The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey

Investigative team

The investigative team reviewed the case, including the 911 call, ransom note, and other aspects of the case in re-created rooms of the Ramsey house. The documentary included past investigative footage with that of this investigative team, which included former FBI agent Jim Clemente, Dr. Henry Lee, former chief investigator for the Boulder District Attorney James Kolar, forensic patholigist Dr. Werner Spitz, James Fitzgerald, former Scotland Yard criminal behavior analyst Laura Richards, and Stan Burke.

DNA evidence

The team examined the theory about an outsider depositing DNA on JonBenet's panties and concluded that it trace evidence could have been transferred when the panties were made and packaged.

The 911 call

The team used modern equipment and an interview with the 911 dispatcher, Kimberly Archuleta, to examine the 911 call and claimed that there were three voices on the tape: Patsy, John and Burke. They believed one of the three voices was a boy. At the end of the call, the 911 dispatcher heard Patsy say "OK, we've called the police, now what?" By slowing down the last six second of the recording of the call, they heard three people talking. Patsy was deemed to have said "What did you do?" and "Help me, Jesus." John saying "We're not speaking to you." A child, likely Burke, saying "What did you find?" The Ramseys had claimed that Burke was asleep during the time that the 911 call was made.

The wording used during the call was concerning to the team: During the call Patsy did not mention the name of her daughter. Also, she said "I'm the mother" and "we have a kidnapping".

Ransom note

According to E! News, "One of the strangest parts of the Ramsey case has always been the ransom note, which [...] made no sense given the fact that JonBenét's body was found in the house a few hours later". Forensic linguist James Fitzgerald commented on the three-page and 385-word ransom note and concluded, according to Daily Mail, that it was "clearly staged and had deliberate spelling mistakes." Misspellings and other mistakes were made to cover the fact that the writer was in fact a native speaker of the English language.

The note demanded $118,000, the rounded amount of John Ramsey's bonus that year. Fitzgerald said that the note was not written by a kidnapper or a "real criminal", but someone who had written the note on a pad of paper used by Patsy Ramsey in their home. The note was unusually long, most ransom notes are 50 to 60 words. It took the experts 21 minutes or more to copy the ransom note and it noted that it would take more time to think about what to write. The pen and paper were not left out, but returned to their rightful place by the note's author. Many lines from the letter were taken from Speed, Dirty Harry and other films.

Fitzgerald said that the note appeared to be written by a "maternal" person. Previous handwriting analysis had concluded that the handwriting was similar to that of Patsy Ramsey, but it was not conclusively Patsy who wrote the note.

Cause of death theory

JonBenét was determined by police to have "suffered a blow to the head and had also been strangled with a garrote."

The investigators concluded that JonBenet could have been killed, perhaps accidentally, by a blow from a flashlight by a 10-year-old boy, based upon experiments performed using a child, fake skulls with wigs and skulls. They were also able to recreate the injury that JonBenét sustained to her head, like that of the flashlight found in the kitchen of the Ramsey's home.

The Daily Mail Australia reported that, according to Jim Clemente, JonBenét 's nine-year-old brother Burke had a "history of scatological problems". Investigators claimed that Burke had covered his sister's walls and her Christmas present with feces, which was found when her room was sealed off and examined as a crime scene. The team speculate that Burke had become angry when JonBenét took a piece of pineapple, which angered her brother, in the middle of the night. They further contend that their parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, then covered up the reason for the death of their daughter.

The Ramseys

John, Patsy and Burke have denied involvement in the death of JonBenét. No charges have been filed in the case, as of September 2016. Several days prior to the airing of this mini-series, Burke Ramsey was interviewed on the Dr. Phil show in a three-episode series about the death of his sister. It was his first public interview. The Ramsey family lawyer, L. Lin Wood, has threatened to sue CBS for libel (defamation) based on its conclusion that JonBenét was killed by Burke.

Critical review

The review of the mini-series by Variety questioned the objectivity of the team, particularly in taking "hazy" assertions and declaring them as fact. For example, during the show it is stated that John Ramsey called out that he had found JonBenet before he turned on the light to the dark basement room where the body lay, but the source or veracity of the statement was not clear. Rolling Stone magazine found that there were three ways in which the investigation was flawed: 1) "Confirmation bias, selective hearing and the misleading 911 call analysis", 2) "Dismissing the DNA evidence entirely" and 3) "Overselling linguistic forensics and behavioral analysis as conclusive". They found that since the investigation did not unearth any new evidence, the conclusions were not new but subjective, and based upon the initial "flawed" police investigation.

E! News, on the other hand, offered three "bombshells" from the series regarding: 1) The 911 call, 2) The Ransom Note, and 3) Cause of Death.

Bob Grant, former Adams County District Attorney who was brought in to advise the Boulder District Attorney office on the case, voiced skepticism about any of the 2016 television show's abilities to unearth a new theory or solidify an existing theory in the case. He said, "The case will always be, in my mind, one where there are two likely scenarios. And to prove one, you have to disprove the other." He states that without a viable confession, it is unlikely that there will be resolution in the case.