Paper Example on Jon Benet Murder: Open Windows, Broken Basement Window Offer Easy Access

Investigation

The investigators in Jon Benet's murder case found several primary evidence pieces in the crime scene. According to the initial police report, John Ramsey's house, Jon Benet's father, consisted of several open windows and one open door in the night of the murder. The open door and windows provided easy access for the killers into the house. The house basement had a broken window which could not close properly. The basement window allowed free access into the crime scene. Ramsey's home was covered with thick carpet which made it impossible to hear the intruder going in.

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During the house search, the investigators identified a ransom note. The police however considered it odd because of various reasons. The note included two and a half page writing. The police head of the investigation stated that expert murderers or kidnappers do not use long ransom notes to put their demands across to the target. According to psychology, an individual in a tense situation like a kidnapping scene cannot take his or her time to write a lengthy letter. Besides, the paper used to make the ransom notepaper was cut from the family's notebook. This suggested that the killer wrote the note in the murder scene. The ransom note demanded an amount of 118,000 dollars, the exact amount of John Ramsey's work bonus. The ransom provided a clue that the killer was a close individual to the family member or a calculative murderer who did his research on the family. Jon Benet's parents provided handwriting samples which did not match the ransom note. However, after being scrutinized in the investigation, Pasty, Jon Benet's mother confessed to changing her handwriting to a more cursive style.

The location of Jon Benet's body exists as another clue in the case. John Ramsey found her daughter's body in the family house basement. The body had a nylon cord around the neck. Her wrists were tied over her head and her mouth covered in duct tape. The fact that the killer demanded a ransom and purposely murdered the victim brought many questions to the location of the body. It was quite illogic for a murderer to ask for a certain amount than going ahead to kill the victim before ensuring the targets understand his motive. The investigators supposed that the kidnapper wrote the ransom note before killing JonBenet either when she was unconscious from the head blow or stunned by the gun. Upon waking up, she recognized the kidnapper making him kill her to avoid further identification to the police. The fact that the killer did not make any attempt to move the body characterizes the crime as premeditated.

The laboratory reports from the autopsy revealed information on her cause of death. The autopsy report cited ligature strangulation as the leading cause of her death, explaining the nylon cord around Jon Benet's neck. She also received a blow on her head possibly from a baseball bat or a large torch. Later autopsy photographs exposed marks on the victim's chin which matched a stun gun's electrodes. Undigested pineapple remnants in Jon Benet's stomach suggested that the killer gave her food before her death. According to the criminal investigators, the killer lured her into the kitchen with a food promise, creating a possibility of the killer being familiar to the child. The pineapple bowl in the kitchen consisted of Burke's fingerprints, Jon Benet's brother.

The investigators believed that Jon Benet knew and trusted her killer. They, therefore, focused on her parents as the main suspects. The Grand jury held several hearings with no indictment. In the year 2013, the opened court documents suggested that the Grand Jury indicted the parents of Jon Benet for child abuse and death in the year 1999. The district attorney, however, denied the indictment because of a lack of enough evidence. In the year 2008, the office of the Boulder District attorney dismissed the Ramsey family from the case because the DNA results from Jon Benet's underwear did not match anyone in the family. Further DNA results from the underwear of Jon Benet suggested that she was sexually assaulted by two assailants leading to further complications in the case. The case remains unsolved and open because of the lack of credible and sufficient evidence to pin down a specified suspect.

Key Suspects

The first suspect in the JonBenet murder case was John Mark Karr who admitted to assaulting and murdering Ramsey accidentally. Karr confession came ten years after the death of Ramsey, and he became a controversial suspect mainly due to the lack of motive behind his actions. Karr claim was that he drugged JonBenet which was different from the autopsy results which found no drugs in her body system. Besides, Karr refused to give an account on how he accessed the house to commit the crime, and all the information that the suspect provided was already in the public domain which heightened the suspicion. However, the most striking aspect that absolved the suspect of involvement was that the DNA evidence from the crime scene and Ramsey's cloth did not match that of Karr. Besides Karr, Gary Howard Oliva was listed as one of the murder suspects under suspicion that he was near the scene of the crime and also had called a friend at the time claiming that he had hurt a child. When he was arrested in 2000, Oliva was found in possession of JonBenet photo and also had written a poem that went by the title "Ode to JonBenet."

The first standing theory in classifying JonBenet killer is that the killer was a friend to the family and Ramsey knew and trusted the killer. This theory notes that it was not the first time that the killer was in the house and since the killer was able to lure JonBenet with a pineapple which was found in the kitchen with her fingerprints indicates that the killer might have had close ties with the family to be able to lure Ramsey from her bedroom. This theory is supported by the fact that at the time of her death it was Christmas holidays and many friends and family members were invited in the family home, and any of the visiting friends and families could have plotted the murder by being able to understand the house setup and family routine.

One of the key suspects in JonBenet's acquaintances was Bill McReynolds a Santa who allegedly had left Ramsey a note that she was going to receive a special gift in Christmas. Janet, the Santa's wife, also raised the suspicion against McReynolds in that she had written a play whose details suspiciously matched her death account. However, the Santa was acquitted because their DNA did not match any of the collected samples in the crime scene. Another key suspect in the case was Michael Helgoth whose boot print pointed to him as a suspect and dispute with JonBenet's parents offered motive to the murder. However, Helgoth committed suicide before he was questioned although his DNA did not match that collected at the crime scene.

The media's initial suspects were the parents although none of the parents was ever officially declared as the suspect in the murder case. The fact that Ramsey was not forcefully taken from her bedroom points out that she was taken by someone she trusted. The family members were questioned, and their handwriting samples were taken to compare with the ransom note left behind. However, the parents were cleared from any suspicion because their handwriting did not match that of the ransom note left behind. When the case documents were made available for the public, it was revealed that in 1999 a grand jury had voted to indict JonBenet's parents for child abuse that resulted in death, but the indictment never went through because the district attorney refused to sign the indictment sighting lack of evidence. However, in 2003 when investigators tested the DNA from blood in JonBenet's underwear, the results did not match that of the family members and friends investigated previously. As a result, in 2008, the Boulder District Attorney's office apologized of the ordeal that the parents and family members underwent in the aftermath of her death.

Key Players

There are several players in JonBenet case ranging from family members, the jury and investigators who significantly determined the direction and outcome of the case. Since it was Christmas time, many of the family members were key players in the murder case. Patsy Ramsay who was JonBenet's mother was the one who found the ransom note and made the 911 call after her daughter disappearance. John Ramsay, the father, was involved in the case because he was the one who found his daughter's body in the basement of their home. John is criticized by many mainly by moving the body to the living room which led to the contamination of the crime scene. Burke Ramsay who was JonBenet's older brother was linked to the murder, but the statements from the family members noted that he was asleep at the time of her sister's disappearance and only woke up when the police arrived. The district attorney Alex Hunter dominated the case because at the time he was Boulder's district attorney and he is the one responsible in the creation of the Expert Prosecution Task Force which primary aim was to bring the killer to justice. In the task force, there was a forensic expert (Henry Lee) and a DNA specialist (Berry Scheck).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the evidence from Jon Benet's murder pointed to several suspects. The ransom note which was two and a half pages long created some questioning because it was illogic for an individual in a tense situation like kidnapping to take his time to write a lengthy note. The ransom indicated a specified amount that matched John Ramsey's work bonus making the killer a close family member. The openings in the house such as the open windows and door gave the free entrance of the killer into and out of the house. The autopsy reports provided a clue that the girl was killed through strangulation. Further DNA results from Jon Benet's underwear indicated that two individuals sexually assaulted her before the murder.