Wednesday, August 16: Welcome, searchers. There’s been an arrest in this case. Read and discuss the latest.
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Ten years after the death of her slain daughter, Patsy Ramsey is dead of cancer. She leaves behind husband John Bennett Ramsey and son Burke Ramsey (who’s probably in college by now).
When I first heard about the death of six-year-old JonBenet, found dead in her home on December 26, 1996, I suspected the parents knew more than they were letting on.
I theorized that Patsy must have hit the child too hard, killing her accidentally on Christmas night. At this point, two possibilities emerge in my theory: 1) Patsy panicked and tried to make the death look like a murder by taking JonBenet’s body, on her own, to the basement and staging a sexual assault; 2) Patsy panicked, woke her husband, and told him what happened. They both went into action to stage a murder scene.
My theory is based on opinions of detectives who worked the case, handwriting experts, known evidence, and other factors, including, once again, my gut.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence against Patsy is the so-called ransom note. She said that on the morning of December 26, 1996, she found the note on the back stairs leading to the kitchen. The placement of the note was suspicious, and the note itself was obviously phony. Some experts contend, and I agree, that a woman wrote the note, and the most likely woman was Patsy.
(I remember reading somewhere that Patsy sometimes used the phrase “good, Southern common sense,” also found in the note. Steve Thomas, a detective who worked on the case, said whoever wrote the three-page ransom note practiced writing it. The person also used a pen from a pencil cup that was in the kitchen, and returned the pen to the same place after writing the note.)
As a “juror” in the court of public opinion, I think JonBenet Ramsey’s death was accidental and that Patsy Ramsey killed her. JonBenet’s death is still unsolved, and unless John knows something and talks, it will probably remained unsolved. In 2004, John ran for office in Michigan. I blogged about the news and laid out my theory of the case in more detail.
Reams have been written about the case, so I won’t reinvent the microchip. Check out the sources below.
Sources:
- Patsy Ramsey Dies Of Cancer
- JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation by Steve Thomas
- Crime Library: Murder of JonBenet Ramsey
- The Smoking Gun: JonBenet Ramsey Case Documents
- Does ‘JonBenet: Inside The Ramsey Murder Investigation’ Reveal the True Killer?
- JonBenet Ramsey Case
- True Crime
- The Ransom Note Probability
