Taylor Sarah
@thesarahdtaylor

In 1996, the murder of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey became one of the most talked about unsolved mysteries of the decade. Ramsey was found dead at her home in Boulder, Colorado. on the morning of December. 26th. The last time the family was told that they saw JonBenét alive was Christmas Eve. According to the Denver Post, parents of Patsy and John Ramsey called the police after finding a two-page ransom note asking for $118,000 in exchange for their daughter's return. Later that day, Jon found the corpse of JonBenét in the family's basement. She was reportedly strangled and tied with duct tape.

As the investigation continued, John, Patsy, and even JonBenét's 9-year-old brother, Burke Ramsey, were identified as suspects. In 1999, the jury moved to charge John and Patsy on charges of child abuse resulting in death, but these allegations did not materialize. In 2008, in light of new DNA information, a judge ordered all members of the Ramsey family to drop all charges.

While roughly 1,500 pieces of evidence have been recovered, JonBenét's case has gone cold, but now, at 29, Burke has broken his years-long silence through a series of interviews with the talk show Dr. Phil McGraw. As the 20th anniversary of his sister's death approaches, the world wonders who Burke has become and why he suddenly decided to speak up.

Why is he speaking

Two decades after his sister's death, and 10 years after Patsy's mom died of ovarian cancer, Burke told Dr. Phil he says because "I want to honor not...I don't want to forget anyone."

"For a long time, the media has made our lives mad," Dr. Phil said (via the New York Daily News). “It's hard to miss cameras and vans in your backyard. We used to go to the supermarket sometimes and there would be a newspaper with my photo or a picture of JonBenét plastered on the front.” Burke said, “Seeing that a small child is just some kind of chaotic nightmare, so I was very skeptical of any media as it just made me a very private person.”

McGraw said Burke knew the media attention would increase as the 20th anniversary of his sister's death approached: "His thought was, 'If this happens, I want to control the narrative.'"

“I think what I wanted to do was remember her and not just another piece of news,” Burke said.

Burke remembers the day his sister disappeared

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Dr. Phil Burke said he had little to no reaction when he initially said his sister was missing. “I think I would like it to avoid conflict,” he said (via RIA Novosti), “I think part of me doesn’t want to know what’s going on.”

As chaos erupted around him, Burke said he remained in bed. “The first thing I remember is me, my mom, bursting into my room frantic really saying ‘Oh my God, my God,’ running around my room,” he said (once again). “I remember her saying, ‘Where is my child? Where is my baby?’ I just lay there and didn’t know what to do.”

In the end, John broke the terrible news to his son. Burke remembered that moment too. “My dad told me JonBenét is in heaven now and he started crying, then he started crying.”

Burke knew he was a suspect

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Patsy and John lamented the absurdity of accusing—or even bringing in for questioning—their son for killing his sister. In a 2016 A&E documentary titled The Murder of JonBenét: The Undisguised Truth, John said (via People), “the accusation that Burke somehow had this cruel 9-year-old, 60-pound child and he pounded on JonBenét's head and that Patsy and I set it all up to protect him is laughable.”

“I know people think I did it, my parents did it,” Burke told Dr. Phil (via E! News). I know we were suspects.”

Viewers may find his demeanor unsettling

Viewers watching McGraw's interviews and comparing footage may be put off by Burke's behavior. “There will be dark content and he is smiling and people will be watching throughout the interview, very unusually affected, either smiling or laughing. This is a very socially awkward young man,” McGraw told the Today show. “But understand, from the time this happened, his parents, depending on your interpretation, either protected him or hid him, based on how you want to interpret it. He didn’t have social contacts most of the kids are growing up.” He spent two decades behind bars.

Body language expert Jan Hargrave said Burke's behavior could show a sign of alarm. “He thinks that if I do this niceness they'll look like me,” she said (via Button 2 Houston), “but I think it's really a facade for the anxiety that he feels deep inside.” Hargrave wouldn't do one way or the other if she thought Burke was lying about his recollection of the tragedy.

According to McGraw's interview today, Burke now works remotely as a software engineer and has no face-to-face interaction with other people.

Burke is reminiscent of watching sister

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Burke admitted that he still sees in his head that his sister's body was looked at as her service. “I remember watching,” he said. “Small Casket [and] her eyes were closed. I think one of her eyes was a little bit like a droopy,” said Dr. Phil (across the side). “It was strange. It was painful to watch, a little.”

“I remember my parents are very upset,” he said. "I remember my father leaned over to kiss her."

Burke paid for this interview?

According to ABC News, Burke paid for an interview with Dr. Phil, although no further details were released. Recent news suggests the costs incurred by guests are also a paid program, with tabloids claiming that some high-profile guests are being compensated tens of thousands of dollars for their performances.

What is Burke so far?

Over the past two decades, Burke has staked out a very private but seemingly fulfilling life. He allegedly graduated from Purdue University in 2010 and works in the high-tech industry.

In 2012, John told People magazine that his son went into therapy and went on to lead a pretty quiet life with his girlfriend and a good job. “He certainly matured,” John said. “He has a 401(k) plan for Ira and he did everything his way.”

On December 26, JonBenét's mother got up at 5 a.m. to prepare for the family trip to Lake Michigan. Going down the stairs, the woman saw a letter on the last step. The message said that her daughter JonBenét (who, as we recall, was supposed to sleep peacefully in her bed from 10 pm) was kidnapped and 118 thousand dollars must be paid for her return. Patricia immediately woke up her husband, and they decided to call the police, although the letter indicated that this should not be done in any case. The criminals also wrote in the message that they would call between 8.00 am and 10.00 am to tell them how to transfer the money.

The police arrived, and everyone - both law enforcement officers and family members - began to wait for the call. However, no one called. Then it was decided to inspect the house. When the girl's father, accompanied by his friend, went down to the basement, he saw the lifeless body of his daughter, wrapped in a blanket.

Two large hematomas were found on the girl's head, and traces of blood were found on the linen (as it turned out later, not hers). His hands were tied above his head with a white cord. The baby was first hit on the head with a heavy object, or she could hit a wall or a door, and then strangled with a homemade garrote.

Versions of the investigation

Of course, the police acted incorrectly from the very beginning, which they later admitted: the house was not searched properly, and when it was nevertheless decided to inspect it, for some reason, the father of the murdered baby John and a friend began to do this, and not law enforcement officers. As a result, some of the important evidence could be lost, and the chances of solving the crime in hot pursuit fell to zero.

Two versions of what happened were put forward:

• an intruder entered the house (it was necessary to find out whether he was familiar with the girl, or turned out to be a stranger);
• The baby's parents were involved in the murder.

Upon learning of the suspicions against them, a wealthy couple immediately hired the best lawyers. On their advice, John and Patricia flatly refused to give affidavits, on which the investigation hoped to obtain the conclusion of psychologists (there is a technique that allows you to quite accurately determine what is false and what is true in the affidavits of witnesses). The further actions of the mother and father of the girl were also suggestive: she refused to be interrogated and stated that in informal conversations she had already provided all the information to the investigators.

Why were the parents suspected at all?

There are many oddities in this story, and most of them are related to the behavior of the parents. For example, they reported that they undressed their daughter before going to bed and let her hair down. But JonBenet was found in a festive dress, with hair collected in two tails - at the back of her head and at the top, in which the leaves of a laurel wreath were stuck, which the girl was wearing at the holiday. Does it mean they lied? No answer.

During the autopsy, undigested pieces of pineapple were found in the girl's stomach, which means that she ate about 4 hours before the murder. According to the parents, the last time the baby ate at the celebration was around 20.00. Then where does the pineapple in the stomach come from? No answer. By the way, the police found this fruit in the family refrigerator...

Some of the windows and the door were not locked in the house at night. Why didn't the parents lock the house? Perhaps they opened the locks after the tragedy happened to confuse the investigation? And shortly before the incident, Patricia and John distributed the keys to their home to many people - friends, relatives, servants - ostensibly so that they would look after the house during the future vacation of the owners. Also a bit disturbing...

When Patricia wrote texts for handwriting examination from dictation, she deliberately changed her handwriting. Why did she do it? No answer.

The investigation first checked the version according to which the killer is the father. It was assumed that he accidentally, in a fit of anger (John was on antidepressants), hit the girl on something with her head, believed that she had died, and in fear staged her murder by a stranger. It was also assumed that he committed sexual acts against his daughter - this was also not confirmed.

As for the "kidnappers" note, it was found out that it had been prepared in advance using a typewriter. They searched for the device wherever they could - both in the house, and in the office, and in the garages of John Ramsey, but they did not find it.

The police have been repeatedly accused of obsessing over the guilt of the parents and not developing other versions. Even within the group of investigators there were disagreements: some developed a version of the guilt of the family, others insisted on the penetration of a stranger. The second claimed that the intruder entered the house through the basement window, broken long before. A smeared boot print on the window was also found. Its origin has not yet been established - none of the family members wore such boots.

fake grave

JonBenét Ramsey was not buried in Boulder, but in Atlanta, Georgia, where her family used to live. Some time after the murder of the couple, the Ramseys decided to move back to Atlanta - the girl's mother complained that she "misses her baby." In this regard, the investigators decided to conduct an operation to collect additional information. The parents were supposed to go to their daughter's grave within a few days of their arrival in Atlanta, and possibly talk among themselves about the murder there. In their conversation, new details of the case could be revealed.

A fake tombstone was ordered, completely repeating the real one, in which eavesdropping devices were mounted. The grave was placed under surveillance. However, what was the surprise of the police when the parents ... did not even think of going to the grave of their daughter upon arrival in the city! They went shopping, furnished the house, solved current affairs, and did not even plan a visit to the cemetery.

As a result, the idea failed: the boy, who accidentally ran past the grave, moved the false tombstone, about which his mother immediately informed the cemetery administration. The operation had to be curtailed with a scandal.

fake criminal

For a long time, the case was either opened or closed, and there was no clarity in it. Journalists fanned a huge fuss around him: dozens of articles about the murder and new details of the investigation were published, although many of them were simply false. The public didn't know who to believe.

The girl's parents appeared on TV shows, gave interviews, and even released a book called The Death of Innocence, in which they allegedly told everything they knew about the murder of their daughter, and also put forward their own versions of what happened. Steve Thomas, the investigator who handled the case, also published a book about it. But none of these publications brought the public one iota closer to unraveling the terrible crime - and could not do it.

Finally, in 2008, the unheard of happened: Former teacher John Mark Carr...confessed to the murder of JonBenet! The man at that time lived in Thailand, and he was extradited to the United States to confirm or deny guilt. Carr claimed that he was in love with the girl, entered into a relationship with her, and later drugged her and, by an absurd accident, killed her. After checking his testimony, it turned out that the man was lying - the reasons for self-incrimination, by the way, were never established.

By the time Carr confessed, JonBenét's mother was no longer alive: she had died of ovarian cancer at the age of 49.

Justification of the family

In 2008, using DNA analysis, it was possible to establish that the blood found on JonBenet's underwear did not belong to any of the girl's relatives. The charges against the family were dropped, but there are still people who are sure that the parents were involved in the murder of the baby. As it turned out, the blood belongs to an unknown man. The reconciliation of his DNA with the base of the genetic material of the FBI criminals has not yet yielded results.

First interview with Burke, JonBenét Ramsey's brother

In September 2016, the world again remembered the high-profile murder: for the first time, JonBenet's older brother, Burke, spoke about him. He gave an exclusive interview to the host of the popular show "Dr. Phil", where, in a frank conversation, he spoke about his own guesses in the case.

“I always thought it was a pedophile who spotted my sister at one of the contests. I want to honor the memory of JonBenet with this interview. I want her not to be forgotten,” he said.

Burke, 29, admitted that as a child it was very difficult for him to endure the hype associated with the case. Reporters were constantly on duty near their house, the public discussed the affairs of his family for several years, and as a result, the guy, in his own words, developed a strong aversion to publicity, he closed himself and began to lead a solitary life.

Jonbenet's parents (at least while the girl's mother was alive) did not interfere with public life: they not only gave numerous interviews and wrote a book, but also sued several publications that posted false information about the murder of their daughter. As a result, John and Patricia sued for (!) 4 million dollars from two American magazines. Later, after the death of his wife, John (who remarried) published another book of memoirs called The Other Side of Suffering.

“Why didn’t we understand that a child participating in competitions is so vulnerable? Why did we throw parties in our house where we let strangers in? I will never forgive myself for this ... - John writes in his work. -<...>I had to raise all my relatives and friends to their feet, to attract all possible resources in order to find the killer. He hid in the dark. He is still hiding somewhere…”

Whether JonBenet's killer will be found, we don't know. Usually such stories have a rather trivial clue, which, we hope, the law enforcement officers will still find. In the meantime, we invite you to participate in our survey. Do you think the girl's brother is right and can beauty contests play a fatal role in a child's life?

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More than 2,000 children die violently as a result of crime each year in the United States of America.

The death of the vast majority of them, for all its untimely tragedy, passes by the attention of the public, confirming the remarkable observation of Remarque, who said that "the death of a person is a tragedy, and the death of thousands is just a statistic." But from time to time, a case of the death of a child falls under the biased attention of the media, often without good reason, and then the indignant public, contrary to common sense, turns into the driving force of the legal process.
It so happened that the rather trivial murder of a child committed in the town of Boulder, Colorado, on Christmas night in 1996, attracted the attention of the population of the entire United States. Dozens and even hundreds of more terrible and mysterious crimes committed in the same year passed by the attention of the media, and the rather banal murder of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey literally split society into supporters and defenders of the official version of the crime.
Reflecting on this circumstance, one cannot help but come to a very sad conclusion regarding the nature of the American type of democracy: the population of this country has once again become a kind of hostage to unscrupulous media, which completely irresponsibly stir up and extinguish passions. We must agree with the sad conclusion of Mayor Boulder, who said at a press conference in December 1997: "American society has received a malignant tumor in the form of our information system."
On the evening of December 25, 1996, 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey attended a children's Christmas ball hosted by friends of her family a few blocks away. On this day, she was inundated with gifts: her parents gave the girl a two-wheeled bicycle, Santa Claus at the ball - a large teddy bear in red Santa Claus clothes, and a gold bracelet engraved with "JonBenet 12/25/96".

rice. 1 & 2: Born on August 6, 1990, JonBenét Ramsey was a funny and lovable child at the age of six and a half. In the left photo, she is shown wearing a prom queen's ribbon on her shoulder; on the right - next to his older brother Bark.

Children's ball ended at 21.30. The girl was so tired from eating and dancing that she fell asleep right in the back seat of the car in which her father took her home. At about 9:50 pm, the girl's father, John Ramsey, drove into the garage of his own house at 755 15th Street and carried the sleeping JonBenet in his arms to her bedroom on the second floor.
According to the official version of events, it is believed that at 22.00 the girl was lying in bed in her bedroom and sleeping. After that time, no one else saw her alive.
The next morning, John Ramsey's wife, JonBenét's mother, Patricia, was the first to wake up. She got up at about 5:00 and took some time to clean herself up. The need for such an early awakening was due to the fact that on the morning of December 26, the Ramsey family planned to go by car to Lake Michigan, on the picturesque shore of which stood another house that belonged to them. It was there that the Ramseys intended to celebrate the New Year.
At about 5:15 a.m., Patricia Ramsey left the bedroom on the third floor, in which the couple had spent the night, and began to descend the spiral staircase. She walked past the door to her daughter's bedroom without looking in, and headed for the kitchen, which was located on the first floor. On one of the last steps of the stairs, Patricia saw a piece of paper covered in an unfamiliar handwriting. Taking it in her hands, she realized that there were actually three sheets; the message written on them was a ransom demand for JonBenét Ramsey, who had been kidnapped that night.

rice. 3, 4, and 5: JonBenét's kidnapper left a three-page message on the stairs demanding $118,000 for the girl's return. The letter was discovered at about 5:15-5:20 on December 26, 1996 by Patricia Ramsey.

Patricia rushed upstairs to her husband. John read the note carefully. It followed that the unknown kidnapper took JonBenet with him and demanded that a ransom in the amount of $118,000 be prepared for transfer, put in a brown paper shopping bag, which are issued in department stores, and wait for a phone call in the interval of 08.00-10.00 hours. The offender specifically warned that parents should not notify anyone about the kidnapping of their daughter. Otherwise, he promised with a "99% chance" that they would never see JonBenet alive again.
What did the kidnapped girl's father do?
Before answering this question, one should think about another: what would the average father of a kidnapped child do in his place? The question can be formulated differently: what should be the impulsive reaction of a man who considers himself the protector of the family and the guard of his own home in this situation?
The idea that at the very time when you were sleeping (and therefore were defenseless) someone entered the house and walked somewhere near you is terrible in itself. But even more terrifying is the thought that there was a would-be assassin in the house who acted maliciously. How did he gain access to the enclosed space? Broke a door or window? Or opened them with your key? Obviously, until this is clarified, the threat of re-entry remains. In addition, there is a threat that the perpetrator has not yet left the house. Recall that at the moment when John Ramsey read the letter of the kidnapper, it was not even half past six in the morning.
The following sequence of actions of a man in such a situation seems natural: armed with any improvised weapon, quickly inspect the house in order to find the place of penetration of the intruder. In addition, during such an inspection, attention should be paid to those places that could serve as a refuge for the criminal if he did not have time to leave the house. In the event that a penetration point is discovered (say, a broken window in a room on the first floor), this room should be blocked (for example, the doorway should be covered with furniture). The Ramsey house was quite large (15 rooms), but still such an inspection would not require much time. Such an algorithm of actions would be typical for strong and active men, self-confident, enterprising. These people, having learned about the abduction of a child, would have experienced anger.
Of course, not all men are strong and active. A significant number of them would have experienced brutal fear. For this category of men, a different course of action would be more preferable: fearing to inspect the house alone and not wanting to risk their health and the health of their loved ones, they would simply take their family out of the house. Fortunately, the Ramseys did not live in a wild forest settlement, but in the most prestigious area of ​​​​a quiet and wealthy provincial town.
What did John and Patricia Ramsey do?
They called 911 (the call was received by the dispatcher at 5.25) and reported that their daughter had been kidnapped. After that, they began to call friends and tell them about what had happened. From the very beginning, the parents of the kidnapped girl went against the requirements of the kidnapper (or kidnappers). Within one hour of the discovery of the ransom letter, Priscilla and Fleet White, Barbara and John Fernier, and the pastor of the Episcopal Church, whose parishioners were members of the affected family, arrived at the Ramseys. Three foreign cars were parked in front of the house N 755, and this is not counting the car of the police patrol, which appeared at 5.32 (i.e., 7 minutes after John Ramsey called the 911 dispatcher). Moreover, people continued to arrive: by 8.00 policemen Linda Arendt, Michael Everett, Rick French, Tom Trujillo, Larry Mason arrived in their cars. After this time, other police cars (for example, Fred Patterson) openly drove up and left. Of course, such activity could not go unnoticed by the abductors, in the event that they established surveillance of the victim's house (and child abductors very often try to control the subsequent behavior of parents; for this they make covert connections to telephone lines, establish external surveillance of the house, track the movements of relatives and friends of the abducted child).
Is it necessary to say that in the interval from 08.00 to 10.00 hours the criminals did not call the Ramseys?
The actions of the Boulder police deserve special praise in this situation. The patrolmen who appeared at 5.32 did not bother to inspect the building, they did not even walk around the house! The policemen were satisfied with the assurance of the kidnapped girl's parents that all the windows and doors of the building were closed; the patrolmen calmly sat down in the chairs of the living room on the first floor and conscientiously waited for the change in an hour and a half! That's how they guarded the scene and the witnesses...
By 8 o'clock in the morning, the Ramsey house was like a beehive. In addition to the victims themselves (John and Patricia Ramsey, as well as their 11-year-old son Bark), their friends gathered in front of the phone: the Whites, Fernier, a priest and five policemen. The parents of the kidnapped girl were terribly worried and "could only scream," as Fleet White later recalled. Negotiations with criminals is one of the most important elements of the operation to free the kidnapped people; they require not only confidentiality, but also serious preliminary preparation. In this case, there was neither the first nor the second. In this situation, the presence in the room where negotiations were supposed to be carried out by the girl's mother, who is beating in hysterics, seems completely unacceptable. It is not clear why the police doctor did not give her an injection of a strong sedative and put the woman to sleep.
Another thing is not clear. Why didn't any of the police officers present come up with the quite obvious idea: does the kidnapping of a child disguise another crime, say, a robbery of a house or the murder of an allegedly "kidnapped" girl? None of the police officers took an interest in the safety of money, valuables and antiques of the owners of the house. It never occurred to any of them to try to find the kidnapper's trail inside and outside the house, to go to the bedroom of the kidnapped girl, etc.
The first hours since the kidnapping, which could provide the most valuable information about the crime that had taken place last night, passed, and the detectives sat in the living room with a thoughtful look, staring at the silent telephone. We must pay tribute to the patience of the Boulder police - they sat in front of the phone not even until 10 am, but until 13.00! They apparently could not believe that the criminal would not call at all and therefore spent an extra three hours waiting in vain.
At 10.30 Linda Arendt, who led the police group, guessed to inspect the bedroom of the abducted girl. Fred Patterson walked with her to inspect the room. This examination did not reveal anything unusual.
After that, for almost two more hours, the police group sat aimlessly in the living room in front of a silent telephone.
And only at 13.00 Linda Arendt finally guessed to ask John Ramsey, did he inspect the house? After receiving a negative answer, she invited him to do so. It looked something like this: "well, you go, see if everything is in order ..." None of the policemen went to inspect the house with John Ramsey! It just seems unheard of!
John Ramsey, accompanied by his friends Fleet White and John Fernier (not police officers!) went down to the basement and, going through the first door, found the body of his own daughter lying on the floor. The girl was dead, the body was in a state of rigor mortis and was already beginning to emit a specific smell of decomposition. Ramsey rushed to his daughter, picked her up and carried her into the living room on the first floor.
That. it became clear that the abduction of a child turned into a completely different, more serious crime - murder.
As recorded in the official police report, the body of JonBenét Ramsey was laid on a table in the first floor living room at 13:05 and left intact until the appearance of a forensic doctor. Well, remarkable forethought... Only her Boulder cops should have shown up seven hours early, once they arrived on the scene. Observation of how rigor mortis develops would make it possible to determine the time of death with high accuracy.
The first examination of the body of the deceased girl was carried out at the Ramsey house at 20.20-20.30 on December 26, 1996. During this examination, the following was stated: the body of JonBenét Ramsey was wrapped in a white blanket, the deceased was wearing a white dress with a silver star embroidered on the chest, under dress - white tights and shorts. The hair of the deceased is collected in two "ponytails" - on the crown and back of the head - and grabbed with rubber bands. On the right side of the head under the hair, an extensive hematoma was visible, another hematoma (smaller) was located below the right ear to the back of the head. The clothes of the deceased had no defects, several small (up to 1.2 cm) brown spots were found on the shorts. Traces of urine were found in the area of ​​the perineum and legs. During the examination, the body was in a state of complete rigor mortis, the hands were behind the head. On the wrist of the left hand, a white lace, 53 cm long, was found tied with a double knot, and on the wrist of the right hand, there was a pressure mark. The neck of the deceased was wrapped in a tight double loop of white cord, identical to that found on the wrist, one end of which was tied to a wooden stick. External signs - bladder emptying, pinpoint hemorrhages on the inner surface of the eyelids - corresponded to the assumption of death as a result of strangulation.
In the future, the results of a full forensic examination of the body of the deceased girl will be carefully analyzed by us, but for now we should dwell on something else. By the evening of December 26, the police had already begun a systematic inspection of the Ramsey home, and even its preliminary results provided rich food for thought.
First of all, it turned out that a large three-story 15-room house was by no means properly closed: two windows of the first floor, one of the three entrance doors, a basement window were found open! It turned out that the ransom amount of $118,000 was indicated in the letter of the kidnapper (or kidnappers) for a reason: shortly before the events described, John Ramsey received an annual bonus of exactly $118,000. He did not hand over this money to the bank, but kept it in the house. Given the widespread use of cashless payments in the United States, this seemed very strange. In addition, a large number of valuable things were kept in the house, and two cars of the owners of the house were in the garage (one of them, a Jaguar-4, was bought a year ago).
On the door of one of the rooms in the basement floor, a handprint was found that did not belong to any member of the Ramsey family. A smudged boot print was found on the glass of an open window on the first floor. In addition, an indistinct shoe print was also found on the wall of the house, its location seemed to indicate a person's attempt to climb into the first floor window.

rice. 6 and 7: An open window in the basement of the Ramsey house; a smudged boot mark on the glass of a first-floor window.

As early as December 26, 1996, the American public learned about the tragic events in the Ramsey house. In addition to local journalists, the film crew of the Denver-7 TV channel accidentally turned up at the scene, which on the same day aired the first report from the scene. It should be emphasized that until March 1997 the journalists knew nothing about the open windows and doors in the Ramsey house; the police hid this information from them, and for this she was later criticized a lot. However, reproaches against law enforcement agencies can hardly be considered appropriate: this information should be considered extremely important and its disclosure, obviously, could significantly interfere with the investigation.
John, Patricia and Bark Ramsey were taken away by the police in an unknown direction and until 2:00 pm on December 27, 1996 no one knew where they were. Subsequently, journalists learned that the family was under police protection until December 29; law enforcement officials feared possible attempts on the lives of family members.
The autopsy protocol, signed on December 27, 1996 by coroner John E. Meyer, provided very valuable information about the circumstances of the death of John Bennet Ramsey. This document is now available to Internet users, so that anyone can read its verbatim content, but we will focus on those fundamental conclusions that are important for understanding the circumstances of the death of JonBenét Ramsey.
An autopsy found the following injuries on the body of the deceased girl:
1) Injuries corresponding to strangulation from compression of the throat: abrasions on the neck, petechial hemorrhages on the inside of the eyelids;
2) Linear fragmentation of the right side of the skull. The total length of the crack in the bone is 21.6 cm, the skull fracture itself measures 4.5 cm by 1.2 cm. This bone fracture corresponds to a hemorrhage on the surface of the right cerebral hemisphere measuring 18 cm by 10 cm. that as a result of this injury, 7-8 cubic meters flowed out of the damaged vessels. see blood. This injury alone, without strangulation, would have resulted in the death of a 6-year-old girl;
3) Small contusions in the temporal lobes;
4) Scuffs of an obscure nature on the right cheek, near the right ear;
5) Abrasions and a purple bruise measuring 1.9 cm on the right shoulder;
6) Abrasions on the left buttock and two dry scratches on the left leg about 10 cm above the heel. These injuries, most likely, were not related to the death of the girl and appeared a few days before the death of JonBenét Ramsey;
7) On the labia majora - a small amount of dried blood. At the entrance to the vagina and on the walls of the vagina - a small amount of semi-liquid blood. Inside the vaginal opening - hyperemia (redness). A violet-red area of ​​friction 1 cm in size is expressed in the right side of the vaginal canal, the second is the same (1 cm by 1 cm) area of ​​friction - in the area of ​​the hymenal opening. On the right labia majora, there is a "very weakly expressed" area of ​​epithelial erosion measuring 2.5 cm by 1 cm. These injuries indicated some manipulations with the girl's genitals, carried out shortly before her death. However, the forensic physician did not identify any "remote or recent anal or other perineal injury". This conclusion meant that the deceased had not been subjected to systematic anal or vaginal rape;
8) Traces of compression of the right wrist.
Examination of the internal organs did not reveal any pathologies of development, chronic or hereditary diseases.
Toxicological examination found no traces of sleeping pills, narcotics or drugs. This meant that JonBenét was conscious at the time of her death and was not intoxicated with alcohol, drugs, etc.
The pupils of the deceased were equally dilated. This led to the conclusion that the blow to the head, which caused a massive hemorrhage, was inflicted in the last moments of her life.
To suffocate the child, the offender used a home-made "garotte" (a type of noose that does not require a loop with one or two handles). A lacquered stick with traces of breakage at both ends was used as a handle; the inscription "Korea" was carved on the stick.

rice. 8 and 9: On the left is a photograph of the homemade garotta used to strangle JonBenét Ramsey. On the right is a photograph of the cord taken from the wrist of the left hand of the deceased girl. A knot with two loops is clearly visible, left undissolved by forensic experts. With this cord, the criminal first tied JonBenet's hands (this left a pressure mark on her right wrist), but then (apparently after the murder) freed his right hand.

Undigested pieces of pineapple were found in the stomach of the deceased girl. This meant that JonBenét had been eating a pineapple less than four hours before her death.
On the body of the deceased were jewelry: a gold ring on the middle finger of her right hand, a gold chain around her neck and a bracelet engraved with "JonBenet 12/25/96" on her right wrist.
On the blanket in which the corpse of JonBenet was wrapped, pubic hair was found (the belonging of hair to one or another part of the human body hair is determined with absolute reliability due to their different thicknesses. The thickest hairs correspond to a man's beard and mustache). In addition, the study of the substance found under the girl's nails suggested that it contains genetic material suitable for identifying its owner. In other words, the girl could have scratched herself before her death, as a result of which particles of the killer's skin got under her nails.
Since the pathologist could not observe the development of rigor mortis, he described the process of removing rigor rigor. This is a very important observation, since the degree of rigor mortis can be used to judge with high reliability the time of death. Loss of muscle mobility is associated with biochemical processes in tissues and develops in a certain order. After some time, rigor mortis disappears, and this process proceeds in the reverse order to that in which rigor rigor developed. The degree of stiffness is described by coefficients from "0" to "3" and the speed with which the direct or reverse processes develop allows us to determine the moment of death with an accuracy of up to an hour. In addition, the time of death is determined by measuring the rectal body temperature. In the case of JonBenét, both methods were used. Based on their results, the expert determined the time of the girl's death as an interval from 00.00 to 06.00 on December 26, 1996, and indicated that he considered the "shift to the beginning of the specified interval" (ie, to midnight) to be more accurate.
What can be learned from the above facts?
The first significant moment - the girl was found dressed. Moreover, she had two "tails" on her head, intercepted by blue rubber bands. John and Patricia Ramsey claimed to have put their daughter to bed with her hair down. And in fact, any woman will say that sleeping with a "tail" is very uncomfortable. So who and when did the "tails" on JonBenet's head? Who and when completely dressed the girl? And most importantly, why? The answer to these questions is actually not as obvious as it seems. Kidnapper didn't have to spend precious time dressing the girl. And even more so, he did not need to collect her hair on her head. However, we will have a separate discussion about the actions of the kidnapper (kidnapper).
The second significant moment - the deceased was found wrapped in a blanket. Why was she wrapped in a blanket? And why was the blanket from the bedroom moved to the basement at all? After all, the girl was dressed! Criminal psychology has long described the "effect of repentance" of the criminal, one of the manifestations of which is the desire of the killer to cover the body or face of the person who died at his hands. Such behavior of the offender usually manifests itself if he knew the deceased well and spent some time near his body after the murder.
The third significant point is the presence of undigested pineapples in JonBenét's stomach. According to the testimony of the girl's mother and father, at 10 pm on January 25, 1996, she was already sound asleep. And, of course, she didn't eat anything. At the Christmas ball, the children danced and actively entertained for the last hours; they got up from the table at about 20.00. Based on this, we can conclude that the death of JonBenet followed no later than 24:00 on January 25th. This is consistent with the forensic physician's suggestion that JonBenét died around midnight. However, the pineapples were found by the police in the refrigerator in the kitchen of the Ramsey home. This meant that the girl could eat pineapples in her own house, waking up after her parents put her to bed at 22.00.
Of course, the fact that the offender committed some sexual manipulations with his victim was very important for understanding what happened (Moreover, one must clearly understand the difference between the terms "sexual manipulation" and "rape". The offender did not have sexual intercourse with the deceased, did not rape her. According According to the police medic, he inserted an object into her vagina, possibly a finger). Sexual assault has a completely different purpose than extortion of money, and proceeds in a completely different way. Either the offender planned to rape the girl from the very beginning (and in this case he had no need to imitate kidnapping, since sexual manipulations would still be discovered when examining the corpse), or he still wanted to make money on the kidnapping, and then it became completely incomprehensible the manifestation of his sexual fantasies in such a responsible and dangerous moment for him.