RedHanded - Episode 126 - Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

When 6 year old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey was found dead in the basement of her family’s mansion on Boxing Day 1996 - it sparked a relentless mystery that still endures 25 years later. Leave what you think you know behind and join Hannah and Suruthi to try and sort fact from fiction...Happy Christmas. References:  https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jonbenet-ramsey-murder-gary-oliva-confession-letters-778025/ https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/jonbenet-ramsey https://twentytwowords.com/unsettling-facts-about-the-mysterious-death-of-jonbenet-ramsey/ https://www.newidea.com.au/jonbenet-ramsey-case-everything-you-need-to-know https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/cold-cases/jonbenet-ramsey/ https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/jonbenet-ramsey-doc-will-encourage-people-to-come-forward-with-leads-on-notorious-cold-case-says-investigator https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/11/jonbenet-ramsey-the-brutal-child-that-still-haunts-america https://eu.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2019/07/29/ariana-grande-follows-apology-jonbenet-ramsey-joke-new-song-teaser/1858584001/ https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/01/jonbenet-ramsey-brother-burke-cbs-lawsuit-settlement https://skepticalinquirer.org/2017/07/jonbenet_murder_mystery_solved_not_by_psychics/ https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/article/jonbenét-ramsey-case-the-quiz https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/10/26/us/ramsey-indictments.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/books/review/Churchwell-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/us/10ramsey.html https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/arts/television/reflection-and-red-faces-after-the-ramsey-storm.html See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games and signature BetMGM service, there's no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today.

BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Merry Christmas, you spooky bitches. A little bird told us that there are still some of you that didn't quite get the chance to buy the spooky bitch merch that you wanted. So we've listened to your cries

and we are going to be reopening the merch store on Boxing Day and it will stay open right until the 1st of January. So if you missed it the first time round, you can get your t-shirts, your hoodies, your tote bags, the whole lot. And to make it even better, we are taking 20% off every single bit of it. So get yourself over to redhandedshop.com and don't miss out. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to a very Christmassy Red Handed. This is the last episode of 2019. We've done lots of things in 2019.

We both quit our jobs. What a year. What a year. And we're going into 2020 full-time podcasters. I know. Who would have thunk it? Not me, that's for sure. Certainly not me.

No, you guys made it happen though. We've had such a fucking good year. We did our first ever UK tour. We went to LA. We became full-time podcasters. We started selling merch. Like God, it's all just mad. It's completely mad. Carnage madness. This is, as Hannah said, going to be the last episode of 2019. You eagle-eyed calendar watchers may notice that that means that we will not be here next week. Don't worry, we will be back in January with an absolute banger. And for you who may not be able to go a week without listening to us, you can head over to Patreon and anyone who is or becomes a $5 up Patreon, we are going to be doing a couple of like Car Chronicle episodes

where we drove around Crete this summer and recorded ourselves talking about Cretan crimes, talking about Greek myths. Getting it quite wrong. And dating. So you can go listen to that. Coming at some point before 2020. Exactly. You will have them before 2020.

They are there. They are there. They are coming. So yeah, you guys can enjoy that. And if you want an extra, like, even little bit more, you can go listen to Hannah. Guest hosted the Today in True Crime podcast. Yeah, I did, didn't I? And that came out yesterday.

So if you're listening on the Thursday, it was the one that came out on Wednesday, the whatever. God, you've done good research well done I had no idea so it will be the today in true crime episode that came out on Wednesday the 19th of December so go have a listen to Hannah being all cool over there and enjoy that it was pretty cool I just had to like ring the I mean you did the same thing we just had to like ring the studio in LA and then then two nondescript American men were like, OK, so could you take that again, please?

And I was like, what? You can't direct me. I am not to be directed. But I take direction incredibly well if anyone's interested. So yeah, you can go listen to and be a judge of how well Hannah took direction. Enjoy. But please don't tell it.

My ego can't take it. Don't be just, if you just keep your conclusion to yourself. It's a lot. We've been too used to being just roguing on our own in our own boxes all this time. Yeah, literally. But with that being said, I would say today is going to be a lot.

So prepare yourselves. I mean, as if this week wasn't already a lot for Reddit, we are recording this on the morning of a brand new Tory Britain. And it's Friday the 13th. And it's a fucking full moon. It's a lot for it. We are recording this on the morning of a brand new Tory Britain. And it's Friday the 13th. And it's a fucking full moon. It's a joke, mate. Hannah is in full on meltdown.

So I don't know if she's ready. I don't know if I'm ready. Are you guys ready? Because I don't think you're ready for this jelly. And by jelly, I mean the tragic murder of a small child. Because that's what's going to happen. Fucking hell, it's a lot. On that note, it's Christmas time.

So let's get fucking festive. And it's the only way we know how to get festive. And it turns out that that means looking into the murder of a six-year-old girl that has been unsolved for decades. And it's also the case where so many true crime aficionados earn their stripes. You already know what it is, but let's just pretend we don't. Let's pretend we know nothing.

I think that's important actually with this one is that you know in Killing Eve, which I'm re-watching right now, Bill, they're like in the first season and they start this like crack team to try and find this assassin. And he's like, oh, but you, you're just assuming that they are all the same person.

You don't actually have the evidence. So if we go into this case, assuming that we know what happened, we're doing it wrong. So try and forget everything that you have already decided about Sean Benet Ramsey. I think that is the best advice that we can provide. Go into this with a fully open mind about what happened, who happened, what went down. I would say the best pairing for this episode, because Hannah and I spent pretty much a good few hours yesterday talking about this case.

It sounded like we were fucking high, I have to say. We'll give you the transcript, have a listen, have a read, and the best pairing is probably a big fat joint, because it's the only case where the more you dig into it, the less it makes any sense is all i'll say also not condoning drug use on the airwaves no maybe we should leave that out a big fat something that we won't mention i don't even fucking smoke weed man let's transport ourselves with our clear minds to just before midnight on Christmas night 1996 on 15th street in Boulder Colorado

a woman heard a scream and she was sure of two things firstly that the scream was coming from the house across the road it was a big old faux Tudor mansion you know exactly what I mean and it belonged to the Ramsey family the second thing our anonymous neighbour was sure of was that the scream was that of a small child, and she thought it was most probably a little girl. After the scream, the neighbour woke her husband, and they both heard a loud crash that sounded like metal hitting concrete. The neighbour decided not to call 911, because she knew that the Ramseys would be home

and was sure that they were more than capable of dealing with the situation on their own. And no one likes a nosy neighbor. As we all know, the Ramseys had a little girl. Her name was Jean Benet, and on Boxing Day, she would be found dead in her own home. Jean Benet's parents had married each other in 1980. John Ramsey was a successful businessman. His company was called Access Graphics. And in 1996, it was valued at 1 billion US dollars. That's right, 1 billion with a B. Fucking hell, that's a lot of money. And they had so much money that the family had not only a 30-foot yacht, but two private planes.

Why do you need two? There's only four of them. Exactly. Like, does the plane need a friend to hang out with? Do they get lonely? Like, is that, it's like when people can only get two guinea pigs? Maybe they're like guinea pigs, where you have to have two of them. And I think, like, a billion dollars, that's an astonishing amount of money. And I think that Bill Gates might be the exception here, but I'm not sure that anybody builds a company that is worth that much by being a nice guy. Surely.

Warren Buffett, he's a very nice man, I think. There's also a couple of others, maybe politically charged, and then people will come for us if we name them. But I did actually read some interesting stuff about this, that a lot of research has been done. And actually, they found that there is like a direct link between niceness quote unquote and financial ruin what because you're just so nice and you give all your money away i think it's so nice apparently you know like the big five personality traits yes yeah one of them is agreeableness and agreeableness and financial ruin is apparently linked to the level that people with higher levels of openness, up to 50% more likely to declare bankruptcy or to default on payments and things.

Isn't that interesting? Wow, that is interesting. Yeah. I'm a really open person. I need to keep a hold on my fucking financials. No, no, it's, sorry, agreeable, not the open. Oh, yeah, I'm not that. I think you've probably got a shit on some people on your way up to the top. And according to the people who worked for John Ramsey, that is exactly what he was like.

Access Graphics was, quote, an evil empire. That's a direct quote from an employee. Hostile takeovers and a hostile work environment were pretty run of the mill. Yeah, I mean, you have that whole thing of like, if the CEO is a psychopath, the business is psychopathic. And not saying John Ramsey was a psychopath, but somebody who works for you calling the business an evil empire. Yeah, not great. Doesn't paint you as much less than like Darth Vader, does it? That's exactly what I thought, fucking Star Wars motherfucker. In 1980, John married Patsy, who was a whole 14 years younger than he was. When they got married, John was 37 and Patsy was just 23.

Patsy was also a former Miss West Virginia. John had three children from a previous marriage. And soon after they got married, Patsy and John had two additional children of their own. Burke, who in 1996 was nine, and Jean Benet, who was six. Jean Benet was in the pageant system just like her mum. And the pair even looked very alike. And they sang together all the time.

There's a really weird thing in one of the books that I read this week where apparently one of the songs that was played at Jean Benet's funeral service was a song from Gypsy which is a musical in which a mother has two daughters and one of them goes on to be like a burlesque performer and the other one goes on to be like an incredibly successful vaudeville actress it's like a very odd choice to have at your six-year-old daughter's funeral i just i don't understand so much about patsy ramsey i don't think she's dumb though like i think a lot of people are just like oh like she's a trophy wife blah blah blah she had a degree in journalism no less um and i don't think she was a doormat. No, I think it was more just like, because she's, and we obviously talk about this later,

but like she's from, you know, she's like from that pageantry world. I think she's probably just like quite a theatrical person, like that song and everything. Like, I don't know. I have feelings about the whole pageant situation. Oh, I have many feelings. I do know a bit more about drag queen pageants

than I do about kid ones. But I imagine the basic principle is the same. And my like fully grown woman pageant knowledge is almost exclusively linked to Drop Dead Gorgeous and Dumplin'. But as I understand it, this is what happens. You dress up in several different kind of outfits and then you walk around and you answer questions and then you perform your talent. Not necessarily in that order, but that's as I understand it, what happens for children and women and drag queens alike. That is quite a lot to ask of a six-year-old. But JonBenet was very good at it. She won a lot. And later on, people, namely her mother, would claim that JonBenet's involvement in pageants was just a bit of fun

and it only took up the occasional Sunday. Patsy makes quite a big deal about John Bidet only entering nine pageants. She was six. Nine is quite a lot, I think. And presumably she wasn't doing baby pageants where she just gets wheeled around in a pram. Because even if she's been doing them just from like, say, the age of four, that's a lot of pageants to have done in two years or whatever. Prep for a pageant is serious business and there is video footage of JonBenet at pageants in all sorts of different things from

like a Copacabana-esque feather contraption to like a cowgirl outfit like that's expensive that's money and also to get six-year-old JonBenet's talent to an adequate standard that's at least an hour of practice every day. Like, that's what you get told when you learn a musical instrument. That's the fucking minimum. And if she's winning, she's good. Like, she's not just, like, getting up and, like, murdering fucking Amazing Grace on the violin.

She's winning. So, obviously, it's a lot of work. Patsy is like a terrifying sequined tiger mom she is like yeah this is what's happening get on board is how i envision it happening oh completely have you ever watched toddlers in tiaras oh have i yes i have i am obsessed i also watched a great uh show Blinging Up Baby. Wow. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's a thing. It's a thing. This is a thing that's happening. It's absolutely terrifying. And I just feel like we don't have pageantry here basically at all. Like the only thing I can think of is the Rose of Tralee, which is like an Irish competition.

That's not even, doesn't really happen here. And that is televised and that is a big deal. But it's not like there's a bajillion of them and it's not like oh what's your hobby oh I do pageants it's just it's weird I don't know maybe somebody listening used to do pageants as a kid and they can tell us all about it on the Facebook group do it I entered a lot of competitions as a kid but like they were never to do with me wearing a feather boater no I did a taekwondo and I got as far as like an orange belt and I was like no more I'm done I'm bored of this I don't know I was never a very graceful child though I don't think I would have been a successful pageant tier that's for sure I sort of did I just feel like I did the sort of talent segment of being a

pageant child, but I didn't do the fucking bikini bit, you know? No, no, no, no. I think that's the bit best of what we did. I wouldn't even let my mum brush my hair, so she just cut it all off. I spent the first like six years of my life looking like a little boy. I even used to brush my hair into a little side part, so I actually looked like a boy. So Patsy, John, Burke and Jean Benet were a popular little family unit. They attended parties at their neighbours' houses and they very often threw their own. And they were excellent hosts and they'd actually hosted one of their little soirees for the neighbourhood just three days before Christmas. Things had gone a little bit awry and the police actually ended up being called to the house.

But the whole thing was ironed out as a drunken misunderstanding or perhaps even more like a drunken prank and no further action was taken. These are adults. Why are you prank calling fucking 911 at your Christmas party? What the fuck is wrong with you? They're rich people. They're rich drunk people. Let's see how quickly we can get those policemen out here. Bets. I'll put a private plane on it. Like, who knows what rich people do, man.

I plan on finding out. But at 5.52am on Boxing Day 1996, another 911 call came from the Ramsey house, but this time, it was no joke at all. Panicked Patsy Ramsey told the dispatcher, We have a kidnapping, there's a note left, and our daughter is gone. The 911 operator, whose name was Kim Archuleta, listened as Patsy Ramsey described her daughter as being six years old and blonde. When Patsy was assured that the daughter as being six years old and blonde. When Patsy was assured that the police were on their way, she hung up the phone. Or at least she thought that she had.

Actually, there are about six seconds on the end of the 911 call where Kim could hear voices in the background. Voices who didn't think that they were being listened to. And Kim, years later, would claim that she had stayed on the line because she felt like something wasn't right. As a 911 operator, I expect that's a feeling she had quite a lot. I'm also like, if you call 999 or 911 or whatever, don't they usually not let you put the phone down until you can see the emergency services?

Like, until they're in your line of sight? I think it depends. But you would think if your daughter had just been kidnapped, you'd kind of want to stay on the phone, surely. I don't know. I've never been in that situation. But it doesn't seem like... I think you'd want to stay connected with the help that was coming. It doesn't seem like you'd just be like,

hey, reported, job done, tick, I'll put the phone down and go back to something else. It does seem weird that Patsy tries'll put the phone down and go back to something else it does seem weird that patsy tries to put the phone down and kim also claimed that she heard patsy say quote we've called the police now what kim was never interviewed by the police in relation to the death of john bernie ramsey so her testimony was never heard anywhere arguably the most famous documentary on this case is the one produced by CBS in 2016. It's called The Case of JonBenet Ramsey. And essentially what happens is a team of crime experts who are

not offensive looking. They're like fine looking enough to be on TV, I think seems to be like the only criteria for being on that team. And basically these experts get together and they solve the mystery of who killed JonBenet Ramsey. And this documentary is responsible for a lot of people having a quite stark opinion on what happened to little JonBenet. And I used to be one of them. But I've got to say, now I'm not so sure. And here is one of the many reasons why I'm not so sure. In the CBS documentary, they take the 911 call and run magical noise reduction on it and then they can claim that they can hear three distinct voices honestly it's so funny the first

time i watched that documentary i knew nothing about sound i knew nothing about audio work but when they're running this noise reduction they're all sitting there with their headphones on and it's literally like on csi when they're like enhance enhance it's exactly like that and then they turn this little knob on the soundboard and I'm like, that's doing fuck all to do with noise reduction. That's literally just like, but they make such a big deal putting it in the shot. There's that magical thing that we can't understand

as like just TV watches. Maybe it's because it's too boring to show them like, select the section of silence and then go to noise reduction in Audacity and remove it and then listen back to it. I'm sure they weren't using Audacityacity just turn this knob and everybody looks surprised by what has already been done so after they've run this magical fucking pretend noise reduction the cbs team claim that they can hear john ramsey saying we're not talking to you patsy ramsey saying what

did you do help me jesus and then they claim that they can hear littlesey saying, what did you do? Help me, Jesus. And then they claim that they can hear Little Burke saying, what did you find? Go and watch it and make your own mind up. But I cannot hear a single fucking word of that. I can't hear any of it, even when they impose the Mandela effect on it and they give you the writing underneath of what you're meant to be hearing. I literally could not hear anything. It's very much like about suggestibility. They're just like putting the captions on underneath. They're telling you what you're hearing. And of course, therefore, you hear it

when you listen to these muffled voices. The only thing I can remotely hear is I can believe I can hear Patsy saying, help me, Jesus. But like her kid has just been disappeared. So like, that's not the weirdest thing. And she says that quite a lot. I'm just not convinced that they can hear three distinct voices.

And I'm not convinced they can hear. No, no, no, no. I don't think you can hear three distinct voices. And I don't think you can really pick up on the tone of voice, which is what the CBS documentary also makes a big deal about. So then after they've decided that's what they've heard on the call, Scotland Yard trained Laura Richards and her team of criminology masterminds use this piece of evidence, which in my opinion is a pretty flimsy piece of evidence, to conclude that at the time the 911 call was made, all three remaining Ramseys, so that's Patsy, John and Burke, were all awake. But Patsy would tell a very different story to police officers when they arrived at her house at 5.59am. She opened the door wearing the

same clothes that she had worn to the party that they had attended the night before. In between the 911 call and the officers arriving, Patsy also called two friends and the family's pastor, all of whom made their way to the Ramsey mansion as soon as they could. I think they only hang out with married couples. So they'll say like, oh, we called the whites or we called the like glins or whatever. So I think it's two sets of people. It's like a couple that show. So there's five people that show up at the house. Why is my question? You've called 911. You've reported your daughter missing. Why in the early hours of Boxing Day morning do you call your family friends and the family pastor and tell them to come over? I don't understand why you would want those people to be necessarily around you in that time.

I don't get it. But again, I haven't been in that situation. Yeah, I mean, maybe you just sort of want the support. They think the house, well, whether they think this or not, they think that nothing's going on in the house so they would be like well why would it be a crime scene because she's gone arguably well if she is gone and she's not in the house spoilers it's still a crime scene true she was abducted from the house i mean again like we know that they're not well we don't know that they're not thinking about it like that we don't know what the fuck they're thinking, but this is what they do.

Anyway, that's the best I can give you. This is what they do. Patsy told the officers that the night before, the whole family had attended a party at one of those friends' houses. So at one of the friends' houses that is now currently at the Ramsey house. She told them that they had then left and driven home. And as they did, that Jean Benet had fallen asleep in the car. She said that when they then got home, John Ramsey had carried Jean Benet upstairs and put her to bed.

Then they had all gone to sleep, and that no one had woken up in the night. Patsy had then got up before dawn because she needed to get everybody ready for a flight that the family were taking to Michigan, because the Ramseys had a holiday home in Michigan overlooking a lake and they planned to see in the new year together there. Now the first time that Patsy told this story she said that she had gone into Jean Benet's room and realized that she was gone but the second time she told it she said that she had gone

downstairs to make coffee and at that point found a three-page handwritten ransom note on the stairs. After seeing it, reading it, she had then gone to check Jean Benet's room and realised that her six-year-old daughter was missing. So she either finds that she's gone first or she finds the note first. She tells both versions of that story. And, like, obviously she's distressed. It's a pretty important detail, though. It is an important detail.

And the fact that she's confused around that particular very binary thing, like it's either one or the other. Like, did you find the ransom note first or not? And I feel like it's quite a memorable thing. It's not like the kind of thing that we normally say where it's like, poor eyewitness testimony. Did they see this thing here? Did they see, like here did they like did you

find the ransom note and rush into jean benet's room in a panic or did you casually go in there to check on your sleeping daughter like it's a big thing to misremember but one thing that patsy is sure of and this remains in both of the stories that she told patsy claimed that her son burke was sound asleep and when officers arrived at the house, they conducted a superficial search, but nobody thought to look in the basement. And this is a proper rich person basement. It's got doors and lights and corridors and everything, but no officer thought to look, at least not at first.

The mates that Patsy had called and the pastor were allowed to wander around the house freely. No part of the house was secured by law enforcement as a crime scene and we will never know what evidence was lost that morning. At 10 past eight detective Linda Arndt showed up to the already ruined crime scene. When she arrived Patsy was crying in an armchair or rather she was making crying noises and no actual tears were falling and you look out for that in any footage you see of Patsy. She does that quite a lot, particularly at press conferences. And John Ramsey was pacing.

When children disappear, there is roughly a 12 to 1 chance that the parents are involved. But despite those odds, not a single officer separated the Ramseys for questioning to see if their stories correlated. Instead, they focused on bonding with the Ramseys. The Ramseys refused to give interviews to the police, claiming that they were too distraught and medicated. Despite that, the officers managed to glean that all of the doors were locked when the Ramseys woke up, and the only sign of forced entry was a few pry marks on the kitchen door. They weren't obvious, they just looked newer than the rest of the marks on the door. There's no way of knowing whether it actually happened that morning or not. And could we say that this whole sort of, because it's clear to say that that morning,

it's quite piss poor police management of a crime scene, how they're managing this. I think is it because you said that Boulder, Colorado had like a ridiculously low murder rate. Yeah, what a year. So maybe they're just not experienced. Yeah, but like, come on. You may not have the experience but like you will have had training and how to sort out this situation absolutely no i'm just trying to give like play devil's advocate so if we say a they uh absolutely were not super experienced

in terms of homicides given that they were dealing with roughly one a year secondly also i think is it in the cbs documentary that they say also, generally speaking, around Christmas time, you're not going to have the best police officers slash detectives working the beat. So maybe they didn't have the very best people come to deal with this scene originally. Maybe that's unfair. I don't know. I think it was in the CBS documentary that they say that as a potential reason for why it was so poorly handled. I don't know. But a walkthrough of the exterior of the house that the police did do revealed that there was a broken window leading to one of the many basement rooms. John Ramsey claimed that it was actually him that had broken this window when he had locked himself out of the house the summer

before. And he simply said that he had never got round to fixing it. Many people, due to another documentary, think that this broken window was the entry point for an intruder. Which, of course, it totally could be. But the crime scene footage shows an unbroken cobweb in the corner of that window. So, of the broken window. And it's a bloody small window. It's really hard to believe that an adult would have been able to squeeze their way through that window and leave that cobweb completely undamaged.

It doesn't make any sense. And in the CBS documentary, they must have spent a fucking shitload on that because they like rebuild the Ramsey house. Oh, yeah. Fucking loads of money in that documentary. Unbelievable. Oh, yeah, yeah. of money in that documentary. Unbelievable. Oh, yeah, yeah. They, like, recreate the window, they recreate the cobweb, everything.

And then Laura Richards recreates the kind of theory that somebody climbs through this window. What we do learn is that she can't do it without disturbing the cobweb. What we also learn is that Laura Richards is fucking strong as fuck. Who is your trainer, Laura? She just crawls out of it.

She lifts herself up. You know how gymnasts can lift themselves? She literally puts her hands out the window, and then she pulls herself up slowly and controlled until her waist is out of the window just using her arms. It's madness. It is madness and she's a tall lady she's like not you know petite lady she's like a tall lady and she just

pulls herself like really elegantly out of that window i was like what the fuck i don't know it's crazy but also like if laura richards can't do it as elegantly as she did it without disrupting that cobweb i think we can pretty much say that it probably wasn't the entry point for any kind of intruder. And what I find odd, so obviously the Ramesses' story at this point is they're like, someone was broken into our house and they've taken our daughter. Why then, at the only entry point, is John saying,

oh no, I actually broke that window, that was me. The only way I can sort of get around that is maybe, so he obviously broke the window to let himself into the house. So in theory, the intruder puts their hand through the thing and then opens the window from the inside and gets in that way, I suppose. But I just don't know why. I mean, obviously, if he's telling the truth, then he's got nothing to hide.

And why wouldn't you be like, oh, I actually did break that. But it does mean they could have got in without using the door. It just seems odd. Is there glass? because if he broke it the summer before I mean he didn't get around to fixing it but presumably you didn't just leave a load of smashed glass lying around inside the basement so maybe it didn't look like a fresh good point if you see what I mean so they had to be like oh that window was already broken but it does mean that somebody could have seen that and used it to get into the house. But if we like, fine, leave aside the cobweb, maybe this person was like a tiny little eel of a person that crept through without and didn't want to, you know, destroy this poor spider's buffet in the corner. Who knows? The

thing we can say is that there were no footprints in the snow so how could somebody have walked around the house to get to that broken window that led into the basement there are no footprints in the snow that lead there so again even if you can accept that somebody came in that way it doesn't look possible that somebody walked around to that window that night. So that's a pretty big eh-eh for that being the entry point. So I think Hannah and I, having gone through this research, having discussed it, there's not 100% of things that we're sure on. But if there is one thing we're pretty certain of,

it's that all of the proverbial calls are coming from inside the house. This is like a locked room mystery. There's four people in this house. One of them dies. There's no real other opportunities for other people to get in and out of the house. So it kind of feels like it was one of them. It's Cluedo. Yeah, it's Cluedo. So get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you a profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary.

That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive.

Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. Aie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness,

and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And although the police did a shit job of the rest of the crime scene, they did manage to capture video footage of the Ramsey house that day. And in one of the shots, a black torch or flashlight

is clearly visible on the kitchen counter. But this was dismissed by the crime scene unit and not collected as evidence. The three-page handwritten ransom note, which we will get into in great detail later, don't panic, instructed John Ramsey to withdraw $118,000 from the bank and wait for a call between 8am and 10am. The Ramseys, the Ramseys' mates, the Ramseys' pastor and the Boulder Police Department all waited patiently for this call. It never came. Detective Linda Arndt then suggested that John

and his friends search the house starting from the top and working their way down. John ignored this instruction and headed straight for the labyrinth basement. He went into a particularly small basement room and screamed as he saw a white blanket on the floor. He picked up this white blanket and the little figure that was wrapped up inside it. Some say that he started to scream before he'd even turned on the light, so how could he possibly have known that a blanket on the floor in a dark room contained the corpse of his daughter? But he was right. It was JonBenet, and she had been lying almost exactly under the spot where her mother had been sitting and making crying noises for hours.

JonBenet had duct tape over her mouth. A white cord was wrapped around her right wrist over her pyjama top. The other end of the cord was loose, as if it had once been tied around her left wrist. Her hands were over her head, not as one might expect behind her back. And there were also, her right hand was tied with a slipknot. So if she wanted to get it off her hand, she would have been able to do it incredibly easily. There was also a white cord around her neck that had been tightened by a small piece of wood to make a sort of makeshift garrotte and this piece of wood would later be identified as having been broken off one of Patsy's paintbrushes. The white cord would later be found to be an exact

match for one that was on sale at an army shop, right around the corner from John's office at Access Graphics. It's not that difficult to assume, I think, therefore, that everything found on John Bonnet's body was already in the Ramsey mansion. And not to go on about police deficiencies in the handling of this crime scene, but also kind of yes, because that's why we're here but uh why does the detective tell john ramsey to search the house the statistics are so clear when a child goes missing or something happens that the parents cannot be ruled out as suspects

they're in the fucking house and she lets them search the crime scene potentially disposing of evidence fucking with shit even if they were innocent why are they allowed to search the fucking house it's so bizarre you can either take two lines of thought on it you can either be like oh they just wanted to keep him busy so they could speak to patsy without him being there possibly or they showed up to the ramsey house that day with the assumption that the Ramseys couldn't possibly be involved. And therefore they're allowed to do what they want because their daughter's missing and they're distraught. It's either or. Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably the latter. If you want to keep him busy, give him a fucking Rubik's Cube or something.

I don't know. Lock him in a corner. Like, don't give him the most destructive task, which is trampling around his house. He's also allowed to leave the house for over an hour, and he goes on his own. This is what I mean. There are so many holes. The reason we will never have a conclusive answer to this story without a shadow of a doubt

is because I believe of the fuck-upery that happens in the first few hours when the police arrive at the scene. Like, it's unbelievable. And also so suspect that he goes straight to the basement. I think he was like, fucking, we called the police. We've set up her body downstairs. Obviously, I'm giving away what I think happened.

The police don't even go check the basement. He's like, for fuck's sake. Okay, I'm just going to go do it. Oh, she's here. I found her. Sob, sob, sob. So after he found her body, John ripped the duct tape from his daughter's mouth. Again, he's just allowed to fucking handle this body. That is the main piece of evidence now

is Jean Benet's corpse. Drips the duct tape off her mouth. And then he picks her up, carries her out of the basement and lays her on the living room floor for all of those assembled to see. It screams to me of like almost exhibiting it. It's like, here you go. I didn't have anything to do with it. Yeah. And why are you lying her on the floor unless you know she's already dead? Yeah. Why doesn't he immediately start like trying to resuscitate her or doing something in the basement? Picks her up and carries her to the living room and just lays her on the floor. I mean, obviously we weren't there, so we can't tell exactly how this went down, but the fact that he was A, allowed to, and the fact that he does

these things just seems very odd. Detective Linda Arndt gave the following description of the condition of Jean Benet. Quote, the girl's lips were blue. She had rigor mortis. She was not breathing. Her body was cool to the touch. There was a red circular mark in the front of her neck, about the size of a quarter, at the base of her throat. She had an odor of decay to her, and she had dried mucus from one of her nostrils. So it was quite clear to the trained eye that Jean Benet had been dead for quite some time.

Patsy, with her distinctly untrained eye, collapsed on top of her daughter, declaring, Jesus, you raised Lazarus from the dead. Raise my baby. Again, they're allowed to just, like, touch the body again. Then everyone in the house prayed together over little JonBenet's blanket-clad body, further disturbing all of the evidence. Now, we're unsure why the police's first priority was communion with God and not preservation of the site of a homicide. But then again, we've never been to Colorado.

At what stage in a murder investigation is the police detective like, OK, let's just have a little pray and then we'll figure it out? At what stage in a murder investigation is the police detective like, OK, let's just have a little pray and then we'll figure it out? I really think it ties into what you said. I think they went there, they arrived there, they see a hysterical patsy, a pacing John. I think they immediately read the situation. They profiled this rich couple as not having had anything to do with their daughter's murder.

They just immediately decided that. Then when they find the body, I think they just are like, this poor, poor family. We better let them do what they need to, to grieve because this horrible tragedy has happened to them. And the investigation, unbelievably, came second to that. I really feel like that's what I have to hope it is. Because if it's not that, it's a massive fucking conspiracy of a cover-up right from the start. JonBenet's body was carried out of her home at 10.45pm that evening in a body bag. And Jon, Patsy and Little Burke never returned to their home. They stayed with friends for a really long time before they moved somewhere else. And so the question that has plagued true crime fans for the past 25 years was formed.

Who killed JonBenet Ramsey? Was it an intruder or something a bit more sinister? Initially, the press was sympathetic towards the Ramsey family and the whole affair was painted as a tragedy. But that narrative didn't last very long. Assistant District Attorney for Boulder, Bill Wise, was the very first bright spark to realise that kidnapping victims don't usually show up in their own homes. Suspicion around the family grew, and this was not helped by their refusal to be interviewed

under oath and on video by police. And it was double not helped by their decision to hire a PR team and many top-notch defence lawyers. Their superstar dream team included Big Dog attorney Hal Haddon, who had managed former Senator Gary Hart's political campaigns. Their spokesperson was Patrick Corton, who they flew in all the way from D.C. and he made himself famous by his defense of Oliver North. And they also had a retired FBI agent in their employ.

So John argued that he assembled this team because he wanted the best minds in the country on the case. But to everyone else, it looked like he was trying to wage a spin war. The Ramseys appeared on CNN before they allowed themselves to be interviewed on video by the police, which, if you haven't done anything wrong, seems like an odd move to make. And in the CNN interview, John and patsy talk about finding who was responsible for john benet's death and why they did it surely speaking to the police would speed up that process more than just going on cnn but also if they did do it they did get away with it so it did work like they just are so obsessed with the public perception of them

that that's the thing that is the priority rather than talking to the police. Yeah, I agree. And they did get away with it, but not successfully enough that, you know, 25 years later that people are still like, they fucking did it. Like they go and they act so suspiciously in these interviews. And I know we've spoken about this time and time again, that you can't judge how somebody behaves immediately after a tragedy because like people respond to grief and things like that in a very different way. That is absolutely true. But there are like odd things that they do do. Like watch

that documentary, watch the CNN interview. Patsy does a lot of like shaking her head the wrong way and she is completely doped up. Like you can tell she's on a lot of medication. And the CBS documentary does point this out, so I can't take credit for it. But I do think it's interesting that they say, we want to find who did this Dijon Benet, but we're not angry. We just want to know why. What? If somebody had done this, or I was pretending that somebody had done this, somebody had broken into my house and murdered my six-year-old daughter, angry would be a pretty key word in how I was feeling. I'm not angry. I want to know why.

And it's literally, it's about two weeks after she dies, they do the CNN interview. And in the CBS documentary, they make an important point about this. When you say, I'm not angry, I want to know why, does that not sound like a parent talking to a child who's done something wrong? Yeah. Enter Burt Cramsey. It's a very weird phraseology and words matter. When they were on this CNN interview, they also announced that they would offer a $100,000 reward for anyone with information, $50,000 of which they had donated themselves. Which again, of course, this is a usual thing that happens,

but it does seem odd in this case because they were being the most obstructive force in this case. How can you ask the public for information when you yourself are refusing to give any? It's strange. And despite their selective interview choices, as the investigation into the death of Jean Benet raged on, the press stuck to the Ramseys and their friends like glue. One journalist even joined the same church as the Ramseys just to get a closer look.

He claimed that he had never seen anyone pray for their soul like Patsy Ramsey prayed for hers. Public opinion on the Ramseys was somewhat split. Some saw them as good, God-fearing people who had been incredibly unlucky. Others thought them entering their six-year-old child into beauty pageants and dressing her up like a woman, dyeing her hair, putting makeup on her, was perverse. I do think the hair dyeing is quite extreme. Yeah, but like, when I was however old, six or seven, I went to a Spice Girls concert, dyed my hair black for that.

Six? You dyed your hair at six? I think I was six or seven, yeah. Oh, wow. But I don't know, is it because like, dyeing your hair black, you can do it with like, packet colour, but like, dyeing your hair blonde from being darker, that's bleach. Yep, true, very true. But Patsy and John had moved to Boulder from Atlanta, Georgia. And apparently, pageanting is a much bigger deal in Georgia. And when they had moved themselves, many Boulderites just saw it as not particularly Colorado appropriate.

So I think there is some cultural issue here. Oh, totally. I think like I can't remember in which bit of the many clickable links that will be below. But I read an interview with like a sort of Boulder native and they're saying that I'm not going to phrase this very well, but they sort of said people who live in Boulder have ideas about themselves and pageantry doesn't fit into those ideas. You're right. It's a cultural difference. It's just not as prevalent as it would have been in Atlanta. When I watched like Toddlers and Tiaras and stuff like that, I think it's more of like a Southern thing. And then when they moved out of there, it was kind of maybe looked upon as being quite a strange thing to do. But nonetheless,

clouds of suspicion had started to gather over the Ramsey family. FBI profiler John Douglas interviewed the Ramseys and said, quote, if they're responsible for the killing, they are tremendous liars. And he said that after he spoke to them for a couple of hours. He claimed that he didn't believe, quote, in his heart that they were responsible for John Bonnet's death. You are an FBI profiler. Should you not be using a little bit more than your heart here? And also, well, not a lesson, but something that's been really hammered home this week. One man's FBI profiler is another man's FBI bullshit artist.

You can find an expert to say literally whatever you want. John Douglas is interesting because he's the inspiration for both Silence of the Lambs and Mindhunter. And he had just written his fourth book and he had to stop off in Boulder to promote it and this is obviously incredibly cynical of me but I think he just sort of wanted to cause a stir like John Douglas seems very switched on and very smart and in making a comment on the Ramsey case that goes against what everyone else thinks that's going to get you in the papers John Douglas didn't help them that much the Ramsey case that goes against what everyone else thinks. That's going to get you in the papers. John Douglas didn't help them that much. The Ramseys were certainly under suspicion

and the police had absolutely nothing to go on. But the Ramseys did give them handwriting samples and hair samples and stuff like that. But they did consistently refuse to be interviewed under oath and on video. The police were stumped. Months of investigation revealed no smoking gun in the 700 crime scene photos and the 10,000 pages of investigative material and 850 tips from the public. There was nothing. The Ramsey's fantasy football legal team pitted against the local Colorado authorities was a David and Goliath match and the Ramseys knew it. The autopsy of Jean Benet's body was released in three stages, but we've collated all of it here and hope to give you a clear overview. But there are a lot

of differing opinions with this. All of the direct quotes we have from the autopsy are from a book called Who Killed Jean Benet Ramsey? And the conclusions that you're about to hear are from the co-author of that book, whose name is Dr. Cyril Wecht. Now, they are not everyone's conclusions, and this case has really made us question who to trust. It seems that you can find a leading expert in whatever industry to say whatever you like. Dr. Wecht is a special kind of forensic pathologist, though, in that he also had a law degree. When Who Killed Jean Benet Ramsey was published, he had performed 13,000 autopsies and consulted on 30,000 more. So it's safe to say he's incredibly experienced and chucking the law degree. He can look at this

from multiple angles, so he's a good witness or a good expert, you could say. The autopsy was released eight days after JonBenet died, and it concluded that JonBenet died from asphyxia, from strangulation, from the garrote around her neck. She had also sustained a serious blow to the head, and this was clear from an eight-inch crack in her skull. The base of this break was almost perfectly rectangular and smooth, like she had been hit with a heavy object

that had a larger top than bottom and smooth edges like a golf club or a flashlight. Her temporal lobe also showed damage consistent with shaking. The CBS documentary claims that the break-in JonBenet skull was an exact fit for the black flashlight that had been visible on the kitchen counter in the crime scene video footage. They even do this very, like, macabre little, like, experiment

where they get a kid about Burke's age at the time, so nine years old, to hit a skull with a flashlight. And they find that the same kind of skull-splitting damage could be done. But the problem is that when the police returned to try and collect the flashlight as evidence, they couldn't find it. So I'm not exactly sure how the CBS crack team could have possibly known the exact flashlight measurements. The CBS team say that the torch was, quote, not claimed by either police nor the Ramseys. But I've

also read in other places that it was not found at all and it just totally disappeared. I do not know who to believe on that. But if you watch the CBS documentary, the way they talk about the flashlight is so vague. Watch watch again with that in your mind that actually they never found it and it disappeared and you will be a bit more suspicious of it i think however it's completely possible that the source who says the flashlight completely disappeared is not telling the truth either like it's a complete den of fucking lies you can say we know that the torch existed at one point because it's in the video footage from the crime scene and maybe they could get the measurements from the video footage like a good

enough guess and the shape could be seen and it could be matched that way to the skull cracking i mean possibly but you can't call that an exact match yeah yeah yeah and again the fact that the torch did go missing is it a coincidence it just got moved around in the chaos or did it get disposed of like we just don't know when was the video footage taken we know that uh fucking john ramsey was allowed out of the house did he take it dispose of it they had days to dispose of it because the police didn't come back for it for ages it wouldn't have even had to have been that morning. So I think this is the thing, I mean, we've been struggling with most of all, but I think what it comes down to is this.

Where you stand on what happened to JonBenet Ramsey really depends on whether you think it was the blow to the head or the asphyxiation that killed her. CBS want you to believe that she was struck on the head and then strangled a little bit to make it look like a kidnapping, but crucially it was the blunt trauma to her head that finished her off dr wecht disagrees what cbs don't tell you is there's actually a lot of evidence to suggest that john bonnet was sexually assaulted cbs deny this totally they just skip right over it but here is the evidence as it was laid out in her autopsy. So there was an abrasion inside of JonBenet's vagina and her hymen contained what they call epithelial erosion with underlying capillary congestion. And that is, it's irritation. It's a sign that something has gone on there.

Her vaginal walls showed signs of chronic inflammation. We're talking about inflammation that was 48 to 72 hours old. Whatever caused it happened before Christmas Day. Foreign material was also found in JonBenet's genital area. There were numerous traces of dark fibre and particles of something like talcum powder. All of these things seem to point towards some kind of penetration. And where do you find talcum powder? You find it on latex gloves. So is it possible that someone had digitally penetrated JonBenet wearing a medical glove? Or is it a little bit more innocent than that? JonBenet's pediatrician reported that he had never suspected that JonBenet was being subjected to any form of abuse,

sexual or otherwise. JonBenet had suffered from occasional discomfort while urinating and vaginitis. And these can be caused by loads of things a reaction to bubble bath for example i just don't think it's impossible that john bonnet couldn't have inflicted the vaginal abrasion on herself if she was uncomfortable it's possible kids do shit like that all the time and we do know also like she was in all these beauty pageants like maybe patsy was just like spraying her with loads of perfume loads of bubble bubble baths. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And she's got an irritation and she's like scratched herself. Like, God, it's uncomfortable. Vaginitis isn't great.

So she's a sexual kid. Like, she has a scratch. Like, maybe it was that. Yeah. If you're itchy, you're going to scratch it. There was also some blood found in JonBenet's vagina. But again, that could be down to all sorts of things. There was no bruising

or tearing in the genital area so if sexual abuse was happening penile penetration looks pretty unlikely obviously that's not the only form of abuse but that's what the evidence suggests of course it's not the only sign of abuse but if they're making a case for sexual abuse like there is evidence that there was something, but not necessarily clear cut. She was being sexually abused. But it is weird that CBS are just like, nah. And I also think like it comes from the strangulation thing being associated with autoerotic asphyxiation. I think if you think that the strangling of her was a sexual thing, all of the other sort of symptoms of sexual abuse seem a lot more significant.

But if it wasn't that, you could probably explain them with, you know, bubble bath. Exactly, because the strangulation could have been, as you said, sort of autoerotic asphyxiation, or it could have just been strangulation and a coincidence that it happened to be the type that it was, which we'll talk about now. But before we do that, let's come back quickly to the question of the talcum powder. Jean Benet's bladder, when she died, was empty. Was it possible that she had wet the bed and that the talcum powder had been administered by John or Patsy in some sort of cleanup effort? Maybe, like when you wet yourself, even if she's been washed, you know, she's got some sort of vaginitis, like maybe some talc to, you know, stop some chafing or something. I don't know. I don't have kids, but you put them on babies, don't you? Yeah, definitely. You put talc on kids all the

time. Yeah, exactly. So had the vaginal abrasion been a result of something like vigorous wiping by a tired and or irritated parent? We don't know. There was also pineapple found in Jean Benet's digestive system and it was estimated that she had probably consumed it about two hours prior to her death. Dr Cyril Wecht poses the following theory, assuming that Jean Benet was being sexually abused. He says that she was strangled by her abuser in an attempt to induce auto-erotic asphyxiation, and that the intent had never been to kill her. He assumed this because there was almost no damage to JonBenet's neck. The strap muscles on either side of her neck were undamaged, so no great force at all had been used. But he also hypothesized that the garrotte fashioned from the white cord and Patsy's broken

paintbrush accidentally pinched Jean Benet's vagus nerve. And that's the nerve that runs from the brain down the neck. The vagus nerve is in charge of regulating major organs, especially the heart and lungs. When messages from the vagus nerve are therefore interrupted, the body enters what is called electrical death, and breathing can stop. JonBenet's eyes exhibited hemorrhaging, indicating that she had still been breathing, and her heart had still been pumping blood as she was being strangled. Wecht argues that JonBenet was already circling the drain, so to speak, when she suffered the head injury, because the subdural hemorrhage was recorded as containing only seven or eight centimeters of blood. That's

less than two teaspoons. If she was not already almost dead from the trapping of her vagus nerve, there should have been a lot more bleeding than this from that head injury. And this stage is called perimortem. Jean Benet's brain was also swollen. It was 15% heavier than it should have been. Wecht uses this as further evidence to support his theory that her brain was starved of oxygen before the blow had cracked her skull. If the head injury was the thing that had killed her, Jean Benet's brain would not have had time to swell that much. So you do have to ask, if the abuser was strangling JonBenet with no intention of killing her, why is the head wound inflicted when she looked like she was already dead? Dr. Wecht argues that perhaps someone had been trying to protect JonBenet and the blunt object blow had been meant

for the perpetrator but had accidentally landed on the victim. It's complicated because obviously Dr. Wecht is, you know, this incredibly experienced guy, but then so is the autopsy man that they have in the CBS documentary and he says basically the opposite thing. So it's so difficult to know. JonBenet's body also exhibited abrasions to her right cheek, her right shoulder and behind her right ear. Wecht argues that these happened as she was squirming against the wall or the floor during her sexual abuse. There were also two marks found on JonBenet's body that some claim are consistent with those left by a stun gun. The CBS documentary claimed that they are actually from a toy train track that JonBenet had been poked with after she died. How hard do you have to poke someone with a piece of toy train track to leave a mark.

Fucking hard, I think. Yeah. Hard enough that the mark could be confused with that from a stun gun. You're giving him a proper jab with that. I'm not even sure I would be able to inflict that much force with it. Because it's not a, it's an awkward thing to be holding. It is. Not that I'm going to go and start battering people with train track now just to find out.

But like, well, also the thing that they do in the CBS documentary that I thought was a bit suspect. So she has two sort of what look like punctures. The bit of train track they show. So they're arguing that it's like the connecty bits of the train track that have poked her. The bit that they show has three prongs. And they don't show it for very long. But it like it has three connecty bits. And I'm just a bit like, hmm, that kind of...

I think we were talking about this yesterday. And what I would say about the CBS documentary is, like most true crime documentaries, yes, absolutely, we all watch them. They're all there. But bear in mind that nobody really likes telling a story that's just like, oh, we don't really know what happened. Here's some things that happened here. Here's some things that happened here.

Off you go. These things are usually built with some form of agenda attached to them. And really what they're doing is what we see in court. What a good prosecution would do is build a narrative using the evidence that points towards a presupposed theory. They had this theory, which we'll talk about, and I'm not saying it's wrong at all, but they leave out the information that doesn't fit it and they build a

really strong case around the stuff that does. That's what they're doing, like, and it's very compelling, don't get me wrong. The first time I watched it, I was like, fuck, that's it. But let's leave the autopsy for a while now and have a look at the infamous ransom note that Patsy claims to have found on the stairs. And here it is in full. Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We do respect your business, but not the country it serves. At this time, we have your daughter in our possession. She is safe and unharmed. If you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter. You will withdraw $118,000 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000

in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attaché to the bank. When you get home, you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 a.m. tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting, so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money, and hence an earlier delivery, crossed out, pickup of your daughter. Any deviations of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you, so I advise you do not provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as police,

FBI, etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to outsmart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny, as well as the authorities. Don't try to grow a brain, John.

You are not the only fat cat around, so don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't underestimate us, John. Use that good southern common sense of yours. It's up to you now, John! Pretty long-winded for a ransom note, isn't it? Just a bit. It's very, like, theatrical. Overly descriptive, I would say. A C-. And that's not the only thing that's strange about it. Obviously, you heard it but when you see it written down quite a lot of other things become apparent the pen and paper on which the note was written with and on came from Patsy's notepad that she

kept by the phone both pad and pen were found in the same places that they always were the pad also exhibited two practice notes one of them so it's not like she just left them there but it was like in the indentation yeah so i've like ripped out pages and one of them had so that one obviously starts mr ramsey the one that had been written and just didn't make the cut said mr and mrs ramsey so whoever wrote it it was patsy takes patsy out of the situation it's very weird to write a very weird ransom note but even weirder maybe to write one to yourself. So she's like, I'll take myself out of this situation. And I just love that you know it was her,

you know it was the mum, because she puts the notepad and paper back in the place where they're meant to be. Exactly. No one else does that. If we believe that someone broke into their house and left this note, we have to believe that one,

they knew where to find the pen and paper. Two, they were kind enough to put it back when they were finished. And three, they had time to write three pages and two false starts, all while the remaining Ramses were all asleep upstairs. If a small foreign faction were planning the kidnap of a kid, why would they not bring their own ransom note?

They just got there and they're like, oh shit, I forgot. Especially one that is so descriptive. They just like it's fine we've got this six year old that we've kidnapped and her whole family is asleep upstairs we're just gonna chill out here while i write this note and what is this person just like you know i've always wanted to be a writer just let me have this you said that if I came along that you would let me write the ransom note. Stop interrupting me. We've already fucked it up twice. What is happening? The note borrows extremely heavily from similar ransom situations

in the films Dirty Harry, Ransom and Speed. John Ramsey was a very wealthy man. Why would they ask for £118,000 when they could have had millions? Is it worth noting that £118,000 was almost the exact amount that John Ramsey had received as a bonus from his company that year? I find this hilarious. Why would a foreign terrorist organisation not say who they were? And why would they give a shit about a graphics company, let alone respect their work? And also, why would a foreign terrorist organisation care about Southern common sense like i think the

only people who say things like that are people from the south oh absolutely and just the weirdness of like almost the stroking john's ego almost while they're saying all this derogatory stuff like saying that we respect your business you're not the only fact like what it's like why are you saying that when you've kidnapped his fucking daughter? Just get to the point. Very strange, very strange. The ransom note also displays pretty basic spelling mistakes. For example, there are too many S's in business. That's a pretty, that's a pretty like strange mistake.

Especially when you consider that more complicated words like countermeasure are spelled correctly. And all the mistakes appear in the first paragraph, almost as if the person who wrote it was trying to make it look as if the person who wrote the note was not a native English speaker and then forgot to keep up the mistakes. So yeah, the misspellings of like business happen in the first bit and then whoever's writing it forgets to misspell or remembers how to correctly spell business later on while they're writing this massive ransom note. The notepad also showed seven sets of prints. One belonged to a police sergeant. Why are you picking up notepads without your, where are your gloves? Where are your gloves? And one to a forensic examiner. Again,

wear your gloves. And all other five prints belonged to Patsy Ramsey. More forensic handwriting experts have looked at that note than you can shake a stick at. And like everything else in this case, it is so hard to know who to believe. The handwriting experts that the Ramsey hired say that there is no way that either of the Ramseys wrote the note. I wonder why they say that. Others ruled out John, but not Patsy. Others say that it was definitely Patsy, just using her left hand. And we've seen examples of Patsy's writing, and I do have to say that it does look incredibly similar to the handwriting in the ransom note.

But having said that, she does have pretty bait handwriting. There's nothing particularly special about it. it for example your handwriting and my sister's handwriting are identical oh really yeah whereas my handwriting because I like learn to write in like a really ridiculous way is very distinctive I just think that the way Patsy writes I'm like I probably know about seven people who I would mistake that handwriting for yeah I think the handwriting analysis is like it's an interesting thing. But like you said, everybody says something different. To me, more what sticks out is just the weird note itself more than it.

And the fact of like it having been written in the house that sets off alarm bells. And in one of the documentaries that we've listed below, Patsy's interviewed about her handwriting and asked to compare it to the ransom note. And so she's given like words or like letters and it's in her handwriting and then it's the one compare it to the ransom note and so she's given like words or like letters and it's in her handwriting and then it's the one that's on the ransom note and she is so evasive when she's asked to point out the similarities between these letters and she's like they're both g's she just like will not give an inch on it it's really quite astonishing to watch she just refuses to say that there are any similarities at all between the letters when they are this they are the same and they're like patsy did these look the same to you and she's like no and i was like are you yes yes they are

so whatever happened to john bonnet i don't know who did it but i am certain that patsy ramsey wrote that ransom note and that's something that most sources who weren't hired by the Ramsey family tend to agree with. Now we have to deal with the issue of the pineapple in JonBenet's stomach. As we said earlier, it was not fully digested. So it means that she ate it sometime in the night before she died. Even though according to her parents, she was sound asleep. Police called to the crime scene reported that there was a bowl of pineapple and milk next to a glass of tea on a table in the house. The bowl and glass displayed Patsy's fingerprints and Burke's fingerprints. Based on this, the CBS team hypothesized that Burke was given this food by his mother,

and JonBenet came down the stairs and nicked a bit with her bare hands and that this made Burke so angry that he hit her on the head with the flashlight accidentally killing her and then Patsy and JonRamsay covered up the whole thing and staged the kidnapping which is a great theory if you ignore certain things like for example the bits of evidence that do suggest that there may have been sexual abuse, doesn't necessarily mean that that makes that theory impossible. But it is interesting that CBS completely disregard it. But I guess it's because, like we said,

if you were building a case against this and that was your narrative, this would lead people on a side path that they don't want you to go down. There is video footage of an 11-year-old Burke. And this is a big bit of the case that the CBS documentary used because there is video footage of an 11 year old burke and this is a big bit of the case that the cbs documentary used because there is video footage of an 11 year old burke being questioned about the pineapple and he doesn't right away say what it is uh but we've seen the picture and no i i wouldn't know what that was i think like they're like showing the photograph and they're like what's that and he's like a bowl but it's not cereal is it and then he sort of they sort

of lead him to it and you could take that two ways but like also the photograph just isn't that clear like it looks like lumps of like matter I will agree that it's not 100% clear but what I would say is when you watch him being interviewed I think it's like by a psychiatrist or a psychologist and they're showing him all of these different photos he seems very like comfortable and again this may have just been the way that CBS edited it and cut this footage together but it seems like he's very like happy and comfortable and answering oh that's this that's this that's this and when it gets to the pineapple his body language seems to change and then he's like he doesn't even say he doesn't know he says he doesn't know for ages and he seems very on edge my only thing is if he had been behaving like that

the entire interview okay but because his behavior changes and also we could be like it's not that clear it is his bowl and his pineapple if you showed me a blurry picture of something i own i'd probably still be able to tell you what it was. But again, you could honestly take this in either direction. I could argue both sides all day long. So it doesn't help. And also you could say he could just be uncomfortable because he's a kid on his own in a room with a stranger, just questioning him constantly. CBS also claimed the DNA evidence found on JonBenet's body, specifically in her underwear, was of no forensic value. And I think I agree with them there.

JonBenet's body was moved around so much that she could have picked up literally anything. But I just don't think we can totally rule out sexual abuse. Burke Ramsey is now a grown-up and he recently settled a $750 million defamation lawsuit against CBS. His lawyers argued that the accusations of murder against Burke Ramsey were based on, quote, a compilation of lies, half-truths, manufactured information, and the intentional omission and avoidance of truthful information about the murder of John Benet Ramsey. And I have to say, I think there's some truth in there. Even on the 911 call alone, which is what they build their whole case around. I just don't hear what they're hearing. Like, they're just like, this is what it is.

The 911 call, I disagree with. I don't think that would be like an impactful piece of evidence for me because I don't, I really don't hear what they're saying. I don't think you can tell tone and I don't think you can distinctively hear three voices. At least I personally can't. I don't think you can rule out sexual abuse. But to me, I don't feel like there's enough evidence of it that it would make me feel like there was definitely abuse going on. And we're certainly not trying to catch a lawsuit here. But that's not really to say that Burke couldn't have been responsible for JonBenet's murder.

If we accept the autoerotic asphyxiation slash sexual abuse argument, which we might not, but let's pretend for a second that we are, it could have been responsible for JonBenet's murder. If we accept the autorotic asphyxiation slash sexual abuse argument, which we might not, but let's pretend for a second that we are, it could have been him. He slept in JonBenet's room sometimes, and we have no idea of knowing how innocent that was. And maybe the whole thing was just a game gone wrong. Maybe a parent rushed in, saw the strangulation, and the blow to the head was meant for Burke.

Or maybe it was an intruder. But the problem we've got with that argument is the lack of DNA evidence, no signs of forced entry, and the fact that every piece of evidence connected with this case was already inside the Ramsey house and all of the doors were locked all night. So what it comes down to is which expert you believe and whether you think the head injury or the asphyxiation was the thing that killed John Bonnet. In 1999, the case was put before a grand jury and this grand jury voted to indict both Patsy and John Ramsey on child endangerment and the obstruction of a murder investigation. And this is very important because the grand jury did not move to indict them on murder charges, no matter what the CBS documentary may imply and have led you to believe. But it

doesn't matter either way because the prosecutor felt that there was not enough evidence to support either of these indictments beyond a reasonable doubt. So nothing happened. The Ramseys were never prosecuted for the murder of Jean Benet or for any connected charges. They were never even formally named as suspects in the murder investigation. In 2008, they were actually cleared entirely by the Boulder District Attorney's Office. And by they, we mean all three Ramseys. They were announced completely cleared and the DA's office even apologized for their treatment over the years. This absolution was allegedly given on the basis of new DNA evidence. But what evidence that was, I have no idea.

Surely, their DNA was all over the place. It was their house. And we have read in some places that this evidence was a new found DNA profile that was found in the house that matched blood on JonBenet's clothing. How are you ruling people out just because even if you have found a new DNA profile, that could have literally come from anywhere. But they do, apparently. And also given the fact that she was moved around so much, like we said, it's hard to know where this could have come from. But this clearance sadly came a bit too late for Patsy Ramsey,

who died of ovarian cancer in 2006 at the age of 49. But it is so far from being over. In 2010, the case was officially reopened. Further testing of DNA samples has been conducted, but no real conclusions have been made. But that hasn't stopped people confessing to the crime. People who lean towards the sexual abuse argument often cite JonBenet's pageant participation as being overly sexualized. And that might be true.

There's some claim that JonBenet would have been a prime target for paedophiles. There are a lot of pictures of her everywhere. Gary Oliva was a registered sex offender who was in Boulder the night of JonBenet's murder, and he confessed to killing JonBenet accidentally. He wrote his confession in a letter to a friend while he was serving 10 years in prison for possession of child pornography. He told his pen pal, quote, I never loved anyone like I did JonBenet.

And yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half and I watched her die. It was an accident. Please believe me. She's not like the other kids. And then the pen pal claimed to have received a distressed phone call from Oliva that fateful Boxing Day in 1996.

And apparently he told her through sobs that he had, quote quote hurt a little girl the boulder police department became totally disinterested in gary's confession when they couldn't find any of his dna at the scene are you stumped well so are we and we've been staring at this fucking rabbit warren case all week and before we let you know our final thoughts on this true crime treasure trove, we've picked out the greatest hits of the internet sleuth theories. Bill McReynolds was hired by the Ramseys to play Father Christmas at the Ramseys' Christmas party three nights before Jean Benet was killed.

And he gave her a card that said, you will receive a very special gift after Christmas, 22 years before his own daughter had gone missing on Christmas Day. Now, tempting as that one is, McGranald was cleared by DNA testing and died in 2002. A liberal activist group called the Asia-Pacific American Coalition were also kicking around Colorado University in 1996, and some have speculated that the ransom note was put down to them, and that the $118,000 that they demanded was actually JonBenet's time of death. This group disbanded shortly after that Christmas. This wouldn't be a conspiracy theory roundup

without some aliens. So some people think that the foreign faction part of the ransom note was actually code for extraterrestrial beings who were so jealous of JonBenet's beauty that they killed her. And as you'll remember, there were no footprints in the snow because aliens float and don't need to use our stupid doors and windows to get in places. Another conspiracy theory classic from the 9-11 was an inside job collection is this one.

And it says that John Ramsey was targeted by the Canadian Air Force because he refused to help in the orchestration of the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7. And last but not least, this is my personal favorite. Some claim that John Bonet never really died at all. And the whole thing was an elaborate hoax so that she could eventually reemeremerge as chart-topping pop princess katie perry because nothing means anything anymore yeah they even say that patsy is looks the same as katie perry's mom and like all of them like if you look at a picture of katie perry and you look at a picture of john bonnet they do look pretty similar their eyebrows are like basically the same i i highly doubt it's But I think it's like the extent of you saying that your sisters and my handwriting look the same.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just two white girls who could look like they were the same. I don't know. I just like, well, I do know. Of all the things I know, I don't think that Katy Perry is JonBenet Ramsey. All right, okay. Fun time over, down to crunch time. What do we think really happened to JonBenet Ramsey. Right, okay. Fun time over.

Down to crunch time. What do we think really happened to JonBenet Ramsey? I do think that her death was an accident. I agree. But whether it was part of a sex game or maybe a more innocent game even between brother and sister, I don't know. Maybe she was being abused by one of her parents. And if we accept

that it was the garrotte that had killed her rather than the accidental bludgeoning because of the pineapple stealing, then the strangling kind of cover-up thing is out of the question. If we believe Dr. Weck's brain inflammation argument, then the strangulation is key. It makes more logical sense that you're like, oh, she accidentally gets whacked on her head with this torch and then they strangle her a bit to make it look like an accident. That seems to make more logical sense. But that becomes problematic if you believe what Dr. Weck's analysis of her brain was. And if it was the strangling that killed her, that's a whole other kettle of fish. It is. And I also think I had a problem. My biggest hole or my biggest issue with the whole CBS theory

was I can buy that Bert got angry and smacked her over the head. The biggest hole or my biggest issue with the whole CBS theory was I can buy that Bert got angry and smacked her over the head. The number of times my brother and I punched each other in the head. I'm surprised one of us isn't dead. But what sort of parents, and I don't think this is the type of parents that John and Patsy necessarily were, could just be like, oh, okay, well, we just better go rot her a bit. That's bizarre to me that doesn't fit at all. I personally think it is the pineapple thing, that she comes down, steals a piece of pineapple, puts it in her mouth. JonBenet and Burke have a tumultuous relationship leading up to this anyway.

He gets pissed off and he garrots her because he's made a little garrot with white cord and his mum's paintbrush. And I think he probably already had it because maybe he was just a weird kid. He grabs her, he starts choking her. I quite like the theory that one of the parents walked in on it, because Patsy sounds like she was still awake, because she's in the same clothes she was in the night before. She comes down, hears the chaos, tries to get her son off JonBenet,

whacks him with a torch, or tries to, and ends up hitting JonBenet, and that's what finishes it off. Maybe. I kind of like that one because what you were saying yesterday about if it was John Ramsey who'd killed her, I don't think Patsy would cover for him. But I think she would cover for herself and her son. Yeah, I agree. Thank you for bringing that up.

I do think that's a very important point is that would a mother cover up this hard to cover up her husband's potential abuse and murder of their young daughter a daughter that she seemingly absolutely adored I don't think so like but would you do it for your kid more likely and I also do think that allegations of like Burke not necessarily liking Jean Benet does seem like they spend a lot more time and effort on Jean Benet a lot of her pageantry time took up a lot of the time. And also the name even. Jean Benet was named after her dad. Her dad's middle name is Bennett. John Bennett Ramsey. Jean Benet Ramsey. Like, come on. I just think Burke felt like ostracized. He was a bit of a weird kid. He fucking choked her. Maybe. Please don't sue us. Can we tell the Americans what

Burke means in rhyming slang? What Burke means in rhyming slang? You do it. Go for it. It means the C word. It's an unfortunate name and maybe he came across that and he was like, you named me Burke and you named her after yourself. This is outrageous. I'm going to garrot her. Maybe.

That's what happened. Please don't sue us. We'll just keep saying maybe. Maybe, maybe, allegedly possibly, but almost definitely not. I think one of the members of the family was responsible for her death and the cover-up was certainly orchestrated from inside the house. And what reason would they have for protecting anyone but themselves? The only thing I've come away with this week feeling very strongly about is be careful what you watch in documentaries. They often have big budgets and points to prove. Exactly. And also, no one is ever pointing a finger at them in the first instance.

The police are treating them like they are not at all even suspects, but they fucking go full force into defence. Why? You're right. They're protecting themselves and they like fucking go full force into defence. Why? You're right. They're protecting themselves and they wouldn't protect anybody else that hard. So that's it. That's JonBenet Ramsey. Merry Christmas.

Don't take any shit. Challenge things. Look out for floating aliens. Have a lovely time off and we will see you in 2020. I think that should just be our generic motto for our listeners. Don't take shit. Look out for aliens. Challenge take shit look out for aliens challenge things and look out for floating aliens merry and merry christmas whatever time of year

may the christmas spirit stay with you all year but anyway that is that that is also the end of 2019 at red handed apart from the five dollar up patron car chronicle episodes that will be going out very soon. So go enjoy that. Other than that, here are some people who are already some lovely patrons that we have to thank. Oh my God, there are so many of you. Yeah, sorry, I got really carried away. Thank you so much. Ashley Diane, Amy Birch, Tessa Foster, Caitlin, John Wang, Jo Pex, Karina Ross, Sarah Maggior, Raina Deaton, Kalia Coolwhip, Chris Marshall, Olivia de Flocker, Nancy Lackey, Abby, Caitlin Superentent, Jen Beemont Megan Bailey

Britt Mindy from Chicago first stop on your worldwide tour we're trying Mindy we're trying God knows we're trying Hayley Borrows Kaylee MacBrenner

Maya Holcomb Ryan Brazil Lindsay Wilson Angelia R. Kayla Maya Maya, Ashley Klawn, Heather Whittaker-Kitt, and then Hannah. Joanna Crawford, Chant, Emma Seabrook, Victoria Nerim, Susan Hadley, Anna Dapiliki, Laurel Codgill, Sebastian, oh Jesus God, Sebastian. Sebastian, Hajal, Marston, Clark, Nina Lindsay,

Catherine Pine, Katie Reed, Jane Bastin, Danielle Robichaux, Angela Higgins, A... Reed... Ooh,

Aridana, Solis, Elena Clock, Fiona S. Hall, Katie O'Connor, Jessica Stewart, BW, Anna Robertson,

Elizabeth Whitworth, Sarah Ford, Cindy Rahi, I don't know Cindy, I'm sorry. Valerie, I can feel my brain slowing down. Yeah, I know. Valerie Binardin, Catherine Hunter, Gloria Azucena, Candice E, Chloe Boyce, Kels, Brianne Koch, Taylor Munich, Mary Eaton, Laura Compton, Katie Ann Schappelenick, I'm just going to start saying bullshit, not real words with confidence. I also realized I tagged out way sooner than I should have. It's fine. Sarah Dyer, Rachel Height, Melissa... That's not real.

Jana Lucas, Georgina Middleton, Stephanie Elliott, Sadie Jo, Sam Rickards, Melissa Gerhard, Alyssa McKayla, Kristen Lewiski, So Devilish, Alison Tyler, Janelle Braswell, Sabina, Laura Hedges, Felicia White, Rosie Court, Rebecca Andrews, Lisa McKay, Megan, and June Redding. Well done. She got the Megan. And if you're wondering why you maybe hear your name again,

or if you're thinking, why am I hearing that name again? It's because if you do edit upwards, if you do upgrade yourself as a patron, you will get another thank you from us. Because we're that nice. We are that nice. And also, I don't know how to remove them from the list. So there you go.

Thank you guys so much. What a fucking great 2019. Here's to an amazing 2020. We can't wait. See you in a brand new year with the same old us. Oh, yes. See you then. Bye.

Bye. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath,

investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune,

and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder.

Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.