JonBenét Patricia Ramsey (August 6, 1990 – December 25, 1996)

JonBenét Patricia Ramsey (August 6, 1990 – December 25, 1996)
The major points of the offense radiate from the murder of a female child, JonBenét Ramsey; she was a six year old female child from an affluent family in Boulder, Colorado (Adler J, 1997). A two page ransom demand letter was found in the home (McClish, 2001). The letter states a demand of an exact amount, $118,000 (McClish, 2001). This is an odd ransom amount; the price for this child’s life is not $100,000 or $1,000,000, but $118,000.
The first search of the home found no supplemental evidence except a ransom letter (Hewitt, 1997). There were no obvious signs of a break-in and no tracks around the home in the snow (Times, 1997). A detective suggests that Mr. Ramsey and a friend go to the house and look for anything unusual (Bardsley). The first place they go to look is the basement. The body was found in the basement (Hewitt, 1997). It seems so unnatural to first go look in the basement for something unusual after a child is kidnapped, not her room or an area that she may have normally been habituating. JonBenét Ramsey was found by her father and his friend in the basement of her own home with severe head trauma, she had also been strangled (Hewitt, 1997). The Boulder police made several mistakes with the investigation. They did not seal off the crime scene, they did not search the home completely and they overlooked the body of a child in the basement (Hewitt, 1997). The police had blinders on during the initial “kidnapping” investigation. These blinders were created by seemingly caring father, loving mother appearance and the socioeconomic status of the family.
As the murder case progressed many incongruities with this happy family appearance emerged. The media and public opinion shaped the concept of this female child victim. She was a 6 year old child victim on one side and a 6 year old beauty queen on the other side. This begs the question, if she had been a 6 year old Hispanic female karate champ who did not wear makeup and did not look like a starved model, would her murder have received this attention from the media? The public outcry was towards the family for creating a 6 year old beauty pageant model. Some of the public opinion felt that doing this somehow exposed her to pedophiles and most likely precipitated the offense.
The Lifestyle theory suggests that the choices one makes in their associations and activities may shape a victim- prone life history. The public opinion expressed indicated that the involvement in the beauty pageants may have exposed the child to associations who were sexual predators and may have precipitated this murder. In the culture of America it is accepted that women use gender amplifiers to attract the opposite sex. These include perfume, nail polish, makeup, attire and exaggerated feminine behavior. JonBenét Ramsey was trained and possibly forced to use all of these gender amplifiers to a maximum at the age of 6. The female gender role was applied to her young life in an extreme measure. This created different reactions to her case. Some public opinion was for the pageants and many mothers spoke out about the positives of participating in these pageants. There was much greater public opposition to the pageants.
A 1997 Newsweek article by Jerry Alder and Sherry Osborne contains the following excerpt:
“Many people, though, are made viscerally uncomfortable by the sight of prepubescent girls, or for that matter preschoolers, showing off their bodies as a competitive activity. Partly, they don't think it's healthy for the kids, and psychologists tend to agree with them. ``For most kids, [performing] is not a good psychological experience,'' says William Pinsof, president of the Family Institute at Northwestern University, who has studied child actresses and models and found them prone to drug addiction, eating disorders and depression in puberty. ``You end up with hollow children and narcissistic parents.'' Even Page Parkes-Eveleth, owner of successful modeling agencies in Texas and Florida, thinks pageants are bad for children, as well as counterproductive to the goal of getting them big modeling contracts. ``You do not put lipstick on your 6-year-old,'' she says flatly. ``It's everything the modeling industry is against. We're looking for freckles and natural beauty.'' (Adler J, 1997)

This excerpt identifies that there is psychological damage done to the child. The media coverage of the murder of an innocent child often became overshadowed by the beauty queen debate. This debate created a small form of culture conflict within the arena of public opinion. Patsy Ramsey’s norms and values resulted in actions that put JonBenét Ramsey in opposition to expected conduct of children in this country.
The term beauty is often used in the description of JonBenét Ramsey. The term appears to slant the story in many particular ways depending on personal values and the current social temperature. The term beauty used in this 6 year old female child’s murder causes the perpetuation of the case and increases public interest. Marilyn Bardsley and Patrick Bellamy note in the article Murder of JonBenét Ramsey for TruTV “At the time, the media described her as "a painted baby, a sexualized toddler beauty queen". The media plays up on the chivalrous culture of this country to sell the story, as if the murder is an innocent child is not important enough to keep public attention.
If this crime had happened to a male there would be public interest and media attention given due to the age and race of the victim. The case would not have become such a high profile case. The case would be not be continually revisited by the media for so many years. There are cases of male child deaths where the police are begging for media coverage in hopes to find the murder. Does Timothy Wiltsey have the same name recognition as JonBenét? Timothy Wiltsey is a 5 year old South Amboy boy who disappeared 20 years ago, the boy’s skeletal remains were discovered in a marshy area in Edison 11 months later (Considine, 2011). The mother was also questioned in his murder (Considine, 2011).
Michael Janofsky wrote an article in the New York Times stating that Mr. Thomas, an investigator on the Ramsey case for two years says “Mrs. Ramsey had grown frazzled by Christmas night 1996 because of ''an approaching 40th birthday, the busy holiday season, an exhausting Christmas Day and an argument with JonBenet'' over a bed-wetting incident that led to ''some sort of explosive encounter in the child's bathroom'' that resulted in a mortal head wound (Janofsky, 2000). The article continues to state “he concluded that while JonBenet's head was probably injured by accident, Mrs. Ramsey, rather than summon help, panicked after her daughter fell unconscious. That, he says, led her to write a note suggesting that JonBenet had been kidnapped, after which she ''faced the major problem of what to do with the body.'' It was at that point, Mr. Thomas concludes, that the accident turned to murder. He says that on the way to placing her in a remote room of the basement, Mrs. Ramsey realized JonBenet was still alive. ''Only feet away was her paint tote,'' he writes. ''She grabbed a paintbrush and broke it to fashion the garrote with some cord. Then she looped the cord around the girl's neck.'' To make it look like a kidnapping, he says Mrs. Ramsey tied the girl's wrists and taped over her mouth” (Janofsky, 2000).
There is no known offender prosecution to date in the Ramsey case. In my opinion, it does matter who the offender is. If the perpetrator was in fact a sex predator it would lead to implications that support the lifestyle theory. This would implicate the pageants for the association to predators, not the narcissistic parents who force female toddlers into gender roles and make them publicly preform as sexual objects.


Supplemental opinion:
To some it may appear that the chivalrous public does not want to believe that she was killed by a mother with possible severe borderline personality disorder. The mother survived ovarian cancer once before the murder and who knows what mental state this placed her in. A cynical person could believe that Patsy was over imposing femininity on her daughter and living vicariously through JonBenét and the pageants. To some it would appear that this could have caused JonBenét to form a feeling of lack of control in her own young life; this is supported by the bed wetting noted the night of before the murder. In all the images of this young child it is easy to see her beauty and beautiful smile. To some, it takes a closer look to see the smile is false. The corners of her eyes turn down and in many of the images she has bags under her eyes. To some it may appear that this child was abused in some form or another by her own mother.
This is not a healthy environment for a child (Adler J, 1997). These pageants occur every weekend and JonBenét was on the circuit. To some it may appear that these factors, Patsy’s stress caused by her physical illness and an unhappy child showing signs of disorder such as bed wetting, combined and created the explosive event that resulted in the abusive incident that caused death of JonBenét. A cynical person could believe that it is not too far of a stretch of the imagination to assume that Patsy could have staged the kidnapping and planted the DNA for self-preservation. To some it seems that she had already sexualized her child to the extreme for her own benefit. Handwriting analysis could not rule out Patsy as the writer of the ransom note (McClish, 2001). A cynical person could believe that if a DNA match will ever be found it most likely will be one of the Ramsey’s lawyers or a close associate of the Ramsey’s lawyers.
In a CNN interview that aired on March 27, 2000 Larry King interviewed John and Patsy Ramsey who were publicizing their book Death of Innocence. The interview can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH9PesH7Wbg&feature=related.
It is one thing to read an interview and see that all the words match up to their innocence. Seeing John and Patsy Ramsey giving accounts can offer some insight into this case. When a person makes a true statement the movement of the head is in the yes or up and down motion (Frank, 2011). This is a noted and researched result of the new and forming science of micro expression. During the interview both patsy and John are stating yes statements and shaking their head to provide the nonverbal leakage of a “no” reply. A cynical person could believe that this indicates a false statement. There are few statements by John Ramsey that allow his statement to be supported with nonverbal leakage that would indicate the truth. The statement that he was investigated for three years, he nods the affirmative. A cynical person could believe that with his other statements of his innocence and recollection of the event, his nonverbal leakage is incongruent with his verbal claims. It would seem to some that he is paying attention to his words and not to his nonverbal leakage. Patsy’s nonverbal leakage is affirmative when she said “Go back and do more DNA testing” she does want this to occur. But in the following statement “We have got to find this person” to some it would seem that she shakes her head no. The affirmative nonverbal leakage towards the DNA retesting could be due to the fact that it is evidence that clears her of this crime and it seems she wants to focus on what clears her. To a cynical person her shaking of her head “no” while stating “We have got to find this person” indicates guilt in the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. A cynical person could also find many other indicators that point to Patsy as the offender in this case.
Bibliography
Adler J, K.-O. S. (1997, January 20). The strange world of JonBenet. Retrieved October 14, 2011, from Newsweek [serial online]. January 20, 1997;129(3):42. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 16, 2011: http://web.ebscohost.com.lscsproxy.lonestar.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=107&sid=64303f6f-ae73-48b3-bba8-c668502e0e79%40sessionmgr111&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=9701150137
Bardsley, M. (n.d.). Murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Retrieved 10 14, 2011, from TruTV Crime Library: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/ramsey/index_1b.html
Considine, B. (2011, May 27). Officials offer new reward for information in disappearance, death of South Amboy child 20 years ago. Retrieved October 14, 2011, from New Jersey Real- Time News: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/officials_offering_new_reward.html
Frank, M. H. (2011, June). Evaluating Truthfulness and Detecting Deception. Retrieved October 14, 2011, from FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/june_2011/school_violence
Hewitt, B. (1997, March 24). Stalemate. Retrieved October 14, 2011, from People: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20143772,00.html
Janofsky, M. (2000, April 10). JonBenet's Mother Was Killer, Detective Says. Retrieved 10 14, 2011, from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/10/us/jonbenet-s-mother-was-killer-detective-says.html?scp=1&sq=JonBenet's%20Mother%20Was%20Killer,%20Detective%20Says&st=cse
McClish, M. (2001, July 19). JonBenet Ramsey Ransom Note. Retrieved 10 14, 2011, from Statement Analysis®: http://www.statementanalysis.com/ramseynote/
Times, N. Y. (1997, March 12). No Sign of an Intruder At Home of a Slain Child. Retrieved October 14, 2011, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/12/us/no-sign-of-an-intruder-at-home-of-a-slain-child.html?scp=1&sq=No%20Sign%20of%20an%20Intruder%20At%20Home%20of%20a%20Slain%20Child&st=cse