John Ramsey

American businessman with a successful life, married to former beauty queen Patricia Ann Paugh (born 12/29/1956 in Parkersburg, WV) with whom he had two kids, Burke (born 1/27/1987) and JonBenet (born 8/06/1990). He had two older kids from a prior marriage. The family lived in a 15-room Tudor style home in Boulder, Colorado. John Ramsey and his wife became two of the most vilified suspects of infanticide of a decade when their daughter, JonBenet was brutally murdered on 12/26/1996. The child was a six-year-old model who had been winning beauty contests for the past year. When Patsy checked the household on the morning after Christmas, she found that JonBenet was not in her room. She called the police at 5:52 A.M. MST, shouting "Send help!" and saying that her daughter was missing and that a 2½-page ransom note demanding $118,000 had been left by the kidnapper on the steps of the back stairs leading to the kitchen. The note read, "Dear Mr. Ramsey, We have your daughter..." It was printed in block letters and had neat margins. It also made reference to a Navy air base in the Philippines where John Ramsey had served. Four misspellings in the note appeared to be intentional. The police arrived at 5:55 AM and made a brief search of the house. Two hours later, a detective arrived, and FBI agents came in at 10:30 AM. It was not until 1:00 PM that someone thought to look in the basement and John Ramsey discovered his daughter’s body. He removed the tape from her mouth and carried her upstairs. She laid on the floor beside the Christmas tree until 10:45 that night, when the coroner’s staff took the body to the police morgue. When John Ramsey found JonBenet at 1:05 PM, her body was completely set with rigor mortis, which indicates that she had died between 10:00 PM on December 25 and 6:00 AM on December 26. Devastating errors were committed by the police immediately following the crime, so grievous that some critics said, "It was as if the police were attempting to do everything possible to handicap the prosecution." They irrevocably disrupted the crime scene by allowing John Ramsey to pick up his daughter’s body and carry it upstairs to cover it with a blanket. DNA evidence was contaminated and as well, the Ramseys were not immediately and separately interviewed. The case remained in the media for the following four years, with apparently no solid evidence to lead to the killer. John and Patsy were the focal point of investigations, both of them leading suspects of the police investigation. The ransom note was from paper belonging to the Ramseys and fiber found on the duct tape used to bind the child was consistent with that found on Patsy’s clothing. The small amounts of evidence were basically circumstantial and not enough to bring charges. Though the ransom note was similar to Patsy’s writing, it could not be definitively proven. The case was tried by the media and the public with the Ramseys lynched and damned. Whether or not the case is ever solved, their lives have moved from one hell to another. Six months after the murder, Patsy, John and Burke moved to a home in the Atlanta area to try to mend their lives. On 10/13/1999 a Boulder grand jury wrapped up a 13-month inquiry during which it had examined 30,000 pages of testimony and evidence, bringing the $2 million investigation to an inconclusive finish. They were no further toward solving the murder than on that shocking day after Christmas three years before. The Ramsey Read less