The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey

Investigative team

The investigative team said they reviewed the case, including the 911 call, ransom note, and other aspects of the case in re-created rooms of the Ramsey house. The documentary mixed past investigative footage with re-enactments of what they believe happened, along with that of this investigative team, which included former FBI agent Jim Clemente, Dr. Henry Lee, former chief investigator for the Boulder District Attorney James Kolar, forensic pathologist Dr. Werner Spitz, James Fitzgerald, former Scotland Yard criminal behavior analyst Laura Richards, and Stan Burke.

In his lawsuit against CBS, Burke Ramsey's lawyers said that the CBS documentary contained no new investigation, but was simply a rehash of a failed 2012 book on the case by one of the participating investigators, Jim Kolar.

DNA evidence

The team examined the theory about an outsider depositing DNA on JonBenet's underwear and concluded that this trace amount of evidence could have been transferred when the underwear were made and packaged.

Former FBI profiler Candice Delong has stated "This is a DNA case." In an interview sampled on the Dr. Phil show she laughingly dismissed the idea that the same touch DNA could have shown up on multiple items of JonBenét's clothing stemming from the same factory worker in China.

The 911 call

The team used modern equipment and an interview with the 911 dispatcher, Kimberly Archuleta, to examine the 911 call and claimed that there were three voices on the tape: Patsy, John and Burke. They believed one of the three voices was a boy. At the end of the call, the 911 dispatcher heard Patsy say "OK, we've called the police, now what?" By slowing down the last six seconds of the recording of the call, they heard three people talking. Patsy was deemed to have said "What did you do?" and "Help me, Jesus." John saying "We're not speaking to you." A child, likely Burke, saying "What did you find?"

No mention was made during the show that both the Secret Service as well as the FBI had listened to the same tape and heard nothing to indicate that Burke's voice could be heard. NBC had also sent out the recording to their own experts, who agreed that nothing of substance could be made out in the seconds after Patsy finished talking.

The wording used during the call was concerning to the team: During the call Patsy did not mention the name of her daughter. Also, she said "I'm the mother" and "we have a kidnapping".

Ransom note

The note demanded $118,000, the rounded amount of John Ramsey's bonus that year. Fitzgerald said that the note was not written by a kidnapper or a "real criminal", but someone who had written the note on a pad of paper used by Patsy Ramsey in their home. The note was unusually long, most ransom notes are 50 to 60 words. It took the experts 21 minutes or more to copy the ransom note and it noted that it would take more time to think about what to write. The pen and paper were not left out, but returned to their rightful place by the note's author. Many lines from the letter were taken from Speed, Dirty Harry and other films.According to E! News, "One of the strangest parts of the Ramsey case has always been the ransom note, which [...] made no sense given the fact that JonBenét's body was found in the house a few hours later". Forensic linguist James Fitzgerald commented on the three-page and 385-word ransom note and concluded, according to Daily Mail, that it was "clearly staged and had deliberate spelling mistakes." Misspellings and other mistakes were made to cover the fact that the writer was in fact a native speaker of the English language.

Fitzgerald said that the note appeared to be written by a "maternal" person. A US Federal Court had ruled that Patsy had almost certainly not written the note, and that "abundant evidence" demonstrated the innocence of all the Ramseys.

The letters ‘S.B.T.C’ have also been a mystery. There have been many guesses about what the letters could stand for, but none have been confirmed.

Cause of death theory

JonBenét was determined by police to have "suffered a blow to the head and had also been strangled with a garrote."

The investigators concluded that JonBenet could have been killed, perhaps accidentally, by a blow from a flashlight by a 10-year-old boy, based upon experiments performed using a child, fake skulls with wigs. They were also able to recreate the injury that JonBenét sustained to her head by having the boy in the experiment use a flashlight similar to one found in the kitchen of the Ramsey's home.

The boy used in the re-enactment was visibly much larger than Burke was at the time of JonBenét's death. Several takes were done until the appropriate damage to the imitation skull were achieved.

The Ramseys

John, Patsy and Burke have denied involvement in the death of JonBenét. No charges have been filed in the case, as of September 2016. Several days prior to the airing of this mini-series, Burke Ramsey was interviewed on the Dr. Phil show in a three-episode series about the death of his sister. It was his first public interview. The Ramsey family lawyer, L. Lin Wood, has threatened to sue CBS for libel (defamation) based on its conclusion that JonBenét was killed by Burke. In time lawsuits were filed on behalf of Burke Ramsey and John Ramsey against CBS, as well as against various participants in the program, seeking close to $1 billion in total. Attempts at having the suit dismissed were unsuccessful. Eventually, all the defamation lawsuits related to the show were retired outside of court in a confidential settlement.

Critical review

The review of the mini-series by Variety questioned the objectivity of the team, particularly in taking "hazy" assertions and declaring them as fact. For example, during the show it is stated that John Ramsey called out that he had found JonBenet before he turned on the light to the dark basement room where the body lay, but the source or veracity of the statement was not clear. Rolling Stone magazine found that there were three ways in which the investigation was flawed: 

1) "Confirmation bias, selective hearing and the misleading 911 call analysis", 

2) "Dismissing the DNA evidence entirely" 

3) "Overselling linguistic forensics and behavioral analysis as conclusive". They found that since the investigation did not unearth any new evidence, the conclusions were not new but subjective, and based upon the initial "flawed" police investigation.

E! News, on the other hand, offered three "bombshells" from the series regarding: 

1) The 911 call, 

2) The Ransom Note

3) Cause of Death.

Bob Grant, former Adams County District Attorney who was brought in to advise the Boulder District Attorney office on the case, voiced skepticism about any of the 2016 television show's abilities to unearth a new theory or solidify an existing theory in the case. He said, "The case will always be, in my mind, one where there are two likely scenarios. And to prove one, you have to disprove the other." He states that without a viable confession, it is unlikely that there will be resolution in the case.

CNN commentator John Philips called the show "shameful", and suggested that CBS should earn a "Fake News Award" for passing on information he termed "reckless".

Attorney Dan Abrams, who is a legal commentator for ABC, called the allegation that Burke killed his sister "total BS".

JonBenét Ramsey Conspiracy Theories

1) Her Brother Was The Murdered

Many believe JonBenét's older brother, Burke Ramsey, was responsible for her death. People think his motivation was jealousy, because his sister was getting way more attention than he was. This conspiracy also places the murder cover-up blame on her parents, because they were scared they would lose both of their children. This theory remains popular despite Burke's exoneration by DNA evidence in 2008.

The CBS docuseries The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey takes the position that Burke was the killer, too. After the series aired in 2016, Ramsey sued the network for defamation, "Seeking no less than $250 million in compensatory damages and no less than $500 million in punitive damages," according to the Michigan case file. On January 4, 2019, NPR reported a CBS spokesperson said the case had been "'Amicably resolved.'"

2) A Sex Offender Murdered Her

Sex offender and homeless drifter Gary Howard Oliva rose to suspicion for the murder of JonBenét. Oliva might have lived blocks away from the Ramseys at the time of the murder, and he had a history of sexually abusing children. In 2000, while arrested on a drug charge, police found a photo of JonBenét and a stun gun in his backback. He later told the Denver Post that her murder had touched him "very deeply," and he had felt the need to build a shrine to remember her. 

In 2002, Oliva was featured on CBS' 48 Hour Investigates. The show alleged that, after the murder, Oliva had told a friend that he was in Boulder and "had done something horrible" to a child. He also penned a poem at that time, which he called "Ode to JonBenét."

Oliva was arrested again in 2016 on child porn charges.

On January 11, 2019, reports broke when investigators received a series of letters Olivia wrote to a friend and former high school classmate, Michael Vail, acknowledging he had murdered JonBenét but claiming to have done it accidentally. “I never loved anyone like I did JonBenét and yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half and I watched her die,” Oliva wrote in one of the letters. “It was an accident. Please believe me. She was not like the other kids.” Vail turned the letters into authorities, saying he wants his former classmate convicted and offering hope these letters would be the final damning evidence against Olivia. 

3) Her Dad's Jealous Employee Killed Her

This conspiracy theory is also motivated by jealousy, but jealousy of a different nature: the nature of money. The ransom note found at the crime scene asked for $118,000, which is the exact amount of money Ramsey received as a Christmas bonus that year. Most kidnappers request a less precise price, and typically round up to a more general number like $150,000, adding further support for the theory.

4) John and Patsy Ramsey Killed Her

AKA her parents were the killers. Theories range from a bed wetting incident that sent them into a serious state of rage, ultimately ending in JonBenét's death, to placing the blame solely on her mother, because she obviously had to be very envious of her daughter's beauty. So envious that she decided to kill her mini-me, and recruited John to help her cover it up? Some theorists think so.

5) A Local Troublemaker Murdered Her for Money

Michael Helgoth, a local Boulder, CO, badboy is a prominent suspect for the young beauty queen's death. John Kenady, a former employee of Helgoth, said that Helgoth told him a month before JonBenét's murder that, "him and a partner had a big deal coming in where they would make about $60,000 each." Helgoth also told Kenady that he "wondered what it would be like to crush a human skull." Quite an odd and disturbing thing to say in general, but it's extra suspicious since Ramsey was found with a cracked skull.

After the local district attorney announced that the list of JonBenét murder suspects had narrowed, Helgoth died two days later of an apparent suicide in January 1997. A 48 Hours investigation ruled out that Helgoth's DNA was present at the scene of the crime.

 6) Friend or Family Killed JonBenét

We’ve all read that an intruder could have murdered young JonBenét. This conspiracy theory, however, rests on the idea that they weren’t random intruders, but rather people who were friends of the family since they seemed to know the layout of the house. The ransom note was also composed on a legal pad in the Ramsey home, so the murderers truly felt like they could make themselves at home. Very bizarre.

7) She Was Killed by A Santa Clause Impersonator 

Bill McReynolds was playing Santa Claus at the Ramsey house two nights before her murder. He gave her a card that read, "You will receive a very special gift after Christmas." To add suspicion to the jolly St. Nick conspiracy, McReynolds's daughter went missing 22 years before Ramsey's death, to the exact date.

8) She Was Killed by Someone Who Loves Pineapple

Traces of this sweet fruit were found in her stomach, which means she was fed pineapple just before her death. Either the killer was someone who enjoyed tropical fruits or was a common snack buddy of JonBenét. There was also a bowl in the kitchen with pineapple residue on it, AND fingerprints from both her mother and brother.

9) She Was Killed by Child Sex Ring

In 2000, a California woman told authorities that she had been sexually abused as a child by adults using devices similar to the garrote found around JonBenét's neck. She claimed that these adults were part of a widespread sex ring, and suggested they could have been behind JonBenét's murder. Boulder police were unable to find any evidence supporting this claim.

10) Katy Perry is Actually JonBenet Ramsey 

This is a conspiracy theory on cocaine. Apparently, some people believe the whole murder was staged to create a fascinating story, and JonBenét (now Katy Perry) went into hiding for years until it was time to resurface as the singing sensation. The singer’s song “Wide Awake” is believed to be an undercover message revealing the truth about her past as JonBenét.

JonBenét Ramsey

           

Born: JonBenét Patricia Ramsey

August 6, 1990 

Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

Dead: December 25, 1996 (aged 6) 

Boulder, Colorado, U.S.

Cause of death: Asphyxia by strangulation Craniocerebral trauma

Resting Place: St. James Episcopal Cemetery, Marietta, Georgia, U.S.

Parents: John Ramsey, Patsy Ramsey