Jonbenet Ramsey Case Study

On the morning of December 26, 1996 John Ramsey discovered the lifeless body of six-year old JonBenet Ramsey in the basement of the family’s home. This was the beginning of an American crime story that remains unsolved to this day, despite the Boulder Police Department processing over fifteen hundred pieces of evidence and interviewing more than one thousand people (Agrawal, 2016). The Ramsey family blamed the Boulder Police Department for their inexperience kidnapping and murder investigations and scrutinized the police for not seeking additional assistance from other law enforcement agencies (Ramsey, 2000). The Boulder Police Department immediately became suspicious that a member of the Ramsey’s family or someone close to them committed

Later that afternoon John Ramsey discovered JonBenet’s body covered in blanket on the basement floor, and John tore off a piece of duct tape used to cover JonBenet’s mouth before carrying her upstairs (Agrawal, 2016). Since the crime scene was compromised, investigators were forced to process physical evidence that was contaminated during the unsupervised search for JonBenet. Although the crime scene was considered compromised there were still several key pieces of evidence collected, which included a hand-written ransom note, JonBenet’s underwear, piece of nylon cord used during strangulation, and duct tape covering JonBenet’s mouth (Agrawal, 2016). Investigators concluded that JonBenet was struck in head so hard that her skull was fractured, she was strangled with so much force that the nylon garrote was embedded in her skin, and she was sexually assaulted (Ramsey, 2000). Additionally, investigators determined the ransom note was written with a pad and pen from the Ramseys’ home, and the ransom price was the exact amount of John’s year-end bonus (Agrawal, 2016). The police department hired handwriting experts perform analyses of JonBenet’s parents; however, before the John and Patsy were required to provide handwriting samples, Detective