Jonbenet Ramsey Case Study

JonBenet Ramsey was born August 6, 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia to John Bennett and Patsy Paugh Ramsey (Biography, 2017). She was murdered on December 25, 1996 when she was only 6 years old and was found in her Boulder, Colorado home. Her mother reported her missing on the morning of August 6th, and stated that there was a nearly 3 page ransom note requesting $118,000 for her safe return (Freeman, 2016). Her body was found in the basement of the family home later that day by her father and family friend Fleet White. This was one of many flaws by the police in this case because they allowed friends and the family pastor to come into the house as well as allow John Ramsey to leave the house for an extended period of time (Saferstein, 2014). Forensic

Colorado law enforcement agencies initially suspected JonBenet’s parents and her older brother Burke of the murder but were cleared by the district attorney due to lack of evidence. On August 16, 2006, John Mark Tarr was arrested in Thailand for the murder of JonBenet in which he confessed to being there when she accidentally died (CNN, 2017). He was ruled out as a suspect a short time later when his DNA was not found at the scene. In February 2009, the Boulder Police Department took the case back to the district attorney for further investigation and began to interview people again. This case attracted a lot of media coverage and the focus was on JonBenet’ s participation in child beauty pageants, her father’s million dollar company, and the unusual evidence found in the case. The media also questioned the police's overall investigation of the case. On January 27, 2013, the grand jury released new sealed court documents showing back in 1999 the grand jury planned to indict the parents for the murder of JonBenet. The indictment was for the charges of child abuse resulting in death and being accessories to a

She discovered her daughter was missing after finding a two-and-a-half-page ransom letter demanding an unusual amount of $118,000 for her safe return. The reason why I feel that foul play was involved was because it was near the same amount of a bonus her husband had received earlier that year from his job. The ransom note suggested that the ransom collection would be monitored and that JonBenet would be returned as soon as the money was obtained. The note itself was suspicious because of the length and key words that kidnappers generally would not use such as “small” and the fact that they stated to get the money out of their “account” (McClish, 2016). The note also had specific instructions that the police and friends should not be contacted or get involved. However, Patsy Ramsey called the police, family, and friends, so it raised concerns as to why she would do that if she was truly in fear of her daughter being killed for not obeying their demands. A big error that the two officers who initially arrived at the Ramsey residence made was that they only conducted a small cursory search of the outside of the house. They never looked inside of the house for any foul play, just for signs of a break-in, and only taped off JonBenet’s room. They also allowed friends to come to the scene as well as allowing John Ramsey to leave the residence and not keep