Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey: Three Scenarios
The following is opinion/speculation based on the publicly available information about the death of JonBenét Patricia Ramsey on the night of December 25, 1996.
Who killed JonBenét Ramsey? This question has captivated America for the past three decades.
Background
JonBenét Ramsey was born in 1990, the daughter and second child of John Ramsey, a successful entrepreneur and Patricia (Patsy) Ramsey, a socialite and former Miss West Virginia. Her brother Burke was just shy of 10 years old when she died. Sometime around midnight on Christmas night she was strangled with a makeshift “garrote” and struck on the head with a blunt object, likely a softball bat. She was six years old.
The case has maintained its grip on popular culture for a few reasons. First, the Ramseys were very rich. John’s company, Access Graphics, was a subsidiary of and he was a Vice President at defense contractor Lockheed Martin. That December the company had reached $1 billion in revenue. After JonBenét’s death, General Electric purchased the company for just under $3 billion.
But the story really took off because JonBenét frequently participated in, and won, child beauty pageants. Most available footage shows her dressed in pageant clothing, sometimes provocatively. Circumstances surrounding her home life are murky. She may have been sexually assaulted the night she was killed, but it’s unclear. She was a frequent visitor to the family’s pediatrician and had cancelled a pageant appearance earlier that month, citing illness. She was a serial bedwetter and according to one Boulder detective all her underwear had feces stains.
Pictures on her last day starkly contrast. That morning surrounded by presents, she is beaming, arms joyfully outstretched. Later that day or night, the last known picture of her alive shows a more pensive, perhaps worried face. She may have even been crying.
What happened to JonBenét Ramsey?
That Christmas was a busy one. After opening presents and playing with new toys through the day, possibly with other neighborhood children, the Ramsey family visited two other homes. They had Christmas dinner at their friends, the Whites, where their kids Daphne age 7 and Fleet White III age 11 played with JonBenét and Burke.
Before going home, the Ramseys stopped at their friends the Stines so Patsy could drop off a gift basket. Susan Stine talked to Patsy for around 10 minutes. Burke was the same age and friends with the Stine’s son Doug. It is unclear if Burke and Doug spoke during this visit.
The next day the Ramseys were to fly on John’s private plane to Michigan to visit John’s children from his first marriage at the summer home on Lake Michigan. Later they were going on a Florida Disney cruise.
Scenario One: Patsy accidentally kills JonBenét
Although Patsy seemed to be living an idyllic life, death always loomed. In 1993, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. At the time of JonBenét’s death it had been temporarily contained. She died of the disease in 2006.
Patsy was also turning 40, her beauty queen looks were fast fading. According to housemaid Linda Hoffman-Pugh she had been particularly stressed in the weeks leading up to that Christmas. Both Hoffman-Pugh and Boulder Detective Steve Thomas speculated Patsy accidently killed JonBenét in a fit of rage, possibly after yet another bed-wetting or pooping incident.
Patsy was obviously living vicariously through her daughter. Given the stress she was under and her need to see her daughter as the perfect embodiment of herself, she may have snapped resulting in the tragic death.
Scenario Two: Burke kills JonBenét out of sibling rivalry and rage
Patsy’s obvious favoritism toward her daughter and the fact his father was often away on business left the more introverted Burke isolated.
Before Patsy’s fixation on JonBenét, Burke had been the center of attention. But Burke was never going to be Miss America. He was dragged along to JonBenét’s events as an afterthought. According to Patsy’s photographer friend Judith Phillips, Burke could be moody and had a chip on his shoulder.
He also may have been violent toward JonBenét. In 1994, Burke hit JonBenét with a golf club. Officially it was accidental. But Patsy reportedly told Phillips it had been on purpose. It was serious enough that Patsy consulted a plastic surgeon. It is also notable JonBenét did not participate in another pageant for over a year afterward. Although both parents, and Burke himself in a 2016 interview, downplayed the incident, John Ramsey described his daughter as being “clobbered” by the golf club.
We also know Burke Ramsey has a hair trigger when anyone suggests he might be culpable. In 2016 he filed a $750 million lawsuit against CBS over the network’s docuseries The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey. It was eventually settled.
Scenario Three: Burke and a friend kill JonBenét in a ‘thrill kill’
The wildcard is the autopsy, which suggests the strangulation and head trauma happened in close proximity. This hints at two killers. It’s possible Burke and a friend, possibly Doug Stine, committed the murder together. There is no evidence Doug Stine was at the Ramseys on Christmas night, 1996. But there are some odd coincidences.
First, the Stines were the last stop before they went home on Christmas night. Did Burke and Doug talk? We don’t know. Could he have been invited on the Michigan trip? We don’t know. The Ramseys and Stines lived about a mile apart. It’s possible Doug could have come over later without John and Patsy knowing it, perhaps to play on Burke’s new Nintendo. He had been to the house many times.
Bicycle tracks in the snow in the Ramsey yard, appear in police photos. There has always been controversy about bicycles, and if they were all accounted for after the murder. The Ramseys changed stories about how many new bicycles were in the home.
It gets weirder. After Patsy called 911 and the police arrived, she began calling friends over. She called the Whites, the Fernies, Reverend Hoverstock. But she apparently doesn’t call the Stines, even though they are closest and the last ones to see the Ramseys the previous night. Why?
By February 1997 the Ramseys had moved in with the Stines. By June 1997 the Ramseys and the Stines were vacationing together at the Ramsey’s Lake Michigan home. During the same time Susan Stine had acquired the nickname “Patsy’s Pitbull.” She had reportedly gone so far as to impersonate law enforcement through email to defend the Ramseys.
But it gets even stranger. When the Ramseys move to Atlanta, the Stines follow them. Susan’s husband Glen quits his job in Boulder to work for John Ramsey’s company.
Most likely scenario
I believe Scenario 2 is most likely followed by Scenario 3. The first question to ask is, ‘Who didn’t like JonBenét?’ Her mother adored her and lived vicariously through her. The gardener stated JonBenét complained to him that her father was gone too much and she missed him. There is no evidence it wasn’t mutual.
There is at least circumstantial evidence Burke did not like JonBenét. He may have intentionally hit her with a golf club. She was the constant center of attention, a title he briefly held before her arrival. The photographer called him moody and prone to outbursts, as children of wealth and privilege often are.
He was also there. Not only in the house but downstairs after he was supposed to be in bed. His and Patsy’s fingerprints are on the bowl with the pineapple found in the kitchen the next day. JonBenét had likely eaten pineapple from that bowl or perhaps another one prepared for her as the autopsy showed remnants of fresh pineapple in her stomach. She must have eaten it that night after the family arrived home and after the parents claim they put her to bed.
So the two of them (the three of them?) are together downstairs, the parents are in bed, and something happens. A cord with a hitch knot tied to a small wooden stick is involved. JonBenét is strangled, she screams and is hit with the softball bat, perhaps in a panic to keep her quiet. Neighbor Melody Stanton hears the scream, the neighbor’s husband hears the sound of metal hitting concrete, possibly the bat hitting the outside walkway (neither hear the other sound). JonBenét’s short life is over.
The Cover Up
The best evidence for this scenario is not the evidence from the flimsy murder weapon or the physical evidence taken from the girl’s body (which was contaminated in every possible way). But it is the implausibility of everything the parents do starting early on December 26, 1996 — by their own words. Nothing they do makes sense.
The Ramsey’s story about their actions on December 26, 1996, have inconsistencies. But the following is an overview what they claim they did.
They wake up around 5:30AM to pack for their trip. Patsy goes downstairs to make coffee. On a bottom rung she sees three pages side-by-side. She doesn’t pick them up. She doesn’t turn on the light. She only reads the first few lines and screams for her husband and checks JonBenét’s empty room. John comes down in his underwear. He doesn’t turn on the light. He doesn’t pick up the note. He doesn’t read the whole thing. He also screams.
At some point, he checks on Burke and finds him in his room. Patsy calls 911 at 5:52 AM mentions the note a couple times and hangs up shortly after. When police arrive Patsy has makeup on but is wearing her clothes from the previous night after having supposedly just woken up shortly before. This is implausible for a woman obsessed with appearances.
Here’s what they don’t do:
They don’t look for her. They don’t call her name.
She could have been anywhere. She could have been playing with her new toys. She could have been in the bathroom. She could have been outside riding her new bicycle. She could have been at the neighbors where her dog often stayed. (She was about to take a trip and would not see the dog for a while).
They don’t wake Burke up and ask him to help look for her. They don’t even ask if he knows where she is.
JonBenét sometime slept in Burke’s room after wetting herself. She could have been in the room. Importantly, the rooms were adjacent. If an intruder had entered and taken or coaxed her out of bed, Burke would have been most likely to hear or have information. They don’t wake him and tell him to help look for her.
In fact, Burke never leaves his bed until taken by Fleet White to his house later that morning. He doesn’t get up to see what the commotion is, he doesn’t investigate why there are cops in the house, or patrol vehicles outside. On the drive to the Whites, his concerns are his Nintendo and whether they’re still going to Michigan.
They don’t check outside for signs of trespassers.
The note states they’re being watched. They don’t go outside to see if there is anything unusual like out-of-place cars, footprints, or tire tracks.
They read the first few sentences of the note, assume it’s completely true, and immediately do what the note tells them not to do.
In my view, none of this makes sense unless they know she’s dead.
The Ransom Note
The ransom note is farce. JonBenét had not been kidnapped. She was dead in the “wine cellar” part of the basement — perhaps the most obscure room in the Ramsey’s massive house. The note is three pages, which may be the longest ransom note in history. The phrasing is very unusual with movie references, odd words (attaché), and phrases (“southern common sense” “fat cats” “and hence”), the use of all caps acronyms and gratuitous exclamation points.
The housemaid stated she could “hear Patsy’s voice” in the words and phrases. Patsy always left notes for her. Handwriting analysis ruled out John but not Patsy. The police had such a difficult time getting Patsy’s handwriting samples they resorted to searching the Michigan lake house.
The note was written on Patsy’s notepad. It is written by a left hand. Patsy is supposedly ambidextrous and her left hand sample matched much closer, with one handwriting expert testifying under oath he was “absolutely certain” Patsy had written it. The Ramseys brought in their own experts who disputed this.
When the note was eventually leaked in a 1997 Vanity Fair article, the Ramsey’s were apoplectic. Why?
Finding JonBenét
After the police arrive everything turns chaotic. Patsy is so histrionic the police call two victim advocates to the house. The Ramseys invite people over, contaminating the scene. When Detective Linda Arndt suggests John Ramsey and Fleet White search the house for anything unusual John finds the body in the obscure room. He lays over it, contaminating the evidence. He then brings the girl’s corpse upstairs where Patsy then leans over and embraces the corpse, further contaminating it. Of course, this could be genuine grief, or it could be intentional.
Immediately after the body is found John is heard trying to arrange a flight on his private plane to Atlanta. WTF.
He has just found his daughter’s corpse, killed, according to the note, by a “foreign faction.” His first thought isn’t to secure his family, arrange for their safety, or help the police, but to leave the state? It’s not clear if he planned to take his wife and son or leave them in Boulder, but the police tell him he must stay.
A couple days later Patsy’s sister under the guise of getting clothes for Ramseys removes boxes of items in multiple trips. A detective monitors and lists the items removed but not thoroughly. Some items are never seen again like the book Mind Hunter by a famed FBI profiler, which has a chapter that parallels the ransom note.
Interviews
The original demands by the Ramsey’s lawyers before they agree to be interviewed are astounding. They wanted to be interviewed together. They wanted it to only last 90 minutes. And they wanted all the police files beforehand.
Eventually they did give separate and extensive interviews as did Burke, who also spoke with a child psychologist.
Grand Jury
In 1999 a grand jury voted to indict John and Patsy Ramsey. But the District Attorney doesn’t sign the indictments or proceed. From an evidentiary standpoint this may or may not have been the right call. A forgotten aspect of this case is how large the OJ Simpson acquittal loomed over the investigation. Regardless, the public would not learn of this until 2013.
DNA
As the years have passed focus has shifted away from the family to an unknown male intruder, who supposedly left a miniscule amount of DNA on JonBenét’s body. The living Ramseys — along with many others — have claimed this evidence exonerates the Ramseys and is the key to solving the case.
This unknown male managed to carry about on multiple levels of the Ramsey’s massive house without leaving a single other piece of trace evidence. He managed to coax JonBenét out of her bed and feed her pineapple. He managed to enter through a basement grate and small window that had intact cobwebs when the police arrived. He managed to enter that basement without leaving any debris or residue from outside even though it was damp and frosty. He managed to enter and leave a lightly snowed and frosted area without leaving footprints. He managed to linger in the kitchen before or after killing JonBenét long enough to write a three-page ransom note (including a practice note!) without disturbing anyone or anything. Finally, he managed to keep this tiny sample uncontaminated despite the multitude of other people that handled JonBenét’s garments and lifeless body. Blood stains on JonBenét’s pink nightgown, found balled up in the room where her body was found contained DNA that could not exclude Patsy or Burke.
If the retrieved sample is mixed with anyone else’s DNA, then it’s a null sample. It will never be matched with anyone else. Independent DNA specialists who looked the sample unequivocally stated it did not prove the intruder theory.
Conclusion
Who killed JonBenét Ramsey? I don’t know and neither do any of the amateur sleuths and professional crime solvers who have become interested with this case. Somebody, however, does know what happened to this innocent little girl. I believe she was betrayed by the people she trusted most to save their own skins.
Paul H. Jossey
Anyone interested in learning more about the case should go to this YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TCRS
