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Stranger In The House: Episode 25: The Mysterious Murder of JonBenét Ramsey (Part 2)
In this episode, we dive deep into the two prevalent theories regarding the murder of 6-year-old JonBenét: The Family Member Theory and The Intruder Theory. SUPPORT US ON PATREON! patreon.com/StrangerInTheHousePodcast Sources:
Layton, Julia. “How Handwriting Analysis Works.” HowStuffWorks, 23 Oct. 2023, science.howstuffworks.com/handwriting-analysis.htm#:~:text=Handwriting%20analysis%20is%20a%20tedious%20and%20methodical%20process,heavy%20pressure%2C%20large%20letters%2C%20narrow%20spacing%20and%20more.
Giacomazzo, Bernadette. “John Mark Karr, the Pedophile Who Claimed to Kill JonBenét Ramsey.” All That’s Interesting, 21 Feb. 2024, allthatsinteresting.com/john-mark-karr
Stockton, Chrissy. “The Best Arguments for the ‘Intruder’ Theory in the JonBenét Ramsey Case.” Thought Catalog, 16 Jan. 2024, thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2020/11/the-best-arguments-for-the-intruder-theory-in-the-jonbenet-ramsey-case.
Casarez, J. (2016, December 13). The death of JonBenet: A case that’s captivated the country for 20 years. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/13/us/jonbenet-ramsey-case/index.html CNN, J. C. (2021, December 26). 25 years after JonBenet Ramsey killing, investigators have tested almost 1,000 DNA samples. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/26/us/jonbenet-ramsey-25th-anniversary-dna/index.html Chang, R. (2020, November 17). JonBenét Ramsey’s Murder: Timeline of the Child Pageant Star’s Death and Investigation. Biography. https://www.biography.com/crime/jonbenet-ramsey-murder-investigation-timeline Crime Museum. (2019). JonBenét Ramsey - Crime Museum. Crime Museum; Crime Museum. https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/cold-cases/jonbenet-ramsey/ Sylte, A. (2016, October 24). Read the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note. KUSA. https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/jonbenet-ramsey/read-the-jonbenet-ramsey-ransom-note/73-339934405 Trapasso, C. (2024, March 22). The Owners of the JonBenet Ramsey Murder House Fail To Find a Buyer Despite Price Cuts. Real Estate News & Insights | Realtor.com®. https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/jonbenet-ramsey-house-cant-find-a-buyer/ Wikipedia Contributors. (2021, November 12). Killing of JonBenét Ramsey. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_JonBen%C3%A9t_Ramsey Worthen, M. (2020, November 17). JonBenét Ramsey - Brother, Parents & House. Biography. https://www.biography.com/crime/jonbenet-ramsey Waxman, O. B. (2021, December 23). 25 Years Later, the Murder of JonBenét Ramsey Remains Unsolved—and Issues It Highlighted Persist. Time. https://time.com/6130287/jonbenet-ramsey-murder-true-crime/
- Duration:
- 21m
- Broadcast on:
- 25 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
High strangers. This is your host, Alexa Morrissey, and today I am covering part two of the murder of John Benet Ramsey. So, if you haven't listened to part one, please do so now, because we are going to get into the midi-gritty details of this case. In the early morning hours of the day after Christmas, in Boulder, Colorado, six-year-old John Benet Ramsey was missing from her bed, and a handwritten ransom note was found by her parents. The note demanded a very specific amount of money from the Ramsey family, an amount that exactly matched the father's Christmas bonus for the safe return of their daughter. Despite the note saying not to call the police, Patsy and John Ramsey, John Benet's parents, call 911. Later that afternoon, it would be revealed that little John Benet had never left the house. She was, in fact, dead in the basement the whole time. She had been found by her father. She died of asphyxiation due to strangulation. Her mouth had been duct taped, and her hands were tied over her head. There were no signs of rape, but there was evidence of sexual assault and blood on her underwear. There were a lot of reasons why this case captivated the American public. One, the O.J. Simpson trial had aired on live television the year before and had created a demand for more true crime coverage. People wanted a new mystery to discuss, and John Benet was the perfect victim. She was white, rich, and objectively adorable. It's a well-known fact that white women and girls from affluent areas tend to get more media attention than other victims, especially over people of color. Think of Lacey Peterson, Natalie Halloway, and more recently, Gabby Petito. But in addition to fitting into what America seems to disgustingly find is the ideal murder victim for media consumption, John Benet was also a six-year-old beauty queen. This was long before the world had been introduced to the show, toddlers and tiaras. And seeing someone so young, dressed up in mature women's clothing and makeup, was not something that sat right with the American public. People believed that her parents were forcing her into pageants and sexualizing her for fame. Some people believed that John Benet's participation in pageants drew unwanted attention from a murderous pedophile. The second reason why this case was so popular in the media was because of how fucking strange it was. Why would someone leave a ransom note demanding money when the child could be found dead in the house in minutes? Why not move the body somewhere she couldn't be found in order to at least receive the ransom money first, before she was discovered to be dead? The note itself was also strange. It was extremely wordy and long, like almost three pages hand written long. The letter was revealed to be written inside the Ramsey House, and police found it strange that anyone would take the time to write that long of a letter and risk being caught in the house. And while we are on the subject of the ransom note, let's pick up where we left off in part one. In 1997, several bombshells about the ransom note were exposed to the public. First, it was known that the ransom note had been written in the Ramsey House on a piece of paper taken from one of Patsy Ramsey's notebooks, but police later revealed that they also found evidence of a practice version of the ransom note. So according to the police, someone took even more time in the house writing this already long letter. The point of a ransom exchange is to receive money. The more time you spend in the house, the more you risk being caught, and in turn, risking the money you are demanding. It made no sense why someone would risk the whole point of the operation, just to get their letter perfectly worded. Then in March of that same year, handwriting analysis came back, and revealed that while John Benet's father did not write the letter, her mother Patsy could have. According to howstuffworks.com, handwriting analysis is a tedious and methodical process that relies on extensive knowledge of the way people form letters, including whether they use light pressure or heavy pressure, large letters, narrow spacing, and more. According to this type of analysis, every person in the world has a unique way of writing. Our personalized writing style is developed by our education, our environments, and our own mental rhythms. Even when someone tries to disguise their handwriting to look different than their own, their personal writing style can be found within the letters. In the beginning of the investigation, both John and Patsy Ramsey submitted handwriting samples to the police. Vanity Fair published an article in 1997 reporting that 74 different handwriting samples were compared to the ransom note, and only Patsy's handwriting sample was deemed a possible match. Possible, because it was not a definite match. It's important to note that results of handwriting comparisons are not always accepted as evidence in court, partly because the science is seen as subjective, and has a hard time determining a reliable error rate. But, this definitely brought even more suspicion onto the Ramsey family. Over the years, many handwriting analysts have declared that there is a very good possibility that Patsy wrote the ransom note. But with that theory comes the biggest question of all, why? What could possibly be Patsy's motive to stage her little girl's murder as a kidnapping, knowing that she would eventually be found in the house? This brings us to the two prevalent theories about this case, the family member theory, and the intruder theory. Let's start with the family member theory, since it directly ties into the idea that Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note. First, let's just review the numbers. It is statistically more likely to be murdered by someone you know, or a family member, than a stranger. According to Greg McCreary, a retired profiler with the FBI, it is a 12-to-1 probability that a family member or a caregiver is involved in the homicide of a child. Then there is the fact that there were no signs of forced entry into the house. There was no evidence that anyone besides the Ramses were in that house Christmas night. Here's my issue with that though. If you remember from part one, the crime scene was completely contaminated within the first few hours of the investigation. Numerous people came in and out of the Ramsey household in order to console the family, some of those people even cleaned. Then John Benet's body was moved multiple times. So yes, there were no signs of forced entry, but in terms of evidence of others in the house, I think we can say that was lost when the scene became contaminated. When people discussed the family member theory, they often point to the fact that police saw the Ramses as uncooperative in the investigation of their daughter. Right after the murder, they moved across the country to Atlanta, and refused to do more interviews with the police, claiming it was difficult to discuss. And yet, they participated in televised interviews for the media. Now for the motive. One theory is that Patsy struck John Benet in a fit of rage after a bedwetting incident. After Patsy struck John Benet, she might have believed she accidentally killed her daughter, and then strangled her presumed dead body to cover up what had happened, and then staged the scene. Remember, while her cause of death was strangulation, John Benet also had a skull fracture. Some investigators believe that the skull fracture came first, whether made intentionally or by accident at the hands of one of the Ramses. According to this theory, everything after that skull fracture was a cover-up. The strangulation with the garret made from a cord and Patsy's paintbrush, the signs of sexual assault, but no rape or DNA found in John Benet's vaginal area, and then the ransom note that police believed was clearly staged. If it was, in fact, an accidental killing, police believed that John would help his wife stage a kidnapping in order to protect her. The issue with this theory is that, first and foremost, it's a lot to do in a small amount of time. The family got home late that night after their friend's party and called the police by 5 a.m. Within that time frame, John Benet had to be struck by her mother, believed to be dead Patsy and John would have had to come up with a kidnapping cover, staged the scene, and then write the elaborate letter. And if John didn't help his wife cover it up, then Patsy would have had to do all this on her own. Another issue with this theory is that Patsy had no history of hitting her children. When Burke Ramsey, John Benet's brother, got older, he was quoted as saying that his mother never hit him or his sister as children. In my opinion, it is also unlikely that Patsy or John would not call 911 for help first, if their daughter had a head injury. And even if she passed out from the injury, she would still have a pulse. Wouldn't covering up an assault be a lot easier than staging a kidnapping and murder? Some people believe that John Ramsey would never help his wife cover up the fact that she killed their daughter. But maybe he would, if his young son did it. Like I mentioned in part one, many people thought Burke Ramsey could have killed his sister whether accidentally or on purpose, and then his parents covered it up in order to keep their only remaining child from being taken away by police. Now there are more than a couple of issues with this theory. First and foremost, this is completely circumstantial. There is absolutely no evidence that Burke was at all involved in his sister's murder. Police have always viewed Patsy and John as persons of interest, but have never once considered Burke one. Burke was nine years old at the time. So to say that on Christmas night, when both children were exhausted from the day's activities, Burke and John Benet were playing rough, and something happened that resulted in John Benet's death seems unlikely. And if that was what happened, why would the parents first instinct be to cover up their daughter's death in such a brutal and complicated way rather than call an ambulance? Some believe that Burke intentionally killed and sexually assaulted his sister, but again he was nine, and he wasn't exceptionally large or strong for a nine-year-old. Intentionally killing someone by hand is not easy to do, even for an adult. Cracking someone's skull and strangling them to death with a handmade garret is outside the physical abilities of an average size nine-year-old. The only person in the house that actual evidence points to being involved in John Benet's murder is her mother Patsy. Handwriting analysis pointed to her and only her as a possible writer. The garret that was made in the basement was created with one of her paint brushes, from a paint kit that only she used and knew the contents of. As for the why, it's possible we will never know because Patsy Ramsey died of ovarian cancer at 49 years old in 2006. John and Burke Ramsey defend Patsy's innocence to this day and say that there was no way she killed her daughter and then covered it up, but many members of law enforcement and the public still see her as the prime suspect. Obviously, there was not enough physical evidence to charge Patsy with the murder of her daughter. But in 1999, a grand jury convened and recommended filing charges against John and Patsy for hindering the prosecution of an unidentified person who had committed the crime of murder in the first degree and child abuse resulting in death. But, as expected, there was insufficient evidence to pursue a successful indictment. Now, if Patsy didn't kill her daughter and write that ransom note, who did? That question brings us to the second prevalent theory in the case, the intruder theory. Despite there being no evidence of forced entry into the home, there were available entry points into the house the evening John Benet was murdered. There had been two windows that were left slightly open to allow for electrical cords of the outside Christmas lights to pass through. There was a broken basement window from when John Ramsey accidentally locked himself out of the house and, allegedly, one unlocked side door. However, I haven't seen that information in many sources. There's no need for forced entry when doors and windows are unlocked. According to the initial investigation, there was no evidence that someone came through the open windows or unlocked door. Still, there was a piece of evidence that placed someone not in the Ramsey family, in the basement. A single footprint from a boot was found in the basement. The footprint did not match any of the family members' shoes, nor any acquaintances of the Ramses who were investigated. But like Burke's fingerprints on the pineapple bowl, prints can tell if someone was there, but not when. It's hard to say if that footprint was made the night John Benet was murdered. The basement window lock was broken and, therefore, was a possible access point into the home. However, investigators noted that all the cobwebs and dust around the window were intact, as was the dirt and foliage outside the window. There was a suitcase sitting directly underneath the window, and it could have easily helped the intruder down into the basement without making too much noise. There were also leaves and debris found around this particular suitcase. Despite the Ramses living in an affluent neighborhood, in the months leading up to John Benet's murder, there were over 100 burglaries in the area. And there were 38 registered sex offenders living within a 2-mile or 3.2-kilometer radius of the Ramses' house. One of the biggest criticisms of the John Benet investigation was that police were too focused on the Ramsey parents as possible suspects to pursue other leads. That's not to say that the Ramses should not have been investigated, because, yes, they were suspicious. But when you put together the fact that doors and windows were unlocked, the neighborhood was the target of more than 100 burglaries, and there were 38 registered sex offenders living within walking distance of the house. It seems like the police should have put the same amount of energy into the intruder theory as they did the family member theory. But they did not. John Douglas, a former FBI profiler, and the inspiration for the Netflix show Mindhunter, was hired by the Ramsey family to investigate their daughter's death, and he thoroughly supports the intruder theory. In fact, he believes the police and the media's obsession with the Ramsey parents is what led to the true killer never being caught. And if you haven't seen the show Mindhunter, let me tell you a little bit about John Douglas, because his opinions on a murder case should be taken seriously regardless if the Ramses hired him. John Douglas essentially invented what we know today as criminal profiling. He was the founder of the FBI's criminal profiling program and spent years interviewing the world's most infamous serial killers, including David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Charles Manson. It was the criminal profiling program that led to the creation of the term serial killer. Without him, hundreds of murderers would have never been caught. John Douglas strongly believed that John Bonet was murdered by a pedophile who broke into her house on Christmas night. His biggest reasoning behind this was that there was evidence that someone had used a stun gun on John Bonet. There were marks on John Bonet's body that were written off as defensive wounds in the original medical report, but under further investigation, they were determined to possibly be from a stun gun. Douglas, as well as Detective Lou Smith who worked the case in the 90s, believes that someone entered the home through the broken basement window, molested John Bonet, and then tried to subdue her with a stun gun. They then attempted to leave with John Bonet through the basement window, but ultimately couldn't as she fought them. Douglas and Smith believed that as John Bonet fought them, the intruder realized she was going to wake up her parents, so they hit her in the head with something like a flashlight, and then strangled her with objects he found in the basement. The way John Bonet's body was then staged in the basement also stood out to Douglas. According to John Douglas, when a family member is involved in a murder, they are likely to cover their child's body in a protective manner, covering all but their head. In this case, just John Bonet's torso was covered, but her bottom half was exposed, which is not the kind of act a parent would generally perform. But what about the ransom note? Why write that insanely long note? Some investigators believe the intruder wrote the note in order to give himself a head start before police came searching for him. By writing that ransom note, the family and police assumed they were dealing with a kidnapping and did not search the house for John Bonet, giving the killer several hours to get out of town before anyone realized this was a murder. Perhaps the intruder was an acquaintance of the Ramses and heard through the grapevine about John's large Christmas bonus, which is why he included it in the letter. However, this still doesn't explain why he took such a long time writing the bizarre letter in the first place, risking being caught. Another reason why Douglas and Smith believe in the intruder theory is because of the DNA found on John Bonet's clothes. In 2008, DNA taken from under John Bonet's fingernails and clothes were determined to be from an unknown male, not belonging to a member of the Ramsey family. With this new information, on July 9, 2008, the Boulder District Attorney's Office announced that the Ramsey family members were no longer suspects in the case. Now, you are probably thinking that because of this DNA, the Ramsey family was fully off the hook. Well, not quite. The DNA that was found was touched DNA, aka trace DNA. Trace DNA analysis only requires about seven or eight skin cells. Because of the way we shed skin cells, seven or eight of your skin cells could be transferred onto someone by just bumping into them while walking down the street. Because of this, the technique has been criticized for high rates of false positives due to contamination. Anyone who even slightly touched John Bonet's clothes or hands could have left touched DNA. It could have come from someone who worked in the store her mom bought her clothes from. It could have come from one of the crime scene texts working in the house. In 2016, a former investigator for the Boulder County District Attorney's Office named Gordon Combs gave the following statement. We all shed DNA all the time within our skin cells. It can be deposited anywhere, at any time, for various reasons, reasons that are benign. To clear somebody just on the premise of touched DNA, especially when you have a situation where the crime scene wasn't secure at the beginning really is a stretch. Despite the criticism of touched DNA, the DNA was put into codus, but not a single match came from this. Now, at the end of part one, I mentioned a confession, and that came about in 2006 from a man known as John Mark Carr. And as a quick note, I will be referring to John as he in this story, because at the time he confessed to this murder, he identified as a man. In 2001, John Mark Carr was living in San Francisco, California with his wife and two children, working as a school teacher in the Napa Valley. That year, he was accused of a 1997 murder of a 12-year-old girl named Georgia Lee Moses. Carr ultimately would not be convicted of Moses' murder, and her murder actually remains unsolved. But during the investigation into Carr as a suspect, police found child pornography on his computer. When Carr's possession of child pornography charges were dropped due to lack of evidence that he downloaded the material, he moved to England, and then Thailand. While Carr was in Thailand, he began to send bizarre emails to a documentarian that was making a film about the Ramsey case. In these emails, John Mark Carr described, in graphic detail, how he killed John Benet on Christmas night, 1996. These emails were turned into the bolder police, and John Mark Carr was apprehended by federal agents, and was flown back to America to be charged for John Benet's murder. In the end, John Mark Carr was a liar. His DNA did not match the touch DNA collected from the crime scene, and all his knowledge about the case was available to anyone via the media. The case against Carr was dismissed, and he was labeled as a fame-hungry pedophile. After the trial, John Mark Carr changed his name to Alexis Reich, and began identifying as a woman. With Alexis Reich cleared, Patsy Ramsey no longer alive, and the rest of the Ramsey family exonerated, John Benet's case remains unsolved to this day. The case is still open and actively being investigated, but it is very unlikely we will ever get definitive answers on what really happened to the six-year-old. The media still loves to bring up the case every couple of years, claiming they finally know who the killer is, only to offer no definitive evidence in the end. Both John and Burke Ramsey have sued various media outlets for defamation, but I feel that they will always be seen as possible suspects by the public, regardless of the evidence. To me, the ransom note holds the key to solving this case. I believe in following the physical evidence to the truth, and that letter really is the strangest piece of evidence. When we figure out the true purpose of that letter, I think we will finally understand what happened to John Benet. Until then, stay safe strangers, and thanks for listening. This episode was written by Alexa Morrissey. Stranger in the House is a boy wonder production. All of our sources can be found in the show notes. [music]