing and under her nails. •The DNA was from a male. •The testing concluded that JonBenet was sexually molested before being dying. •DNA sampling from friends and family did not match.•other tests show that JonBenet seemed to have a vaginal infection. •Her pediatrician, who JonBenet had visited more than 30 times in a few months period, reported that he noticed it, but concluded that it must have come from bubble baths.• Till this day, the DNA is still remains unidentified.

Today-

For nearly a decade, the family battled investigators and public perception, insisting that an intruder — not a parent or sibling — beat and strangled the 6-year-old beauty queen on Dec. 26, 1996. The intruder theory has gathered momentum in recent years, culminating with the arrest of John Mark Karr on Wednesday Aug. 16th in Thailand.

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Karr

• The investigation that led law enforcement to 41 year old, John Mark Karr can be traced to a single e-mail, sent about four years ago.

• Karr sent the correspondence to University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey after viewing the first of three Tracey-produced documentaries on the JonBenet Ramsey case.

•Karr taught at a variety of foreign schools and worked as a tutor and "caregiver" for young girls, according to an online resume.

•It appears that his foreign employment began after his April 2001 arrest in California for possession of child pornography. Karr, who went on the run while awaiting trial, worked as an English teacher in Asia and Europe during 2001-2002.

•He appears to have bounced between teaching and nanny jobs in the following years before landing at a school in Honduras, where he worked as a 2nd grade teacher and the school's Director of English.

About Karr

Quote from Mark Karr:

• "I was with JonBenet when she died," Karr told reporters Thursday, visibly nervous and stuttering as he spoke. "Her death was an accident."

Asked if he was innocent of the crime, Karr said: "No."

Evidence not matching up• Karr is reported to have told Bangkok officials

that he drugged her before rapping her – autopsy tox. Tested were negative

• His second ex- wife claims to have been with Karr in his fathers house in AL.on the night in question. • He told the media that he had picked JonBenet up from school

DNA Evidence• DNA was taken from Karr in Thailand,

before leaving, then taken again in Boulder

• It did not match• the arrest was based solely on Karr's

alleged confession via emails to Michael Tracey and a recent press conference in Thailand where he told the media that he was with JonBenet when she died and that it was an accidental death.

False Confessions

• More than 200 people falsely confessed to kidnapping Charles Lindbergh's baby in 1932, about 50 falsely claimed to have slain the Black Dahlia (1940s film star Elizabeth Short) and several falsely confessed to killing O.J. Simpson's estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson.

Why Falsely Confess?• Some people put themselves in the

limelight out of a pathological need for notoriety. Others have an unconscious need to deal with residual guilt for other transgressions.

• A third type cannot distinguish facts from fantasy because they are delusional. They have read or heard enough about the case that they've committed the facts to memory. These individuals can sometimes pass polygraph tests because they truly believe they are guilty

Unanswered Questions

• Whose DNA?• Who other than John or Patsy

would know about the amt. of the bonus

• How did they know about JonBenet • How did they know the details of

the house• Who wrote the ransom note?