Fifty for 150: 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey found dead in upscale Boulder home in 1996

Editor’s note: This story contains a description of violence against a child.

JonBenét Ramsey was found dead in her family home in Boulder on the morning of Dec. 26, 1996. The family had reported her missing earlier in the day, but her father eventually found her body in the basement.

This story is part of Colorado at 150. Each Fifty for 150 story focuses on an event that helped define Colorado over 150 years of statehood. Newsline is publishing one Fifty for 150 story every weekday in reverse chronological order until the sesquicentennial, Aug. 1, when the final of 50 stories, about the declaration of statehood, will appear.

The murder of the 6-year-old is unsolved 30 years later and remains one of the most discussed and dramatized true crimes in American history.

Her parents, Patricia and John, discovered a ransom note that morning demanding $118,000 for JonBenét’s release. Patricia called 911 just before 6 a.m. and soon the five-bedroom, 7,500-square-foot house was filled with police, friends and the family minister. JonBenét’s body was discovered about seven hours later. There was little attempt to prevent crime scene contamination or cordon off the house besides JonBenét’s bedroom. Police allowed visitors to wander through the house, for example, and a victim advocate cleaned the kitchen counters.

JonBenét was strangled to death. She had a garrote around her neck and a fractured skull.

The murder immediately drew national attention, in part due to JonBenét’s participation in child beauty pageants. Photos of the child in heavy makeup and pageant costumes often accompanied news segments about the murder. In 2006, a school teacher falsely confessed to the murder.

The case has been the subject of numerous documentaries, dramatizations and podcasts, which have proposed several theories, such as that JonBenét was killed by a family member or that an intruder committed the crime, though these have not been substantiated by law enforcement.

In 1999, a grand jury recommended charges against Patricia and John for putting JonBenét in a threatening position, but the district attorney did not pursue an indictment because of insufficient evidence. And the Ramsey family, including JonBenét’s brother Burke, were later cleared through a DNA profile extracted from a blood sample in the long underwear JonBenét was wearing. The male DNA was in three places, leading investigators to conclude it is the killer’s, and did not match any family members.

Former Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote in a letter to John Ramsey, “To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry.”

“Denver defense attorney Scott Robinson said the file would never be closed for the detectives and the Boulder County district attorney’s office,” said an October 1999 article in the Rocky Mountain News. “‘But this case will slowly leave the headlines and go nowhere unless something truly unanticipated and extraordinary occurs — either a confession or some forensic evidence that is irrefutable,’ Robinson said. ‘Without that, the JonBenét Ramsey investigation is just as dead as JonBenét Ramsey.'”

The Boulder Police Department continues to accept information on the crime.