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.
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00:00We loved our children dearly, and yet people don't like rich people, so we kind of became that
00:07character for people to hate.
00:09Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're breaking down the tragic events of the Jean-Benet Ramsey homicide case.
00:15Due to the extremely sensitive and disturbing nature of this story, viewer discretion is strongly advised.
00:21I'd go nuts. I'd cooperate in every way possible. I'd go out with the cops. I'd give them my fingers. I'd give them my five.
00:28We did do that.
00:31Who was Jean-Benet?
00:33The Ramseys were kind of an anomaly in town in some ways, because they were from the South.
00:39I don't think they ever felt entirely comfortable in the sort of granola
00:43haven of Boulder, a place that, you know, disdained mink coats.
00:48Jean-Benet Patricia Ramsey was born on August 6th, 1990, to John and Patsy Ramsey in Atlanta, Georgia.
00:54The once-divorced John Ramsey headed a software company and relocated the family to Boulder, Colorado in
01:001991 to be closer to his work. His daughter was named after him.
01:04His full name is John Bennett Ramsey, and Jean-Benet alluded to a French pronunciation of John's first and middle name.
01:11She was very proud that she was named after me. My name is John Bennett Ramsey.
01:17She just had this effervescent personality, just like Patsy. I mean, just, ta-da, here I am, you know.
01:23Seeking community in Boulder, Patsy Ramsey entered Jean-Benet into several local beauty pageants and became a well-known fixture on that scene.
01:32According to CNN, she was crowned Little Miss Colorado, Little Miss Charlevoix,
01:37Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, and other such accolades. That all came to a sudden end on Christmas Eve 1996.
01:46As a father, I'm just sorry I didn't protect her.
01:53What's going on there, ma'am? We have a kidnapping. Hurry, please.
01:56Explain to me what's going on, okay?
01:58On December 25th, some of the Ramsey's neighbors noticed that something unusual was happening at their residence,
02:04citing atypical lights and sounds. At the time, they were blissfully unaware of the sheer horror occurring right under their very noses.
02:12The note was lying across
02:16the three pages across the run of one of the stair treads.
02:23And it was kind of dimly lit because it was very early in the morning.
02:30When the Ramsey's awoke the next morning, they found a strangely lengthy handwritten note awaiting them.
02:35It demanded $118,000, the significance of that number has been debated in the years since,
02:42on behalf of a, quote, group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction, according to the message.
02:48In exchange, Jean-Benet would be safely returned.
02:51The note guaranteed that, quote,
03:02Well, I hurriedly read it, you know, and didn't take long to understand what was happening.
03:11And I ran back upstairs and pushed open her bedroom door and she was gone.
03:14The day of.
03:15A uniformed police officer arrived relatively quickly.
03:19And I said, I handed him the note.
03:23I said, my daughter's been taken.
03:26He said, you don't think she just ran away?
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.