The JonBenet Chronicles: Chapter 6: The Ransom Note, JonBenet Is Found, Her Autopsy And The Ramsey Stun Gun Manual.

According to statements that Patsy gave to authorities that day, she realized that JonBenet was missing after she found a two-and-a-half page note on the kitchen staircase. The Note demanded $118,000 for her safe return. No fingerprints were found on the note. The note and a practice draft were written with a pen and paper from the Ramsey's home belonging to Patsy.

The pen that was used to write the ransom note was neatly put back in it's place by the phone. Supposedly the ransom note's time element indicates that it was composed around midnight. Take the line "i advise you to be rested." from the ransom note. According to experts, a kidnapper would not normally give such advice to his victims. Why would the kidnappers tell the victims to get rest when they were already supposedly sleeping? And why would the kidnappers care? 

The note never referred to JonBenet by name. Was it too emotionally difficult for the authors of the note to write JonBenet's name?

Investigators surmised that it would have taken 21 minutes just to write the note, plus time to compose and to write the draft version.
The amount of money asked for in the ransom note was kind of small when you consider that John was a CEO for a billion dollar company. The amount of money asked for was the same as the previous bonus that John received from work.

The note is the longest ransom note in history.

Detectives found handwriting samples in the Ramsey home from Patsy, that were similar to the style on the ransom note.

The note's immediate misspellings and grammatical errors made it seem like the kidnapper was uneducated. Later in the note, the author then slid into a more natural use of terms that showed a better education.

Detectives believe that the note was written by a woman and dictated by someone else. It couldn't be proven that Patsy did or did not write the note.

The only fingerprint was found on the ransom note belonged to a technician that did analysis on it.

John made arrangements to pay the ransom.

A Forensics team was dispatched to the house.

JonBenet's bedroom was on the second floor. It had a porch overlooking the south yard and patio and was closet to the spiral staircase. It was the only room in the house that was cordoned off to prevent contamination of evidence. No process was taken to prevent contamination of evidence in the rest of the house.

i know that it wasn't considered a murder yet, but i would have secured pretty much the whole house. The authorities had no concrete idea how the perpetrators got in and out of the house, there could have been evidence pretty much anywhere. 

The police had removed a small piece of carpet in front of the night table between the matching single beds. To the left of the bed the police had removed two additional pieces of carpet. All of JonBenet's sheets, pillowcases, and bed covers were taken into custody by the police. Fingerprint powder was everywhere.

Meanwhile, friends and the family minister arrived at the home. Victim advocates also arrived at the scene. 

John Fernie, "I drove my car into the -- up the alley and parked in the back of your house, and went around to the patio door, which was a glass door leading into the kitchen and back of the house, and didn't see anybody, but saw a piece of paper laying on the floor. Looked at that. It was facing the other direction. Read it. And after the first few lines realized something very strange was happening. And so I ran around to the front of the house and knocked on the door and was let in."

Visitors picked up and cleaned surfaces in the kitchen, destroying any possible evidence.

After 7:13 a.m., Burke Ramsey was taken to Fleet White's house by Fleet and John Fernie who on the way picked up the Fernie children and took them there as well.

BPD followed standard procedure by putting taps inside the house and at John Ramsey's office 

Boulder detective Linda Ardnt arrived about 8 a.m. MST, with the goal of awaiting the kidnapper's instructions, but there was never any attempt to claim the money.

She was a 14-year veteran of the Boulder department, well-respected as a staunch victim advocate.

Arndt was left by her colleagues at the Ramsey home with JonBenet's parents and family friends in the first hours of the investigation. She asked for more manpower, but most of her colleagues and the FBI were at the police station and wouldn't send anyone. She was used as a scapegoat and shouldered the blame for numerous police errors at the crime scene that day in December 1996.

She remembers his demeanor when he initially greeted her as not distraught or upset but cordial. Ardnt says that John and Patsy did not spend the morning in each other's company. She also said that at 10 a.m., when the deadline from the ransom note passed, that the Ramsey's did not remark whatsoever regarding the fact that the kidnappers did not call. She also asked everyone to examine the ransom note for clues and almost everyone had ideas except for Mr. Ramsey. Ardnt said that she was confused about why the Ramseys wouldn't speak to her.

10:30 a.m., Arndt called for backup at least twice while left in the house alone with the Ramsey family and friends (seven in total), she is told that all officers are in a Boulder Police Department meeting and they received her message. No one was sent because they were short-staffed.

Lockheed Martin didn't send their security team to the scene either. their team handles national security threats involving the company and it's employees. 

Norm Early who had been the district attorney of Denver and was the vice-president of Lockheed Martin Security at the time of the murder of JonBenet stated that their had been not one word of JonBenet's alleged kidnapping.

He said that when he found out he began to call executives and lawyers among others and said,"Why wasn't my family alerted? What happened?"
And they said to him,"Well, there was no threat"
And he said,"How do you know that?"
They said,"Well, I don't know. We just knew".
And he said,"Well, think about it and I want an answer!"

John went missing for at least an hour Some say he left the house to supposedly "pick up the mail." Later it's determined that this could not be true, given the family's mail was delivered through a slot in the front door. Whatever happened, he allegedly was unaccounted for for 90 minutes.

When John came back after going missing, Linda said that John had a very different demeanor. He was very agitated and he it seemed like he didn't want to be talked to at all.

Sometime that morning, Patsy also called her mother in Atlanta. Her mother immediately got on a plane and flew to Boulder.

Mid-morning
Sometime before 1 p.m., Fleet White allegedly was in the windowless wine cellar looking around. He told police he never turned on the light and he never saw anything.

At 1 p.m., Ardnt asked John and family friend, Fleet White, to search the house TOP TO BOTTOM to see if "anything seemed a miss." John and White started the search in the basement. John opened the latched door, the one that investigators failed to open earlier, and found JonBenet's body. Her mouth was covered with duct tape, a nylon cord was found around her wrists and neck, and her torso was covered by a white blanket. John immediately picked up JonBenet's body and ripped the duct tape off her mouth. He then carried her up the stairs to the living room.

He set her on the living room floor next to the Christmas tree.

Some accounts say that John places another blanket on JonBenet before he carried her up the stairs and some say after. Either way, the evidence on the body was now contaminated.

The sticky side of the duct tape had a perfect imprint of JonBenet's lips, but no indication of a protruding tongue or any effort to dislodge the tape. This suggest that the tape was used as a prop in staging a scene like it was place after death.

The cord was tied, far too loosely to restrain a living or conscious child.

The route to the wine cellar would be very difficult to navigate by a stranger, especially at night, especially carrying a child.

The staircase light switch was not in an expected location on the wall, but behind someone entering the stairs, so they probably would have done all this in the dark.

At 1:30 p.m., boulder policemen, Ron Walker and Larry Mason arrive and search the basement and wine cellar for further clues in JonBenet's death. They also finally secure the home, preventing any further arrivals.

Walker was an experienced FBI profiler. He suspected as soon as he saw the ransom note, that Jonbenet was probably going to be found dead. Walker thought that the note seemed like a hoax and that the perpetrators real agenda was murder or a cover up of a murder. He knew that finding JonBenet's body in her own home meant there had probably never been a kidnapping. In the case of a homicide where the dead child is found in the parents' home, the FBI's standard procedure is to investigate the parents and the immediate family first and then move outward in circles.

At 1:40 p.m., John Ramsey called his pilot and is allegedly heard asking him to prepare a plane to Atlanta. Law enforcement instructs the family not to leave town.

At 1:45 p.m., heeding the officer's warning, the Ramseys leave their house with plans to stay the night at the Fernie's home.

At 2:30 p.m., John and Patsy participated in a preliminary interview for more than two hours, and Burke was also interviewed within the first couple of weeks.

SEARCH WARRANT

A footprint was found one foot in front of JonBenet's body, made in concrete dust from a High Tech brand boot.

A Baseball Bat was found on ground north side by Butler Kitchen Door.

The stick used in the ligature strangulation came from one of Patsy's paint brushes.

Part of the rest of the broken paintbrush was found in the basement among Patsy's art supplies.

One of the basement windows was broken, but it had a dusty sill and an unbroken spiderweb in the corner. The window was previously broken by John when he was locked out of the house.

The gardener, Brian Scott, said he was had been in the basement to fix the sprinkler clock. He didn’t know there was a wine cellar. He did recall a broken window at the front of the house. He said he didn't remember a broken window by the grate. 

He also didn't know that he was a suspect until Linda Arndt ask for handwriting, blood, saliva, and hair.

A suit case was found on the floor almost directly underneath the window. The suitcase belonged to John Andrew, John Ramsey's eldest son from a previous marriage.

John Andrew had the guest bedroom in the Ramsey's home, which was close to JonBenet's. The police wanted to question him about his semen being found at the crime scene. The semen was found on a duvet belonging to him, inside the suitcase, which also belonged to John Andrew Ramsey, along with a Dr Seuss book.

He allegedly was in Atlanta when JonBenet was killed.

Joe Barnill said he saw John Andrew at the Ramsey house on the evening of December 25th, 1996.

There was a Swiss army knife found next to where JonBenet's body was discovered. The Swiss army knife belonged to Burke.

The housekeeper, Linda Hoffman-Pugh, said that only Patsy could have put the Swiss army knife by JonBenet's body.

" Only Patsy could have put the knife there. I took it away from Burke and hid it in a linen closet near JonBenet's bedroom. An intruder never would have found it. Patsy would have found it getting out the clean sheets," said Pugh.

According to Hoffman-Pugh, the blanket wrapped around JonBenet had been left in the dryer. There was still a Barbie doll nightgown clinging to the blanket, so it had to have come out of the dryer.

"An intruder would never have found the door to the basement room where JonBenet's body was discovered. It was to difficult to see unless someone knew it was there," Pugh said.

She also claimed that Patsy had bad mood swings, that it's like she had multiple personalities.

Linda lived in Fort Lupton at the time, with her husband, Mervin Pugh, and their then-13-year old daughter, Ariana. They shared a combined family from previous marriages. Linda had five grown children, Mervin four. She was the Ramsey's housekeeper and her husband was their maintenance man.

Fibers found on JonBenet's sheets were consistent with the cord used to tie her wrists and strangle her.

There it was a heavy flashlight sitting on the kitchen counter. Some theorize that this is what JonBenet was struck with.

There was an unidentifiable palm print found on the inside of the cellar door.

JonBenet had been killed by strangulation and a skull fracture. The official cause of death was "asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerabal trauma." 

Craniocerebral Trauma is also known as a traumatic brain injury. It usually results from a violent blow or jolt to the head or body. Serious traumatic brain injury can result in bruising, torn tissues, bleeding and other physical damage to the brain. These injuries can result in long-term complications or death.

Moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries can include any of the signs and symptoms of mild injury, as well as these symptoms that may appear within the first hours to days after a head injury:

Physical symptoms
Loss of consciousness from several minutes to hoursPersistent headache or headache that worsensRepeated vomiting or nausea Convulsions or seizures
Dilation of one or both pupils of the eyes
Clear fluids draining from the nose or ears
Inability to awaken from sleep
Weakness or numbness in fingers and toes
Loss of coordination
Cognitive or mental symptoms
Profound confusion
Agitation, combativeness or other unusual behavior
Slurred speech
Coma and other disorders of consciousness

Children's symptoms
Infants and young children with brain injuries might not be able to communicate headaches, sensory problems, confusion and similar symptoms. In a child with traumatic brain injury, you may observe:
Change in eating or nursing habits
Unusual or easy irritability
Persistent crying and inability to be consoled
Change in ability to pay attention
Change in sleep habits
Seizures
Sad or depressed mood
Drowsiness
Loss of interest in favorite toys or activities

Altered consciousness
Moderate to severe traumatic brain injury can result in prolonged or permanent changes in a person's state of consciousness, awareness or responsiveness. Different states of consciousness include:

Coma- A person in a coma is unconscious, unaware of anything and unable to respond to any stimulus. This results from widespread damage to all parts of the brain. After a few days to a few weeks, a person may emerge from a coma or enter a vegetative state.

Vegetative state-Widespread damage to the brain can result in a vegetative state. Although the person is unaware of surroundings, he or she may open his or her eyes, make sounds, respond to reflexes, or move.

It's possible that a vegetative state can become permanent.
Minimally conscious state. A minimally conscious state is a condition of severely altered consciousness but with some signs of self-awareness or awareness of one's environment.

Brain death- When there is no measurable activity in the brain and the brain stem, this is called brain death. Brain death is considered irreversible.

The strangulation came 45 minutes to two hours after the head strike, based on the swelling of the brain. The blow knocked her into a deep unconsciousness, which could have led someone to believe that JonBenet was already dead. While the head wound would have eventually killed her, the strangulation actually did kill her.

Investigators believe that JonBenet was killed close to 10 p.m. Remember JonBenet was struck in the head forty-five minutes to two hours before she was strangled. The Ramsey said that they put JonBenet to bed at 10 p.m.

There was no evidence of conventional rape, although sexual assault could not be ruled out.

A black light helped reveal that her body had been wiped clean, but a residue of blood was left on her thighs. Some people think that Patsy did this with a wipe to JonBenet after a bed wetting accident.

Supposedly, investigators found that JonBenet had plastic sheets on her bed along with a pee stain and the pull up diaper package hanging out of her cabinet. There was also the turtle neck shirt that JonBenet had been wearing that night, balled up in her bathroom.

The underwear that JonBenet was wearing were too large for her. Patsy claimed that she had never seen the underwear, that JonBenet, was wearing before. Detectives had later found out that Patsy had recently purchased that pair of underwear at Bloomingdale's in New York for her 12-year-old niece, but JonBenet wanted them so Patsy kept them for her.

Before JonBenet’s death, Burke had a tendency to smear feces everywhere he could. Some of it were found in JonBenet’s bedroom.

The blanket that the killer had wrapped around JonBenet had a pubic hair on it that could not be linked to any family member. Also, the blanket that she was wrapped in was her favorite blanket that had been left in the dryer.

Unidentifiable DNA material, "composite from multiple people" was found on her underwear and beneath her fingernails. Her long johns along with her underwear, contained a stain with male DNA, which could not be linked to any family member. Some experts say that the DNA on the long johns and underwear might also be a composite of multiple people jumbled into one profile. If this is true, we are looking for a DNA profile that will never match.

You shed 40,000 skin cells per hour. Wherever you go you are leaving a little part of yourself everywhere. The DNA profile found on JonBenet really inconclusive. It is a very small sample. There is testing suggesting that it is probably a mixture of more than one person. The profile is extremely complex. And there might never be a match, because if it is from multiple people all meshed into one, than the person doesn't exist.


There supposedly is going to be new DNA tests.

The autopsy revealed a "vegetable or fruit material, which may represent pineapple," which JonBenet had eaten a few hours before death.

Photographs of the home taken on the day JonBenet's body was found show a bowl of pineapple on the kitchen table with a spoon in it. John and Patsy both said that they did not remember putting the bowl on the table or feeding pineapple to JonBenet. Police reported that they found Burke's fingerprints on the bowl.

There was a mark on JonBenet's neck and back that looked it it came from a stun gun or Burke's toy train. Burke's train room was in the basement, next to the wine cellar where JonBenet's body was found.

Allegedly a stun gun instructional video was found at the Ramsey home. After attending a Super Bowl game in Miami in 1994, John and Patsy visited a spy store in Coral Gables FL (where security contractor Wackenhut was based until 1995). John was interested in security equipment to protect his company, Access Graphics (a Lockheed Martin subsidiary), from espionage. Before he left, the clerk gave them a video catalog to take him. The family forgot about it until JonBenet's death, when the police searched their house and seized the tapes.

Cathy O'Brien asserts in an interview that the stun gun video was titled "HOW TO CREATE A MIND CONTROL SLAVE USING A STUN GUN", and that she was in that video. 

Fibers found on the duct tape were from the sweater that Patsy had been wearing.