Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey (2024) s01e01 Episode Script
Keep Your Babies Close
1
[dramatic music playing]
In Colorado, it has all the makings
of a classic murder mystery.
A ransom note, a dead body,
strange twists and turns.
But what makes this murder mystery
so chilling is the victim,
a beautiful little girl.
[pageant announcer] JonBenét Ramsey
is the Ziegfeld Follies!
[woman] It was a case that people
couldn't stop talking about.
The way she was dressed, her charisma.
No one had seen anything like that before.
[reporter] The fate of this six-year-old,
who has now been seen across the country,
has drawn hundreds of journalists to town.
But with police and the family
saying virtually nothing,
who killed JonBenét
is as big a mystery as ever.
[reporter 2] It was the morning
after Christmas, 5:52 a.m.,
when her mother called 911
saying her little girl
had been kidnapped out of her bed
and a ransom note left in the house.
[dramatic music continues]
[man] There are so many pieces
of the puzzle
that you can look at
and interpret one way or another.
[woman 2] Was there an intruder?
Or was the family involved?
I did not kill my daughter JonBenét.
[Carol McKinley] What parent
would ever strangle their own child?
Keep your babies close to you.
[Lou Smit] There is no evidence.
There is no motive.
There is no evidence of bad character.
There is evidence of an intruder.
I say this over and over and over again.
Nobody wants to listen.
[Carol McKinley] Some don't think
it's ever gonna be solved.
[John Ramsey] Someone killed
this six-year-old child.
We know that, and we want them captured.
[man 3] If this case
is ever going to be solved,
we might be looking at
the best chance right now.
[dramatic music continues]
[Lou Smit] Whether or not
they're involved in this, I don't know.
But I do know this, that that little girl
had to mean an awful lot to them.
And she did mean something in this world.
I just hope I can be of some use in
bringing that killer
or killers to justice.
[music swells]
[music ends]
[theme music playing]
[theme music fades]
[producer] Do you mind
taking us through the day?
- You know, just the timeline?
- [sighs]
Well, that, it it's hard, but, uh
Eh
We were planning to leave
early that morning.
That was the day after Christmas.
We'd had a big Christmas at home, and
and now we were gonna leave early that
on the 26th, and fly to Michigan
to have a kind of a second Christmas
with my older kids who were working,
and they were all going to meet us there.
And I was shaving,
I guess, in the bathroom,
and I heard Patsy just scream.
And she'd gone downstairs to the kitchen
and found this ransom note.
And, uh
It was just, um unbelievable.
[uneasy music playing]
[Patsy Ramsey] Well, um
I got up and got dressed.
And, you know, it was very early.
Kind of not not daylight yet.
And, uh, we had a spiral staircase
to the first floor,
and, uh, I just started downstairs
to get coffee on, or whatever.
As I, you know,
moved toward the end of the stair,
there were these pieces of paper
lying on one of the runs of the stair.
[uneasy music continues]
As I kind of turned around,
looked at it to see what it was,
and, uh, just
started reading the first couple lines
I can't remember exactly
what the first few lines said,
but somewhere it said,
"We have your daughter."
And it clicked, you know. "Your daughter."
And I just bounded back up the steps
and threw her door open.
[music swells]
And she was not in her bed.
[suspenseful music playing]
[man] Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully!
[woman] We are a group of individuals
that represent a small foreign faction.
[man 2] We respect your business
but not the country that it serves.
[woman 2] At this time, we have
your daughter in our possession.
[man 3] She is safe and unharmed,
and if you want her to see 1997,
you must follow our instructions
to the letter.
[woman] You will withdraw
$118,000 from your account.
[man 2] I will call you
between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. tomorrow
to instruct you on delivery.
[woman 2] Any deviation of my instructions
will result in the immediate execution
of your daughter.
[man 4] Speaking to anyone about
your situation, such as police, FBI, etc.,
will result in
your daughter being beheaded.
[man] If we catch you
talking to a stray dog, she dies.
[woman] If you alert bank authorities,
she dies.
[man 5] If the money is in any way marked
or tampered with, she dies.
[man] Don't try to grow a brain, John.
You are not the only fat cat around.
So don't think
that killing will be difficult.
[woman] It is up to you now, John.
[man 3] Victory! S.B.T.C.
Patsy happened to be standing
by the phone. I said, "Call the police."
[dramatic sting]
[Patsy Ramsey] I'm at 75515th Street.
- [operator] What's going on there, ma'am?
- We had a kidnapping. Hurry, please!
[operator] Explain to me
what's going on. Okay?
[Patsy Ramsey] There We have There's
a note left, and our daughter's gone.
[operator] A note was left,
your daughter is gone?
- [Patsy Ramsey] Yes.
- [operator] How long ago was this?
[Patsy Ramsey] I don't know.
I've just found the note.
Please.
[operator] What's your name? Are you
[crying] Patsy Ramsey.
I'm the mother. Oh my God!
[John Ramsey] I've told people,
if you have kids,
and you've been in a shopping mall,
and your child disappears,
even for a moment,
you get this punch to the stomach
that's just severe.
"Where's my child?"
Just panic, for a moment.
Then you find her, and it's over.
But it only lasts for a second.
But this horrible in your gut
trauma, I guess, is how to explain it,
was the feeling I had that morning.
"I gotta get my daughter back."
[tense music playing]
[Dan Schuler] Think back real hard.
Just tell us what you absolutely remember.
[John Ramsey] My youngest son,
Burke, was asleep.
Burke was nine years old.
He was a little boy.
Who was the first person
- Mm My mom.
- Okay.
She was coming in to flip on my light.
Did she say something that you heard?
Just like, "Oh my gosh" [indistinct]
[Patsy Ramsey] I called our friends that
we had had dinner with the night before,
and, um
Just in a "JonBenét's missing," you know,
"Can you come over, help," you know.
And then I called another another
couple, a close friend of ours, and, uh,
and they came right over.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Bob Whitson] I received a page to call
the night shift patrol supervisor
who told me they'd responded
to a reported, uh, kidnapping
of a six-year-old girl.
I knew initially
this was a very rare case.
Kidnapping for ransom,
we'd never had a case like this.
So, I got two detectives to respond.
[John Ramsey] The squad car came,
and one officer came in, and
I told him, "Hey, we found this note.
Our daughter's missing."
"She didn't just run away?"
I said, "No, she was six years old."
"It's cold out, it's dark, it's snowing.
No, she didn't run away."
[Bob Whitson] The detectives
also spoke to Burke Ramsey,
and they made arrangements
for Burke to go to a friend's house.
[John Ramsey] We wanted
to get Burke out of this chaos.
Uh, and we said, you know, "JonBenét's
been taken, but we're gonna get her back."
[Dan Schuler] How was Dad sounding?
[Burke Ramsey] He was sounding like,
you know, he wasn't going to
uh, freak out, you know,
he was trying [indistinct].
[John Ramsey] I was totally focused
on what have I got to do
to get my daughter back.
I can get her back
if I kept my wits about me
and kept focused.
[intriguing music playing]
[Bob Whitson] At that point,
the two detectives searched the house.
The Ramseys' house,
it's kind of a deceiving house.
Outside, it doesn't look that big,
but when you go in,
it it's very large inside.
[intriguing music continues]
[Kurt Pillard] It's a huge house.
It's over 6,500 square feet.
There are three levels,
with another level that the Ramseys
converted into their master bedroom.
JonBenét's bedroom was almost
on the opposite side of the house,
on a lower level.
It would have been difficult to hear
anything from that location.
Then below that is the main living level.
Patsy found this ransom note
on a circular staircase
that was near the kitchen.
[suspenseful music playing]
And then, below that,
you had the basement area,
where they basically stored things.
And there's an area
referred to as the "train room,"
where Burke kept some toys.
[Bob Whitson] Officers
had searched the house,
didn't see any obvious crime scene,
didn't find JonBenét.
I didn't go to the house until later on.
I went upstairs,
looked at JonBenét's bedroom.
The bed wasn't made.
It had been slept in, obviously.
I shut the door, sealed it,
specifically told Mr. Ramsey
nobody goes in there.
And I'm thinking,
this suspect could call at any time.
[John Ramsey] The police prepped me on,
"When they call, ask to talk to JonBenét."
I made arrangements
to get the money available.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Patsy Ramsey] I just remember
feeling just helpless,
and because my whole life,
I've tried to keep my children safe.
And suddenly I didn't know
where my child was, and I was just
Just panic-stricken.
[music swells, then fades]
[Bob Whitson] An officer had collected
the actual ransom note.
And I asked Mr. Ramsey
if he had a sample of his handwriting
and a sample of Mrs. Ramsey's handwriting.
So Mr. Ramsey handed me two notebook pads
and said, "This is my wife's.
This is my notepad."
And so I went to the police department.
We have a forgery detective
who is also a handwriting examiner,
so, I gave him the notepads. I said,
"Look at these, compare it with
the ransom note, tell me what you think."
[Jeff Kithcart] Bob Whitson
handed me two notebooks,
and he said that John Ramsey
had provided them to him
and that one notebook
contained Patsy's handwriting,
and the other notebook
contained John's handwriting.
I was going through the notebook
that contained Patsy's handwriting,
and I came across an entire sheet of paper
in the notebook still attached
with what appeared to be
the initial ransom note.
It said, "Mr." and then like, maybe,
the initial vertical stroke of an R.
It could have been like the first draft
of what had appeared to me
to be the possible ransom note.
I was shocked to find that.
It appeared that the ransom note
was written from that notebook
in the Ramsey household.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Bob Whitson] Detective Kithcart came in
and showed me that information.
You could have heard a pin drop.
One of the FBI agents in the room,
I remember him saying,
"You always have to look at the family."
[dramatic sting]
[Ron Walker] Well, actually,
I was off that day.
The phone rang, and it was one
of the individuals from our field office,
not an agent,
but one of the investigative clerks,
uh, just calling to notify me
that there had been
a kidnapping reported in Boulder.
One of the first things you wanna do
is read what the demands
of the alleged kidnappers are.
The first thing that struck me
about the note was the length.
It's quite unusual
to see this, uh, magnum opus.
Your typical ransom notes
are short and to the point.
The next thing that really jumps out
at you is the $118,000.
A really odd number to ask for.
The 118,000 is a low figure,
but it's also a very unusual figure
because, uh, it's it's just not typical
of what you would expect to see.
You expect to see 200,000, 300,000,
250,000, a million, a half a million.
But not $118,000.
All of this, really, I mean, in aggregate,
uh, sort of indicated to me that
that the note was essentially bogus.
It was not truly a kidnapping note.
[dramatic music playing]
[John Ramsey] Waiting several hours to get
a call from the kidnapper was torture.
And then ten o'clock came and went
and no call.
[Patsy Ramsey] At one point, I said,
"Have you closed the airport, or,
you know something?"
And And they just looked at me and said,
"Well, no."
[scoffs] And I was like,
"Well, what are we doing here?" You know?
"What What's the plan of action?"
[dramatic music playing]
You're so frustrated,
because you don't [sighs]
You want the whole world
to just stop right there
so that you can go find this baby.
Mr. Ramsey was nervous,
wanted to know what was going on.
So, the detective that was there said,
"Why don't you just search the house again
and see if you find anything unusual?"
[uneasy music playing]
[John Ramsey] So, my friend and I
went downstairs, went to the basement.
We call it the train room.
The kids had a train set up,
an electric train set up.
And immediately I saw the window,
one of the windows was open. And broken.
And there was a suitcase under the window.
And that suitcase
shouldn't have been there.
It set there like it was a step,
because the window
was a fairly high window.
You needed a ladder or steps
or something to get up through.
I told my friend,
"That suitcase shouldn't be there."
"That doesn't belong there.
It wasn't put there by us."
I said, furthermore, "I came through
that window myself last summer."
I had to break it to get in the house.
I lost my key. Nobody was home.
I thought we had the glass fixed,
apparently, we didn't.
But I said the window was wide open.
And that looked fishy.
The next place we went was another room
in the basement.
We called it the wine cellar, but there
was no wine. It was an old coal room.
[music swells]
And immediately,
her body was right there in front of me.
[dramatic music playing]
She had tape over her mouth,
and her hands were tied behind her back.
And I immediately pulled the tape off.
I tried to untie her hands,
but the knot was tied really tight.
I couldn't get it undone.
So, I just screamed, and I picked her up
and carried her upstairs.
Just to try to get her help.
The detectives looked for a pulse.
Looked at me and said, "She's dead."
I just stared at her. I'm, like
You know, I couldn't comprehend that.
[dramatic music fades]
[Patsy Ramsey] And I heard John scream.
And I said, "What?"
You know, "What What is it?"
And And Barbara, my friend,
just, you know, grabbed me and said,
"No, just stay, just stay right here."
And I kept saying, "What? What?
What is it? What is it?"
And, um
Um
And I think, um
[voice breaking] We walked
into the living room, and
And she was there, and
John said, "She's"
[softly] "She's gone."
[soft music playing]
[Jeff Kithcart] The detectives
who were at the Ramsey house
called dispatch saying that
that JonBenét's body had been located.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Paula Woodward] There was a group
of police investigators
that had gathered at the Boulder
Police Department that morning.
When the word came in that JonBenét's
body had been found,
a person inside that meeting told me
that one investigator hissed,
in kind of an undertone
and a whisper to another one,
"I knew it. They killed their daughter."
[suspenseful music continues]
[John Ramsey] We were pretty quickly
escorted out of the house.
So, we went to stay at some friends' house
who were there that morning.
They took us to their home.
And, um, from that point on, it was just
You're in shock.
[Burke Ramsey] I thought
JonBenét would be there.
I thought they found her.
Thought the family felt excited.
I don't know if I was dreaming
and I started being real sad.
And they had told me
that JonBenét was in heaven.
[Dan Schuler] What did you do?
Started crying.
[indistinct]
[clicks]
[music fades]
[uneasy music playing]
[reporter] Past Santa Claus in his sleigh
and a double row of candy canes,
deputy coroners brought the body
of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey
from her upscale home.
The mother, Patsy Ramsey, dialed 911
telling police
her daughter had been kidnapped.
But when police got here,
they went inside the house,
and a short time later,
they found the little girl's body.
[Paula Woodward] I was called in on
the Ramsey case when I was on vacation.
And my news director caught me at home.
And she said, "You need to get involved
in this story, like, now."
[reporter] Boulder police
won't comment on her cause of death,
only saying
that she wasn't shot or stabbed.
Any journalist knows
the sense of adrenaline
that you feel when you are deployed
on what already, off the outset,
smells like a big story.
I got to the Ramsey home the evening
that the crime was reported.
There was no communication that evening
between law enforcement
and the media outside,
until the time
that they brought her body out,
which occurred just minutes, really,
before my final deadline.
One of the investigators came out,
and they gave us
a name and an age of the victim.
Boom, that was it.
Police have not publicly identified
any suspects.
Their official line remains
that nobody has been ruled in,
and nobody has been ruled out.
[reporter 2] Neighbors describe
the young girl as beautiful and polite.
[reporter 3] Her body was in the basement,
out of sight, but not really hidden.
You're starting to do some research
into who are the Ramseys.
[reporter 4] Mr. Ramsey is president
of Access Graphics,
a billion-dollar business in town.
I tried to reach anybody I could
with the Ramsey family,
and I was unable to.
And the very few friends that I could find
of theirs would not talk.
[reporter 5] The couple does have
another child, a son around ten years old.
At that time, we were anxious for any
little bit of information we could find.
Hello, I'm Patsy Ramsey.
Daddy's not here, but this is JonBenét,
she's four. Burke is seven.
And we'd like to welcome you to our home
and wish you a very merry Christmas.
It's really important to remember
that prior to Christmas Day of 1996,
we were just a regular family.
[engine revs]
[Patsy and John] Whoo!
[Patsy laughs]
[John Andrew Ramsey] We weren't perfect,
we were just a regular family
living a regular life.
When JonBenét was born,
there were five of us.
So, I had two older sisters,
my sister Beth, my sister Melinda,
from my dad's first marriage to my mom.
And then Burke and JonBenét were born.
Burke is ten years younger than me,
and JonBenét is, I think,
13 years younger than me.
Were, of course,
my dad's second marriage to Patsy.
[Melinda Ramsey] Here come
Burke and JonBenét.
- Coming flying down this hill.
- [John Ramsey] Yeah.
[Melinda Ramsey] Whoo!
All right! Great shot!
- Let's do it one more time.
- [Melinda Ramsay] Okay. One more time.
Oh, Dad.
[John Ramsey] Hey, guys.
Did we have fun, or did we have fun?
[Melinda Ramsey] JonBenét.
Where's Burke? There's Burke.
- And Melinda. [laughs]
- [John and JonBenét laugh]
[John Ramsey] I met Patsy
through some friends.
I was divorced,
and my downstairs neighbors
were friends of Patsy from West Virginia.
And she was 23, and I was 35, and
I I She was nice, and
But I thought, well,
that's not dating material,
she's too young.
But then I got to know her a little bit,
she's, like, she's pretty smart.
She's not a typical 23-year-old.
And so I asked her out for a date,
we went out, it just felt right.
The rest was history.
[pensive music playing]
I started out
I'm kind of an independent entrepreneur
and started a little
manufacturers' rep company,
where we represented electronic equipment.
And we were lucky,
we were in the computer industry,
and it was growing like crazy.
We merged with two other companies.
One was in Boulder.
So, we said, "Okay, let's move to Boulder,
and we'll stay in Colorado for two years,
and we'll come back to Atlanta."
That was the plan.
We'd gotten a nice nest egg,
but it wasn't
hundreds of millions of dollars.
It was more money
than I ever thought I would ever have.
And, of course, then that all changed.
[soft music playing]
[Paula Woodward] John Ramsey's daughter
Beth, she was from his first marriage,
was killed in a car accident.
[John Andrew Ramsey] When we lost Beth,
I obviously was just devastated.
She took better care of me
than I probably took care of her.
And she she would always worry
about what was Dad gonna do on Christmas
or, uh, Thanksgiving
if we weren't together.
[Patsy Ramsey] JonBenét
was a year and a half old
when we lost John's daughter, Beth.
And even at that age
And I know we've talked about this many
times, that we felt like she was a gift
given to us to help us through that time.
And you think,
she was only a year and a half old,
she couldn't really know
what has taken place here.
But she sensed, she would sense
our grief and our sadness.
And she just had a way of coming up to you
and snuggling up.
She was just
a very sensitive child that way.
[tense music playing]
[John Ramsey] Patsy knew
for months something was wrong.
Her stomach was getting very distended.
Her mother took one look at her and said,
"We're going to the hospital."
"Something is wrong."
Within 30 minutes,
they had taken an X-ray,
found a huge tumor in her abdomen area,
and it was ovarian cancer.
She was a fighter.
She wanted to live for her kids.
[Patsy Ramsey] The children would come
into my hospital room.
She would come up, and here's the bag
hanging there with this blood in it.
She'd come up and squish it, you know.
"What was this?" You know.
"Where's this going?"
And she'd follow it up, you know.
"It's going in here."
"It's all right, Mommy," she'd say.
"It's alright, it won't hurt very long."
You know.
She was like my little cheerleader.
[John Ramsey] It was brutal,
and the program was very intense,
"almost-kill-you" chemotherapy.
She did that for a year, and they said,
"You're cancer free. You're in remission."
And it was, for Pasty,
a gift of life again.
[Patsy Ramsey] This was my reason to live.
[JonBenét Ramsey] Hello?
[Patsy Ramsey] Hello!
I had these two children,
this wonderful husband,
and nobody was going to raise
these two children
the way I wanted it done.
I'm gonna be there.
- [JonBenét Ramsey] Hello?
- [Patsy Ramsey] Here's JonBenét. Hello.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Carol McKinley] Anybody
interested in the Ramsey case
needs to read the cause of death
in the autopsy report.
It's critical.
[Bob Whitson] According to the autopsy,
whoever killed JonBenét
took white olefin cord,
tied her wrists together
took the same cord and made
what's commonly known as
a garrote or a ligature.
[John San Agustin] A garrote is used
not to immediately strangle the victim,
but it's more of a controlling mechanism.
You can You can apply pressure
to the neck and release it.
Apply pressure to the neck and release it.
[Bob Whitson] There was
an artist's style paintbrush
that was actually found
in Mrs. Ramsey's paint supplies,
that were kept in the basement.
That paintbrush was broken
into three pieces.
The handle of that was taken off
and secured at the end of this garrote.
[John San Agustin] There was
some complexity as to
how the garrote was put together.
This knot was tied by somebody
who understood how a garrote is made.
[Bob Whitson] We believe JonBenét
was alive when this was being done,
because she had hair tangled in this knot.
It's consistent with somebody
either holding her down
or putting their foot to hold her down
and tie this knot.
[Paula Woodward] The garrote was left
embedded in her throat.
I never saw the garrote.
It was so embedded in her throat,
I didn't see it.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Bob Whitson] She also had
a very distinct red mark below her throat
consistent with her fingerprints,
like, as she was trying
to relieve pressure on the cord
that was wrapped around her neck.
[Carol McKinley] This garrote
was deep into her neck.
That's what everyone
including the police thought killed her.
Well, when they got her
to the autopsy table
and opened up, you know, her brain,
they realized
she'd been hit over the head.
[Paula Woodward] She was hit in the head
with a blow that left
an eight-inch crack in her skull.
Part of her skull caved in.
[Bob Whitson] Boulder Police Department
found two items that they thought might be
involved with the
the injury to JonBenét's head.
There was the Ramsey's baseball bat
that was found outside the Ramsey's house.
There was also the Ramsey's
Maglite flashlight
that was left in the kitchen.
But there was no physical evidence
on the flashlight
or on the bat.
[Paula Woodward] The coroner
who performed the autopsy on JonBenét
said the cause of death
was for two reasons.
Either the garrote and strangulation
or the blow to the head.
He said he did not name either one
because he could not determine
which happened first.
That they were as close
to simultaneous as he could figure.
[Bob Whitson] There were also microscopic
fibers from the paintbrush handle
that were found in her vaginal area,
indicating she was sexually assaulted
with the paintbrush handle.
[dramatic sting]
[Paula Woodward] Such fury, such anger.
She was tortured, and she was murdered.
[music swells, ends]
In Colorado it has all the makings
of a classic murder mystery,
a ransom note, a dead body,
strange twist and turns.
It received national news attention
almost right away.
One of the biggest driving factors
were the sheer number of pictures
and videotapes of JonBenét.
[Vickie Bane] She's captivating
from the get-go.
If you look at the pictures
of this little girl, she was star quality.
[Julie Hayden] For TV and tabloids
and everybody to tell the story,
you need pictures.
[Paula Woodward] And the Ramsey case
became immediate fodder,
because JonBenét Ramsey
was in child beauty pageants.
[pageant announcer] JonBenét Ramsey
is the Ziegfeld Follies!
[audience clapping]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Paula Woodward] ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN,
for the whole month of January,
led with the Ramsey case.
And the child beauty pageant photographs
and video were in them.
[Julie Hayden] There was
a very professional, almost adult,
and frankly somewhat sexual look to them.
[Dominick Dunne] The videos
that I've seen of JonBenét,
it it seems she doesn't seem
like a child at all.
She seems like a tiny woman.
And there's something very,
sort of, s sexually aware about her.
[reporter] The shots we've seen
of this little six-year-old child
- are like
- [woman] They're sexy!
uh, tarted-up, miniature dwarf hooker.
[intriguing music playing]
[Paula Woodward] The Ramseys were
very harshly judged as delinquent parents,
as parents who forced their daughter
into these beauty pageants.
It paints a very, uh, startling picture
of what this girl's lifestyle,
what her activities,
sanctioned by her parents, were.
[Michael Tracey] Let's talk
a little about the pageants.
When they saw the pageant videos,
that what they saw was a sexualized child.
How do you react to that?
That was a sick mind
looking from that vantage point.
It was not happening that way.
Okay, so Whoops! What is your
favorite animal at the zoo?
The monkeys, because they laugh
and stuff and hang around.
[audience laughs]
They laugh and hang around.
That sums it up pretty good.
[crowd cheering]
[woman] Go, Jess, go!
[girl] Go, JonBenét!
[John Ramsey] These were little girls
that were on a little stage
performing in front of parents
and grandparents,
probably never more than 20 or 30 parents,
mothers and fathers
of other daughters
that were in the program.
[upbeat music plays]
[Patsy Ramsey] It was not, you know,
cut-throat competition,
it was just "let them perform
to their little hearts' desire."
I wanna hear those coyotes howlin' ♪
As the sun sinks in the ♪
[soft music playing]
[Patsy Ramsey] Unless you're there,
unless you've been to one, and seen
[John Ramsey] It's almost like a
home movie that you took of your children
at the swimming pool,
and it ends up on national television
as pornographic material.
- [announcer] Congratulations to all.
- [audience clapping]
Congratulations to you, JonBenét.
[contestants clapping and exclaiming]
[Paula Woodward] Patsy was in
a beauty pageant when she was in college
and ran for Miss West Virginia.
[Patsy Ramsey] And time after time, she
would say, "Mommy, when can I do that?"
[John Ramsey] I felt that Patsy
was probably particularly anxious
to do those things with JonBenét
'cause quite frankly,
she had cancer in remission
and didn't know if she would be here
when JonBenét was 16 and 18.
- She's never said that. I never said that.
- Well, John's right.
After I had had cancer, you know,
I thought, well, maybe
You know, I may never live
to see her do a lot of things.
[soft music continues]
[tense music playing]
[reporter] Since her murder,
no arrests have been made,
but people have been talking
about the tragedy.
Who they suspect, how the police
have handled the investigation.
[Julie Hayden] The police department
started realizing right away
that they should've been doing
a lot of things differently.
[reporter] The police
have come under criticism,
and other police departments said
they would've done
the investigation differently.
Do you have any concerns though
of how the police handled
the investigation from the beginning?
I mean, not searching the house,
suggesting to the dad he search the house,
and then he finds the body
I have no reason to question the police
at all in their investigation.
[Charlie Brennan] Boulder Police
did not have
a track record of handling many homicides
for the simple reason that there were
not many homicides to investigate.
I believe that the death of JonBenét was
the first homicide in Boulder that year,
and there were five days
left in the year when it happened.
[reporter] Is it fair to question
the Boulder Police Department's
experience and ability
to investigate a homicide?
I don't think so. Just because
you have one homicide in a year,
I think is actually a sign
of remarkable strength in a community.
[John San Agustin] That lack
of experience, procedurally,
created a lot of problems
in the crime scene.
[tense music fades]
[interviewer] Tom, quite a bit
of information has come out
about the police, um, investigation
the morning of December 26th.
Did police search the house
after the 911 call
but before the body was found?
They, uh, did a preliminary search
of the house.
And remember this is a very big house.
Did they look in the room
where, uh, John Ramsey
said the girl's body was or did they not?
It doesn't appear that they got down.
That room was down
in, uh, a part of the basement
that doesn't appear that they got to.
One of the cops did not open the door
where JonBenét was lying.
Major mistake, and I believe
he lives with that to this day.
[reporter] Another procedure question.
Why was the Ramsey house
not sealed off as a crime scene
until several hours
after the kidnapping was reported?
[Carol McKinley] They'd called
their friends over.
So, you've got a house full of people,
people are washing dishes.
You've got bagels everywhere,
and orange juice and coffee?
The Boulder Police
didn't consider that a crime scene.
[Bob Whitson] I should have removed
all those people from the scene.
That was a crime scene mistake.
But at the time,
it looked like a legitimate kidnapping,
so I thought, "Well, these are
the support system for the Ramseys,"
and I I let 'em stay.
[reporter] And why didn't police discover
six-year-old JonBenét's body
instead of her father,
since they were in the house
several hours before she was found?
[John San Agustin] You never have somebody
outside of law enforcement doing a search.
Right? The role of law enforcement
is to gather the facts.
[reporter 2] John Ramsey found
his daughter's body in the basement
and carried it upstairs,
effectively destroying the crime scene.
[Bob Whitson] When Mr. Ramsey
discovered her body,
he pulled the duct tape off of her mouth,
threw it down
on the blanket that was there.
There may have been some evidence
on the duct tape if that wasn't removed.
[Kevin McCullen] Was there a concern now
at all that some evidence,
some crucial evidence that could link,
uh, establish, pretty firmly in court,
who the killer was, might have been lost
in those first, uh, initial minutes
of discovery or not?
That can be speculated on,
but, uh, all indications are
that we did not lose anything.
[suspenseful music fades]
[Charlie Brennan] Police attention
on the Ramseys as suspects
I know began on day one.
And it began
based on a variety of different things.
And many of these things
we wouldn't learn about for some time.
I know who killed JonBenét.
There's no doubt in my mind
who killed JonBenét.
[Paula Woodward] When
the Boulder detective, Linda Arndt,
did her first interview on television,
she said that she felt she was
face-to-face with the killer.
His face was just inches from mine.
And we had a non-verbal exchange
that I will never forget.
[Bob Whitson] We didn't act right
in the eyes of this so-called detective
that was there that day.
How did he strike you?
Cordial.
Distraught?
[emphatically] Cordial. [chuckles]
The classic one was, "John was
casually going through the mail."
"Not 'acting right.'"
[Linda Arndt] I remember
seeing John in the kitchen,
looking through his mail,
and I I made a note.
I was looking for another communication
from the kidnapper.
Mail had come through our mail-slot
on the door, front door,
and there's a pile of letters.
I was looking for
Is there another communication?
She interpreted that as, "He's just
casually looking through the mail."
"Therefore, he's guilty."
[tense music playing]
[Julie Hayden] Linda Arndt was the only
police officer in the house at the time
when they found the body.
She told me she just suggested
to John Ramsey,
"Why don't you search the house,"
to give 'em something to do.
[John Ramsey] This detective, "Why don't
you and your friend go through the house,
see if you see anything unusual?"
[Julie Hayden] Linda Arndt told me that
John Ramsey went right into the basement,
right to the room where the body was,
and found it immediately.
[music swells]
And I think that there was a sense
that that was just
If you're gonna say, "search the house,"
that was just an odd first room
to go search,
and then coincidentally the body is there.
[dramatic music playing]
[John Ramsey] The logical place to start
is the basement.
That's where the easiest access
would be to the house.
[Julie Hayden] She said John Ramsey looked
at her, and she said she saw in his eyes.
And she just said
the look in his eyes scared her
and made her fear for her own safety.
I remember, and I wore a shoulder holster,
tucking my gun right next to me
and consciously counting,
"I've got 18 bullets."
'Cause I didn't know if we'd all be alive
when people showed up.
"I saw it in John's eyes.
I knew he was the killer."
It's crazy.
And, uh But that's how it got started.
I knew what happened.
[John Ramsey] I don't know if it was
that day or the next, I got a
And I wasn't taking calls,
we could hardly function.
But our friends got a call, and they said,
"This is a fella that works with you.
He said he needs to talk to you."
So I answered the phone,
and it was one of our, uh, employees.
He said,
"I was told by someone inside the system
to get this message to you."
"They believe you killed your daughter."
"You need to get the best defense attorney
you can get your hands on."
And I was just shocked.
[intriguing music playing]
[reporter] The father, John Ramsey,
has hired a well-known criminal lawyer,
and a Denver newspaper reports
he will not talk to police.
[Julie Hayden]
They hired lawyers immediately.
And that just seemed weird.
Here this family has a little girl
murdered in their home,
and they're having
lawyers talk to the cops.
I think there was a sense that, perhaps,
there was a reason they were doing that.
The average American
thinking of their child being killed
would say, "What you got
against talking to the police?"
"You should want this solved."
[Carol McKinley] All we saw was that
the Ramseys weren't talking to anyone.
Why aren't they
on the police department's doorstep
offering up anything they can,
any little piece of information they can?
Why are they running?
Those parents still have not sat down
and formally been interviewed by
the police about their own child's murder.
- That's right.
- What do people in Boulder think?
Well, I think there's a growing concern
around here that that's the case.
I don't think the Boulder Police
have treated them any differently.
They're trying to get them,
it's just that they have this team
that's protecting them at this point.
[John Ramsey] We met
with our new attorneys,
and they said, "You've got
to be careful talking with the police."
We're like,
"We don't have anything to hide."
"They've gotta see that
and understand that."
But our attorneys told us, "You don't
understand how this works." [chuckles]
Um
"There's innocent people in prison today
because their defense attorneys
let them talk to the police."
We gave the police
everything they asked for.
Blood samples, DNA samples,
whatever they asked for.
Records, all our credit cards,
anything they asked for, we gave.
[reporter] The doors of Atlanta's
Peachtree Presbyterian Church
opened hundreds of times this morning.
Family and friends
of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey
came by to pay final respects
to the Marietta native.
[pensive music playing]
[John Ramsey] JonBenét was gonna be buried
in Atlanta, next to my oldest daughter.
[Rev. Dr. Frank Harrington] I can tell you
that the heart of God is broken
by the tragic death of JonBenét Ramsey.
[reporter] As the service ended,
the Ramseys walked to their child's casket
and kneeled before it.
[pensive music continues]
[John Ramsey] When we were under attack,
so to speak, by the media and the police,
it didn't matter.
We'd lost our child.
I mean, I would've been happy to die,
quite frankly, to to relieve the pain.
[Carol McKinley] I really didn't get
on the street until they were in Atlanta,
for the burial.
We were starting to get,
um, statements from a PR firm
instead of from the Ramseys
or their attorneys themselves.
And it smelled a little funny.
And we were like, "What is going on?"
[intriguing music playing]
[John Ramsey] We were, uh,
in Atlanta for JonBenét's funeral,
and our friends in Boulder
were absolutely insistent
that we go in front of the media.
"You've got to do it."
"You're starting to be accused of murder,
and you've got to defend yourself."
[sighs] I'm like, "Okay."
[Brian Cabell] Why did you decide
you wanted to talk now?
Well [sighs] We've been, um
pretty isolated, totally isolated
for the last five days, and, uh
[inhales] But we've sensed
from our friends that, uh,
this tragedy has touched
not just ourselves and our friends,
but [voice breaking]many people.
[Carol McKinley] Why are they doing
interviews with CNN
if they're not going to do
a formal interview,
sit down with Boulder Police
if they want to find
the killer of their child?
If anyone knows anything,
please, please help us.
[voice shaking] For the safety
of all the children [inhales]
we have to find out who did this.
I remember watching it
and thinking about how medicated
Patsy was during that interview.
She was slurring her words.
She was very emotional.
[Brian Cabell] You believe
it's someone outside your home.
[Patsy Ramsey] There is a killer
on the loose.
Absolutely.
I don't know who it is.
I don't know if it's a he or a she,
but if I were a resident of Boulder,
[slurring] I would tell
my friends to keep
[John Ramsey] It's okay.
[crying] Keep your babies close to you.
There's someone out there.
Patsy Ramsey said
in that interview on CNN,
"There's a murderer on the loose."
That remark landed sort of awkwardly
in the local community.
Living in this town, as I do,
I can say there's no sense
among the community
or the people who I talk to,
who I see in my off hours,
that we have any reason to be, uh,
afraid of a person or persons unknown.
[reporter] In Boulder, the city's mayor,
having heard
Mrs. Ramsey's warning the day before,
tries to downplay any alarm.
There was no visible sign of forced entry.
Uh, the body was found in a place
where people are saying
someone had to know the house.
So there isn't a crazed killer
on the loose
wandering the streets of Boulder.
[Paula Woodward] The mayor comes out
and says it's not like there's somebody
wandering the streets of Boulder
looking to strangle our children.
[suspenseful music playing]
How does she know? How does anybody know?
Nobody knows who the killer is.
I think you would assume
that she had information from the police
that led her to feel comfortable saying
that there was not a killer on the loose,
and that the police knew
who the killer was.
And the implication from that
clearly would be
that it was somebody
connected with the family.
[reporter] Neighbors here in the exclusive
Chautauqua Park area
appear to be very familiar
with Wednesday night's
nationally televised interview
with the girl's parents.
There are very different reactions
to mother Patsy Ramsey's warning
that there's a killer on the loose.
- I don't like
- [resident] She sounded phony to me.
She's been on the stage plenty.
[tense music playing]
Friends and family
of a murdered six-year-old
mourned the girl at a memorial service
in Boulder, Colorado, today.
[Carol McKinley] They must've been getting
advice to get out and show your face.
And so they had an orchestrated appearance
the Sunday after they got back
from JonBenét burial.
[news reporter] It was the first time
since returning to town
that John and Patsy Ramsey have been seen.
It didn't seem sincere to me,
and it was almost like a performance.
Patsy had on huge black sunglasses,
I'll never forget it,
and wearing black and being
as appealing as she always was.
Thanking people, shaking hands, hugging.
[news reporter] Parishioners shielded
the parents from reporters,
but a media handler they've hired
arranged for one camera to take close-ups.
[John Ramsey] I don't remember
because we were in shock, frankly.
But I do remember our minister standing up
and saying,
"We need to show John and Patsy support,
so let's line the sidewalk
as they walk out."
And that's what they did.
And I think that the media thought
that was staged by us,
which was absolutely false.
[music fades]
[intriguing music playing]
In Boulder, Colorado, sources say
soon-to-be-completed DNA testing
may point to the killer
of child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey.
What it will tell, I don't know.
Um, hopefully,
it will move the case forward.
[reporter] Family spokesman,
Pat Korten, agrees.
"We're anxious for that material
to come back," he says,
"because we believe strongly
it will enable the police
to take the family
off the potential suspect list."
[John San Agustin]
On January 15th of 1997,
the Colorado Bureau of Investigation
came out with a DNA report.
The DNA report talked
about some DNA samples
that had been taken
from JonBenét's fingernails.
There's also some DNA
that had been taken from her underwear.
They compared those items
to the DNA profiles
of John and Patsy and Burke
and literally a litany of people.
None of that DNA
matched anybody in the family.
[dramatic sting]
[John Ramsey] They were told
in January by their lab,
"We tested the DNA.
There is unidentified male DNA,
which excludes the parents
and the son, Burke."
They were told in January.
They kept that secret from the media
and from the district attorney for months.
[news anchor] Police in Boulder, Colorado,
have confirmed
they have received
the results of DNA tests
in the murder
of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey.
However, they would not say what,
if anything, the test revealed.
[Paula Woodward]
The January 15th DNA analysis
by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation
was never, ever leaked.
The Boulder district attorney
didn't know about it.
[John Ramsey] They kept that secret
because it conflicted
with their conclusion
that we were the killers.
[tense music playing]
They had great foreign DNA evidence
that pointed somewhere else.
We have DNA in her underwear
and under her fingernails
that don't match anybody in the family.
And there is absolutely zero
innocent explanation
for foreign DNA to end up
on a six-year-old's underwear.
There's no innocent explanation.
[music swells, fades]
So whose DNA is that?
[closing theme playing]
[closing theme fades]
[dramatic music playing]
In Colorado, it has all the makings
of a classic murder mystery.
A ransom note, a dead body,
strange twists and turns.
But what makes this murder mystery
so chilling is the victim,
a beautiful little girl.
[pageant announcer] JonBenét Ramsey
is the Ziegfeld Follies!
[woman] It was a case that people
couldn't stop talking about.
The way she was dressed, her charisma.
No one had seen anything like that before.
[reporter] The fate of this six-year-old,
who has now been seen across the country,
has drawn hundreds of journalists to town.
But with police and the family
saying virtually nothing,
who killed JonBenét
is as big a mystery as ever.
[reporter 2] It was the morning
after Christmas, 5:52 a.m.,
when her mother called 911
saying her little girl
had been kidnapped out of her bed
and a ransom note left in the house.
[dramatic music continues]
[man] There are so many pieces
of the puzzle
that you can look at
and interpret one way or another.
[woman 2] Was there an intruder?
Or was the family involved?
I did not kill my daughter JonBenét.
[Carol McKinley] What parent
would ever strangle their own child?
Keep your babies close to you.
[Lou Smit] There is no evidence.
There is no motive.
There is no evidence of bad character.
There is evidence of an intruder.
I say this over and over and over again.
Nobody wants to listen.
[Carol McKinley] Some don't think
it's ever gonna be solved.
[John Ramsey] Someone killed
this six-year-old child.
We know that, and we want them captured.
[man 3] If this case
is ever going to be solved,
we might be looking at
the best chance right now.
[dramatic music continues]
[Lou Smit] Whether or not
they're involved in this, I don't know.
But I do know this, that that little girl
had to mean an awful lot to them.
And she did mean something in this world.
I just hope I can be of some use in
bringing that killer
or killers to justice.
[music swells]
[music ends]
[theme music playing]
[theme music fades]
[producer] Do you mind
taking us through the day?
- You know, just the timeline?
- [sighs]
Well, that, it it's hard, but, uh
Eh
We were planning to leave
early that morning.
That was the day after Christmas.
We'd had a big Christmas at home, and
and now we were gonna leave early that
on the 26th, and fly to Michigan
to have a kind of a second Christmas
with my older kids who were working,
and they were all going to meet us there.
And I was shaving,
I guess, in the bathroom,
and I heard Patsy just scream.
And she'd gone downstairs to the kitchen
and found this ransom note.
And, uh
It was just, um unbelievable.
[uneasy music playing]
[Patsy Ramsey] Well, um
I got up and got dressed.
And, you know, it was very early.
Kind of not not daylight yet.
And, uh, we had a spiral staircase
to the first floor,
and, uh, I just started downstairs
to get coffee on, or whatever.
As I, you know,
moved toward the end of the stair,
there were these pieces of paper
lying on one of the runs of the stair.
[uneasy music continues]
As I kind of turned around,
looked at it to see what it was,
and, uh, just
started reading the first couple lines
I can't remember exactly
what the first few lines said,
but somewhere it said,
"We have your daughter."
And it clicked, you know. "Your daughter."
And I just bounded back up the steps
and threw her door open.
[music swells]
And she was not in her bed.
[suspenseful music playing]
[man] Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully!
[woman] We are a group of individuals
that represent a small foreign faction.
[man 2] We respect your business
but not the country that it serves.
[woman 2] At this time, we have
your daughter in our possession.
[man 3] She is safe and unharmed,
and if you want her to see 1997,
you must follow our instructions
to the letter.
[woman] You will withdraw
$118,000 from your account.
[man 2] I will call you
between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. tomorrow
to instruct you on delivery.
[woman 2] Any deviation of my instructions
will result in the immediate execution
of your daughter.
[man 4] Speaking to anyone about
your situation, such as police, FBI, etc.,
will result in
your daughter being beheaded.
[man] If we catch you
talking to a stray dog, she dies.
[woman] If you alert bank authorities,
she dies.
[man 5] If the money is in any way marked
or tampered with, she dies.
[man] Don't try to grow a brain, John.
You are not the only fat cat around.
So don't think
that killing will be difficult.
[woman] It is up to you now, John.
[man 3] Victory! S.B.T.C.
Patsy happened to be standing
by the phone. I said, "Call the police."
[dramatic sting]
[Patsy Ramsey] I'm at 75515th Street.
- [operator] What's going on there, ma'am?
- We had a kidnapping. Hurry, please!
[operator] Explain to me
what's going on. Okay?
[Patsy Ramsey] There We have There's
a note left, and our daughter's gone.
[operator] A note was left,
your daughter is gone?
- [Patsy Ramsey] Yes.
- [operator] How long ago was this?
[Patsy Ramsey] I don't know.
I've just found the note.
Please.
[operator] What's your name? Are you
[crying] Patsy Ramsey.
I'm the mother. Oh my God!
[John Ramsey] I've told people,
if you have kids,
and you've been in a shopping mall,
and your child disappears,
even for a moment,
you get this punch to the stomach
that's just severe.
"Where's my child?"
Just panic, for a moment.
Then you find her, and it's over.
But it only lasts for a second.
But this horrible in your gut
trauma, I guess, is how to explain it,
was the feeling I had that morning.
"I gotta get my daughter back."
[tense music playing]
[Dan Schuler] Think back real hard.
Just tell us what you absolutely remember.
[John Ramsey] My youngest son,
Burke, was asleep.
Burke was nine years old.
He was a little boy.
Who was the first person
- Mm My mom.
- Okay.
She was coming in to flip on my light.
Did she say something that you heard?
Just like, "Oh my gosh" [indistinct]
[Patsy Ramsey] I called our friends that
we had had dinner with the night before,
and, um
Just in a "JonBenét's missing," you know,
"Can you come over, help," you know.
And then I called another another
couple, a close friend of ours, and, uh,
and they came right over.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Bob Whitson] I received a page to call
the night shift patrol supervisor
who told me they'd responded
to a reported, uh, kidnapping
of a six-year-old girl.
I knew initially
this was a very rare case.
Kidnapping for ransom,
we'd never had a case like this.
So, I got two detectives to respond.
[John Ramsey] The squad car came,
and one officer came in, and
I told him, "Hey, we found this note.
Our daughter's missing."
"She didn't just run away?"
I said, "No, she was six years old."
"It's cold out, it's dark, it's snowing.
No, she didn't run away."
[Bob Whitson] The detectives
also spoke to Burke Ramsey,
and they made arrangements
for Burke to go to a friend's house.
[John Ramsey] We wanted
to get Burke out of this chaos.
Uh, and we said, you know, "JonBenét's
been taken, but we're gonna get her back."
[Dan Schuler] How was Dad sounding?
[Burke Ramsey] He was sounding like,
you know, he wasn't going to
uh, freak out, you know,
he was trying [indistinct].
[John Ramsey] I was totally focused
on what have I got to do
to get my daughter back.
I can get her back
if I kept my wits about me
and kept focused.
[intriguing music playing]
[Bob Whitson] At that point,
the two detectives searched the house.
The Ramseys' house,
it's kind of a deceiving house.
Outside, it doesn't look that big,
but when you go in,
it it's very large inside.
[intriguing music continues]
[Kurt Pillard] It's a huge house.
It's over 6,500 square feet.
There are three levels,
with another level that the Ramseys
converted into their master bedroom.
JonBenét's bedroom was almost
on the opposite side of the house,
on a lower level.
It would have been difficult to hear
anything from that location.
Then below that is the main living level.
Patsy found this ransom note
on a circular staircase
that was near the kitchen.
[suspenseful music playing]
And then, below that,
you had the basement area,
where they basically stored things.
And there's an area
referred to as the "train room,"
where Burke kept some toys.
[Bob Whitson] Officers
had searched the house,
didn't see any obvious crime scene,
didn't find JonBenét.
I didn't go to the house until later on.
I went upstairs,
looked at JonBenét's bedroom.
The bed wasn't made.
It had been slept in, obviously.
I shut the door, sealed it,
specifically told Mr. Ramsey
nobody goes in there.
And I'm thinking,
this suspect could call at any time.
[John Ramsey] The police prepped me on,
"When they call, ask to talk to JonBenét."
I made arrangements
to get the money available.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Patsy Ramsey] I just remember
feeling just helpless,
and because my whole life,
I've tried to keep my children safe.
And suddenly I didn't know
where my child was, and I was just
Just panic-stricken.
[music swells, then fades]
[Bob Whitson] An officer had collected
the actual ransom note.
And I asked Mr. Ramsey
if he had a sample of his handwriting
and a sample of Mrs. Ramsey's handwriting.
So Mr. Ramsey handed me two notebook pads
and said, "This is my wife's.
This is my notepad."
And so I went to the police department.
We have a forgery detective
who is also a handwriting examiner,
so, I gave him the notepads. I said,
"Look at these, compare it with
the ransom note, tell me what you think."
[Jeff Kithcart] Bob Whitson
handed me two notebooks,
and he said that John Ramsey
had provided them to him
and that one notebook
contained Patsy's handwriting,
and the other notebook
contained John's handwriting.
I was going through the notebook
that contained Patsy's handwriting,
and I came across an entire sheet of paper
in the notebook still attached
with what appeared to be
the initial ransom note.
It said, "Mr." and then like, maybe,
the initial vertical stroke of an R.
It could have been like the first draft
of what had appeared to me
to be the possible ransom note.
I was shocked to find that.
It appeared that the ransom note
was written from that notebook
in the Ramsey household.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Bob Whitson] Detective Kithcart came in
and showed me that information.
You could have heard a pin drop.
One of the FBI agents in the room,
I remember him saying,
"You always have to look at the family."
[dramatic sting]
[Ron Walker] Well, actually,
I was off that day.
The phone rang, and it was one
of the individuals from our field office,
not an agent,
but one of the investigative clerks,
uh, just calling to notify me
that there had been
a kidnapping reported in Boulder.
One of the first things you wanna do
is read what the demands
of the alleged kidnappers are.
The first thing that struck me
about the note was the length.
It's quite unusual
to see this, uh, magnum opus.
Your typical ransom notes
are short and to the point.
The next thing that really jumps out
at you is the $118,000.
A really odd number to ask for.
The 118,000 is a low figure,
but it's also a very unusual figure
because, uh, it's it's just not typical
of what you would expect to see.
You expect to see 200,000, 300,000,
250,000, a million, a half a million.
But not $118,000.
All of this, really, I mean, in aggregate,
uh, sort of indicated to me that
that the note was essentially bogus.
It was not truly a kidnapping note.
[dramatic music playing]
[John Ramsey] Waiting several hours to get
a call from the kidnapper was torture.
And then ten o'clock came and went
and no call.
[Patsy Ramsey] At one point, I said,
"Have you closed the airport, or,
you know something?"
And And they just looked at me and said,
"Well, no."
[scoffs] And I was like,
"Well, what are we doing here?" You know?
"What What's the plan of action?"
[dramatic music playing]
You're so frustrated,
because you don't [sighs]
You want the whole world
to just stop right there
so that you can go find this baby.
Mr. Ramsey was nervous,
wanted to know what was going on.
So, the detective that was there said,
"Why don't you just search the house again
and see if you find anything unusual?"
[uneasy music playing]
[John Ramsey] So, my friend and I
went downstairs, went to the basement.
We call it the train room.
The kids had a train set up,
an electric train set up.
And immediately I saw the window,
one of the windows was open. And broken.
And there was a suitcase under the window.
And that suitcase
shouldn't have been there.
It set there like it was a step,
because the window
was a fairly high window.
You needed a ladder or steps
or something to get up through.
I told my friend,
"That suitcase shouldn't be there."
"That doesn't belong there.
It wasn't put there by us."
I said, furthermore, "I came through
that window myself last summer."
I had to break it to get in the house.
I lost my key. Nobody was home.
I thought we had the glass fixed,
apparently, we didn't.
But I said the window was wide open.
And that looked fishy.
The next place we went was another room
in the basement.
We called it the wine cellar, but there
was no wine. It was an old coal room.
[music swells]
And immediately,
her body was right there in front of me.
[dramatic music playing]
She had tape over her mouth,
and her hands were tied behind her back.
And I immediately pulled the tape off.
I tried to untie her hands,
but the knot was tied really tight.
I couldn't get it undone.
So, I just screamed, and I picked her up
and carried her upstairs.
Just to try to get her help.
The detectives looked for a pulse.
Looked at me and said, "She's dead."
I just stared at her. I'm, like
You know, I couldn't comprehend that.
[dramatic music fades]
[Patsy Ramsey] And I heard John scream.
And I said, "What?"
You know, "What What is it?"
And And Barbara, my friend,
just, you know, grabbed me and said,
"No, just stay, just stay right here."
And I kept saying, "What? What?
What is it? What is it?"
And, um
Um
And I think, um
[voice breaking] We walked
into the living room, and
And she was there, and
John said, "She's"
[softly] "She's gone."
[soft music playing]
[Jeff Kithcart] The detectives
who were at the Ramsey house
called dispatch saying that
that JonBenét's body had been located.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Paula Woodward] There was a group
of police investigators
that had gathered at the Boulder
Police Department that morning.
When the word came in that JonBenét's
body had been found,
a person inside that meeting told me
that one investigator hissed,
in kind of an undertone
and a whisper to another one,
"I knew it. They killed their daughter."
[suspenseful music continues]
[John Ramsey] We were pretty quickly
escorted out of the house.
So, we went to stay at some friends' house
who were there that morning.
They took us to their home.
And, um, from that point on, it was just
You're in shock.
[Burke Ramsey] I thought
JonBenét would be there.
I thought they found her.
Thought the family felt excited.
I don't know if I was dreaming
and I started being real sad.
And they had told me
that JonBenét was in heaven.
[Dan Schuler] What did you do?
Started crying.
[indistinct]
[clicks]
[music fades]
[uneasy music playing]
[reporter] Past Santa Claus in his sleigh
and a double row of candy canes,
deputy coroners brought the body
of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey
from her upscale home.
The mother, Patsy Ramsey, dialed 911
telling police
her daughter had been kidnapped.
But when police got here,
they went inside the house,
and a short time later,
they found the little girl's body.
[Paula Woodward] I was called in on
the Ramsey case when I was on vacation.
And my news director caught me at home.
And she said, "You need to get involved
in this story, like, now."
[reporter] Boulder police
won't comment on her cause of death,
only saying
that she wasn't shot or stabbed.
Any journalist knows
the sense of adrenaline
that you feel when you are deployed
on what already, off the outset,
smells like a big story.
I got to the Ramsey home the evening
that the crime was reported.
There was no communication that evening
between law enforcement
and the media outside,
until the time
that they brought her body out,
which occurred just minutes, really,
before my final deadline.
One of the investigators came out,
and they gave us
a name and an age of the victim.
Boom, that was it.
Police have not publicly identified
any suspects.
Their official line remains
that nobody has been ruled in,
and nobody has been ruled out.
[reporter 2] Neighbors describe
the young girl as beautiful and polite.
[reporter 3] Her body was in the basement,
out of sight, but not really hidden.
You're starting to do some research
into who are the Ramseys.
[reporter 4] Mr. Ramsey is president
of Access Graphics,
a billion-dollar business in town.
I tried to reach anybody I could
with the Ramsey family,
and I was unable to.
And the very few friends that I could find
of theirs would not talk.
[reporter 5] The couple does have
another child, a son around ten years old.
At that time, we were anxious for any
little bit of information we could find.
Hello, I'm Patsy Ramsey.
Daddy's not here, but this is JonBenét,
she's four. Burke is seven.
And we'd like to welcome you to our home
and wish you a very merry Christmas.
It's really important to remember
that prior to Christmas Day of 1996,
we were just a regular family.
[engine revs]
[Patsy and John] Whoo!
[Patsy laughs]
[John Andrew Ramsey] We weren't perfect,
we were just a regular family
living a regular life.
When JonBenét was born,
there were five of us.
So, I had two older sisters,
my sister Beth, my sister Melinda,
from my dad's first marriage to my mom.
And then Burke and JonBenét were born.
Burke is ten years younger than me,
and JonBenét is, I think,
13 years younger than me.
Were, of course,
my dad's second marriage to Patsy.
[Melinda Ramsey] Here come
Burke and JonBenét.
- Coming flying down this hill.
- [John Ramsey] Yeah.
[Melinda Ramsey] Whoo!
All right! Great shot!
- Let's do it one more time.
- [Melinda Ramsay] Okay. One more time.
Oh, Dad.
[John Ramsey] Hey, guys.
Did we have fun, or did we have fun?
[Melinda Ramsey] JonBenét.
Where's Burke? There's Burke.
- And Melinda. [laughs]
- [John and JonBenét laugh]
[John Ramsey] I met Patsy
through some friends.
I was divorced,
and my downstairs neighbors
were friends of Patsy from West Virginia.
And she was 23, and I was 35, and
I I She was nice, and
But I thought, well,
that's not dating material,
she's too young.
But then I got to know her a little bit,
she's, like, she's pretty smart.
She's not a typical 23-year-old.
And so I asked her out for a date,
we went out, it just felt right.
The rest was history.
[pensive music playing]
I started out
I'm kind of an independent entrepreneur
and started a little
manufacturers' rep company,
where we represented electronic equipment.
And we were lucky,
we were in the computer industry,
and it was growing like crazy.
We merged with two other companies.
One was in Boulder.
So, we said, "Okay, let's move to Boulder,
and we'll stay in Colorado for two years,
and we'll come back to Atlanta."
That was the plan.
We'd gotten a nice nest egg,
but it wasn't
hundreds of millions of dollars.
It was more money
than I ever thought I would ever have.
And, of course, then that all changed.
[soft music playing]
[Paula Woodward] John Ramsey's daughter
Beth, she was from his first marriage,
was killed in a car accident.
[John Andrew Ramsey] When we lost Beth,
I obviously was just devastated.
She took better care of me
than I probably took care of her.
And she she would always worry
about what was Dad gonna do on Christmas
or, uh, Thanksgiving
if we weren't together.
[Patsy Ramsey] JonBenét
was a year and a half old
when we lost John's daughter, Beth.
And even at that age
And I know we've talked about this many
times, that we felt like she was a gift
given to us to help us through that time.
And you think,
she was only a year and a half old,
she couldn't really know
what has taken place here.
But she sensed, she would sense
our grief and our sadness.
And she just had a way of coming up to you
and snuggling up.
She was just
a very sensitive child that way.
[tense music playing]
[John Ramsey] Patsy knew
for months something was wrong.
Her stomach was getting very distended.
Her mother took one look at her and said,
"We're going to the hospital."
"Something is wrong."
Within 30 minutes,
they had taken an X-ray,
found a huge tumor in her abdomen area,
and it was ovarian cancer.
She was a fighter.
She wanted to live for her kids.
[Patsy Ramsey] The children would come
into my hospital room.
She would come up, and here's the bag
hanging there with this blood in it.
She'd come up and squish it, you know.
"What was this?" You know.
"Where's this going?"
And she'd follow it up, you know.
"It's going in here."
"It's all right, Mommy," she'd say.
"It's alright, it won't hurt very long."
You know.
She was like my little cheerleader.
[John Ramsey] It was brutal,
and the program was very intense,
"almost-kill-you" chemotherapy.
She did that for a year, and they said,
"You're cancer free. You're in remission."
And it was, for Pasty,
a gift of life again.
[Patsy Ramsey] This was my reason to live.
[JonBenét Ramsey] Hello?
[Patsy Ramsey] Hello!
I had these two children,
this wonderful husband,
and nobody was going to raise
these two children
the way I wanted it done.
I'm gonna be there.
- [JonBenét Ramsey] Hello?
- [Patsy Ramsey] Here's JonBenét. Hello.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Carol McKinley] Anybody
interested in the Ramsey case
needs to read the cause of death
in the autopsy report.
It's critical.
[Bob Whitson] According to the autopsy,
whoever killed JonBenét
took white olefin cord,
tied her wrists together
took the same cord and made
what's commonly known as
a garrote or a ligature.
[John San Agustin] A garrote is used
not to immediately strangle the victim,
but it's more of a controlling mechanism.
You can You can apply pressure
to the neck and release it.
Apply pressure to the neck and release it.
[Bob Whitson] There was
an artist's style paintbrush
that was actually found
in Mrs. Ramsey's paint supplies,
that were kept in the basement.
That paintbrush was broken
into three pieces.
The handle of that was taken off
and secured at the end of this garrote.
[John San Agustin] There was
some complexity as to
how the garrote was put together.
This knot was tied by somebody
who understood how a garrote is made.
[Bob Whitson] We believe JonBenét
was alive when this was being done,
because she had hair tangled in this knot.
It's consistent with somebody
either holding her down
or putting their foot to hold her down
and tie this knot.
[Paula Woodward] The garrote was left
embedded in her throat.
I never saw the garrote.
It was so embedded in her throat,
I didn't see it.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Bob Whitson] She also had
a very distinct red mark below her throat
consistent with her fingerprints,
like, as she was trying
to relieve pressure on the cord
that was wrapped around her neck.
[Carol McKinley] This garrote
was deep into her neck.
That's what everyone
including the police thought killed her.
Well, when they got her
to the autopsy table
and opened up, you know, her brain,
they realized
she'd been hit over the head.
[Paula Woodward] She was hit in the head
with a blow that left
an eight-inch crack in her skull.
Part of her skull caved in.
[Bob Whitson] Boulder Police Department
found two items that they thought might be
involved with the
the injury to JonBenét's head.
There was the Ramsey's baseball bat
that was found outside the Ramsey's house.
There was also the Ramsey's
Maglite flashlight
that was left in the kitchen.
But there was no physical evidence
on the flashlight
or on the bat.
[Paula Woodward] The coroner
who performed the autopsy on JonBenét
said the cause of death
was for two reasons.
Either the garrote and strangulation
or the blow to the head.
He said he did not name either one
because he could not determine
which happened first.
That they were as close
to simultaneous as he could figure.
[Bob Whitson] There were also microscopic
fibers from the paintbrush handle
that were found in her vaginal area,
indicating she was sexually assaulted
with the paintbrush handle.
[dramatic sting]
[Paula Woodward] Such fury, such anger.
She was tortured, and she was murdered.
[music swells, ends]
In Colorado it has all the makings
of a classic murder mystery,
a ransom note, a dead body,
strange twist and turns.
It received national news attention
almost right away.
One of the biggest driving factors
were the sheer number of pictures
and videotapes of JonBenét.
[Vickie Bane] She's captivating
from the get-go.
If you look at the pictures
of this little girl, she was star quality.
[Julie Hayden] For TV and tabloids
and everybody to tell the story,
you need pictures.
[Paula Woodward] And the Ramsey case
became immediate fodder,
because JonBenét Ramsey
was in child beauty pageants.
[pageant announcer] JonBenét Ramsey
is the Ziegfeld Follies!
[audience clapping]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Paula Woodward] ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN,
for the whole month of January,
led with the Ramsey case.
And the child beauty pageant photographs
and video were in them.
[Julie Hayden] There was
a very professional, almost adult,
and frankly somewhat sexual look to them.
[Dominick Dunne] The videos
that I've seen of JonBenét,
it it seems she doesn't seem
like a child at all.
She seems like a tiny woman.
And there's something very,
sort of, s sexually aware about her.
[reporter] The shots we've seen
of this little six-year-old child
- are like
- [woman] They're sexy!
uh, tarted-up, miniature dwarf hooker.
[intriguing music playing]
[Paula Woodward] The Ramseys were
very harshly judged as delinquent parents,
as parents who forced their daughter
into these beauty pageants.
It paints a very, uh, startling picture
of what this girl's lifestyle,
what her activities,
sanctioned by her parents, were.
[Michael Tracey] Let's talk
a little about the pageants.
When they saw the pageant videos,
that what they saw was a sexualized child.
How do you react to that?
That was a sick mind
looking from that vantage point.
It was not happening that way.
Okay, so Whoops! What is your
favorite animal at the zoo?
The monkeys, because they laugh
and stuff and hang around.
[audience laughs]
They laugh and hang around.
That sums it up pretty good.
[crowd cheering]
[woman] Go, Jess, go!
[girl] Go, JonBenét!
[John Ramsey] These were little girls
that were on a little stage
performing in front of parents
and grandparents,
probably never more than 20 or 30 parents,
mothers and fathers
of other daughters
that were in the program.
[upbeat music plays]
[Patsy Ramsey] It was not, you know,
cut-throat competition,
it was just "let them perform
to their little hearts' desire."
I wanna hear those coyotes howlin' ♪
As the sun sinks in the ♪
[soft music playing]
[Patsy Ramsey] Unless you're there,
unless you've been to one, and seen
[John Ramsey] It's almost like a
home movie that you took of your children
at the swimming pool,
and it ends up on national television
as pornographic material.
- [announcer] Congratulations to all.
- [audience clapping]
Congratulations to you, JonBenét.
[contestants clapping and exclaiming]
[Paula Woodward] Patsy was in
a beauty pageant when she was in college
and ran for Miss West Virginia.
[Patsy Ramsey] And time after time, she
would say, "Mommy, when can I do that?"
[John Ramsey] I felt that Patsy
was probably particularly anxious
to do those things with JonBenét
'cause quite frankly,
she had cancer in remission
and didn't know if she would be here
when JonBenét was 16 and 18.
- She's never said that. I never said that.
- Well, John's right.
After I had had cancer, you know,
I thought, well, maybe
You know, I may never live
to see her do a lot of things.
[soft music continues]
[tense music playing]
[reporter] Since her murder,
no arrests have been made,
but people have been talking
about the tragedy.
Who they suspect, how the police
have handled the investigation.
[Julie Hayden] The police department
started realizing right away
that they should've been doing
a lot of things differently.
[reporter] The police
have come under criticism,
and other police departments said
they would've done
the investigation differently.
Do you have any concerns though
of how the police handled
the investigation from the beginning?
I mean, not searching the house,
suggesting to the dad he search the house,
and then he finds the body
I have no reason to question the police
at all in their investigation.
[Charlie Brennan] Boulder Police
did not have
a track record of handling many homicides
for the simple reason that there were
not many homicides to investigate.
I believe that the death of JonBenét was
the first homicide in Boulder that year,
and there were five days
left in the year when it happened.
[reporter] Is it fair to question
the Boulder Police Department's
experience and ability
to investigate a homicide?
I don't think so. Just because
you have one homicide in a year,
I think is actually a sign
of remarkable strength in a community.
[John San Agustin] That lack
of experience, procedurally,
created a lot of problems
in the crime scene.
[tense music fades]
[interviewer] Tom, quite a bit
of information has come out
about the police, um, investigation
the morning of December 26th.
Did police search the house
after the 911 call
but before the body was found?
They, uh, did a preliminary search
of the house.
And remember this is a very big house.
Did they look in the room
where, uh, John Ramsey
said the girl's body was or did they not?
It doesn't appear that they got down.
That room was down
in, uh, a part of the basement
that doesn't appear that they got to.
One of the cops did not open the door
where JonBenét was lying.
Major mistake, and I believe
he lives with that to this day.
[reporter] Another procedure question.
Why was the Ramsey house
not sealed off as a crime scene
until several hours
after the kidnapping was reported?
[Carol McKinley] They'd called
their friends over.
So, you've got a house full of people,
people are washing dishes.
You've got bagels everywhere,
and orange juice and coffee?
The Boulder Police
didn't consider that a crime scene.
[Bob Whitson] I should have removed
all those people from the scene.
That was a crime scene mistake.
But at the time,
it looked like a legitimate kidnapping,
so I thought, "Well, these are
the support system for the Ramseys,"
and I I let 'em stay.
[reporter] And why didn't police discover
six-year-old JonBenét's body
instead of her father,
since they were in the house
several hours before she was found?
[John San Agustin] You never have somebody
outside of law enforcement doing a search.
Right? The role of law enforcement
is to gather the facts.
[reporter 2] John Ramsey found
his daughter's body in the basement
and carried it upstairs,
effectively destroying the crime scene.
[Bob Whitson] When Mr. Ramsey
discovered her body,
he pulled the duct tape off of her mouth,
threw it down
on the blanket that was there.
There may have been some evidence
on the duct tape if that wasn't removed.
[Kevin McCullen] Was there a concern now
at all that some evidence,
some crucial evidence that could link,
uh, establish, pretty firmly in court,
who the killer was, might have been lost
in those first, uh, initial minutes
of discovery or not?
That can be speculated on,
but, uh, all indications are
that we did not lose anything.
[suspenseful music fades]
[Charlie Brennan] Police attention
on the Ramseys as suspects
I know began on day one.
And it began
based on a variety of different things.
And many of these things
we wouldn't learn about for some time.
I know who killed JonBenét.
There's no doubt in my mind
who killed JonBenét.
[Paula Woodward] When
the Boulder detective, Linda Arndt,
did her first interview on television,
she said that she felt she was
face-to-face with the killer.
His face was just inches from mine.
And we had a non-verbal exchange
that I will never forget.
[Bob Whitson] We didn't act right
in the eyes of this so-called detective
that was there that day.
How did he strike you?
Cordial.
Distraught?
[emphatically] Cordial. [chuckles]
The classic one was, "John was
casually going through the mail."
"Not 'acting right.'"
[Linda Arndt] I remember
seeing John in the kitchen,
looking through his mail,
and I I made a note.
I was looking for another communication
from the kidnapper.
Mail had come through our mail-slot
on the door, front door,
and there's a pile of letters.
I was looking for
Is there another communication?
She interpreted that as, "He's just
casually looking through the mail."
"Therefore, he's guilty."
[tense music playing]
[Julie Hayden] Linda Arndt was the only
police officer in the house at the time
when they found the body.
She told me she just suggested
to John Ramsey,
"Why don't you search the house,"
to give 'em something to do.
[John Ramsey] This detective, "Why don't
you and your friend go through the house,
see if you see anything unusual?"
[Julie Hayden] Linda Arndt told me that
John Ramsey went right into the basement,
right to the room where the body was,
and found it immediately.
[music swells]
And I think that there was a sense
that that was just
If you're gonna say, "search the house,"
that was just an odd first room
to go search,
and then coincidentally the body is there.
[dramatic music playing]
[John Ramsey] The logical place to start
is the basement.
That's where the easiest access
would be to the house.
[Julie Hayden] She said John Ramsey looked
at her, and she said she saw in his eyes.
And she just said
the look in his eyes scared her
and made her fear for her own safety.
I remember, and I wore a shoulder holster,
tucking my gun right next to me
and consciously counting,
"I've got 18 bullets."
'Cause I didn't know if we'd all be alive
when people showed up.
"I saw it in John's eyes.
I knew he was the killer."
It's crazy.
And, uh But that's how it got started.
I knew what happened.
[John Ramsey] I don't know if it was
that day or the next, I got a
And I wasn't taking calls,
we could hardly function.
But our friends got a call, and they said,
"This is a fella that works with you.
He said he needs to talk to you."
So I answered the phone,
and it was one of our, uh, employees.
He said,
"I was told by someone inside the system
to get this message to you."
"They believe you killed your daughter."
"You need to get the best defense attorney
you can get your hands on."
And I was just shocked.
[intriguing music playing]
[reporter] The father, John Ramsey,
has hired a well-known criminal lawyer,
and a Denver newspaper reports
he will not talk to police.
[Julie Hayden]
They hired lawyers immediately.
And that just seemed weird.
Here this family has a little girl
murdered in their home,
and they're having
lawyers talk to the cops.
I think there was a sense that, perhaps,
there was a reason they were doing that.
The average American
thinking of their child being killed
would say, "What you got
against talking to the police?"
"You should want this solved."
[Carol McKinley] All we saw was that
the Ramseys weren't talking to anyone.
Why aren't they
on the police department's doorstep
offering up anything they can,
any little piece of information they can?
Why are they running?
Those parents still have not sat down
and formally been interviewed by
the police about their own child's murder.
- That's right.
- What do people in Boulder think?
Well, I think there's a growing concern
around here that that's the case.
I don't think the Boulder Police
have treated them any differently.
They're trying to get them,
it's just that they have this team
that's protecting them at this point.
[John Ramsey] We met
with our new attorneys,
and they said, "You've got
to be careful talking with the police."
We're like,
"We don't have anything to hide."
"They've gotta see that
and understand that."
But our attorneys told us, "You don't
understand how this works." [chuckles]
Um
"There's innocent people in prison today
because their defense attorneys
let them talk to the police."
We gave the police
everything they asked for.
Blood samples, DNA samples,
whatever they asked for.
Records, all our credit cards,
anything they asked for, we gave.
[reporter] The doors of Atlanta's
Peachtree Presbyterian Church
opened hundreds of times this morning.
Family and friends
of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey
came by to pay final respects
to the Marietta native.
[pensive music playing]
[John Ramsey] JonBenét was gonna be buried
in Atlanta, next to my oldest daughter.
[Rev. Dr. Frank Harrington] I can tell you
that the heart of God is broken
by the tragic death of JonBenét Ramsey.
[reporter] As the service ended,
the Ramseys walked to their child's casket
and kneeled before it.
[pensive music continues]
[John Ramsey] When we were under attack,
so to speak, by the media and the police,
it didn't matter.
We'd lost our child.
I mean, I would've been happy to die,
quite frankly, to to relieve the pain.
[Carol McKinley] I really didn't get
on the street until they were in Atlanta,
for the burial.
We were starting to get,
um, statements from a PR firm
instead of from the Ramseys
or their attorneys themselves.
And it smelled a little funny.
And we were like, "What is going on?"
[intriguing music playing]
[John Ramsey] We were, uh,
in Atlanta for JonBenét's funeral,
and our friends in Boulder
were absolutely insistent
that we go in front of the media.
"You've got to do it."
"You're starting to be accused of murder,
and you've got to defend yourself."
[sighs] I'm like, "Okay."
[Brian Cabell] Why did you decide
you wanted to talk now?
Well [sighs] We've been, um
pretty isolated, totally isolated
for the last five days, and, uh
[inhales] But we've sensed
from our friends that, uh,
this tragedy has touched
not just ourselves and our friends,
but [voice breaking]many people.
[Carol McKinley] Why are they doing
interviews with CNN
if they're not going to do
a formal interview,
sit down with Boulder Police
if they want to find
the killer of their child?
If anyone knows anything,
please, please help us.
[voice shaking] For the safety
of all the children [inhales]
we have to find out who did this.
I remember watching it
and thinking about how medicated
Patsy was during that interview.
She was slurring her words.
She was very emotional.
[Brian Cabell] You believe
it's someone outside your home.
[Patsy Ramsey] There is a killer
on the loose.
Absolutely.
I don't know who it is.
I don't know if it's a he or a she,
but if I were a resident of Boulder,
[slurring] I would tell
my friends to keep
[John Ramsey] It's okay.
[crying] Keep your babies close to you.
There's someone out there.
Patsy Ramsey said
in that interview on CNN,
"There's a murderer on the loose."
That remark landed sort of awkwardly
in the local community.
Living in this town, as I do,
I can say there's no sense
among the community
or the people who I talk to,
who I see in my off hours,
that we have any reason to be, uh,
afraid of a person or persons unknown.
[reporter] In Boulder, the city's mayor,
having heard
Mrs. Ramsey's warning the day before,
tries to downplay any alarm.
There was no visible sign of forced entry.
Uh, the body was found in a place
where people are saying
someone had to know the house.
So there isn't a crazed killer
on the loose
wandering the streets of Boulder.
[Paula Woodward] The mayor comes out
and says it's not like there's somebody
wandering the streets of Boulder
looking to strangle our children.
[suspenseful music playing]
How does she know? How does anybody know?
Nobody knows who the killer is.
I think you would assume
that she had information from the police
that led her to feel comfortable saying
that there was not a killer on the loose,
and that the police knew
who the killer was.
And the implication from that
clearly would be
that it was somebody
connected with the family.
[reporter] Neighbors here in the exclusive
Chautauqua Park area
appear to be very familiar
with Wednesday night's
nationally televised interview
with the girl's parents.
There are very different reactions
to mother Patsy Ramsey's warning
that there's a killer on the loose.
- I don't like
- [resident] She sounded phony to me.
She's been on the stage plenty.
[tense music playing]
Friends and family
of a murdered six-year-old
mourned the girl at a memorial service
in Boulder, Colorado, today.
[Carol McKinley] They must've been getting
advice to get out and show your face.
And so they had an orchestrated appearance
the Sunday after they got back
from JonBenét burial.
[news reporter] It was the first time
since returning to town
that John and Patsy Ramsey have been seen.
It didn't seem sincere to me,
and it was almost like a performance.
Patsy had on huge black sunglasses,
I'll never forget it,
and wearing black and being
as appealing as she always was.
Thanking people, shaking hands, hugging.
[news reporter] Parishioners shielded
the parents from reporters,
but a media handler they've hired
arranged for one camera to take close-ups.
[John Ramsey] I don't remember
because we were in shock, frankly.
But I do remember our minister standing up
and saying,
"We need to show John and Patsy support,
so let's line the sidewalk
as they walk out."
And that's what they did.
And I think that the media thought
that was staged by us,
which was absolutely false.
[music fades]
[intriguing music playing]
In Boulder, Colorado, sources say
soon-to-be-completed DNA testing
may point to the killer
of child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey.
What it will tell, I don't know.
Um, hopefully,
it will move the case forward.
[reporter] Family spokesman,
Pat Korten, agrees.
"We're anxious for that material
to come back," he says,
"because we believe strongly
it will enable the police
to take the family
off the potential suspect list."
[John San Agustin]
On January 15th of 1997,
the Colorado Bureau of Investigation
came out with a DNA report.
The DNA report talked
about some DNA samples
that had been taken
from JonBenét's fingernails.
There's also some DNA
that had been taken from her underwear.
They compared those items
to the DNA profiles
of John and Patsy and Burke
and literally a litany of people.
None of that DNA
matched anybody in the family.
[dramatic sting]
[John Ramsey] They were told
in January by their lab,
"We tested the DNA.
There is unidentified male DNA,
which excludes the parents
and the son, Burke."
They were told in January.
They kept that secret from the media
and from the district attorney for months.
[news anchor] Police in Boulder, Colorado,
have confirmed
they have received
the results of DNA tests
in the murder
of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey.
However, they would not say what,
if anything, the test revealed.
[Paula Woodward]
The January 15th DNA analysis
by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation
was never, ever leaked.
The Boulder district attorney
didn't know about it.
[John Ramsey] They kept that secret
because it conflicted
with their conclusion
that we were the killers.
[tense music playing]
They had great foreign DNA evidence
that pointed somewhere else.
We have DNA in her underwear
and under her fingernails
that don't match anybody in the family.
And there is absolutely zero
innocent explanation
for foreign DNA to end up
on a six-year-old's underwear.
There's no innocent explanation.
[music swells, fades]
So whose DNA is that?
[closing theme playing]
[closing theme fades]