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December 26, 1996, 39 year old Patsy Ramsey woke up early around 5:45am The Boulder, Colorado home was quiet and she slipped out of bed leaving her husband, 53 year old John to sleep longer. They had a big day ahead of them. They were taking John's private plane to Michigan to meet up with his older children. Then the whole family was going on a Disney cruise. Patsy Made her way down from the third floor. Desperate for coffee. She passed the second floor where her kids were still asleep. As she continued down the spiral staircase towards the main level, she noticed something sitting on one of the bottom steps. It was a stack of papers. Patsy leaned over to pick them up. She flipped through the three handwritten pages, struggling to understand what they said. She hadn't had any caffeine yet and her mind was still foggy. She kept reading and suddenly the words hit her like a ton of bricks. Patsy ran straight to six year old JonBenet's room on the second floor. The bed was empty, the covers were pulled back and there was no sign of her daughter. John ran in and she handed him the letter. It was a ransom note. Whoever wrote it claimed to have kidnapped JonBenet. They wanted $118,000 for her safe return and warned the Ramses not to get the police involved. But John and Patsy didn't hesitate. They still called 911 immediately. Around 5:52am Seven minutes after Patsy made the 911 call, patrol officer Richard French arrived at the house. The Ramses let him inside and John handed over the ransom letter. Officer French scanned the note. It said the kidnappers were from, quote, a small foreign faction. They claimed that JonBenet was safe for now. If the Ramses wanted her back, they needed to hand over the cash. It also said that JonBenet's captors were would contact the family between 8 and 10am with further directions. After reading the letter, Officer French looked around. Two things struck him right away. First, the note itself. Something about it just felt off. It was too long and rambling. It felt almost theatrical to him. Second were the Ramseys. Patsy was visibly distraught, crying and shaking in the corner, covering her face with her hands. And yet French felt like she was watching him between her fingers. Whenever he caught her staring, she quickly looked away. And then there was John, who seemed unusually calm for someone who just learned his daughter had been kidnapped. But Officer French kept his observations to himself as more people arrived. The Ramses had called Priscilla and Fleet White, another couple and their church minister, for support. Other police officers were trickling in too. A little past 8am Detective Linda Arndt walked through the doors. She'd been with the Boulder Police Department for for about a decade. She was trained in dealing with child sexual assault cases but had never led a kidnapping before. Even so, she was confident going into the investigation. She sat the Ramseys down and asked them to recount the last 12 hours. She listened closely as John and Patsy explained how they had gone out to dinner, went to bed, then woke up to find JonBenet missing. Given Detective Arndt's experience with traumatic situations, she was calm and compassionate. She treated John and Patsy like the devastated parents of a kidnapped child. It was kind of her. But this approach also caused some major issues early on. For starters, she didn't separate John and Patsy. She let them tell their story while sitting side by side. That meant she couldn't pick up any differences between their versions of events. She also didn't question the Ramses friends that morning, which was strange. At that point in the investigation, everyone should have been considered a possible suspect. But one of the biggest red flags was that the house was never sealed off. The crime scene remained open as people came and went, contaminating evidence whether they meant to or not. Finally, no one had searched the house from top to bottom. The responding officers had just done a cursory sweep, assuming JonBenet had been taken like the note said. For the most part, the authorities spent the morning waiting for the kidnappers to call. John, Patsy and everyone else waited and waited. 10am came and went, and still nothing. By 1pm Detective Arndt was done sitting around. She told John and his friend Fleet White to do a thorough search of the house and let her know if anything was out of place. To be clear, this went against protocol. The responding officers should have checked the entire home by then. And yet Arndt was sending a family member to do the job instead. Still, John and Fleet followed orders and headed off. John led them toward the basement first. He planned on starting at the bottom of the house and moving their way up there. Fleet noticed a small broken window near the top of the wall, just above ground level. The glass was shattered, but the opening was tight. Still, someone thin could have squeezed through. So he called out and told John about it. John explained he'd actually broken the window the previous summer, but had gotten it fixed. He wondered if someone else had re broken it and come inside. Especially because there was a suitcase directly beneath the window that didn't belong there. It looked like it had been placed intentionally, as if someone had used it as a stepping ladder to escape back out the window. Next, John moved deeper into the basement. The space was divided into several small rooms, storage, a game area for the kids, and a wine cellar. He opened the door to the wine cellar and stepped inside. And that's when John screamed. Fleet raced over and saw his friend hunched over a small figure on the floor. It was JonBenet. She was lying on the ground, wearing a white sleep shirt and long underwear. Someone had duct taped her mouth and tied a cord around her right wrist. Another white cord was wrapped around her neck. It had been fashioned into a garrote, a strangling device where a handle is attached to a collar of sorts. It's a brutal way to kill someone, allowing the user to pull the collar tighter, then loosen it, then pull it again. In this case, the collar was a cord and the handle was a broken paintbrush. JonBenet's body was partially covered with a white blanket from her bed. Her red nightgown lay nearby. John peeled the duct tape from her mouth, but he could tell she wasn't breathing. Whether he was in shock or it was just instinct, he. He didn't leave her there and rushed to tell Detective Arndt what he'd found. Instead, he picked up his daughter and carried her upstairs. He didn't cry until he finally laid her down on the hardwood floor in the living room and threw a blanket on top of her. That's when he let out a heartbreaking wail. When Patsy saw her daughter, she threw herself on top of JonBenet. She sobbed and screamed, begging God to bring her child back. The Ramses minister who had been with him at the house gathered everyone around. They stood over the body of six year old JonBenet and said the Lord's Prayer. It was a devastating moment, but it was also a huge mistake. John had found the body, not the police. In doing so, he disrupted a potential crime scene. He removed duct tape, moved her body and introduced his own DNA into evidence. Then Patsy had done the same and Detective Arndt had even pulled the blanket up to cover more of JonBenet, potentially contaminating things even further. It was concerning and confusing, especially because Detective Arndt had realized something very important by that point. Later, she said that when she watched John Ramsey walk up the stairs with JonBenet, her stomach dropped. Something about his demeanor and the way he carried his daughter, holding her away from his body like a mannequin was suspicious. Detective Arndt couldn't say what it was exactly, but she just felt it in her gut that he was the killer.

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On the afternoon of December 26, 1996, six year old JonBenet Ramsey was found murdered in the wine cellar of her Boulder, Colorado home. Her dad, 53 year old John, was the one to discover her lifeless body. In the hours that followed, he and his wife, 39 year old Patsy, were inconsolable. John's surviving children from his first marriage arrived in Boulder that evening. Patsy's sisters flew in from Atlanta too, but the Ramseys knew they couldn't go back to their house, it was too traumatic. So they spent the night at a friend's. That evening, Patsy could barely function. She was so devastated she needed friends to help her shower. Meanwhile, John spent the whole night pacing. But not everyone believed their grief was genuine. The next morning, December 27, lead detective Linda Arndt and her colleagues regrouped. After watching John carry his daughter up the stairs, Detective Arndt had become convinced he was JonBenet's killer. At that point, she didn't know his possible motives or if Patsy had been involved. But as soon as she and her colleagues started sifting through the evidence, a theory began to form in Detective Arndt's mind. The first clue was the ransom note. It turned out it had been written on paper from a legal pad in the Ramsey house. There'd even been a draft on another sheet where the author had started and stopped, seemingly trying to figure out how to begin the note. For Detective Arndt, the discovery cast even more suspicion on John and Patsy. It meant the note had been written once the killer was inside the Ramsey home. But why would they have stayed around long enough to write and revise a fake ransom note if they'd already murdered JonBenet? Then there was the ransom demand. The Note asked for $118,000, which just so happened to be the exact amount of John Ramsay's Christmas bonus that year. Who would know that except one of the Ramses? Even more strange, John never attempted to gather the money. He never went to the bank. In fact, it seemed like the thought didn't even cross his mind. Instead, he called the police despite the note explicitly warning him not to. On top of all that, the garrote used to strangle JonBenet had been constructed using materials from inside the house. The handle had come from one of Patsy's own paintbrushes. Not only did this link the potential murder weapon directly to Patsy, but it also suggested the killer didn't bring a weapon. They fashioned one using materials found in the home, which is unusual for intruder murders. It was yet another clue that seemed to suggest the killer lived at the Ramsey's house. After reviewing the evidence, Detective Arndt was convinced she Knew who'd murdered JonBenet. Now she needed to prove it. Later that day, on December 27, Arndt and her team interviewed the rest of the Ramseys who are now in Boulder, including John's 21 year old son from his first marriage, John Andrew. Apparently John Andrew and his dad had discussed the previous day's timeline because when detectives questioned John Andrew, he made a comment about his father finding JonBenet's body around 11am however, reports showed the discovery happened closer to 1pm it wasn't clear if John Andrew had made a simple mistake or if his father had told him something no one else knew. On its own, that wasn't too concerning. But it wasn't the only eyebrow raising moment from the interview. Towards the end of their discussion, detectives asked John Andrew How JonBenet's killer should be punished. John Andrew paused for a moment. His answer? Forgiveness. It was another red flag. His half sister had been brutally murdered less than 24 hours ago, and he was already talking about forgiveness. It made detectives wonder if John Andrew could have been involved or if he was trying to protect someone he loved. For Detective Arndt, all signs seemed to point back to the Ramses, and she was eager to question them individually. Before that could happen, though, the Ramses lawyered up. They handed over their fingerprints and DNA samples, but that was the end of their cooperation. From that point on, they refused to speak to the authorities. Of course, retaining a lawyer didn't mean they were guilty. But their refusal to speak with the police was suspicious. Most people in their position would do everything in their power to move the investigation forward. And before long, the authorities weren't the only ones who thought the Ramses had something to hide. Within days of JonBenet's discovery, the news of her murder had spread like wildfire around the country. Several factors played into the attention. The crime happened over Christmas during a relatively slow news cycle. The Ramses were wealthy, and JonBenet wasn't just an adorable six year old. She was also a child beauty queen who'd been endlessly photographed and videotaped. Those pictures were plastered on every tabloid and magazine, and the videos played over and over again on the news. Everywhere Americans looked, they saw JonBenet's face staring back at them. Although the authorities hadn't made any public statements, the media and the public had come to their own conclusions. And they thought the Ramses were guilty. Armchair detectives focused on Patsy's obsession with JonBenet's pageant career. Clips of JonBenet wearing full makeup, performing on stage in costumes, were circulated around many viewers, and investigators found the footage disturbing. They thought JonBenet looked more like a woman than a six year old. Some even said JonBenet seemed too sexual. Which led to another theory. Maybe a predator had seen one of JonBenet's pageant videos and become fixated on the girl. People wondered if they'd tracked down the Ramsey's address, then broke into their home to attack JonBenet. Even then, the public believed John and Patsy were to blame. They accused Patsy of exploiting and exposing her daughter. There was a rallying call amongst their critics. What kind of parents put their daughter in that situation to begin with? With all the finger pointing and speculation, it's not surprising that the Ramses quickly brought on a media consultant and a publicist. But as much as they tried to control the narrative, the investigation was out of their hands. An autopsy was done the day after JonBenet's death. It showed that her skull was fractured from a massive blow to the head. She'd also been strangled with a garrote. It was hard to tell which happened first and what actually caused her to die. However, most experts believed it was asphyxiation due to the strangling. Another point of debate was whether she'd been sexually abused. One specialist from the district attorney's office said it seemed unlikely. But another forensic pathologist disagreed and said there was clear evidence of molestation. Without a consensus, investigators had to focus on the evidence they did have. And they kept coming back to the ransom note. Detective Arndt and her team believe the note was written to stage a kidnapping and mislead the police. They still weren't sure why, but in the meantime, they tried to determine who'd written it. And their prime suspect was Patsy. They submitted samples of her handwriting to a specialist. The results were inconclusive. There were indications that she may have written it, but nothing definitive. Over time, authorities compared handwriting from 74 people connected to the case. They ruled out 73. Only one result remained unclear. Patsy Ramsey. While the investigation moved full steam ahead, the Ramseys tried to generate leads on their own. One week after JonBenet's death, on January 1, 1997, Jon and Patsy appeared on CNN. It was their first televised interview, and they pleaded with the public to help catch JonBenet's killer. For many watching, it seemed strange. The Ramseys were willing to go on national television, and yet they still refused to talk to the police. If they were really innocent, wouldn't they be doing everything possible to help find their daughter's killer? Five days later, the Ramses made another public appearance. This time, it was at their daughter's memorial service in Boulder. When Patsy left the church, she was hanging on a friend's arm, sobbing in front of a wall of cameras. To some, it looked like a display of raw grief. To others, it looked staged. Once again, Patsy's behavior was being scrutinized. And once again, the public asked themselves, was she a heartbroken mother, or was she a guilty one? By early 1997, even the authority authorities were divided. Boulder detectives were growing increasingly convinced that John and Patsy Ramsey were responsible and wanted to press charges. But the district attorney's office disagreed. The DA didn't want to prosecute a wealthy, prominent couple without an airtight case. He still thought there was a chance the Ramseys were victims in this whole thing, which meant the case was at a standstill even if detectives went ahead and arrested the Ramses, the DA could simply decline to file charges. It was a fundamental disagreement, and one that would paralyze the investigation for years to come. With all the debate around her murder, JonBenet's case was would become one of the most infamous unsolved crimes in modern American history. But while some people were convinced that John and Patsy were to blame, they were far from the only suspects. And in the decades that followed, it would become clear that the media weren't the only ones who were dangerously obsessed with JonBenet. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories. Come back next time for part two on the murder of JonBenet Ramsey and all the people it affected. True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, Rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad free and instead of having to wait for each episode of a two part series, you'll get access to both at once plus exciting bonus content. We'll be back on Thursday. True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzofsky, Lori Marinelli, Sarah Camp, Alex Burns, Beth Johnson and Russell Nash. Thank you for joining us.

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