The Unsolved Murder of JonBenét Ramsey Haunts Us 22 Years Later

Bianca Falco, Viewpoints Editor

After a Christmas night in 1996 things would never be the same for the family and Boulder, Colorado neighborhood of JonBenét Ramsey. The anguish would last over two decades and continues today.

Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét was found dead inside her basement seller the morning after Christmas. Before finding her body, Patsy Ramsey, JonBenét’s mother, called the police after finding a ransom note saying the kidnappers had JonBenét and would return her unharmed if they give them $500,000. Patsy made her first mistake and called all her friends and family to come help find her daughter. However with the destruction of evidence since there were a ton of people walking all over the scene, it was hard for police and detectives to gather information about what happened.

John Ramsey, JonBenét’s ’s father, went downstairs to their basement seller and found his youngest and only daughter dead. He picked her up and brought her body to their table and laid her down – the second major mistake. JonBenét had been strangled and killed. Had she been kidnapped?

After 22 years the authorities still haven’t found justice for JonBenét. With the tampered evidence, like her mom inviting everyone over and her father picking up her body, the crimescene was essentially destroyed making it basically impossible to figure out who the killer was based off evidence. A lot of sketchiness surrounds this case which makes it weird.

-The ransom note handwriting matches her mother’s own handwriting and written on her desk.
-Her father left on a business trip the very next day after finding his daughter body.
-And the amount of money asked by the apparent kidnapper was exactly the same amount as John Ramsey’s Christmas bonus at work.

The theories surrounding this case are endless, and some have gotten out of hand but for the most part some are pretty legit. Some followers of the case believe that her older brother, Burke, who was nine at the time, got mad at her and accidentally killed her. Then her parents covered up the accident, making it look like an attempted kidnapping. That explains why the mothers handwriting was on the ‘fake’ ransom note, and the Christmas money bonus. And there are many ridiculous conspiracy theories out there, too.

Meanwhile, Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 from cancer. While John Ramsey is 74 and married for the third time.