JonBenet Ramsey Theories (Part 2)

We started our discussion about the JonBenet Ramsey case last episode, so if you haven’t listened to that episode yet, go back and listen to it because we are going to jump right into the theories now and we’ll be referencing evidence and whatnot that we talked about last episode.

Alright, let’s dive in.

The first theory we’re going to talk about is the one I touched on last week. A lot of people are convinced it had to be a member of the family and the grand jury definitely added even more fuel to the fire. So what was the evidence presented? Well, as we discussed, grand juries are kept in strict confidence so we don’t know most of what was said and presented. Fortunately though, this isn’t a dead end for us. Over the last 25 years countless reports and documentaries have been done on this case and we have progressively learned more.

Let’s talk about Patsy Ramsey first. She was JonBenet’s mother and like JonBenet, had participated in many pageants. She was a former Miss West Virginia and was known for the lavish Christmas parties she threw. Many people speculate that she killed her in a fit of rage over a bedwetting accident. It is said that these accidents occurred pretty regularly, and that Patsy had had enough and slammed her head against a blunt surface like a bathtub. We also have the homemade garotte that, if you’ll remember, was made out of one of Patsy’s paintbrushes. Then we have the ransom note which we could do an entire episode on in and of itself, it’s so bizarre. Statement analysis did a breakdown of the whole note and provided a ton of information about what makes it suspicious.

The ransom note sent in the JonBenét Ramsey case. It is believed to be the longest ever recorded. Photograph: Handout

So we have a lot of circumstantial evidence and speculation against Patsy. There were also a lot of people that came down hard on her for having had JonBenet participate in beauty pageants that sexualize children. She was exonerated in 2008 through developments in touch DNA, but regardless, many still suspect her. (Put a pin in the touch DNA and we’ll talk a little more about it later).

Let’s move onto her father, John. If you remember, he was the one to find JonBenet in the basement and rather than leave her body there, he picked her up, carried her upstairs, and removed a piece of tape from her mouth. This made detective Arndt suspicious of him because now the scene is completely contaminated. He even took it a step further and covered her up with a throw blanket. Also, just to clarify, he had been told to leave anything he found where it was. It has been debated that he initially thought she might still be alive which is why he touched her, but it still looks pretty suspicious.

Another detective that had been on the scene that morning, claimed to have overheard him making arrangements to fly the family to Atlanta just hours after the murder. He actually admitted to this, explaining that they’d been asked to leave the house and just wanted to go home to Atlanta as that had been their home for over 25 years. Thoughts?

There were also rumors of sexual abuse, but no evidence was ever found to corroborate this. Now, if you remember, the theory about Patsy was all contingent on bedwetting. I think this is notable because children that have been victims of sexual abuse often have problems with bedwetting.

He was also exonerated in 2008 through the touch DNA.

Ok, let’s talk about the 3rd and final member of the family, JonBenet’s older brother, Burke, who was 9 at the time his sister was killed. The theory surrounding him is that he killed her and everything that transpired afterwards was a coverup by their parents. They worked very hard to keep him out of the press after the murder and were quite successful in this, but the theories came regardless. In September of 2016, he did an interview with Dr. Phil in an attempt to “clear the air.” Unfortunately, this resulted in a response opposite to what he was intending, and everyone became more convinced he was guilty. The 2-part documentary done by CBS after this interview reinvestigated the crime and presented a very compelling theory.

A forensic investigator reviewed the autopsy and said that the blow on her head was a “perfectly rectangular defect” that he surmised came from a flashlight that could be seen in a photo on the kitchen counter in crime scene photos. He said that it fit the contusion perfectly. So why would he have hit her over the head with a flashlight? Well, they say that Burke had a late night snack of pineapple sitting on the dining room table and JonBenet had taken a piece. This may have upset him and out of his anger, he hit her over the head with the flashlight. They back this up with the undigested pineapple that was found in her stomach during the autopsy. The nail in the coffin was that the wounds on her back (which had been thought to maybe be from a stun gun) were consistent with the edge of one of his toy train tracks. Thoughts? Like his parents, he was exonerated through the touch DNA in 2008.

So we have 3 family members and 3 compelling theories, but this touch DNA from 2008 exonerated all of them. Or did it? Mary Lacy, the DA that exonerated the family, claimed at the time that touch DNA testing done on the waistband of her long johns proved the suspect was an unidentified male. I keep saying touch DNA, but what is that? According to Scientific American, it “analyzes skin cells left behind when assailants touch victims, weapons or something else at a crime scene.” They explain, it is helpful because it “doesn’t require you to see anything, or any blood or semen at all. It only requires seven or eight cells from the outermost layer of our skin.”

Daily Camera has an article that explains the problem with using this touch DNA to conclusively rule them out. I’m going to summarize what they said – Forensic experts who examined the results of DNA tests disputed Lacy’s conclusion that a DNA profile found in one place on JonBenet’s underpants and two locations on her long johns was necessarily the killer’s — which Lacy had asserted in clearing JonBenet’s family of suspicion. Those experts said the evidence showed that the DNA samples recovered from the long johns came from at least two people in addition to JonBenet. And yes – Lacy was made aware of this, but did not bring it up when exonerating the family. Additionally, the independent experts raised the possibility that the original DNA sample recovered from JonBenet’s underwear — long used to identify or exclude potential suspects — could be a composite and not that of a single individual. They conclude that the genetic profile may not be from a single individual and that DNA on the girl’s clothing may have landed there innocently which would turn on its head Lacy’s assertion that investigators had identified the killer’s genetic fingerprint and that it was the key critical to solving the case.

So they have been exonerated, but many people don’t take that into account when discussing the theories because of the information we just talked about.

We’ve discussed the theories of it being a member of a family, but the other common theory is that it was an intruder. The Boulder police department stood firm that there was no sign of an intruder, but detective Lou Smit who had solved more than 200 homicide cases, was convinced it wasn’t the family and that the intruder theory actually had legs. He said that he had discovered some discrepancies when studying crime scene pictures.

First, even though an intruder entry and exit point had been dismissed, he was able to identify a footprint on one side of the house that didn’t match any of the family member’s shoes. Second, there was a small metal grate on the ground outside the house that could be lifted and opened wide enough for a person to get through. Third, the very first video taken of the crime scene and basement, had a window which was left wide open. At the bottom of the window was a suitcase and a mark on the wall which seemed to be consistent with someone sliding down from the window.

Now we have a theory as to how an intruder could have gotten into the house, but how did they manage to do everything without waking someone up? There was no sign of a struggle in JonBenet’s room, but if you’ll remember, there were strange wounds on her back that had looked a lot like the marks a stun gun would leave behind. Smit even found a model of a stun gun that would match the marks on her back. Lastly, he looked into a report from a neighbor who claimed to have heard a “bone-chilling, child-like scream” which obviously led to questions as to how the family could have missed this when a neighbor didn’t. He found that where JonBenet was found, was an open vent furnace that started in the room and opened outside the home. The Ramsey’s were 3 floors up, so they couldn’t hear it, but the furnace acted like a megaphone, making it so the neighbor could. This was tested with people standing in the master bedroom while someone else screamed in the basement, and it was confirmed they wouldn’t have heard it. I know what you’re thinking – a neighbor hearing a scream doesn’t mean it was an intruder. However, shortly after the scream, the neighbor also heard the sound of metal hitting cement which could have been the grate slamming shut as someone exited.

So perhaps it was an intruder – but who could the intruder be? One of the most common intruder theories is that it was a 32 year old known sex offender in the area named Gary Oliva. He was a convicted pedophile and had been living in the area on and off when police allegedly found a magazine cutout of JonBenet in his backpack after he was apprehended on drug charges in 2000. A high school friend of Oliva claimed that not long after the murder a distraught Oliva called him and confessed to have hurting a little girl. He also said that the knots used to fashion the garrotte were similar to those Oliva had used in an incident where he attempted to strangle his mother with a telephone cord. Finally, when he was arrested in 2000, he had a stun gun on him. I’m not sure whether this was the same model that Detective Smit matched to the marks on her back, but it is suspicious. Like the family members, he was also eliminated based on DNA.

JonBenét’s grave. There were reportedly more than 2,000 websites dedicated to solving the case. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Next up we have John Mark Karr, a former schoolteacher, who in 2006, confessed to the murder out of the blue in graphic, sexual detail. He had been living in Thailand after facing child pornography charges in the US and was brought to the US for questioning about JonBenet’s case when someone he was emailing became concerned with the way he was talking about his sexual fascination with her. Like everyone else so far, he was eliminated by the DNA and it was played off that he was just after notoriety and fame.

There are loads of other theories out there, but those are the ones that seem to hold the most weight in my eyes. Anything else anyone wants to address?

Let us know what you guys think and if there are any good theories that we missed.

Sources:

Accessed December, 2021, Katy Perry/JonBenet Photos: https://theconspiracyblog.com/conspiracies/historical-conspiracies/jonbenet-ramsey/1206-is-katy-perry-actually-jonbenet-ramsey

Accessed December, 2021, Video of Ramsey Family Home: https://heavy.com/news/2019/04/jonbenet-ramsey-crime-scene-photos/

Accessed December, 2021, JonBenet Murder Photos ***GRAPHIC***: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VYZT0Oj5D8

Accessed December, 2021, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/who-killed-jonbenet-ramsey-8-possible-suspects-129125/the-town-santa-129436/

Accessed December, 2021, https://meaww.com/retired-detective-lou-smit-save-john-patsy-ramsey-intruder-theory-photographs-crime-scene

Accessed December, 2021, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-touch-dna-jonbenet-ramsey/

Accessed December, 2021, https://abcnews.go.com/US/colorado-da-reopening-dna-portion-jonbenet-ramsey-murder/story?id=44195702

Accessed December, 2021, http://www.experthandwritinganalysis.com/2013/07/19/unmasking-the-ramsey-ransom-note/

Accessed December, 2021, https://www.statementanalysis.com/jonbenet-ramsey-murder/ransom-note/

Accessed December, 2021, https://www.dailycamera.com/2016/10/27/dna-in-doubt-new-analysis-challenges-das-exoneration-of-ramseys/