Jonbenet Ramsey Case Paper

There have been many murders in the United States that have been left unsolved. A case that is still very publicized and very shocking to the nation was that of JonBenet Ramsey, the six-year-old beauty pageant contestant. This seemingly perfect child was kidnapped, murdered and left in her parents’ 15-room house to later be found by her father. This horrific story embellishes that of the complete innocence of the victim and how the media glorified the murder. The Ramsey family was a very wealthy family, which can be attributed to the attractiveness theory outlined in Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology as well as how John, Patsy, and Burke (JonBenet’s nine-year-old brother) were secondary victims in this mournful case. It was a tragic

Going downstairs she found a two and a half page ransom note on a set of stairs in her home. The note read that a couple of individuals had abducted her daughter (JonBenet) and that she will be returned safely if Patsy and John were to withdraw $118,000 from their bank account (Brennan, 2013). Patsy called the police at approximately 5:52 a.m. (Brennan, 2013). Once police arrived, they did not do a full search of the property (Crime Museum, n.d.). One detective assigned to the case told the family to look around their house to see if they found anything amiss, which was approximately eight hours after Patsy notified the police (Brennan, 2013). John Ramsey and a family friend found JonBenets’ body in a little room off of the boiler room in their basement (Brennan, 2013). JonBenet was found with her favourite white blanket covering her with duct tape across her mouth and a ligature buried deep in her neck made by a garrote fashioned from cord and a broken paintbrush taken from her mother’s art supplies (Brennan, 2013). The same cord was loosely bound around her right wrist. John took JonBenets’ body upstairs yelling and ripping off the duct tape. During the autopsy, it was noted that JonBenet suffered a linear fracture to the right side of her skull, most likely from blunt force trauma. Her death was ruled as asphyxia from strangulation associated with

JonBenet was a six year old child who did nothing to provoke this horrific act that happened to her. When a child gets murdered, it is very tragic since they are what people like to call “pure souls,” they have not had to deal with horrific occurrences, they are not aware of the mess of the world. They have not become involved in things like adults have. JonBenet was a pure soul. She had not come in contact with anything turmoil, her purity was not taken away from her. Until this event occurred. When older victims become targeted for a crime and they are completely innocent individuals, it is because they did not provoke the crime or they did what they could to not become a target (minding one’s own business, keeping a low profile and taking precautions (Karmen, 2013, p.138). JonBenet could not have provoked this crime as it was seemingly directed at her father, John, as the ransom note undoubtedly asked for his money, $118,000, the exact amount he received as a bonus that year. This young victim could not have understood what “minding one’s own business, keeping a low profile and taking precautions” was as she was a mere six years old. JonBenet was a completely innocent victim for the fact that she was a young child. As mentioned above about how the crime was seemingly directed at John, it is for the fact that the killer knew how much John had received for his bonus not