Monday, December 3, 2018

What Happened to JonBenet? By Yicel Chavez


                                            What Happened to JonBenet Ramsey?
     JonBenet Ramsey, a child beauty pageant queen of only six years old, is most famous for the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death instead of her successful beauty pageant career. On December 26, 1996, instead of celebrating the holidays with her family in her    Boulder, Colorado home, JonBenet’s body was found by her father in their basement the same day she was reported missing by the family. The suspect of her murder remains undetermined , yet many have speculated their suspicions towards many surrounding figures in JonBenet’s life, including her own family.

      JonBenet was only a toddler when she discovered her love for participating in pageants. Her love for pageants started when she excitedly saw her mother, Patsy Paugh, on stage during a pageant reunion. For JonBenet’s mother being a former pageant queen and having won the title of Miss West Virginia in 1977, it would only have been natural for little JonBenet to want to have followed in her mother's footsteps (McGuire). JonBenet quickly adapted to the life of child pageants and was quite successful having already won five titles by the age of six thanks to her bouncy blonde hair, heart-warming smile and elegant, sparkly wardrobe (Worthen).
      On stage, JonBenet was known as being fun-loving by her former pageant friends (“20 Years After”...).Thumper Gosney, who once competed alongside Ramsey for the Little Miss Sunburst title in 1996, remembers sneaking off with JonBenet backstage during pageants to play Barbies (“20 Years After”...) . Thumper Gosney often contemplates about her late friend, particularly during major milestones of life such as college. She recalls dreams she had about her former pageant rival about what would it have been like if she was still living, “She was grown up and she was this crazy happy girl it was awesome to see her doing cheerleading and all kinds of stuff. I’ve had multiple dreams about her” (“20 Years After”...).
            John Ramsey, a multi-millionaire businessman and JonBenet's father, thought of his daughter as being somewhat of a tomboy (Oliver) .Years after the passing of her beloved daughter, John’s memories of his daughter are not of a child pageant queen covered in makeup and wearing elegant dresses but of a kid with scruffy hair dressed in a regular T-shirt and shorts (Oliver) . John regrets involving JonBenet in pageants and claims it was actually something Patsy encouraged for fun (Oliver).  Is it possible JonBenet might have still been alive if she had not competed in pageants?

            In the early morning hours of December 26, 1996, Patsy awoke to find her daughter  missing and nowhere to be found. A three-page note addressed to her husband left on the kitchen counter requesting $180,000 for the safe return of JonBenet was also found by Patsy (Worthen). The family quickly called the police despite the ransom notes warnings of JonBenet being killed if police got involved. The police lead an extensive search for the missing girl but it wasn’t until later in the afternoon when John found JonBenet's lifeless body in their basement.

JonBenet was found under a white blanket, a blanket that was discovered to have recently came out of the dryer (Crime Museum). She had a nylon cord around her neck with  both wrists tied up above her head (Crime Museum). Duct tape was also found to be covering her mouth. Based of the autopsy performed, it was determined she had died of strangulation and a fractured skull (Crime Museum). The autopsy also suggested a possibility of sexual assault (Crime Museum). At first glance this would seem like a regular case of a ransom gone wrong but the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death lead many to believe it was more than just that.

            To begin with, the first responding officers who arrived on the scene had made crucial mistakes that had compromised the crime scene which contributed to the case going cold (Crime Museum). Among the many mistakes made was the moving of JonBenet's body, when John found JonBenet's body he was allowed to touch and move her, altering the authenticity of the scene (Crime Museum). Another major mistake was John and Patsy were not separated for interviewing and initial questioning (JonBenét). Many of the evidence found at the scene was questionable as well such as the ransom note being written on the very same stationery kept in the Ramsey home. Particles of fiber found on the duct tape that was used to bound JonBenet's body was also matched to the very same fibers on Patsy's clothes (JonBenét).
The controversial evidence mentioned above leads many to believe in the first theory: the Ramsey family was responsible for the murder of JonBenet. This theory is the most popular due to most of the evidence found being against the family. A bowl of sliced pineapple containing the fingerprints of Burke Ramsey, JonBenet's older nine-year old brother, had been found on the kitchen countertop. This was significant evidence because an autopsy on JonBenet found that she had consumed pineapple shortly before her death. Despite the fingerprints, the Ramseys claimed they had never served pineapple that night and Burke had slept upstairs throughout the whole events of the crime (Crime Museum).
Another major contribution to this theory is that during separate interviewing on various occasions, John and Patsy’s stories would never line up with each others and always remain inconsistent. Along with this, the police also asked all three members of the immediate family for handwriting samples for comparison with the ransom note. John and Burke were both cleared from suspicion but Patsy’s sample remained uncleared (Crime Museum). Could it have been Patsy who accidentally murdered her own daughter?
From an outsiders point of view, Patsy was just your average, pleasant suburban mother of two who was known for throwing extravagant Christmas parties each year. But  many of the evidence gathered seems to suggest she might have been more involved with the crime than she actually let on to believe. JonBenet was known to have had frequent bed-wetting accidents which Patsy frowned upon (Lovitt).

 Linda Hoffman-Pugh,the Ramsey family's housekeeper, even made a statement against Patsy Ramsey where she exclaimed, “I think she had multiple personalities. She would be in a good mood and then she would be cranky. She got into arguments with JonBenet about wearing a dress or about a friend coming over. I had never seen Patsy so upset” (Lovitt). Having to clean up yet another one of JonBenet's accidents might’ve caused Patsy to go into yet another fit of rage (Lovitt). With her temper lost , Patsy could have thoughtlessly slammed her daughters head against a hard surface instantly killing little JonBenet.
Steve Thomas, Boulder PD’s former co-leading investigator, speculated that once Patsy came to realization of what she had just done, she was stricken and overcome with panic which lead to Patsy writing the ransom note herself (Lovitt). John and Patsy could have then easily schemed up a plan together to protect and mask themselves as the victims. Years after the crime surfaced, Patsy became extremely defensive towards any finger pointing and at one point during a public interview on Larry King Live she even lashed out on an accusing member of the audience (Lovitt). Unfortunately, Patsy passed away due to an ongoing fight with ovarian cancer and along with her passing she took whatever secrets she held of that morning to the grave (Lovitt).
Moving forward, another potential suspect was 32-year old Gary Oliva. Gary Oliva was a known sex offender in Boulder, Colorado (Lovitt). At the time of Jonbenet's murder, he was living just one street away from the Ramsey home (Townsend). Years after the murder, the sex offender and convicted pedophile was apprehended on drug charges by the Boulder police while wandering around the area. During the search,police found him in possession of a magazine cutout of  JonBenet Ramsey but despite this, he was released shortly thereafter leaving many people suspicious of Oliva (Townsend).

One of those people is Michael Vail, an old high school friend of Gary Oliva, who claimed that less than a week after the murder, Oliva called him and confessed that he had “hurt a little girl. I hurt a little girl” (Townsend). Later in an interview with Star magazine, Vail reported, “Gary’s account of this murder is actually one of the most logical explanations I have heard in 20 plus years” (Townsend). Oliva was reportedly cleared off as a suspect of the murder via DNA testing but Vail disagreed stating the testing methods were flawed.
Currently, Oliva is behind bars under two counts of possession of sexual exploitive material. According to Vail, Oliva continues to maintain a disturbing obsession with JonBenet. Oliva frequently asks for a picture of JonBenet for his cell and when Vail told him it wasn’t allowed he nonchalantly replied, “I don’t see why not, it’s my freedom of religion” (Townsend).
The next theory, known as the Hoffman-Pugh theory,speculates that the family housekeeper, Linda Hoffman-Pugh, was the perpetrator of the horrific crime (Lovitt) . This theory is reasonable and one to consider due to Linda being familiar with both the home and family’s schedule. As the housekeeper, she was also given and carried around a spare key to the Ramsey home. In an interview with investigators, Patsy claimed that Linda was in need of money and had even asked John Ramsey for a loan of several thousand dollars, which John had declined (Lovitt).

The theory suggests Linda lured a trusting JonBenet down the basement stairs and proceeded to write the ransom note in hopes of tricking the family into giving up the money (Lovitt). Even though Linda Hoffman-Pugh was cleared through DNA testing, she still makes a reasonable suspect as she knew her way around the home and she had no alibis. In the end, she was never formally accused of the crime and plenty of room was left for speculation (Lovitt). 
All in all, the JonBenet Ramsey case is filled with mystery and many more theories could easily stem from it. From just reading through the case it is understandable how it can remain unsolved after so many years. It certainly is intriguing and hard to believe that with several suspects named and many potential as well, there has yet to no definite suspect. Currently, no one has ever been charged in the case and the investigation remains open and unsolved (CNN).


           
           
           
           



                                                              



                                                            


                                                            
                                                                       Works Cited
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/.
McGuire, Jen. “How Did JonBenet Ramsey Get Into Pageants?” 13 Sept. 2016, www.romper.com/p/how-did-jonbenet-ramsey-get-into-pageants-it-was-a-family-tradition-17847.
Oliver, Mark. “10 Strange Little-Known Facts About JonBenet Ramsey's Family.” Listverse, 1 Oct. 2016, listverse.com/2016/10/02/10-strange-little-known-facts-about-jonbenet-ramseys-family/.
Townsend, Catherine. “Is This the Man Who Killed JonBenét? Magazine Claims That Murder.” Investigation Discovery, CrimeFeed, 5 Oct. 2018, www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/is-this-the-man-who-killed-jonbenet-magazine-claims-that-murder-has-been-solved.
Worthen, Meredith. “JonBenét Ramsey: A Beauty Queen Whose Death Immortalized Her Life.” Biography.com, 26 Apr. 2017, www.biography.com/news/jonbenet-ramsey-murder.
“JonBenét Ramsey-Biography .” Edited by Biography.com, Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 2 Apr. 2014, www.biography.com/people/jonbenet-ramsey-12986606.
“JonBenet Ramsey Murder Fast Facts.” CNN, Cable News Network, 12 Dec. 2017, www.cnn.com/2013/08/29/us/jonbenet-ramsey-murder-fast-facts/index.html.
“JonBenét Ramsey.” Crime Museum, Crime Museum, www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/cold-cases/jonbenet-ramsey/./
“20 Years After JonBenet Ramsey's Death, Her Pageant Friends Remember 'Fun-Loving Kid'.” Inside Edition, 12 Sept. 2016, 12:50 PM PDT, www.insideedition.com/headlines/18595-20-years-after-jonbenet-ramseys-death-her-pageant-friends-remember-fun-loving-kid

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