Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Jon Benet By Erik Norred


  
Jon Benet
            JonBenet Ramsey was murder in her own house. Jonbenet was a six-year-old pageant queen who was found strangled in her parent’s basement on Christmas morning. This case immediately became a high profiled one because of the suspicious note that her parents right before they found her body. This lead many people to think that her parents killed her for the insurance money they would have received. However new evidence has come out reviling a new suspect, her older brother.
            Patricia Ramsey, JonBenet’s mother, was born on December 29th in Gilbert, West Virginia (Jerome, Mystery Couple). She graduated High School and soon after the she got her B.A. in journalism in 1978 (Jerome, Mystery Couple).  But while in college she found a love beauty pageants, this love would earn her the title of Miss West Virginia in 1977 (Reed, The Guardian). She would soon pass that love to her second child, JonBenet, forcing her daughter into Beauty Pageants. At this in Patricia’s life she shows her true colors to the public: that is a woman who cared more about winning than her own child, a woman forced her child in to beauty pageants by the age of four, a woman who made her child train countless hours for a few pageants, and a woman who exploit her own child’s beauty for her own profit. Sana Hassan writes:
Kids in child beauty pageant competitions aim to look attractive and are sexualized, even as toddlers. They wear revealing outfits, flippers (fake teeth for kids who are missing front teeth), and heavy make-up. Girls in these competitions are sexualized so early on in their lives. Children who take part in these competitions are brought up putting a huge deal of focus on outer appearances, which can cause substantial emotional and psychological damage. Children learn their values while they are young, and beauty pageant participants grow up thinking that a woman's worth comes in part by how attractive they are. (Hassan, The Psychological Effects of Child Beauty Pageants)
Now, since Mrs. Ramsey had such a love for pageants and would put her child through that, is it possible that if JonBenet did not want to do pageants anymore could Mrs. Ramsey be so caught up in a rage because her love for pageantry meant so much to her that in her rage accidentally kill her own daughter, and used her B.A. in journalism to write a mysterious letter from a “A small foreign faction” to cover up her tragic mistake? During the investigation, it seemed like she had to be the center, because she was always giving public statements almost as if she had something to prove to the public. Was Patricia Ramsey’s character the one she gave to media, which was a loving, perfect mother who only wanted her daughter to follow in her footsteps, or the character of a controlling mother who wanted her daughter to love what she loved and only that? These questions are Mrs. Ramsey is a suspect to her own daughter’s murder.

            However, Patricia Ramsey was not the only suspect in this case, another suspect was JobBenet’s brother Burk, who was nine when the murder took place.  Burk was a hyper kid when growing up who also had a bit of a temper when provoked to anger (USA today, Jensen). For example, a family photographer said that Burk actually hit JonBenet in the face with a golf club, this is a big deal because JonBenet was judge by her beauty, and he was old enough to understand that and he still hit her (USA, Jensen). Fast forward twenty years later, Burk did an interview with Dr. Phil and during the interview he seemed to smile throughout the whole interview. What type of person smiles during an interview about your little sister’s murder. This scream psycho, not only that the night of the murder, Burk did not even leave his room. This is extremely weird because the sound of a mother crying, police, and family all downstairs would make any normal boy go downstairs and see what was going on (Dr. Phil). Is Burk Ramsey the murder of Jon Benet?
            On the cold night of December 25, the most unthinkable thing happened to a parent, their child goes missing. This chilling crime soon became a reality to John and Patricia Ramsey, their daughter, JonBenet, was, thought to be kidnapped because of lengthy ransom note, found by Patricia. The note proclaimed that a foreign faction has taken JonBenet, and to get her back, the family would have to pay a large sum of money. Immediately the Ramsey’s called the police. When the police arrived, they search the house for anything out of the ordinary. The Ramsey’s of course assisted the police in their search, and not that long in to the search the father, Jon Ramsey, found Jon Benet dead with a blanket over her. The kidnapping became a murder investigation at that point, now the question is who did it?  However, upon further investigation done by the police, they found that the pen ink found on the ransom note match a type of pen found in the Ramsey’s house, also the type of the paper used for the ransom note was from a notepad found in the house (Discovery). This immediately made the police shift their attention to the family, they soon started to investigate the handwriting of the ransom note to the handwriting of Patricia Ramsey where they found a lot of unmistakable similarities to her handwriting (Discovery).
            Patricia Ramsey was a former pageant queen herself, therefore, it is no surprise that she wanted her daughter to follow in her footsteps in pageantry (Jerome). During pageants, she dressed Jonbenet up and made her look older than what she was. Meaning she put Jonbenet in clothes that would be consider “too sexy” for a six-year-old girl. People thought that Patricia was living the life she never got to finish through her daughter, and thought she was purposely sexualizing her daughter for the thrill of the win. It is through this love for winning and perfection that gave her daughter anxiety, which caused her to wet the bed at night. This sparked the theory that Patricia Ramsey accidentally killed her own daughter in a fit of rage because her daughter had an imperfection that she had no control over, and wrote the ransom note to cover up her crime (Discovery). Once word got out that she was a lead suspect in the murder case of her own daughter death. Patricia and John Ramsey went to the media to make a statement saying that they did not murder their own daughter (Discovery).
            However, the Police of Boulder realized that during the night that JonBenet was found dead, they had made 3 crucial mistakes. One, they let the parents look for the around the house during the initial search. Two, when her body was “found” by John, they allowed him to pick up the body and bring her to the living room, which contaminated the body and the crime scene. Three, they let other people into the house on the night of the murder. People like friends and other family members who came in and contaminating the crime scene. However, with all of the commotion happening in the house, perhaps the strangest thing was that Burke Ramsey never left his room upstairs  (Phil).
Another odd thing in this case is that in Jonbenet’s autopsy, pineapples were found in her stomach undigested. This was the snack that Burke had that night too. The theory is that Burke made himself a bedtime snack, and Jonbenet came down too and stole some of the snack from Burke’s bowl. Burke, not in the mood for his sister’s antics, grab his toy flashlight (he used so he would not turn on any lights when going downstairs) and hit Jonbenet on the head with it. Accidentally murdering his own sister, he then alerts his mother of what has happened, and Patricia, who just lost a child, did not want to lose another, came up with an elaborate plan to fake the kidnapping, and the murder of her own daughter to protect her son (Phil).
            JonBenet Ramsey was possibly murdered by her own family. Jonbenet was a six-year-old pageant queen who was found dead basement on Christmas morning. This case immediately became twisted, causing the public to question what really happened on that chilling night. Many people think that Burke killed her, and the parents covered it up to protect Burke and them from losing two children that night. Although the case remains unsolved, many strongly believe that a parents wholehearted love for their child, would make them do anything to protect their child in any situation, was the cause for the perfect crime.


Bibliography
Briggs, Bill “The Girl behind the Case” The Denver post, the Denver Post, 23 Sept. 2016,
Jerome, Richard. “Cover Story: Mystery Couple – Vol. 48 No. 14.” PEOPLE.com, Time Inc, 6 Oct. 1997, people.com/archive/cover-story-mystery-couple-vol-48-no-14/.
Hassan, Sana. “The Psychological Effects of Child Beauty Pageants.” Tremr, 20 July 2015, www.tremr.com/sanahassan/the-psychological-effects-of-child-beauty-pageants.
Phil, Dr. “Burke+Ramsey | Dr. Phil.” Dr Phil, Dr. Pil, www.drphil.com/?s=burke%2Bramsey


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