Episode Transcript
Amanda: Hey there, all you true crime fans. I'm your host, Amanda Russell, and this is Colorado crime. If you're new here, I cover cases from coast to coast with a special emphasis on cases that happen right here in colorful, crime filled Colorado. If you're returning, thanks for being here. I hope you all had a great week. I don't have any other case updates for you this week, so let's go ahead and jump right in. If you haven't listened to part one, I suggest you start there for an overview and then come back and listen to part two. As you know, we're covering the unsolved murder of six year old John Benet Ramsay. This is a murder that took place on Christmas night in 1996 in Boulder, Colorado. We're going to take a look at the two and a half page ransom note, the autopsy report, the media coverage, as well as the eventual interviews with the Ramsay family. Interviews that didn't take place until April 30, four months after their daughter was found murdered in their home. So, without further ado, let's go back to that fateful December morning and chat about the ransom note. The ransom note, as I mentioned, was a two and a half page handwritten note that demanded $118,000 for the safe return of John Bonet. A return that would never come, as John Bonay's body would be found lying on the concrete floor, wrapped loosely in a white blanket of the home's wine cellar. As strange as the note was, the fact that the author left the note and the little girl's broken and battered body in the home has baffled investigators since day one. The day the note was discovered, police did obtain writing samples from both Patsy and John Ramsay. These samples would become yet another piece of evidence that was over scrutinized by the media and law enforcement. This letter was either written by the killer of John Benay, or it was a red herring. Again, it depends which camp you belong to. Do you believe the Ramsays killed their own daughter? Or is there a killer amongst us that's yet to be identified? Let's take a minute to recap what the ransom letter said. It. Read. Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully. We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We respect your business, but not the country that it serves. At this time, we have your daughter in our possession. She is safe and unharmed, and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter. You will withdraw $118,000 from your account. 100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining 18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size at ***** to the bank when you get home, you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between eight and 10:00 a.m.. Tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting, so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence an earlier pickup of your daughter. Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you, so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as police, FBI, et cetera, will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices, and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us, but be warned that we are familiar with law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to outsmart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the authorities. Don't try to grow a brain, John. You are not the only fat cat around, so don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't underestimate us, John. Use that good Southern common sense of yours. It's up to you now, John. Victory. SBTC okay, so why would a kidnapper care what form the bills came in? Wouldn't they just be more focused on getting the money with the least amount of suspicion? Asking for that amount of cash is alarming in and of itself, and something that was mentioned in the note about alerting bank authorities. Now the bank is having to break that large amount down into specific bills. That just seems pretty odd to me. And it was speculated that at the time of the murder, the Ramsay family was worth somewhere around $6 million. So the amount asked for in the note seems a bit low and very specific. That is, until it was released by the media that John Ramsay had received a bonus that year for that exact amount. The note itself was written on stationary that was found inside the Ramsay home. The notepad used was found and stored in the den, and the pen used was found and stored in the kitchen. There were several misspelled words that experts have speculated were used to make the author appear that either English was not their first language or that they were very uneducated. Business was spelled B-U-S-S-I-N-E-S-S instead of business. And possession was spelled P-O-S-E-S-S-I-O-N instead of P-O-S-S-E-S-S-I-O-N. Also, the use of the phrase small foreign faction. Why would anyone who is trying to be the dominating factor refer to themselves as a small group? And on top of that, why would a foreigner call themselves a foreigner? I feel like they would use the name of their group like Al Qaeda or the KKK or the Nazis, for example. They want the credit for their acts of depravity. It just doesn't feel like a very strong message right out of the gate. Also not strong is the fact that the author waited until sentence number four to tell the Ramsays that their daughter had been taken. The author also used words that aren't commonly used today. Instead of telling the Ramsays to bring a big enough bag to hold the large amount of cash, the author used the words adequate size attachet. Attache is a French word and I can't help but wonder if Atache was used because John Bonay's name is pronounced using a French flair. Maybe the author didn't know the family history well and assumed that the ramses were French. The author also used the sentence quote and hence a earlier delivery pickup of your daughter, end quote. Delivery is scratched out and replaced with pickup. Hence is a word that's also not commonly used. Experts have pointed out that because hence is a transition word, the word and in front of it is unnecessary. I couldn't help but wonder where I had heard the term and hence. And then I remembered julie andrew, sing about it in Mary Poppins in the song Spoonful of Sugar. And I don't mean to question the experts, but I don't know that I would have raised any alarm about the use of and in front personally. The bigger oddity is the use of the word hence. Also instead of a earlier, it should read an earlier pickup. Is this another mishap or was this intentional? Which brings me to my next point. Given that the note was written on paper from the Ramsey home with a pen from the Ramsay home, I think it's safe to infer that the note was also written while inside the Ramsey home. Several experts have suggested that the note would have taken about 21 and a half minutes to write unless the kidnapper turned murderer was inside the home while while the Ramsays were away and wrote the note then which is possible. How would a kidnapper enter the home, have time to take John bonet from her room without John Bennett making a sound? Then take the little girl to the basement, hit her over the head hard enough to crack her skull from the front to the back. Basically the same damage a car accident could cause if the driver was traveling at 70 mph. Fasten a garage around her neck, tie the same rope attached to the garage to her wrist, sexually assault her, strangle her to. Death and then also go upstairs to grab a pen and paper, write the note, correct some mistakes in the note, return the pen to the kitchen, return the notepad to the den, and then sneak out of the house undetected. Now, I'm no expert, but I've seen enough law and order in my day to know that doesn't sound like a really well planned kidnapping, extortion, murder. And the author also switches back and forth from me and I to we and us. These mistakes, at least in conversation, are usually scrutinized, as the author is trying to conceal their identity and make the reader believe there are actually more than one of them. The note addresses John Ramsay by name, not just in the beginning, but in the final paragraph. John is referenced three times in the beginning. The note appears to almost compliment John, saying, we respect your business. If we're to believe that the kidnappers are taking a six year old little girl to garner international recognition, they had to have had a crystal ball. No one could have predicted that this case would receive the media attention that it did. So on November 8, 1996, a movie titled Ransom came out in theaters. Ron Howard produced it. Mel Gibson stars in it. You might know him from his roles in Mad Max or Braveheart, but you'll most definitely remember him from his antisemitic and racist rants back in 2006. It featured Mel Gibson as a multimillionaire whose son was kidnapped for ransom. Mel Gibson turns the whole scheme around and puts a bounty out on the kidnapper to get his son back from a crooked cop, Detective Jimmy Shaker, who's played by Gary Sinise, who I'm sure you know as Lieutenant Dan enforce Gump, or for his role in The Green Mile and also for his incredible humanitarian work. Don't worry, you haven't switched to an episode of Hollywood Squares. This pointless rant isn't so pointless. This movie came out just weeks before John Bonet went missing, a movie whose plot similarly parallels that of this case a millionaire being extorted for the return of his child. Many people have pointed out the similarities between the two, suggesting that maybe this was some sort of a copycat attempt from a stranger, or the letter even being written by someone closer to the situation. I don't feel like it's something to be too hung up on, but it was definitely a topic of conversation in the media. It could absolutely be a coincidence, though. So about the ransom note and all the oddities surrounding it, I'm torn. I feel like it could be a red herring, but I also feel like it was someone who had some sort of knowledge of the family. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are. What do you make of the ransom, though? I'd love to do, like, a Facebook Live or even start a page where we can discuss our own theories. Let me know if that's something that you'd be interested in and I will figure out the details. So let's jump off that topic and head over and look at the autopsy report. This may be graphic for some listeners. We will be talking about injuries to a child as well as the sexual assault of a child listener. Discretion is advised. After the Ramsay home was vacated, the coroner arrived to remove the body of John Bonet. According to the autopsy report, the coroner arrived at the Ramsay home about 08:00 p.m. 7 hours after John Bonet had been discovered. The report explains the injuries to John Bennett's body beginning with an external exam. Here's the findings john Bennett is dressed in a long sleeved white knit collarless shirt decorated with a silver embroidered star and silver sequins. Tied loosely around the right wrist is a white cord. The shirt has a small two and a half by one and a half inch stain that is dried, brown, tan and is consistent with mucus from the mouth or nose. She is wearing white long underwear that are urine stained over the crotch and legs. Beneath the long underwear, the decedent is wearing white panties with printed rosebuds and the words Wednesday on the elastic band. The underwear is urine stained and in the inner aspect of the crotch are several red areas of staining measuring up to half an inch in maximum dimension. Next is the external evidence of injury. John Bonet suffered several injuries to her tiny body. Both her eyes had petechial hemorrhaging or broken blood vessels that create dotlike bruising liver mortise to the right side of her face where blood had settled, creating a bruiselike darkness. A round puncturelike wound located below her right ear. A deep ligature furrow encircling her entire neck where the white cord was removed. Her neck also had petechial hemorrhaging. A small superficial abrasion was found on the right side of her chin. The superficial abrasion on her right shoulder. Petechial hemorrhaging found on the left shoulder. Two round puncture like wounds were found on her lower left back area and several small scratches were located on the lower part of her left leg. Dried blood was found on the exterior of the ******. There was dried and semi fluid blood located inside the vaginal vestibule. There was clear trauma to the inside of the ******, as well as a faint bruise located on the outside. This was a clear indication that John Bonet was brutally sexually assaulted before her death. At the time of her death, John Bonet weighed a mere £45 and stood only 47 inches tall. She wore a small gold ring on the middle finger of her right hand that had been given to her as a gift from her grandmother. A thin gold necklace with a single small cross that she had received from her aunt that Christmas. A small gold bracelet with the name John Bonet on one side and the date 12 25 96 on the other. That was a gift from Patsy. And a small red heart was found drawn on her left palm. Now, this is what was found during the internal exam. Both Jambanese lungs and heart had pete hemorrhaging. The bladder was contracted and contained no urine. Her stomach contained a small amount of green to tan colored thick mucus. The small intestines held fragmented pieces of yellow to light greenish tan, apparent vegetable or fruit material, which may have represented fragments of pineapple. Pineapple was found on the kitchen table of the Ramsey home, but we'll discuss that later as well. Her skull showed a fracture that was approximately eight and a half inches in length. This was a very large fracture. An injury like that would have been fatal on its own. There was no evidence found of her hiode bone being fractured, which is common in strangulation. Her tongue contained no hemorrhage or traumatic injury either. Lastly, there was chronic vascular congestion found inside the vaginal mucosa, indicating prior sexual assault. Three other medical experts were brought in to review the findings, and all three agreed that John Bennett had suffered prior sexual trauma. Ultimately, what all these injuries indicated is that John Bonet suffered. She was brutalized, tortured and tormented before her death. The last part of the autopsy is the evidence that was collected. There's been a lot of talk recently regarding the evidence and DNA testing, but we'll discuss that in a later episode because it was listed in the autopsy. Let's just go over what was actually collected. So it was fibers and hairs from clothing and body surfaces, ligatures clothing, vaginal swabs and smears, rectal swabs and smears, oral swabs and smears, paper bags from hands, fingernail clippings, jewelry paper bags from feet. White body bag samples of head, hair, eyelashes and eyebrows. Swabs from right and left thighs and right cheek. Red top and purple top tubes of blood. Okay. Wow, that was a lot of information. And I'm sure it wasn't easy to hear, it wasn't easy to read. This poor little girl faced off with a real life monster. My heart absolutely breaks for her. It breaks my heart for her family too, who had to endure reading the results the first time and then continually hearing the retellings. Please know that I did not disclose all this information to be vulgar or disrespectful. I feel explaining her injuries really gives you as the listener the whole picture of the disgusting atrocious and horrific events she endured. Before we can move on from the autopsy, I have to talk about the pineapple. If you know anything about this case, it's the fact that John Bonet had eaten pineapple some time before her death. Patsy and John both claimed they did not feed the little girl pineapple the night of her murder. However, a bowl of pineapple was found on the counter in the Ramsay kitchen. Fingerprints collected from the bowl and spoon matched Patsy and Burke. It's become a well known fact that pineapple and milk were one of Burke's favorite snacks. Nowhere on the bowl was an intruder's fingerprints found, nor John Benate. Yet it was found during her autopsy. John Benay could have easily consumed the fruit by using her fingers to grab it and not touch the bowl, or she could have even had it at the Christmas dinner the family attended. But no one has ever confirmed pineapple was served. It's definitely something that makes me ponder, but I will say if there was an intruder, they could have been wearing gloves, and that would definitely lead to why there were no fingerprints found anywhere else in the home or on Jambini's body. There is a theory, though, that we'll discuss in a later episode that involves the pineapple. Let's move on to the media coverage that this case received. When this happened, we were just coming off the heels of the OJ. Simpson case, and I was five years old when it happened. I didn't watch the news, I couldn't read, and I didn't have podcasts or social media to keep me up to date with the happenings in the world. Yet I was fully aware of the murder. Any and all updates, the graphic not age appropriate photos and all the pictures the media released of this, quote, child beauty queen. The murder occurred on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, and by the following Monday, several photographers had sold pictures of John Bonet to the media from her time in pageants. On January 13, 1997, the Globe printed leaked crime scene photos. The six year old murder victim was now a tabloid sensation and was on the COVID of every gossip magazine. On the rare occasion you found a magazine, she wasn't in, her parents were plastered on the COVID Tabloids were printing sensationalized stories that lacked any facts. They named the parents as the murderers. They named Burke as the murderer, blamed the parents for attracting so much attention to their young daughter. They accused Patsy of being jealous of John Bennett's youth and beauty. They accused John of molesting his young daughter. It was a complete frenzy. I'm talking a total free for all. The media was actually camped out in front of the Ramsay home. They took pictures of them going to the grocery store, church, leaving for trips, leaving the police department. You name it, they captured it. Reporters went as far as to insert themselves in the Ramsay's lives, pretending to be church members of the Ramsays, befriending friends and neighbors of the Ramsays, and then printing all the tawdry details. And then an event happened that would attract even more attention. On April 19, 1995, timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. After intense media coverage, the suspects were transferred to Inglewood, Colorado to await trial. Along with the two bombing suspects came the media. On April 24, 1997, two years after the suspects killed 168 unsuspecting adults and children, opening statements began. The fact that this trial was being held in Colorado led to an influx of reporters being within driving distance of the Ramsay case, further adding to the ever growing coverage. According to a Fox News article online, it states, quote, 90 97 there were 84 stories on the John Bennett Ramsay murder on ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts. This ranked ahead of the suicide of Versace killer Andrew Cunanan, which had 82 reports. But behind the Oklahoma bombing, trial coverage and residual OJ stories, scott McKiernan, a photojournalist can attest to this intensity. He spent eight months working in Boulder taking pictures, the longest amount of time a single story has ever warranted, he said. By contrast, he covered Oklahoma City after the bombing for just three weeks. He said, end quote. Three years after the murder, the Globe published the headline, quote, grand Jury Targets Brother Twelve. End quote. Fox News Boulder correspondent Carol McKinney, who has covered the Ramsay murder case from day one, said, I talked to the tabloid reporter who was in charge of that story. I said, Why are you going after this child? And the reporter said, quote, because it's the only angle that people will pay for anymore. They're tired of the John angle. They're tired of the Patsy angle. End quote. The Ramses would go on to file several lawsuits against tabloids who accuse their son of crimes. In 2016, CBS released a docuseries and accused Burke Ramsay, now an adult, of the crime, and went so far as to reenact how the crime was carried out. Burke Ramsay sued for $750,000,000 and settled for an undisclosed amount. The long short of it is that the Ramsay family was villainized. Before police even released information to support the accusations, the media printed what would sell copies, whether it contained facts or not, in order to profit from the murder and sexual assault of a six year old little girl. The last topic I want to COVID in this episode are the interviews that were conducted with John, Patsy and Burke. On April 30, 1997, the first official police interviews were conducted. Patsy was interviewed in the morning, and John's interview followed in the afternoon. It's been reported that the Ramsays refused to give an interview to the Boulder Police Department, but John has adamantly denied these claims. The Ramses claimed they were afraid to leave their home, but have said they told detectives they would do an interview in their own home. During these first interviews, police were already really focused on Patsy asking far more questions about Patsy's life before marrying John than John was asked. It was clear from the first police report that Patsy was being heavily looked at. So when she attended the initial interview, there was no denying the investigators thought Patsy had killed her daughter. I want to quickly clear up a little misrepresentation. It was reported that John Bonet had gone to bed in a red shirt and was found in a white shirt. But Patsy stated in that first interview that John Bonet went to bed in the same shirt she was discovered in and the same pants Patsy changed John Bonet into when they returned home from the White's House. Patsy mentioned that on rare occasions, john bonet would wet the bed, a comment that investigators and the media would run with. The theory that Patsy killed John Bonet stemmed from John Bonet's occasional bed wetting. We will get more into that in the next episode when we talk about theories. Patsy was very honest during the initial interview. She explained the medication she was taking paxil and Adivan for anxiety and depression stemming from her daughter's murder, how her cancer was, and had she had any recent scans. She explained that she wanted the family and investigators to be on the same page and focus their energy into finding who murdered John Bennett. She was asked if she knew that John had an extramarital affair while married to Lucinda. She claimed she did not. She was questioned extensively regarding who she thought could have committed the crime, who had been in the home? Had she noticed anything suspicious in the months and weeks before? Had the neighbors reported anything strange to her? Was she close with the neighbors? What did Christmas Day look like in the Ramsey household? What occurred on the morning before she discovered the ransom note? Who was invited to the home that morning? Who invited everyone if not the Ramsays? And how she spent her day up to the discovery of her daughter's body? There were several times that Patsy began crying during the interview. She even required a break to regain her composure. In the end, Patsy told investigators that she would take ten polygraphs to prove her innocence because she vowed she did not kill her daughter. Patsy's questioning lasted from 900 and 05:00 A.m. To 03:00 P.m.. John received much less scrutiny. His upbringing was not discussed, his business dealings were slightly discussed and an affair he had while married to his first wife. Police believe that Patsy killed John Bonet and John was complicit in knowing she had. You can find the transcripts and clips from both Patsy and John's interviews online. John was asked what medication he was taking, which was also Paxil, what book he was currently reading, and he was asked what occurred the night before. Investigators asked how the morning the ransom note was discovered, when how the day progressed and the eventual discovery of his daughter's body. He was asked who was in the home, who had invited them, had he left at any time during the time John Boney was missing? Where was Burke during this time? And how had John reacted when he found his daughter's body in the wine cellar? His questioning was far shorter than Patsy's, only lasting about 2 hours. Burke was actually the first one to be interviewed, and he was interviewed January 8 of 1997, just a few days after his sister's murder. At just nine years old, young boy was criticized for his answers, goofy behavior, smiles, and sometimes awkward behavior. He was asked questions about how he found out John Bone was dead. Was he asleep when his parents discovered the ransom note? If he was awake? Why did he not come out of his room? Where did he go after he woke up for the day? How was life now that John Bennett was gone? And how are his parents reacting to his sister's death? When he was asked to draw a picture of his family, he only drew John patsy and himself. He gave odd explanations for what he thought may have happened to John bonet. Maybe she was hit with a hammer or even a large knife. Many of his interview tapes weren't released until Burke was much older. In September of 2016, Burke did his first on air interview as an adult. Again, Burke's mannerisms, behavior and uncomfortable smile were absolutely picked apart. His entire demeanor was questioned. You can find clips from his interview online if you choose to watch them. All right, guys, I think this is where we're going to end this episode. We've covered a ton of info today. Next week, I want to talk about the DNA in this case, retired homicide Detective Lou Smith and his theory, other theories, and the eight known suspects. Thank you so much for tuning in today. You guys are the best. I couldn't keep doing this without your support. If you guys are enjoying these episodes, please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you listen on. Please follow me on Instagram at Colorado Crime Pod for information regarding next week's episode as well as other true crime happenings. I hope you have a beautiful day wherever you are, and as always, stay safe. Thank you.
