JonBenét Ramsey is a name that echoes throughout the
history of unsolved crimes in America. JonBenét was a young six-year-old
pageant queen who possessed more beauty than she could understand. Although her
life was short, the mystery surrounding her murder left resounding questions as
to who would want this precious girl dead. There were theories of what had
happened to her that appeared sensible, like someone that the Ramsey’s knew, or
someone that had known JonBenét. However, no one could understand what could
possibly have been the motivation behind killing an innocent six-year-old?
Perhaps a family argument had occurred some point in the night and a brutal
blow to the head as punishment was a bit more crushing than intended… lets take
a look at the murder of JonBenét Ramsey with the most likely solution being the
Ramsey’s being involved in JonBenét’s killing.
JonBenét was an innocent girl who saw the world with her
own lens. She simply enjoyed dancing on stages in front of people who admired
her, and spending time prepping for her pageants with her mother, Patsy. JonBenét
was known to be curious and whimsical, just as a child should be. The Ramsey’s
landscaper recalled her asking him once, “Do roses know their thorns can
hurt?”, this displayed her curiosity of the world and her nature to assume
everything was a mystery (Schiller 1). Patsy loved preparing her blonde, soft
faced, blue-eyed daughter for her pageants that she was sure JonBenét would
win. JonBenét was very poised and had rosy cheeks, her doll-like complexion
insuring her success in the world of beauty pageants. JonBenét, in her short
life, had won the titles “Little Miss Colorado, Little Miss Charlevoix,
Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, America’s Royale Miss, and National
Tiny Miss Beauty” (JonBenét Ramsey 1). She was a successful beauty queen that
was destined to become one of the top women in pageantry. The last pageant
JonBenét participated in was on December, 17, 1996, eight days before her
tragic murder.
JonBenét’s childhood was full of pageantry and happy days
with her family. Her mother Patsy had also been a pageant queen, known to be a
winner, and adored the world of pageantry. Patsy loved dressing her daughter up
and prepping her. JonBenét and Patsy bonded through pageantry, and some
believed that Patsy lived vicariously through JonBenét, claiming “the pageants
were Patsy’s gig. JonBenét was her alter ego. Patsy had the money, she had the
costumes and she had the kid. She could relive her own pageant thing” (Schiller
3). This twisted Patsy and JonBenét’s relationship into something dark, however
the two adored each other. JonBenét is widely known for her participation in
pageants, and her blonde bouncy hair. Although, her life was full of love, many
believe JonBenét was exploited by society and her mother during her lifetime.
Her pictures were everywhere, and every little girl desired to look like
JonBenét. Videos of JonBenét singing and dancing around a stage are easily
found on YouTube and display her exuberant personality. JonBenét left behind
her image of the perfect pageant girl in society’s mind, even after her murder.
Many believed having a six-year-old put on fake lashes was wrong, and believed
that JonBenét “inhabiting a subculture of pageants and spangled finery that
many Americans barely knew existed-a consuming passion in some families, and a
source of concern to many child psychologists” (Adler 1). If JonBenét had grown
up, she most likely would have been manipulated by society and its expectations
of how women are supposed to look and act, however she was not granted her
future.
Many wondered if pageantry could have had anything to do
with the murder of JonBenét, because of how she posed, dressed, and had her
makeup done, appearing older than what she was. People believe that JonBenét’s
appearance in pageants could have prompted men to target her for pedophilia
prerogatives, and possibly be a motive behind her murder. Had JonBenét not been
well-known, could she have still been alive today? The world will never know.
Society will always remember JonBenét as a youthful, little girl that could
sing and dance her heart out on stage.
There are many theories of what could have happened to JonBenét, such as the intruder theory involving
someone the Ramsey’s knew like the local Santa Claus or perhaps a stranger such
as Michael Helgoth. Another theory that was widely explored was the Ramsey’s
being the murderers. All of these theories are plausible, however the one that
appears to be the most sensible is the Ramsey’s being the murderers, or at
least being involved. Nevertheless, all the theories are still only theories,
and the world may never know who was capable of murdering innocent JonBenét.
The intruder theory has many viable suspects and stories
that are incriminating. Although this theory is not widely believed,
investigators of this crime worked hard to explore the possibility of an
outsider murdering JonBenét. There have been over one-hundred-forty suspects in
the JonBenét case (Mei). The Ramsey’s
house was found to have “an unlocked gate and window leading to the basement”
where JonBenét was found, making it easier for an intruder to carry out his
will (Nickell 2). An unidentified palm print was also found on the door leading
to the basement and a hi tech boot print was discovered on the floor of the
basement, the Ramsey’s claimed to not own any kind of boot similar to the boot
print (Nickell). All of these details of the scene show evidence of a possible
intruder entering the house. Among the intruder theories is the theory that the
local Santa Clause turned out to be not as innocent as he had appeared. Just
“two nights before JonBenét was killed, McReynolds was at the Ramsey house
dressed as Santa” (Wittmer). This Santa Clause had given JonBenét a card with a
vague message (mentioning having a special gift for her after Christmas) that seemed
suspicious and casted a shadow of guiltiness on to Bill McReynolds. Bill
McReynolds had played as Santa clause for JonBenét three years in a row and had
apparently grown close to her (Reid). JonBenét would have trusted Santa Clause
and would have been unsuspecting of the cruelty he could carry out. The
officers on the case collected
hair and handwriting samples from McReynolds and his wife however they were never considered serious
suspects (Reid). After being suspected of the murder, the McReynolds moved to
Cape Cod (Reynolds).
Another possible intruder suspect is Michael
Helgoth. Michael Helgoth committed an apparent suicide “two days after the
local district attorney announced in January 1997 that the list of suspects had
narrowed” (Salinger). Could Helgoth have committed suicide due to guilt over
what he had done and the realization that the authorities were on to him? Next
to Helgoth’s lifeless body was a stun gun, which is of importance because some
investigators believed JonBenét had stun gun marks on her, and that a stun gun
could have been used to subdue her so that she would be easily taken down to
the basement. At the time of the murder Helgoth was working at a junkyard which
explains why Helgoth was found to have similar boots to the boot print that was
found at the scene of the death. The investigator that claims Helgoth is a very
viable suspect believes that Helgoth had “recorded a confession before his
death” (Salinger). The investigator also found that “Helgoth had spoken of
making $50,000 to $60,000 on a “killer deal” and said he “wanted to crack a
human skull” in the months before JonBenét’s death” (Salinger). The
investigator’s name is Ollie Gray and was hired as a private investigator by
JonBenét’s parents, Patsy and John Bennett Ramsey to desperately seek the truth
of what occurred on the night of December 26th, 1996. Although Gray
does believe Michael Helgoth is responsible for the death of JonBenét, he does
not believe he could have done it on his own. Michael Helgoth also owned a
baseball hat with the letters SBTC which were the letters left at the end of
the ransom note (Reynolds).
The last conspiracy theory accuses the Ramsey’s
of being the ones who killed JonBenét, implicating every family member in
different ways. According to a poll, this theory is the most widely believed. The
most prominently believed scenario is that Patsy Ramsey murdered her daughter
over wetting the bed. According to a formal police detective, “Mrs. Ramsey strangled her daughter in a panic
on Christmas night 1996 after accidentally causing a serious wound to the
little girl's head” (Janofsky). The detective’s version of events that led up
to JonBenét’s horrible death goes as follows,
Mrs. Ramsey had grown frazzled by Christmas
night 1996 because of ''an approaching 40th birthday, the busy holiday season,
an exhausting Christmas Day and an argument with JonBenet'' over a bed-wetting
incident that led to ''some sort of explosive encounter in the child's
bathroom'' that resulted in a mortal head wound. Mr. Thomas says he concluded
that while JonBenet's head was probably injured by accident, Mrs. Ramsey,
rather than summon help, panicked after her daughter fell unconscious. That, he
says, led her to write a note suggesting that JonBenet had been kidnapped,
after which she ''faced the major problem of what to do with the body. It was
at that point, Mr. Thomas concludes, that the accident turned to murder. He
says that on the way to placing her in a remote room of the basement, Mrs.
Ramsey realized JonBenet was still alive. ''Only feet away was her paint
tote,'' he writes. ''She grabbed a paintbrush and broke it to fashion the
garrote with some cord. Then she looped the cord around the girl's neck.'' To
make it look like a kidnapping, he says, Mrs. Ramsey tied the girl's wrists and
taped over her mouth. (Janofsky)
After the murder, Mrs. Ramsey wrote the ransom note to make it seem as
though JonBenét had been kidnapped. The evidence of the Ramsey’s being the ones
who killed JonBenét consists of Patsy’s own paintbrush being used as the
garrote that killed JonBenét, the notepad that was used for the ransom note
belonged to the Ramsey’s, and there were no signs of forced entry into the
Ramsey’s house. Although the window was broken, Mr. Ramsey claimed it was
broken by himself in the past when he was locked out of the house (Nickell). The most haunting detail of this murder is
that the crime scene had been contaminated by Mr. Ramsey when he carried JonBenét’s
lifeless body out of the basement, took the tape off of her mouth, and untied
her wrists. Could Mr. Ramsey have destroyed the evidence on purpose to keep his
family safe, or was it all done in a distraught trance after seeing his
youngest daughter’s brutally abused and cold body? The world may never know.
The other theories implicating other family members involves Burke hitting his
sister with the flash light found on the counter in the kitchen in the same way
he did when he hit JonBenét with a golf club (Schiller). Detectives had also
claimed that even after his sister’s body had been found, Burk remained in his
room, thus appearing odd to detectives at the scene. It is well known that
pineapple was found in JonBenét’s stomach, and there was a bowl of pineapple on
the table the morning of December 26th, 1996, with Burke’s
fingerprints found on it (Augenstein). John Ramsey is usually always assumed to
have helped cover up the murder to protect his family, after having just lost
his daughter.
JonBenét had a very
short life full of beauty, love, and warmth. Her heart was full of child
fantasies and dreams of her future. Although the world may never know who
killed JonBenét, she will always be remembered. Whoever murdered JonBenét
whether it was her own family, the local Santa Clause, or Michael Helgoth, they
will forever live with the guilt of killing a precious innocent little girl
that was unsuspecting of the evil in the world.
Adler, Jerry. “The strange world of JonBenét:
she spent her short life in the spangled universe of children’s pageants, a
glitzy culture that’s bigger than you might think.” Newsweek, 20 Jan. 1997, p.42+. Biography
in Context, ezproxy.com.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A19029848/BIC1?u=txshracd2496&xid=2fb98a1f.
Accessed 18 Oct. 2017.
Augenstein,
Seth. “'The Case Of: JonBenet Ramsey' Pins Murder on Older Brother.” Forensic
Magazine, Forensic Magazine; Rockaway, 20 Sept. 2016, www.forensicmag.com/article/2016/09/case-jonbenet-ramsey-pins-murder-older-brother.
Janofsky,
Michael. “JonBenet's Mother Was Killer, Detective Says.” The New York Times,
The New York Times, 9 Apr. 2000, www.nytimes.com/2000/04/10/us/jonbenet-s-mother-was-killer-detective-says.html.
Mei,
Gina. “Everything You Need to Know About the JonBenét Ramsey Case.” Cosmopolitan,
Cosmopolitan, 7 Oct. 2017,
www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/news/a63683/jonbenet-ramsey-child-beauty-queen-murder-facts-who-did-it/.
Nickell,
Joe. “JonBenet Murder Mystery Solved? (Not by Psychics).” CSI, Business
Collection, 2017, www.csicop.org/si/show/jonbenet_murder_mystery_solved_not_by_psychics.
Reid,
Christine. “Ramsey Case Santa Clause Figure Dead At 72.” Ramsey Case Santa
Claus Figure Dead at 72, The Daily Camera, 9 Sept. 2002,
web.dailycamera.com/extra/ramsey/2002/05lbil.html.
Reynolds,
Emma. “Santa and the Housekeeper: The Forgotten JonBenet Suspects.” NZ Herald,
NZ Herald, 22 Sept. 2016,
www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11715048.
Salinger,
Tobias. “JonBenet Ramsey Investigator Links Man Who Died Days Later.” NY Daily
News, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, 6 May 2016,
www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/jonbenet-ramsey-investigator-links-man-died-days-article-1.2627681.
Schiller,
Lawrence. “A Death in Paradise.” Newsweek, vol. 133, no. 8, Feb 22, 1999, pp.
58-63, Research Library: Social Sciences, https://ezproxy.com.edu/login?url+https://search.proquest.com/docview/214296923?accountid=7022.
Wittmer,
Carrie. “All the Theories about Who Really Killed JonBenét Ramsey.” Business
Insider, Business Insider, 3 May 2017, www.businessinsider.com/who-killed-jonbenet-ramsey-theories-2017-4.
Worthen, Meredith. “JonBenét Ramsey.” Biography.com,
A&E Networks Television, 22 May 2017, www.biography.com/people/jonbenet-ramsey-12986606.
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