St. James Episcopal Cemetery in
Marietta, Georgia, will always be the place where a beautiful angel was laid to
rest. On Christmas day in the year of 1996, a tragic case of a six-year-old
beauty pageant queen named JonBenet Ramsey was found deceased by her father in
the basement of her own home. This case is one of the world's most popular
unsolved murder mysteries. No one will ever forget that exquisite smile that
stole the hearts of millions all across America. What happened to this innocent
child? Was this diabolical murder plot intended by the ones she once called mom
and dad? Before we go any further let’s go ahead and take a look at the case.
Being so
young, it’s hard to know exactly what JonBenet was like before she passed but
doing extensive research it opened a small door into the world of how this
lovely little girl got to live her life before the day she drew her last
breath. She always dreamt of being just like her mother Patsy, who herself was
also a former beauty pageant queen, she was crowned Miss West Virginia of 1977.
So, it would be expected of JonBenet to follow in her mother's footsteps, but
it wasn’t hard for JonBenet to steal the hearts of millions. When she walked on
stage, she was absolutely fierce, along with her looks and attitude no one
could stop her.
Charming, she was once called, “by
age six, she had already won multiple pageant titles, thanks to her bouncy
blonde hair, poised smile and glittery costumes” (Worthen). She had everything
her parents desired her to have, “John and Patsy doted on their daughter in
every way they could. Their luxurious home was plush with everything JonBenet
needed to live a comfortable life” (Worthen). In a private interview with CNN,
John Ramsey spoke highly of his beloved daughter, stating things like “She was
accustomed to the spotlight, even at her young age” (Casarez,CNN). JonBenet knew what she had to do when it was
her time to perform; she did it too well, John Ramsey said, “Patsy and I used
to say, “she needs to lose some of these pageants because she needs to
understand you don’t always win” (Casarez). Pretty astonishing since she was
only six and still knew how to rock that stage with no regrets. Who could blame
her? She was known as the pageant princess, “The six-year-old contestant took
home first place for Little Miss Colorado, Little Miss Charlevoix, Colorado
State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, America’s Royale Miss, and National Tiny Miss Beauty”
(Lindley).
One of the first people who popped
up during research was Judith Miller, a family friend who took some of the
well-known photos of the Ramsey’s that you see today. When the Ramsey’s’ moved
to Boulder in 1991, she stated that her and Patsy got closer than before. “We
were on a softball team together, ‘Moms Gone Bad” (O’Rourke). She was able to
watch JonBenet live what little life she had: “She was a showgirl: her
clothing, her home, she was a girl that never compromised” (O’Rourke).
Furthermore, Gibson Johns interviewed JonBenet's long time pageant friends
Brandi Vigil and Breanna Griego. Even they couldn’t state one bad bone in
little Ramsey's body. Vigil grew up not only doing pageants with JonBenet, but
as well as playing Barbies with her, “My mom didn’t see me for 20 to 30
minutes. I was playing Barbies with JonBenet” (Johns). Griego said “She had a
bright light about her, she was just a really nice fun-loving kid” (Johns).
JonBenet was such a huge part of the
pageant the women felt like her murder cast a dark cloud over the pageant
world. They were always so hesitant to even go back and compete knowing that
they’ll never get to have fun and perform with their loving friend. The women
say they often think of JonBenet throughout their lifetime, especially when
they hit huge milestones: graduating high school, going to their dream college,
getting married and even having kids. Griego said: “I thought this would of
been something she would have done, she would of had so much fun at college,
she would of been the center of everything”(Johns) She’d be the older version
of her six-year old self, “she’d be a confident girl, she’d be beautiful, and
she would enjoy everything she chose to do in life”(1).
Conspiracy Theories are everywhere,
but why for someone so young, multiple people have been pinned as a suspect for
her brutal murder. Her mother Patsy, her father John, and Gary Oliva also known
as the Town Drifter. These are some of the few that have been suspected, let's
take a closer look into how these people lived their everyday life, and
possibly why they brutally killed a innocent six-year-old child.
Known as one of the darkest days in
history-December 26, 1996-little JonBenet was found in the basement of her own
home “sexually assaulted, suffered a skull fracture, and strangled with a cord
until she died” (Carrejo). Before finding their daughter deceased,
approximately 5 a.m. that morning, Patsy declares that she woke up to find a two-and-a-half-page
written ransom note. The note stated that JonBenet was kidnapped, and the only
way to get her back was if Patsy and John did everything they were told. They
were told to “withdraw 118,000 dollars from their bank account, 100,000 will be
put in 100-dollar bills, and the remaining 18,000 will be put in 20-dollar bills”
(Sathish). Patsy and John were also expecting a call between the hours of 8 a.m.
and 10 a.m. that morning of what to do next. Patsy called the police
immediately stating that her daughter has been kidnapped, despite the ransom
note, they were told “speaking to anyone about your situation, such as the
police or F.B.I will result in your daughter being beheaded” (Stathish). She
did so anyways, authorities were convinced that in fact so, JonBenet was
kidnapped, they started their investigation as quickly as possible. Later that
afternoon, a detective for some odd reason told John to go look in the house
for anything suspicious or out of place, and by doing so, the first place he
started was in the basement. In a separate room in the basement where the
Ramsey's say they always hid their Christmas gifts John made the gruesome
discovery of his only daughter brutally murdered. What started as a kidnapping
turned into something far more devastating, who killed JonBenet?
Immediately after discovering the
body authorities knew they were dealing with a homicide, on December 30, they
took blood samples of the whole family to rule out any foul play. On January 1,
“John and Patsy Ramsey grant an extensive interview to CNN in which Patsy
Ramsey proclaims, “there is a killer on the loose” (The Denver Post). But what
if the serial killer was someone everyone would least expect, for example Patsy
Ramsey herself? Along the years many people had their suspicions pointed
towards the Ramsey’s, exclusively Patsy. “A former police detective who spent
almost two years investigating the killing of JonBenet, concluded that the
six-year-old had been killed by her mother, Patsy” (Janofsky). When studying
the ransom note the detectives find that the ransom note was written from
Patsy's very own notepad, along with her pen that was in the house. They could
also never rule out Patsy after submitting a handwriting sample, to this day
they still believe she wrote it.
Theories circled around Patsy, they
believe “Ms. Ramsey grown frazzled Christmas night with an argument between her
and JonBenet, because of her bed-wetting incident, that lead to some sort of
explosive encounter that happened in the girls bathroom” (1). Detectives
believed that the head was probably injured by accident, and instead of
summoning help, Patsy panicked, which lead her to be helpless with what to do
with JonBenet's body after she fell unconscious. Making it look like a
kidnapping was the best thing she could think of doing. After realizing
JonBenet was still alive, a few feet away lied her paint set, “She grabbed the
paint brush and broke it fashion the garrote with some cord, then looped the
cord around the girl’s neck” (1). After staging her only daughter's body in the
wine cellar of her basement, she decided to write the two-and-a-half-page
ransom note, to finish off what she started. To only wake up that next morning
finding the ransom note and playing the part of the distraught mother who can’t
find her daughter.
John Ramsey was seen as the man who
didn’t want to get his wife in trouble, so instead of doing the right thing, he
covered for Patsy. The two kept to their story, claiming they had nothing to do
with their daughter’s death. “Despite the lack of any indictments the
authorities in Boulder said they were keeping the Ramsey’s “under the umbrella
of suspicion” (1). The two wrote a book after many years following JonBenet’s
death: The Death of Innocence. In the book Patsy and John described what the
detectives put them through, and how devastating it was to be pinned for a
murder they didn’t commit. But before we go any further, let’s take a look on
how John Ramsey played his role as the grieving father who was the one who
found his deceased daughter in the basement.
About 1 p.m., Detective Linda Arndt
told John and his friend Fleet White to search the house from top to bottom.
“She had barely finished speaking when John Ramsey bolted from the kitchen and
headed down to the basement” (Bardach). Out of all the places to start the
search of anything out of place, why would he start where his beloved daughter
would soon be found only moments later? While down at the basement Fleet
notices a small broken window, but given the size, not even a kid could fit
through it. “While Fleet is looking at the window, John disappears down the
hall directly to the little room where the body is” (1). Ramsey discovered the
body, he yanked the tape from her mouth, carried her upstairs and laid her down
on the hardwood floor. “What was interesting was when John brought the body
upstairs, he never cried” (1). But instead he moaned and started to peer around
to see if anyone was looking. Nothing of those events added up. Why not freak
out, or even scream when you just found your daughter brutally murdered? Only
he will know why, it was not until 2008 when the police finally ruled Patsy and
John out of any wrongdoing.
Gary Oliva, the name sends shivers
down the spine, also known as the town drifter, he was another key suspect in
the murder of JonBenet. “Said to be a paranoid schizophrenic, Oliva is a
registered sex offender, that may have been near the Ramsey home at the time of
her death” (Mailonline). Oliva admitted to being obsessed with JonBenet,
“Police allegedly found a magazine cutout of JonBenet in his backpack after he
was apprehended on drug charges in 2000” (Lovitt). Oliva's high school friend
Michael Vail stepped forward to support the suspicion pinned against Gary.
“Vail clammed that not long after the murder, a distraught Oliva had called him
on the phone and confessed to his longtime pal to have “hurt a little girl. I
hurt a little girl” (1). Surprisingly the knots used to fashion the garrote
that strangled JonBenet were similar to those used in an incident were Oliva
tried to strangle his mother with a phone cord. “Oliva was also rumored to have
possible connections to a theory that links the marks found on JonBenet's body
similar to a stun gun. Oliva had one on him the time of his initial arrest” (1).
After submitting blood and saliva samples for DNA testing, following the next
few weeks, Oliva was cleared of the murder.
Almost twenty-two years later the
mysterious murder of six-year-old JonBenet is still yet to be solved.
Twenty-two years of heartbreak, confusion, devastation, to only still not know
what exactly happened on Christmas night the year of 1996. “June 24, 2006, at
49 years old, Patsy Ramsey died of ovarian cancer, which she was diagnosed with
three years prior to JonBenet's death” (Norsworthy). Patsy was buried alongside
JonBenet in Marietta, Georgia, survived by her Husband John and their son
Burke. We are not so sure if the killer will ever be caught, and justice will be
served. The only people who will truly know what happened will be JonBenet
herself, and the monster who snatched her life away at only six years old. So,
who did it? Patsy? John? Gary Oliva? A complete stranger? What happens in dark
will soon come to light, Rest in Peace JonBenet Ramsey, Justice will soon be
served.
Works Cited
S Bardach, Ann Louise. “JonBenet Ramsey: Missing Innocence.”
The Hive, Vanity Fair, 22 Dec. 2016,
www.vanityfair.com/news/1997/10/jonbenet-ramsey-murder-missing-innocence.
P Casarez, Jean. “The Death of JonBenet: A Case That's
Captivated the Country for 20 Years.” CNN, Cable News Network, 13 Dec. 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/12/13/us/jonbenet-ramsey-case/index.html.
S Denver Post. “JonBenét Ramsey Case 20th Anniversary: A
Timeline of Events.” The Denver Post,
The Denver Post, 23 Dec. 2016, www.denverpost.com/2016/12/23/jonbenet-ramsey-case-timeline-20th-anniversary/
S Janofsky, Michael. “JonBenet's Mother Was Killer,
Detective Says.” The New York Times,
The New York Times, 10 Apr. 2000,
www.nytimes.com/2000/04/10/us/jonbenet-s-mother-was-killer-detective-says.html.
P Johns, Gibson. “Here's What JonBenet Ramsey's Pageant
Friends Remember about Her 20 Years after Her Death.” AOL.com, AOL, 12 Sept. 2016, www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2016/09/12/jonbenet-ramsey-pageant-friends-open-up-20-years-later/21470565/.
S Lindley, Courtney. “What Beauty Pageants Was JonBenet
Ramsay In?” Bustle, Bustle, 25 Apr.
2018, www.bustle.com/articles/182022-what-beauty-pageants-was-jonbenet-ramsey-in-she-won-quite-a-few.
S Lovitt, Bryn. “Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey? 8 Possible
Suspects.” Rolling Stone, 25 June
2018,
www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/who-killed-jonbenet-ramsey-8-possible-suspects-129125/the-town-drifter-129341/.
S MailOnline, Nick Enoch for. “Former JonBenet Ramsey Murder
Case Suspect Gary Howard Oliva Arrested for Child Porn.” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 23 June 2016, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3655834/Former-JonBenet-Ramsey-murder-case-suspect-arrested-child-porn.html.
S Norsworthy, Cameron. “What Kind Of Cancer Did Patsy Ramsey
Die Of? JonBenet's Mother Had A Rare Type.” Romper,
Romper, 15 June 2018,
www.romper.com/p/what-kind-of-cancer-did-patsy-ramsey-die-of-jonbenets-mother-had-a-rare-type-17155.
S O'Rourke, Andi. “Judith Miller Is Afraid JonBenet Won't
Get Justice.” Bustle, Bustle, 25 Apr.
2018, www.bustle.com/articles/184631-who-is-judith-miller-the-ramseys-family-friend-is-afraid-jonbenet-will-never-get-justice.
S Worthen, Meredith. “JonBenét Ramsey.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 30 May 2018, www.biography.com/people/jonbenet-ramsey-12986606.
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