The Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Murder of JonBenet: Part I

**Discussion beings at 6:00**

The JonBenet Ramsey murder is one of the most famous and tragic unsolved child murder cases in the United States.  JonBenet, a 6-year-old beauty queen, was found to be missing on the morning of December 26, 1996 in what appeared to be a kidnap for ransom.  Seven hours later, however, the young girl was found murdered in the basement of her 7,240 sq ft home.   Here is a brief sequence of event - JonBenet was carried in from a party on Christmas night and put to bed.  The following morning, her mother, Patsy, found a ransom note at the bottom of the stairs – demanding $118,000 for the safe return of JonBenet.  It was signed “a foreign faction”.   She noted her daughter was missing and called 911 at 5:52 AM on December 26. The ransom note was highly unusual: it was long, detailed, and written on paper from the Ramsey home. The note demanded a specific amount of money (which was nearly equivalent of John Ramsey's Christmas bonus) and instructed the parents not to contact the police.  The police, as well as friends of the Ramseys, descended on the house, mucking up the crime scene.  At one point, around 1PM, an detctive asks John and his friend to search the house – this being a tool to distract him and get him out of the way.  The duo descended downstairs, and in a back unfinished room, John Ramsey found his daughter dead with evidence of blunt force trauma to the head and strangulation.  He removed tape from her mouth and rushed her upstairs, again disturbing the crime scene.  Police officers then covered the young girls body with a blanket.  It took 12 hours for a coroner to arrive – their report stated that JonBenét had died from blunt force trauma to the head, with a fractured skull. She also had strangulation marks on her neck, consistent with being garrotted with a cord. The garotte was made of a paintbrush from Patsy Ramsey’s paint kit found in the same room.  There was no evidence of conventional rape, but evidence of vaginal trauma, likely from the paintbrush used in the garotte.  There was touch DNA belonging to an unknown male on her underwear, as well as under her nails – the DNA did not match anyone in the family or in the FBI database.  Initially, the police focused on the family as potential suspects. Both Patsy and John Ramsey, as well as their 9 year old son Burke were scrutinized. While they denied involvement, suspicion grew around them due to various inconsistencies in their accounts and the peculiar nature of the crime scene.  There was also speculation about an intruder, as there was evidence of open windows in the basement, which could suggest someone had entered the house, as well as 2 small marks on JonBenet consistent with a stun gun.  In 1999, a grand jury had voted to indict the Ramseys, but prosecutors chose not to pursue charges due to insufficient evidence.  Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 from ovarian cancer, and her death did not lead to any new breakthroughs in the case.  The Ramsey family was officially exonerated in 2008 but the case remains unsolved.  The investigation into her death remains open, and despite some advancements in forensic science, no one has been charged with the crime, leaving room for continued speculation and conspiracy theories.  

Transcript

Hey, guys.

Hey.

What's up?

I just want to tell you guys about all the side quests we have had today.

It's been so many side quests, and Megan had no idea.

Well, here's what happened, guys.

Megan was so mad at him.

Kase lives about 40 minutes away.

So we have this plan, okay?

We have our annual Christmas party this evening, half a mile from my house.

Usually we have a slumber party after, but Kade couldn't slumber party, so I said, you know what, I'll come pick you up and then you can just Uber one way.

And that was the plan.

And I'm in my bed this morning at 8.30 and she's texting me, what are you coming to get me?

And I said, oh, okay, I got up, I got dressed.

She's like, Colleen's here.

And I get there and she's sipping her coffee in her pajamas.

And she's like, by the way, we have to go to the-

Neither one of us has our gift for the gift exchange.

I first bought it at my apartment.

And also could we stop at Bojangles and I was like-

You wanted Bojangles, too.

I mean, once I went to Bojangles, I was like, fine, but I would not have gone to Bojangles on my own.

Oh, no.

Well, okay, but here's the thing.

So the favor I tried to do turned into me chauffeuring them around for their errands.

I offered to drive.

Really she's just mad that she drove.

Yeah.

I think if anyone else would have driven, she would have been happy.

She was upset.

But-

But we had-

I was just annoyed with these princesses over here.

And the fact that Kait was like, hustle over and get here.

Colleen's already on her way and I pull up in my car and I text them, I'm outside and Colleen's like, you better come inside.

And I walk in and Kait's in her pajamas to get her coffee.

Hold on a second.

I'd also like to say that if I told you that I needed to go do errands, you wouldn't come out.

Yeah, she wouldn't have come.

You manipulated me.

Yeah.

And then I was like, I have to tell her I forgot my Christmas present and she's going to be really mad.

Yeah, we were talking about how mad she was going to be.

I was working up how I was going to explain it to Megan because I was that worried.

I mean, I literally drove there in my pajamas and my slippers.

You look cute because the slippers have rubber bottoms, so those look like shoes.

Yeah, but I wasn't prepared to bop around the shopping center.

Yeah, but you know what?

Then she embraced the adventure and she was like, all right, I guess we're going to go to Target and CVS and ABC store.

So.

And it all worked out.

Yeah, and here we are recording.

And guys, at one of the stores, such a deal.

It was buy one, get two free on blankets, hats and socks.

So I got both Megan and Kait a matching hat and socks.

Go to Target, Sporting Goods.

Guys, just a reminder, don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens.

That's the number three SchemeQueens, all one word.

We're also on Reddit, same username.

If you want to check out our website, go to 3schemequeens.com and you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content, our contact page, and our discussion board, where you can engage with us and share any updates on the topics that we have discussed.

Let us know how we're doing and what you want to hear next.

There are also opportunities to financially support us.

There are links to buy a sick cup of coffee, links to our recently updated merch store, and affiliate links.

And as always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, listens, the likes.

Kait, what should the people do?

Yeah, scroll on down, leave us a five-star review, especially if you like when we ramble.

Tell us how much you love us via comment or message board.

Or on social media.

Or you can just share our social media with the people and also go visit our website.

And after that, stop.

Take out your phone right now, open up your messaging app, hit the share button and say, I'd like to share this episode with someone, especially if they're a true crime fan, because this episode, all about a true crime case that still has not been solved.

So is it time for our drink check?

Drink check.

What do we have today, Colleen?

It's a holiday theme.

I found it on TikTok, and I was so excited to tell the girls about it.

Come to find out, it's already a known drink.

Megan and Kait are drinking, quote unquote, Roy Rogers, which is Diet Coke and Grenadine.

I am drinking a 7Up with Grenadine, which is a Shirley Temple down here.

That's right.

A Shirley Temple to me is ginger ale with Grenadine and the maraschino cherries.

But everybody down here like 7Up with their Shirley Temple, and that just feels wrong.

It's just a lemon lime drink.

It doesn't taste the same.

But TikTok's theme was the Shirley Temple with Diet Coke.

So that's what we're having.

And I think it's delicious.

It tastes good, yeah.

I just did a little refill of mine, because I didn't know it had a bit too hard.

Yeah.

Roy Rogers.

Holly Dipsea.

Yeah.

And I said, this would be a good one because we're talking about JonBenet, a child star, if you will, and we can make Shirley Temples.

And Colleen told me that was...

It felt offensive.

I don't know.

That was maybe not very...

It's giving that time that I said, there's a code blue overhead, and I said, wow, I guess that really is a short stay, and one of our coworkers got mad.

Yeah.

There was a code blue in short stay.

Yeah.

You know what?

You gotta have Gala's humor.

We can't survive the job that we have in London.

All right, guys.

Today, I'm excited for this one.

We're talking JonBenet.

Jon...

Bonnet.

And I said it last week.

This has been on the calendar.

But as we approach the anniversary of her death, there's a lot of content about her out there right now.

Oh, 100%.

Well, and they're diving back in.

Yeah, I really think it's the lastest effort of the dad because he knows he's going to die soon.

Well, it's so sad.

Kait, you watched the Netflix special, right?

I mean, he's looking old.

Yeah.

But I was trying to figure out how old he actually is.

He's in his 80s.

Oh, he's 80.

He looks great for 80.

But yeah, that makes sense because it was his second marriage.

Yeah, and he had older kids from the second marriage.

Oh, he had more kids.

And actually, on the Netflix documentary, there's an older son and he looks hot.

Yeah.

He can get it.

Yeah.

All right, guys.

Not for me because my husband's listening.

But let me give my intro and then we want to hear what Colleen thinks because Colleen was not even alive.

No.

We're going to split this up into two parts, guys.

Two part.

There's just too much content.

I've been trying not to do two parters because I know that I can't commit to two parts of a podcast like when I listen sometimes.

But there is just so much out there.

There's no way.

So we're going to focus in part one on like the background.

I'm not going to go into a ton of details, but we'll talk about it.

The background and kind of the big theories.

And then part two is going to be conspiracy theories.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Here we go.

The JonBenet Ramsey murder is one of the most famous and tragic unsolved child murder cases in the United States.

JonBenet, a six-year-old beauty queen, was found to be missing on the morning of December 26, 1996, in what appeared to be a kidnap or ransom.

Seven hours later, however, the young girl was found murdered in the basement of her 7,240 square foot home.

Here is a brief sequence of events.

JonBenet was carried in from a party on Christmas night and put to bed.

The following morning, her mother Patsy found a ransom note at the bottom of the stairs demanding $118,000 for the safe return of JonBenet.

It was signed, quote, a foreign faction.

She noted her daughter was missing and called 911 at 552 a.m.

on December 26th.

The ransom note was highly unusual.

It was long, detailed and written on paper from the Ramsey home.

The note demanded a specific amount of money, which was nearly equivalent to JonRamsey's Christmas bonus, and instructed the parents not to contact the police.

The police, as well as friends of the Ramsey's, descended on the house, mucking up the crime scene.

At one point, around 1 p.m., a detective asked Jon and his friends to search the house, this being a tool to distract him and get him out of the way.

The duo descended into the basement, and in a back, unfinished room, JonRamsey found his daughter dead with evidence of blunt force trauma to the head and strangulation.

Oh my god.

He removed tape from her mouth and rushed her upstairs, again disturbing the crime scene.

Police officers then covered the young girl's body with a blanket.

It took 12 hours for a quarter to arrive.

The report stated that JonBenet had died from blunt force trauma to the head with a fractured skull.

She also had strangulation marks on her neck consistent with being garrotted with a cord.

The garrot was made of a paintbrush from Patsy Ramsey's paint kit found in the same room.

There was no evidence of conventional rape, but evidence of vaginal trauma likely from the paintbrush used in the garrot.

Yeah, it's awful.

There was touched DNA belonging to an unknown male on her underwear as well as under her nails.

The DNA did not match anyone in the family or in the FBI database.

Initially, the police focused on the family's potential suspects, both Patsy and Jon Ramsey as well as their nine-year-old son Burke were scrutinized.

While they denied involvement, suspicion grew around them due to various inconsistencies in their accounts and the peculiar nature of the crime scene.

There was also speculation about an intruder as there was evidence of open windows in the basement which could suggest someone had entered the house as well as two small marks on JonBenet consistent with a stun gun.

A 1999 grand jury had voted to indict the Ramses, but prosecution chose not to pursue charges due to insufficient evidence.

Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 from ovarian cancer and her death did not lead to any breakthroughs in the case.

That's so sad.

The Ramsey family was officially exonerated in 2008, but the case remains unsolved.

The investigation into her death remains open, and despite some advancements and forensic science, no one has been charged with a crime, leading room for continued speculation and conspiracy theories.

Wow.

Okay.

What do you think?

Well, so I have seen a documentary years ago on this case.

And I think I listened to a podcast on it at one point.

And like the theories that I knew that were popular was that like the dad or the brother had done it.

And like we're trying to like manipulate the system.

But some of the details that you just said just in the intro alone, I didn't know about.

I didn't know about the collected DNA.

And like I didn't know about the unknown man DNA.

So now I'm, I don't believe my, what I had heard before.

Well, there's also a lot of stuff we'll talk about.

Like they didn't, they withheld from the public.

Yeah, I didn't know about like the vaginal trauma.

Yep.

So Kait was how old?

Six.

She was six.

That's.

I have a lot of feelings about this honestly.

Kait texted Colleen to be like, Colleen, have you heard of the JonBenet case?

Because I was like, maybe, you know, this was our plan was to do this and I researched it, but maybe it's just too saturated right now.

And Kait was like, well, I think that people younger than us maybe aren't as familiar.

So she texted Colleen and Colleen said, oh, didn't the brother do it?

And we're gonna talk about that.

That was a big theory.

Well, there was one documentary by CBS.

I think that's what I watched.

And then everybody, there's like two interviews that he's done that people just like pick apart.

And I do think he's weird in the interviews.

Yeah, he might be like ISD.

I think there's just like a lot of things that weren't done properly.

And so people started theorizing, which is obviously what we're gonna talk about today.

So you have no, so you're back, and you thought it was the parents and Burke, and now you're not so sure.

Yeah, I mean, I want to hear what you have to say.

But that's just what I knew.

Like, that's just what I heard about, like online and things like that.

But, oh my gosh.

Okay, what do you, you can get into, we'll get into details, but yeah, but off the top of your head, who do you think?

I think it was someone that worked with him.

Oh, okay.

Nobody had to have known the house.

Well, there's all these like, before we get into details, there's all this just weird stuff.

And I do think that like, it's somebody that knew him, that worked with him as in him, as in Jon, the dad.

Yeah, Jon Ramsey, because he was like a big business man.

He actually sold his company to Lockheed Martin.

Yeah, Lockheed Martin.

The parents, their theory, and I kind of like am with them on their theory, is that somebody broke into the house while they were at the Christmas party and then waited downstairs to take her.

And there had been like other rape, like rapes and like murders in the area at the time.

Yeah, that's kind of like my theory.

But then like the police were like, oh, they can't get through that little window.

And this one of the people who worked for the police department, like did it multiple times.

He was like six foot four and he was like, let me show you how.

Yeah.

And he was 60 years old too.

So he was like, you know, I'm 60 and I can still get into this like, because the whole idea was like it was around the back and you had to like lift this, get this great.

That's my theory.

And especially because of the ransom note and everything, but Megan will get into it.

A lot has to do with the ransom note too.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that the police department was kind of shady.

I think the media was shady.

Like.

I agree.

I think it had to be someone familiar with the family.

Yes.

But yeah, we'll talk about it.

I also had no idea how large the house was.

I think that for sure, the police focused in very early on the Ramses, and they tried to kind of fit the narrative and anything that came out.

Like when the DNA didn't match the Ramses, they didn't tell anyone that.

They told them zero.

They sealed that because it didn't fit their narrative.

That's crazy.

And I think it should have just exonerated them to begin with.

Yeah, that detail alone.

I also don't know much.

I don't know about the DNA, but we'll get into that.

It was completely compromised.

I don't understand why the police didn't like immediately come in, rope off everything, bring the Forensics teams out, and start combing through top to bottom of that house.

And then why did the police detectives say, go make yourself, because the parents were sitting around and they were like, why don't you go and look at the house and see if anything is out of place?

And that's when he found JonBenet.

In the meantime, they had invited all their friends and family and their pastor over and they were cleaning the kitchen.

That's insane.

Exactly.

But anyway, we'll talk about that.

I also think what's important to note, last podcast on the left covered this, and they made a good point too that I think when we talk about some of the odd behavior that the Ramsey's had afterwards, you have to think of this in terms of like they're not normal people.

These are very upper class people.

Like when we talk about how could they not find JonBenet sooner and then you're like, well, it's a 7,000 plus square foot house.

And if you look at it, it's very choppy.

They just kept kind of like building on to it.

And so I think and like, you know, them getting like a PR team after the fact.

These are these are millionaires, upper class people.

Millionaires in the 90s.

Yeah.

So maybe the way they respond is different.

But anyway, let's get into it.

I also think, yeah.

And then part of it was like they had a legal team at his company.

He was like a CEO.

Yeah.

They had a legal team at his company that was like you need to lawyer up.

Let's start with the theories.

So murder was incredibly rare and bolder in 1996.

In fact, this was the only murder that year.

The detectives who were inexperienced with murder cases presented a theory that Jon and Patsy Ramsey were somehow involved in her death, either directly or indirectly, and then staged the crime scene to cover it up.

I think a lot of this came from, I think, like the public also just being very judgmental about like the pageant lifestyle that Jon and Patsy Ramsey was in.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

And so then all of us at home were like, oh my gosh, they're just like sexualizing their daughter and their terrible parents.

But also like looking at it from a 2024 perspective, I'm like, you guys, first of all, the little girl was having so much fun.

She was like, also pageantry is like a generational lifestyle thing.

And I'm looking at it like, that's what a lot of pageants look like.

Well, and they were from the south too.

They relocated to Colorado, but they were like a...

They were from Atlanta, yeah, from Georgia.

I just think that like, I don't know, from 2024 perspective, I'm like, how many...

You saw what you wanted to see.

Right.

Because I'm looking at it, and this is just like a little girl having fun.

Yeah.

I mean, she does appear very mature, but who knows?

Maybe she had a coach.

They have coaches for pageants that tell them, do this, take off your jacket like this, walk like this.

This is how you want to engage your audience.

And also she just looks like a natural performer.

Like they saw what they wanted to see.

So the point that Kait made earlier as well, Jon Ramsey owned this company that was sold to Lockheed Martin and he was kept on as like the CEO.

And so when this happened, his employers instructed him not to talk to the police and to get a lawyer, as you mentioned.

So to the outsiders, it looks like he's not being cooperative, right?

Because he's not talking to the police.

He's just trying to protect himself.

Well, and he's following the instructions of the bosses at Lockheed Martin.

Right.

Right.

When they did finally do interviews and press conferences, Patsy appeared calm and rehearsed, so people were judging her appearance.

But what do you think, Kait?

She looks high.

Yeah.

I think she took a little zany.

Yeah.

And she says that she doesn't even remember anything from that week.

She's rich, so she probably had.

Well, there are witnesses saying she was popping Benzos.

Yeah.

So I don't think it's like because she's guilty, I think she's traumatized.

This like 30-something just lost her daughter in this awful way.

The ransom note we discussed earlier, it was very long and detailed.

It demanded a large sum of money, but no ransom was ever collected.

The police reported the handwriting from the note matched Patsy's handwriting, but multiple experts have since disputed that fact.

What we do know is that it was written on a pad of paper from the Ramsey home, likely with a pen from the home and contained personal details about Jon Ramsey.

Finally, the manner in which JonBenet's body was found with a garrot around her neck, led some to believe that the crime scene was staged to make it look like a kidnapping gone wrong rather than a family-related murder.

You know what a garrot is?

No.

Have you guys ever put on a trauma tourniquet?

No, I've never, but I know what you're talking about.

What you do is you put it on and then there's a plastic bar and you twist it.

Oh, yeah.

Tightens, tightens, tightens, and then you tie into place.

I think that is what this mechanism is, or it sounds like if you have two sticks with a string and you use that to string up someone.

Oh, I know what you're talking about.

A garrot is used as a torture device.

This particular garrot that she was found with was made from, there was a paint set near her that belonged to Patsy Ramsey, and it looks like they broke a paint brush from that paint set, and that's what they used to make this garrot.

But as you mentioned, Kait, the knot was very intricate.

Some blame Patsy for the murder, and the theories were that there was frustration over JonBenet's bedwetting.

Now, this whole bedwetting theory, where do you think it came from?

I don't know exactly who it was.

Was it the police?

Well, that's the whole point, that we always had this like bedwetting, heard this bedwetting theory, and then when I researched, I'm like, where did that actually come from?

Right.

There's no evidence that she had a bedwetting issue.

No, and in fact, the bed was dry, it was dry, and it would just look like, and then the argument was that her mom changed the sheets real fast, because that was the thing, is like she wet the bed.

Patsy was frustrated.

Patsy was mad at her, got her in the tub, hit her head in the tub, realized she killed her, so then the husband helped cover it up by doing this grot tie.

This just, again, was just fabricated from the mind of someone, and there was no evidence to support that.

In fact, the bed that they took her from, they got fiber, everything had her skin cells or hair, so it like, it was, they weren't fresh sheets.

Right.

Well, as far as I could tell, the only kind of proof proof they had of this bedwetting theory comes from a clip when Jon Ramsey did an interview with Dr.

Phil that was taken out of context, where I think Dr.

Phil was like, you know, did she ever wet the bed, like ever?

Right.

And he made some kind of comment, and that's what they're taking as proof, but there's, we really have no evidence that the bedwetting was an issue, but that was one of the initial theories was like, there was bedwetting, and that's what caused this.

There's also reports that, like, you know, they had had a Christmas party earlier that day, apparently JonBenet like put on lipstick, and then her mom was like, that's not appropriate, that's only for the pageants, and then they were fighting about what she was going to wear, and so people are like, she was so frustrated that she took it out on her.

Now, how often do you bicker with-

I was going to say, someone who fights often with her daughter about what to wear, I promise you, I'm never so angry that I'm going to physically hurt her.

Yeah.

Oh, you're just like-

I just think that's a weak motive to me.

Yes.

I think that she's six years old.

Girls this age are emotional.

There's outbursts.

It is what it is.

But I just can't believe that it was bad enough on Christmas day.

No way.

To cause her mom to assault her.

So then the other theory that this really came out with a CBS special, that's probably what you saw in 2016, Colleen.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

And it centers around the pineapple found in her stomach.

So remember, apparently, she was put straight to bed.

Yeah, the pineapple.

So the theory was that she had fallen asleep on the way home and they like just carried her to bed and put her to bed.

Right.

But she had a piece of undigested pineapple in her intestines.

So that indicated that she had eaten pineapple prior to her death.

Well, there was a bowl of pineapple in the kitchen.

So some theorize that she had stolen some of her older brother Burke's snack and he had hit her over the head with a flashlight and accidentally killed her.

And then his parents covered it up for him.

Burke Ramsey has consistently denied any involvement and in 2016, he won a lawsuit against CBS for this documentary that implicated him.

He also again, as Kate got to, I think he just kind of comes off odd, but I think he might have like some ASD or something.

Yeah, I mean, and there's footage of him from that first couple days after she had just died with the police and that he's like lounging all over the chair and he's kind of like, it's like very dis, he's almost dissociated.

And I think people use that and then the other one that you were talking about to like sort of implicate him.

But I'm thinking he's nine years old.

I'm trying to think of like how my, I have a son that's eight and I'm thinking Patch would be probably similar.

Like they're very like aloof.

They don't, yeah.

Patch would not be able to sit in a chair and be interrogated, right?

Especially not with all this going on.

Crying historically, actually.

But also I was saying the same thing too that I was like, do you think, can you picture, again, Kate's kids are pretty close at age to these kids.

I'm like, can you picture Patch doing that to Joey?

And like 100 percent, no way.

I just can't, I can't picture any, the eight-year-old children I know, the nine-year-old children I know.

I just can't picture any of them having like the strength, the, oh, I mean, to hit, no.

To fracture her skull.

A child with like opposition disorder.

Oh, oppositional.

Yeah, I can picture a child, I mean, like I know of kids with that disorder that harm their family and siblings.

So like, but I don't think he has that.

You know what I mean?

Like he's quote unquote normal.

Like he doesn't have that diagnosis.

Right.

And so again, if you believe this theory, then it's like Burke did it, but then the family covered it up.

What a weird name.

So the case, you know, again, I told you that he actually filed this lawsuit against CBS.

That case was settled.

But again, people still speculate.

People on Reddit, people like, again, Colleen, who when we asked her that was like, wasn't it the brother?

That must have been the documentary.

Yeah, that's like the story that kind of, Yeah, the whole documentary was People Persevering about him.

So as we've kind of touched on, I just think the police really destroyed the crime scene, all the potential evidence.

Again, there's this touched DNA that I'm like, I'm not even sure if we can really trust the DNA.

We'll get to all of that later when we talk about our conspiracy theories.

But the detective in charge, he was a narcotics detective because there was no homicide.

So we have a narcotics detective who's investigating.

Why don't they call in another town that has a homicide?

It's interesting because actually the DA did call in someone else, but hold on, we'll get to that.

The narcotics detective who had no homicide experience and was put in charge of the case, Steve Thomas, focused in on the family early and could not see past them.

In 1998, Steve Thomas resigned because the DA would not prosecute the Ramses.

So if you're on the side of the Ramses did it, you would argue that the DA actually refused to look at the family due to their status and money and were only focused on potential intruders.

Now, Steve Thomas went on to do a lot of press about the case, and he published a book and was actually sued by the Ramses for false accusations against them, which was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

And Steve Thomas now, he's like, I know who did it, but he doesn't comment anymore because I probably wouldn't either after I've been sued.

Right.

There was another detective.

So you mentioned this, why didn't they bring in someone else?

Well, there was this detective, an actual homicide detective who had just retired, and the DA's office actually hired him.

So there's just a lot of like, the police and the DA were not working together.

The police were hiring their own attorneys, the DA was hiring their own detectives, and they were not on the same page about who did it.

The homicide detective actually worked the case for 18 months.

He was convinced of the intruder theory.

He's the one in the documentary that Kait and I saw back in the day where he actually like proves that an intruder could have done it.

I was going to say he quit too because they wanted to prosecute the Ramsey so bad, and he was so convinced that the Ramsey's didn't do it, and he was like, I'm done.

He ended up resigning because he felt the police refused to look into anyone other than the Ramsey.

Exactly.

And then Detective Art, Detective Art was the first detective on the scene.

She came two hours after the 911 call.

She was a sex crimes detective.

So again, I mean, yeah, she did have vaginal.

But they didn't know that yet.

Okay.

This is the kidnapping.

They call in, my daughter's been kidnapped.

Two hours later, this is the first detective who shows up.

She's a sex crimes detective.

I think to be fair too, I mean, either way, we all agree, right?

They should have just blocked off the crime scene, not let anyone in.

Their argument is like, well, you know, it was really just a kidnapping at that point.

We didn't know it was a murder, but also if it's a kidnapping, you're trying to get the six year old girl back.

I would have ruled out everything.

Yeah.

I would have been treating everything like a crime scene.

Right.

So especially her body.

She's the one who told JonRamsey to go search the house.

And everyone judges her for that.

She's the one who told JonRamsey to go search the house.

And she's the one who allowed them to move the body.

And then when he brought the body upstairs, she covered it up.

She's literally listening.

As someone who's watched every episode of SVU more than once.

Has she never even been to crime school?

Exactly.

I mean, I feel like even a sex crimes detective should know you don't cover the body.

You're just contaminating the scene.

What the hell?

She's the one I mentioned to allow-

The whole thing.

The whole thing is so botched.

Yeah.

Like of course they couldn't figure out the murder.

You have no evidence because you ruined it.

You literally didn't close the house.

Yeah.

She's the one who also allowed all of the family and friends to come over and actually let them clean the kitchen while they were investigating.

This is insane.

Yeah.

So she was forced to resign due to criticism of her handling the crime scene.

The parents did pass the lie detector tests.

And then you were talking about the grand jury.

So I want to clarify, because I mentioned in my introduction that the grand jury did vote to indict the Ramses.

But to be clear, it was not for murder.

So the indictment from the grand jury was 14 pages long.

Only a couple of paragraphs were unsealed.

And in those paragraphs, what was released said that the Ramses, quote, did unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly, and feloniously permit a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation, which posed a threat of injury to the child's life or health, which resulted in the death of JonBenet Ramsey, a child under the age of 16.

I'm sorry.

They let her go sleep in her own room?

Well, so we don't know what this means, but the point is, they're not saying-

It sounds like they let her do something that was wrong.

That resulted in her death.

So it could be, they let her participate in pageants, and that's where the perpetrator found her, right?

That doesn't make any sense.

It could be that they brought in a Santa Claus to their party who did it.

Like it could be any number of, it could be they, yeah, the son, the son did, I mean, they didn't say the Ramses killed her.

They said that they put her in a situation that contributed to her death.

Yeah, this is all just like terrible.

Yeah.

To wrap up the family theory, a couple of other things that have popped up.

There was a neighbor who claimed that at midnight, between midnight and 2 a.m., she heard screams.

She did not come out.

She came out to a tabloid like a year later with this report.

Also, she heard screams, but she didn't call 911.

But the theory was that if she could hear screams, the family could have heard screams.

It doesn't make sense.

I believe in that same documentary that we talked about from 2016, they actually fact-checked this and they recreated it.

Again, we have to think about the size of this house.

In the basement where her body was found, with the window open, the neighbor could have heard it and the parents could not have heard it.

That is not proof proof that the family was involved.

That's crazy.

The other thing people talk about is the 911 call.

I had a hard time fact-checking this, but the story was that-

The 911 call, she's like, my daughter, somebody kidnapped my daughter.

No.

They claim that Burke, the older brother, was asleep for all of this.

So when people went back and they enhanced the 911 tape, that 911 recording, some people claim that they can hear three distinct voices on the 911 call.

So the theory was that after she hung up with 911, she didn't really hang up.

So they finished 911 call, it's still recording, she thinks she's hung up.

And then people who years later went back to analyze the audio, say that they can hear an angry male saying, we're not speaking to you, this doesn't pertain to you.

They can hear a female saying, help me Jesus, help me Jesus.

And then they hear a young male voice saying, what did you find?

If you couldn't find the audio.

Well, I did find the audio and I listened and it was, I found an audio of someone was like, this is the best version of the audio I found.

And I listened and I could hear none of this.

Yeah.

So I'm not really able to validate this.

It definitely sounds suspicious if they're telling you that that Burke was asleep and, but then we're catching up on the call.

It has nothing to do with you, help me, Jesus, and then what did you find?

Like, what does that point to anyway?

The argument is just that it doesn't track that.

That's what they're reporting.

Yeah.

And that they're like, it sounds like, yeah, if the sun came down, they're like, go away, whatever.

And he's like, well, what'd you find?

What'd you find?

It's just, they're thinking it could point to Burke did it and the parents covered it up, because Burke was obviously not asleep during the whole thing.

He was captured in 901.

But I can't even validate that.

But did she say that she went upstairs and looked like into Burke's room?

In the documentary, she said, she went into, I think she called 911, then she went into Burke's room to see if he was okay.

She went to go look.

She probably woke up too.

She went to her room first, found the bed and then went to-

But the point is that people are arguing that he, per her story, he slept through all of this, but he's obviously not asleep if he's in the background of the 911.

I'm sure he could have slept through it.

He definitely could have slept through it.

Yeah, but then why is he on the 911 call?

He's not asleep then.

He's not on the 911 call.

You didn't hear it?

I didn't hear it.

Okay, so those are kind of the family information.

People have also said that there weren't footprints in the snow, but if you look, it really wasn't that snowy.

When you put the pictures, it was very patchy snow.

Yeah, it was.

There were footprints found.

We'll get to that.

Let's talk intruder, guys.

Let's talk the intruder theory.

Okay, my theory.

Another theory that gained traction over the years is that an unknown intruder broke into the Ramsey home and killed JonBenet.

Supporters of this theory point to the fact that there were some signs of intruder, including open windows in the basement, the idea that there were signs of forced entry, there was DNA found on JonBenet's underwear, which didn't match any of the Ramsey family members or anyone in the police database.

Because the police were so focused on the Ramsey's, they actually went, so I guess in like England, they kept getting this like DNA that wasn't popping up in the database.

And then they found out that it was, the DNA was from somebody in the factory that was producing the DNA swabs.

And it was like, just like their DNA was coming out of the labs.

So I think that was what, but that's a different situation.

These police actually went to the underwear factory and test the DNA of everyone in the underwear factory to see if that's her touch DNA.

Yeah, they were just really trying to disprove the intruder theory, because they were so focused on the Ramsey's.

So stupid.

There was a footprint found in that, this room that she was found in, they called the wine cellar.

It's just like a small unfinished room.

Yeah, it was like really, yeah.

So there was a footprint found there that did not match any of the Ramsey's.

And then a couple of other interesting things, like there had been, because as we mentioned, I think Kait and I kind of leaned toward this intruder theory.

Right.

But I agree with Kait, that it was probably someone who did know them, who had been in the house before.

So their house had been on like the open house Christmas walkthrough earlier in the month, where they had over 2,000 people walking through the house.

Oh my God.

So someone could have been in the house.

So any of them would have gone.

And then on December 23rd, they had this Christmas party.

Wow, somebody really planned this murder.

So there's theories that like in a house this big, was there a Frogger, you know, did he just hang out for 2 days?

Or Frogger is people who live in your house.

And you don't know like live in the walls or in the back or whatever.

Oh, I don't like that.

There's a whole series on it.

I don't like that at all.

It's so creepy to me.

Or as Kait said, what I kind of lean toward probably like, did they break in while they were gone for Christmas?

There's no evidence that she died elsewhere in the house and then was placed there, which is kind of what these people are theorizing if like Burke killed her or if her mom killed her, and then placed her there.

And it would be really weird if this was like a passionate, you know, act of aggression that why would they have been in the small back room when they did this?

Well, are all their bedrooms near each other?

No.

In fact, JonBenet's room is on its own level.

That's so weird.

Why would you put your six-year-old on a different level?

I mean, I was on a different level at age eight.

Oh my God.

I'm going to tell you about the intruder, the most common suspects if we believe this intruder theory.

Okay.

Now, Colleen, you might remember this.

This was in 2006.

Jon Carr, do you remember this weird looking teacher who came out?

No.

Okay.

So he was his teacher.

He was charged in the United States with child pornography, so he fled to Thailand.

In 2006, he came out and he confessed to having killed JonBenet, and they brought him back to the United States.

He seemed to know facts that were not released to the press, but also we know that the police, a lot of facts were getting leaked from the police.

Yes.

They were leaking things to the media so that the public would be on their side and try and get the Ramses indicted.

We can't really believe, usually in a crime situation, yeah, that's how we know who's telling the truth, is like who knows facts that the public doesn't know, but you can't really do that in this instance.

Why are you on Zillow?

I want to look up how much square feet my house was.

God, where do you see it?

The ADHD.

This guy was cleared because Michael Carr or whatever.

John Mark Carr was cleared because his DNA did not match.

He'd actually been in Atlanta with his family for Christmas when she was murdered.

But this guy, he's out in the world right now.

New name, new gender, living in the Pacific Northwest.

Okay, so John Mark Carr is the one who's probably the most famous suspect.

But he was never prosecuted.

No, because he was cleared.

He just came out and said it.

A lot of people have come out and said they did it and didn't do it.

There's no evidence to support that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Why would you want to say you did it just to be...

Well, I'm sure he was psychotic.

Wow.

Okay.

Michael Helgoth, he was a Boulder auto salvage worker.

He was in a property dispute with the Ramses.

So the theory was that this is retaliation.

That seems a little bit far-fetched to me.

The interesting thing about this is that two months after the murder, there was a press conference and the Boulder DA announced a new suspect.

And then this guy committed suicide the next day.

Whoa, that's suspicious.

That's very suspicious.

His DNA, like everyone else's, not a match.

Linda Hoffman Pugh, the housekeeper.

So she had asked Patsy for a loan for several thousand dollar loan right before this happened.

Patsy declined to give her the loan.

She had no alibi.

Her husband was sleeping on the couch while she was in bed.

Why would she hurt a child?

Well, we talked about this too, if you're going back to the parents, it's one thing to accidentally, I don't know.

It just is a far leap for me to think that even if it was a cover up for the parents to stage a sexual assault, that just seems too much.

That's sick.

That's so sick.

I was gonna say at the beginning, there's gonna be a lot of disgusting from Kait.

Yeah.

That's one, sorry.

Okay, but the housekeeper.

Now, as Kait mentioned, the ransom requested $118,000.

$118,000.

Isn't that such a weird number?

Okay, so Jon Ramsey's bonus Christmas bonus was like $118,800.

Well, Linda Hoffman-Pew had access to the house.

She might have seen a pay stub laying around while she was cleaning, and she knew the house.

She could have lured JonBenet downstairs in hopes of collecting the ransom.

She claimed that Patsy was always mean.

Sounds like they didn't get along very well.

And so she thinks that Patsy is responsible.

I mean, I could definitely see.

I mean, Patsy was like a little Southern belle.

And I'm sure she could come off mean girl.

Okay, Gary Oliver, he is a 32 year old.

He was a 32 year old sex offender in Boulder.

Oh my God.

He was unhoused.

Oh, no.

That's how we say it, right?

He reportedly had a photo of JonBenet.

That's very creepy.

Like he was living in a tent and he had this photo of him.

How did he get his photo?

It might have been like from a magazine or something.

But the point is that like-

That's really disturbing.

Disgusting.

He reportedly called his friend and confessed, I heard a little girl.

I heard a little girl.

Oh no.

That sounds like the suspect to me.

And then his childhood friend revealed to InTouch Magazine that he was particularly unsettled by how the knots used to fashion the garrote that strangled JonBenet were similar to those used in an incident where Oliver attempted to choke his mother with a telephone cord.

This sounds like a suspect.

He wrote in a letter to his friend, I never loved anyone like I did JonBenet, and yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half and I watched her die.

It was an accident.

How is he not arrested?

He was also rumored to have possible connections to a theory that links the marks found in JonBenet's body to an encounter with the stun gun.

Oh my God.

He had a stun gun on him at the time of his initial arrest.

He has done time.

He now denies any involvement.

His DNA was not a match.

But this guy sounds like a pretty good suspect.

Yeah.

Well, wait a second.

Is he mentally ill?

I know he was unhoused.

Obviously.

I mean, he was trying to strangle his mother and he's obviously, whether he did it or he didn't do it and he's just writing letters saying he loved JonBenet, he's mentally ill.

That's definitely mental.

But I'm saying was this is like delusions of grandeur?

Like, was he like...

Pretending he did it.

No, did his mind tell him that he did it?

You know, because that happens to people and...

They read something online and convince themselves it was them.

Exactly.

I don't know.

That's crazy.

It's so crazy.

And then Bill McReynolds.

Now, this is who I always thought did it.

He was the Santa at the Ramsey's Christmas party.

So apparently, the Ramsey's weren't even going to have a Christmas party.

Bill McReynolds, okay, he dressed up as Santa.

I'm going to tell you about his background.

He's very sus, very sus.

He claimed, Bill McReynolds claimed, Hey, my buddy wants to film me doing my Santa thing.

Oh, okay.

It's the buddy one.

Yeah.

Okay.

So are you cool?

Well, you guys throw a party and I'll be Santa and my buddy can film me.

So the Ramsey's threw this party in December 23rd.

No one was up to film him, but Bill McReynolds was Santa.

Okay.

That is so weird.

And the rumor is that he paid too much attention to JonBenet.

No.

He had actually given her a necklace.

No.

I don't understand.

Is he a family friend?

He is.

Okay.

He'd given her a necklace.

That's kind of creepy, right?

Really weird.

What if one of Bourbon Boy's friends like gave Joey a necklace?

That's just...

It depends on like...

The how, I don't know.

It would be weird.

Okay.

That's what I want to do to say.

Okay.

And JonBenet kept telling people that she was going...

On Christmas day, she kept telling people she was going to see Santa again.

Again?

Yes.

When Patsy Ramsey woke up at 5.30 in the morning on December 26th and was making coffee, she was getting ready because they were all going to go to Michigan to see Jon Ramsey's older children.

Okay.

So it was going to be like Christmas 2.0, sort of.

Right.

So when JonBenet kept talking about how she was going to see Santa again, people were just kind of like, oh, she must be talking about that, about like the second Christmas we're going to have.

Oh my gosh.

But the theory is that Bill McReynolds dressed as Santa said like, I'm going to, we're going to have a secret visit on Christmas night.

Oh no.

Bill McReynolds' wife Janet was his alibi.

She appeared nervous, behaved oddly when questioned by police.

Bill McReynolds has died in 2002 and his DNA was not a match.

But what makes the story even fishier, his middle daughter and her friend were abducted 22 years prior to the day to JonBenet's death.

What?

Yes.

Another creepy coincidence that raised investigators' suspicion was that they found a play written by Janet McReynolds about a girl who was sexually assaulted and murdered in her basement.

What?

Yes.

So they claimed that it was a fictionalized account of the 1965 torture murder of Sylvia Likens in Indiana.

Oh no.

And that it had nothing to do with JonBenet.

Okay.

But this whole thing.

That's bullshit.

Very suspicious.

That was suspicious.

In part 2, we're going to talk about the ransom letter, which was signed SBTC.

Yes.

And we'll talk about the theories.

I'm going to get into that again next week.

But one of the theories is that this is like so out there.

But if you were giving directions on how to get from Santa Bill's home to the Ramsey home, you would say go south on Broadway toward Cashman.

And so is that what S BTC means?

That is very out there.

But also...

Who thought of that?

Carrie actually pointed out something.

We were talking about this as well.

But like, even if it...

So Bill McReynolds, I always thought was like one of the best suspects.

Again, the problem, all these people are good suspects.

Nobody is a match for DNA.

They have run DNA on so many people.

Even if it wasn't Bill McReynolds, what if it was a different Santa?

Because who would a six year old trust, you know?

Santa.

Yeah, on Christmas day.

Yeah.

Oh, that's so sad.

I know, it's so disturbing.

Oh, that is so sad.

So that was my attempt to recap the case in an hour.

And then again, we're gonna get into the really out there conspiracy theories in part two.

But what are you guys thinking now?

Well, it's definitely that Santa guy.

What's his name, Bill?

You're thinking Santa Bill?

Yeah.

Santa Bill, a hundred percent.

But they tested his DNA too?

Yeah.

But here's what I'm thinking again, with this-

Like could have had a friend help.

They're saying that there's a lot of sexual predators.

And again, it's gonna get dark in conspiracy theories.

We're talking about some of the sex rings and whatnot.

There's a lot of pedophilia and sex crimes happening in Boulder at this time.

And that really feels to me like who it could be.

And if you're saying you've run the DNA through the database and it doesn't match any of these people or any of the family, it's just unlikely that it's somebody out there who didn't, who's like never committed another crime and just did this once.

And I think it's more likely that the touch DNA that is, I mean, I guess I can't really explain under her fingernails, but the touch DNA is already very challenging DNA to begin with.

And on top of that, you've now had 30 people in the house all over this crime scene.

You've had the victim picked up and relocated and covered with a blanket.

So maybe we just shouldn't be putting as much stake into this DNA as we are.

So that's what I think.

I mean, it's all just set up to be an unfailing crime because of just the botched crime scene from the beginning.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the only way we would ever solve this is if someone admitted it and their DNA happened to match.

Right.

But I don't even think that's going to happen, because again, I don't really put a lot of faith in the DNA.

Exactly.

If we really thought that JonRamsey was involved, I guess I also feel like he's been exonerated.

So why would he be making?

He's also just continuing to bring it into the gates.

Yeah.

Right.

And I feel like if he had done it, he'd be like, I was exonerated and I just want to live my life in the shadows.

I think he's probably concerned that when he dies.

Yeah.

I think he's probably concerned that when he dies, it's just going to be Burke.

Poor guy.

What do you think, Colleen?

I don't, I just think they just messed it up.

Like, Kait, it can never be solved because they didn't do their jobs right, which is so frustrating.

So that's what I have.

Come back Christmas Eve.

When you're driving back from Christmas, listen to part two.

That's right.

Part two coming out December 24th.

And again, we are going to dig deep into the conspiracy theories.

All right.

See you next Tuesday.

See ya.