Jonbenet Patricia Ramsey Tribute

JonBenét Patricia Ramsey (August 6, 1990 – December 26, 1996) was an American child beauty pageant contestant made famous by her Christmas time murder and the subsequent media coverage. She was found dead in the basement of her parents' home in Boulder, Colorado, nearly eight hours after she was reported missing. The case is notable in both its longevity and the media interest it has generated in the United States. After several grand jury hearings, the case is still unsolved.

JonBenét Ramsey was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but the family relocated when JonBenét was nine months old. Her first name is a portmanteau of her father's first and middle names, John Bennett; her middle name is that of her mother, the late Patricia "Patsy" Ramsey, who enrolled her daughter in a variety of different beauty pageants in several states. In addition, she funded some of the contests in which JonBenét was involved. Patsy Ramsey was a former beauty queen, having held the title Miss West Virginia 1977; her sister became Miss West Virginia 1980. JonBenét held a number of child beauty contest titles, including: America's Royal Miss, Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, Little Miss Charlevoix Michigan, Little Miss Merry Christmas, Little Miss Sunburst, and National Tiny Miss Beauty. JonBenet's mother, Patsy, embellished her child's pageant entry forms by saying the child spoke French and other things to make the child seem more "eligible" for pageant participation. John Ramsey, JonBenét's father, is a former president and chief executive officer of Access Graphics, a computer services company.

In September 2008, when on the Oprah show, John Ramsey stated that labeling his daughter as a "beauty queen" was an unfair representation of her life, as she also participated in rockclimbing, violin lessons and other activities. Pageants were just another facet of her life, but not who she was.

JonBenét is buried in Saint James Episcopal Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia, next to her mother.

According to the testimony of Patsy Ramsey, on December 26, 1996, she discovered her daughter missing after finding a two and a half-page ransom note on the kitchen staircase, demanding $118,000 for the safe return of her daughter, which was the exact value of a bonus her husband received earlier that year.[1] Despite specific instructions in the ransom note that police and friends not be contacted, she telephoned the police and called family and friends. The local police conducted a cursory search of the house but did not find any obvious signs of a break-in or forced entry. The note suggested that the ransom collection would be monitored and JonBenét would be returned as soon as the money was obtained. John Ramsey made some arrangements for the availability of the ransom, which a friend, John Fernie, picked up that morning from a local bank.

The bristle end of the paint brush was found in a tub of Patsy Ramsey's art supplies, but the bottom third never was located despite extensive searching of the house by law enforcement in subsequent days.[3] Experts noted that the construction of the garrote required a special knowledge of knots. Autopsy also revealed that the child had eaten pineapple only a few hours before the murder, of which her mother claimed to be unaware.[4] Photographs of the home, taken the day JonBenét's body was found, show a bowl of pineapple on the kitchen table with a spoon in it,[4] and police reported finding Patsy's fingerprints on it.[5] Neither Patsy nor John claim to remember putting this bowl on the table or feeding pineapple to JonBenét.[4][5]

While it was reported that no footprints led to the house on snow-covered ground, other reporters found that snow around the doors of the house was cleared away.[6] Police reported no signs of forced entry, although a basement window that had been broken and left unsecured before Christmas, along with other open doors, were not reported to the public until a year later.[6]

[edit] Later developments

In December 2003, forensic investigators extracted enough material from a mixed blood sample found on JonBenét's underwear to establish a DNA profile.[7] The DNA belongs to an unknown male. The DNA was submitted to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a database containing more than 1.6 million DNA profiles, mainly from convicted felons. The sample has yet to find a match in the database, although it continues to be checked for partial matches on a weekly basis.[citation needed]

Later investigations also discovered that there were more than 100 burglaries in the Ramseys' neighborhood in the months before JonBenét's murder, and that 38 registered sex offenders were living within a two-mile (3 km) radius of the Ramseys' home, an area that encompasses half the population of the city of Boulder, but none of the sex offenders had any involvement in the murder.[8]

On August 16, 2006, 41-year-old John Mark Karr, a former school teacher, was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand on five-year-old child-pornography charges from Sonoma County, California. Authorities reportedly tracked him down using the Internet after he sent e-mails regarding the Ramsey case to Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado.[9] Once apprehended, he confessed to being with JonBenét when she died, stating that her death was an accident. When asked if he was innocent, he responded, "No."

However, Karr's DNA did not match that found on JonBenét Ramsey's body. On August 28, 2006, prosecutors announced that no charges would be filed against him for the murder of JonBenét Ramsey.[10][11][12] In early December 2006, Department of Homeland Security officials reported that federal investigators were continuing to explore whether Karr had been a possible accomplice in the killing.

No evidence has ever come to light that placed the then-married Alabama resident Karr near Boulder during the Christmas 1996 crime. Evidence linking Karr to the killing is highly circumstantial in nature. For instance, handwriting samples taken from Karr were said to match the ransom note. In particular, his technique for writing the letters E, T and M were described by the media as being very rare.

[edit] Letter from District Attorney

On July 9, 2008, the Boulder District Attorney's office announced that as a result of newly developed DNA sampling and testing techniques, the Ramsey family members are no longer considered suspects in the case.[13] In light of the new DNA evidence, Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy gave a letter[14] to John Ramsey the same day, officially apologizing to the Ramsey family:

"This new scientific evidence convinces us...to state that we do not consider your immediate family, including you, your wife, Patsy, and your son, Burke, to be under any suspicion in the commission of this crime. ... The match of Male DNA on two separate items of clothing worn by the victim at the time of the murder makes it clear to us that an unknown male handled these items. There is no innocent explanation for its incriminating presence at three sites on these two different items of clothing that JonBenet was wearing at the time of her murder. ... To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry. No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion, especially when public officials have not had sufficient evidence to initiate a trial in a court of law. ... We intend in the future to treat you as the victims of this crime, with the sympathy due you because of the horrific loss you suffered. ... I am aware that there will be those who will choose to continue to differ with our conclusion. But DNA is very often the most reliable forensic evidence we can hope to find and we rely on it often to bring to justice those who have committed crimes. I am very comfortable that our conclusion that this evidence has vindicated your family is based firmly on all of the evidence, ..." [14][15]

[edit] Defamation lawsuits

Several defamation lawsuits have ensued since JonBenét's murder. Lin Wood was the plaintiff's attorney for John and Patsy Ramsey and their son Burke, and has prosecuted defamation claims on their behalf against St. Martin's Press, Time, Inc., The Fox News Channel, American Media, Inc., Star, The Globe, Court TV and The New York Post. John and Patsy Ramsey were also sued in two separate defamation lawsuits arising from the publication of their book, The Death of Innocence, brought by two individuals named in the book as having been investigated by Boulder police as suspects in JonBenét's murder. The Ramseys were defended in those lawsuits by Lin Wood and three other Atlanta attorneys, James C. Rawls, Eric P. Schroeder, and S. Derek Bauer, who obtained dismissal of both lawsuits including an in-depth decision by U.S. District Court Judge Julie Carnes that the evidence in the murder case overwhelmingly pointed to an intruder having committed the crime..[citation needed]

In November 2006, Rod Westmoreland, a friend of JonBenét Ramsey's father, filed a defamation suit[16] against Keith Greer, who posted a message on an Internet forum using the pseudonym "undertheradar". Greer had accused Westmoreland of participating in the kidnapping and murder.[17] Greer has defended his statement.[18]

[edit] Speculation

Case speculation by experts, media and the parents has supported different hypotheses. For a long time, the local police supported the hypothesis that her mother injured her child in a fit of rage after the girl had wet her bed on the same night, and then proceeded to kill her either in rage or to cover up the original injury. Another hypothesis was that John Ramsey had been sexually abusing his daughter and murdered her as a cover. The Ramseys' son Burke, who was 9 at the time of JonBenét's death, was also targeted by speculation, and asked to testify at the grand jury hearing.[19] In 1999, the Governor of Colorado, Bill Owens, told the parents of JonBenét Ramsey to "quit hiding behind their attorneys, quit hiding behind their PR firm."[20] Police suspicions were initially concentrated almost exclusively on the members of the Ramsey family, although the girl's parents had no prior signs of aggression in the public record, nor any suspicious behavior towards their children.

The Ramseys have consistently held that the crime was committed by an intruder. They hired John E. Douglas, former head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, to examine the case. While retained by the Ramsey family, he concluded that the Ramseys were not involved in the murder. He also concluded that it was unlikely that anyone would resolve the case. He detailed his arguments in his 2001 book, The Cases That Haunt Us. Lou Smit, a seasoned detective who came out of retirement to assist Boulder authorities with the case in early 1997, originally suspected the parents, but after assessing all the evidence that had been collected, also concluded that an intruder had committed the crime.[21] While no longer an official investigator on the case, Smit continues to work on it.

With such contradictory evidence, a grand jury failed to indict the Ramseys or anyone else in the murder of JonBenét. Not long after the murder, the parents moved to a new home in Atlanta. Two of the lead investigators in the case resigned, one because he believed that the investigation had incompetently overlooked the intruder hypothesis, and one because he believed that the investigation had failed to successfully prosecute the Ramseys.[3] There have also been accusations of a cover-up in the district attorney's office.