Finding a kidnapping victim dead in her own house is strange enough. But the murder of JonBenet Ramsey is proving to be an unusually eerie crime. Investigators say that JonBenet had been sexually assaulted, and Colorado newspapers report that her skull had been fractured before she was strangled. Police say there were no signs of forced entry and that the murderer was probably someone very familiar with the Ramseys’ 15-room Tudor manse. On New Year’s Day, the parents went on national TV to deny they had killed their little girl. “We are a Christian, God-fearing family,” a teary Patsy Ramsey told CNN. “We love our children.” But they also hired defense attorneys–one for her and a high-powered criminal lawyer for him–as well as a Washington media consultant. John Ramsey, 53, runs a $1 billion computer-parts company. His wife, 40, is a prominent socialite and the Miss West Virginia of 1977. JonBenet was a mini-celebrity in her own right; her Barbie-doll face made her a rising star on the junior-beauty-pageant circuit.
The police kept JonBenet’s body for three days before turning it over to the family for burial. On Dec. 29, about 200 friends and family members attended an invitation-only memorial service at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Boulder. So did several police detectives doing “investigative” work, says Boulder city spokesperson Leslie Aaholm. Later that day, John Ramsey, a former navy officer, piloted about a dozen relatives on his private jet to Georgia, where the family had lived before moving to Colorado in 1991. (The body was flown separately.) Her funeral was held at the Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, where her father had been a deacon. JonBenet was buried next to Beth, 22, a daughter from John’s first marriage who died in a car accident in 1992. In the casket, JonBenet was dressed in one of her pageant costumes and a rhinestone tiara. A gold cross and a teddy bear were tucked in with her. The Rev. W. Frank Harrington led the congregation in “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.” He also recited a lyric from “Gypsy”: “Wherever we go, whatever we do, we’re gonna go through it–together.” Patsy Ramsey and JonBenet had liked to sing it in unison.
Five Boulder police officers carting boxes of what they called “stuff” also followed the Ramseys to Georgia to interview family and friends. In Colorado, they had taken hair, blood and handwriting samples from JonBenet’s parents and her 9-year-old brother, Burke, who were in the house the night of the murder. Police would not confirm or deny NEWSWEEK’S questions about whether out-of-town friends and relatives visiting for Patsy’s 40th birthday Dec. 29 had been staying in the house that night as well. John Ramsey told CNN that police had taken samples from “every family member,” including two surviving adult children from his first marriage who were not at home.
If investigators suspected JonBenet’s relatives or friends, they weren’t admitting it. “We’re just looking. We’re not closing down any options,” Sgt. Larry Mason said last week. Police spent four hours interviewing Patsy Ramsey’s parents, Don and Nedra Paugh, and removed a metallic suitcase from their house near Atlanta. But as of Saturday, they still hadn’t interviewed the Ramseys. Investigators apparently didn’t even know where the family was staying when they returned to Colorado Friday morning.
Out of respect for the family, much of Boulder has closed ranks since the murder. Those who would talk say they don’t believe that the Ramseys could have killed their child. Shirley Brady, who was the family’s live-in nanny from 1986-89, says she never even heard the Ramseys raise their voices. “That is the most loving couple you have ever seen,” she says. Both are prominent residents of Boulder. The chamber of commerce named John Ramsey Entrepreneur of the Year in 1995. Patsy Ramsey was once honored for volunteering at her children’s elementary school even when chemotherapy to treat ovarian cancer left her nearly bald. “I don’t know many women, much less former beauty queens, who would do that,” says Dee Dee Nelson-Schneider, another parent volunteer.
Even in the sometimes vicious world of junior beauty pageants, the Ramseys were considered caring parents. But JonBenet–the 1995 Little Miss Colorado and the reigning America’s Little Royal Miss–did inspire jealousy. “Several mothers told me that when JonBenet competed, they would take their daughters out of competition because they knew their girls would not win,” says Eleanor Von Duyke, who runs the Show Biz USA circuit of pageants. And the Ramseys reveled in their daughter’s career. Patsy Ramsey regularly had her kindergartner’s hair lightened at a beauty salon. Her parents submitted JonBenet’s photo for the February issue of Babette’s Pageant and Talent Gazette, a popular magazine for contestants’ families. After the murder, publisher Buffie Davenport says she contacted the family to make sure they still wanted the photo to run. They said yes.
Investigators say it could take two weeks to analyze handwriting and tissue samples. Meanwhile, the Ramseys say they’ll offer a $50,000 reward and have hired their own investigator. “If we don’t have the full resources of all the law-enforcement community on this case, I am going to be very upset,” John Ramsey told CNN. Patsy Ramsey’s mother says her daughter will never set foot in the $750,000 house she now calls “that hellhole.” Yet that home may ultimately yield the solution to a gruesome mystery.
