Uncover the most chilling moments from the Netflix docuseries exploring the unsolved murder of JonBenét Ramsey. From the mysterious ransom note to the controversial beauty pageants, we delve into the haunting details that continue to perplex investigators and the public alike.
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00:00It was the morning after Christmas, 5.52 a.m., when her mother called 911 saying her little
00:05girl had been kidnapped out of her bed and a ransom note left in the house.
00:11Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're breaking down the moments from the Netflix true crime
00:15docu-series Cold Case Who Killed Jumbanee Ramsey that will send chills down your spine.
00:20Out of respect for those involved, this video is unranked. Due to the extremely dark and sensitive
00:26nature of the Ramsey case, viewer discretion is strongly advised.
00:30Was there an intruder? Or was the family involved?
00:35I did not kill my daughter, Jumbanee.
00:39The day of, in the Ramseys' own words.
00:42Do you mind taking us through the day, you know, the timeline?
00:47Well, that, it's hard, but we were planning to leave early that morning.
00:56That was the day after Christmas. We'd had a big Christmas at home.
01:01We'll avoid getting into the hard-to-stomach details of exactly what happened to six-year-old
01:05Jumbanee Ramsey. There is plenty of information out there about that, including at the beginning
01:10of director Joe Berlinger's Cold Case mini-docu-series.
01:13For the uninitiated, a brief recap. Ramsey, born in 1990 to parents John and Patsy,
01:20was found lifeless by her father on December 26th, 1996.
01:32The subsequent media frenzy saw the two named as key suspects in Jumbanee's death.
01:37The opening scene of Who Killed Jumbanee Ramsey finds John Ramsey recounting the day they
01:41discovered Jumbanee's body with input from archival footage of the late Patsy Ramsey.
01:46It's still gut-wrenching to watch John discuss that day, as he's had to do many times before.
01:51If you have kids, and you've been in a shopping mall, and your child disappears,
01:57even for a moment, you get this punch in the stomach that's just severe.
02:02Where's my child? Just panic for a moment. Then you find her, and it's over. But it only
02:08lasts for a second. But this horrible, in your gut, trauma, I guess.
02:14We had a spiral staircase to the first floor. And I just started downstairs to
02:24get coffee on, or whatever. As I moved toward the end of the stair, there were
02:32these pieces of paper lying on one of the runs of the stair.
02:37Patsy, narrating via interviews filmed prior to her 2006 death from ovarian cancer,
02:42recounts what's almost definitely the most baffling part of a famously baffling case.
02:47Many people, armchair internet sleuths and forensic experts alike, have struggled to find
02:52a reasonable explanation as to who wrote the ransom note found at the Ramsey family's house.
02:57We have your daughter. And it clicked, you know, your daughter.
03:05And I just bounded back up the steps and threw her door open.
03:13And she was not in her bed.
03:16Even more have difficulty grasping the why of it all. Several questions are raised by the letter.
03:21For example, why did the note specify a sum of $118,000 in exchange for Jambonnet's safe return?
03:28What foreign faction did the author claim to represent?
03:31And why was what appeared to be an early draft of the note found on Patsy Ramsey's personal notepad?
03:37Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully.
03:40We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction.
03:45We respect your business, but not the country that it serves.
03:48At this time, we have your daughter in our possession.
03:52She is safe and unharmed. And if you want her to see 1997,
03:56you must follow our instructions to the letter.
03:59The autopsy report.
04:00The handle that was taken off and secured at the end of this garrot.
04:06There was some complexity as to how the garrot was put together.
04:11This nod was tied by somebody who understood how a garrot is made.
04:17Veteran Denver journalist Carol McKinley,
04:20who covered the Jambonnet-Ramsey case as it happened and is interviewed in Cold Case,
04:24makes a compelling argument to those interested in reading more about it.
04:27That would be,
04:28quote,
04:29anybody interested in the Ramsey case needs to read the cause of death in the autopsy report.
04:33She calls the document,
04:35quote,
04:35critical.
04:36We believe Jambonnet was alive when this was being done because she had hair tangled in this knot.
04:43Although this segment of the series gets into more detail than we need to get into,
04:47one thing that's important to point out,
04:49the report revealed that the crime scene contained a broken paintbrush
04:52that came from Patsy Ramsey's home studio.
04:54The seemingly unanswerable questions persist here,
04:58this time focusing on exactly what methods were used to tragically end Jambonnet's life.
05:03Well, when they got her to the autopsy table and opened up,
05:06you know,
05:07her brain,
05:08they realized she'd been hit over the head.
05:10The beauty pageants.
05:11For TV and tabloids and everybody to tell the story,
05:15you need pictures.
05:17And the Ramsey case became immediate fodder
05:20because Jambonnet Ramsey was in child beauty pageants.
05:24As we pointed out,
05:26the sordid saga of Jambonnet Ramsey's death was seized upon by the contemporary news media.
05:31This was, as you can probably guess,
05:33the unfathomably painful, unthinkably grotesque nature of the case,
05:37and particularly the fact that Jambonnet had met her end in such a way.
05:41As pointed out by investigative reporter Paula Woodward,
05:44the abundance of photos and videos of Jambonnet turned the situation into,
05:48as she puts it,
05:49quote,
05:49immediate fodder for the media.
05:51The judgment passed down by the Court of Public Opinion was swift and harsh.
05:55Jambonnet's participation in the pageants was deemed too inappropriate
05:59and too adult for her age,
06:01and that her parents had forced her into participating.
06:04There was a very professional,
06:06almost adult,
06:08and frankly,
06:09somewhat sexual look to them.
06:12Why won't John and Patsy cooperate with the police?
06:14Oh, I saw it in John's eyes.
06:16I knew he was the killer.
06:18It's crazy.
06:19And, uh,
06:21but that's how I got started.
06:26I knew what happened.
06:27Another aspect that complicated the public's opinion about the Ramseys?
06:30Their decision to immediately bite their tongues and lawyer up,
06:34instead of cooperating with the ongoing Boulder Police Department investigation
06:38into who had taken Jambonnet's life.
06:40And maybe it's hard to blame them.
06:42After all, the police were harshly criticized for their perceived mishandling
06:46of the initial crime scene investigation,
06:48which led to the contamination of possible mountains of forensic evidence
06:51that might have helped to solve the case.
06:54The father, John Ramsey, has hired a well-known criminal lawyer,
06:57and a Denver newspaper reports he will not talk to police.
07:03They hired lawyers immediately,
07:06and that just seemed weird.
07:08However, John claims that an ominous phone call placed to him
07:12by one of his employees was what set him down this path.
07:15In the call, the unnamed employee warned John
07:18that the police considered him and Patsy to be their leading suspects.
07:21So I answered the phone, and it was one of our employees.
07:26He said,
07:28I was told by someone inside the system to get this message to you.
07:35They believe you killed your daughter.
07:37And you need to get the best defense attorney you can get your hands on.
07:40A lack of footprints.
07:42There was a narrative that started by the Boulder Police Department
07:47that it was done by somebody inside of the home
07:50because there was a lack of footwear impressions in the snow.
07:54No footprints in the snow, therefore no intruder.
07:57Well, there's a reason why there was no footprints in the snow.
08:00There was no snow.
08:01One misconception that the documentary attempts to untangle
08:04is the lack of footprints leading up to the basement window.
08:07One major theory to explain Jambonnet's death is that a purported, quote,
08:11foreign intruder might have broken into the Ramsey home through a smashed window
08:15based on debris later examined at the scene of the crime.
08:18There's a slight dusting that you can see on the front end of the house.
08:24But if you look at the backside of the home, there's no snow.
08:29The police fed a lot of information that they wanted out there
08:34to a guy named Charlie Brennan.
08:36However, skeptics point out that since it was wintertime,
08:39how could the perpetrator's footprints not have been identified?
08:42Journalist Michael Tracey fires back by saying that hardly any snow
08:46had fallen the night before, which would not have been conducive to making prints.
08:50This led to wild, seemingly baseless speculation,
08:53which Coldcase links to subsequent false narratives in the media.
08:57I was given information by a source I trusted that police took note of the fact
09:05when they got there that they didn't see footprints in the snow
09:10and they considered that to be significant.
09:14Is that Charlie Brennan saying that that's significant? No.
09:19Did Patsy do it?
09:20The other major theory as to what happened to Jambonnet Ramsey?
09:23At what point in time did you say, I think Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter?
09:28There was not a defining moment in which the bell rang and I noted the date and time.
09:36Early in 1997, it became more and more apparent to me.
09:41The Coldcase docuseries notably explores the possibility that Patsy Ramsey was
09:45responsible for her daughter's death. While that may be impossible to wrap your head around,
09:50Detective Steve Thomas, who the documentary paints as a staunch believer in the Ramsey's guilt,
09:55proposes that Patsy, in a fit of rage caused by Jambonnet's bedwetting issues,
09:59lost control of herself.
10:01In my hypothesis, an approaching 40th birthday, the busy holiday season,
10:05an exhausting Christmas day, and an argument with Jambonnet had left Patsy frazzled.
10:10Patsy would not be the first mother to lose control in such a situation.
10:14One of the doctors we consulted cited toileting issues as a textbook
10:18example of causing a parental rage.
10:20Thomas further suggested that Patsy, having accidentally taken her daughter's life,
10:24panicked and staged a kidnapping based on her imagination.
10:27However, this is directly disputed by retired Detective Bob Whitson,
10:32who notes that the circumstances hypothesized by Thomas contradict
10:35several real-life elements of the crime scene.
10:38So if you believe that Patsy Ramsey did this,
10:42she would have had to do all these things while Jambonnet was alive.
10:46This wasn't staging. She was alive when this was being done.
10:51Enter Lou Smit.
10:53Lou is one of those guys. He was a Sherlock Holmes of his time.
10:59And, you know, when he looked at this, I mean, obviously,
11:02one of the first things you're going to do is look over the body.
11:05Smit, a highly respected local detective,
11:08went on to become a major champion of the Ramsey family's innocence,
11:11long before it was deemed publicly acceptable to do so.
11:15A number of Smit's colleagues, interviewed for the film,
11:18attest to Smit's strong moral character,
11:20as well as his uncanny knack for dissecting well-worn crime scenes
11:24to find new clues and information.
11:26Now, what I'd like to show you is what I think is one of the most important clues
11:32left behind by the killer.
11:35Stun gun.
11:36Smit's efforts and research determined that a stun gun had been used
11:39to incapacitate Jambonnet,
11:41something that hadn't been clocked by earlier investigators.
11:44Even still, the detective was able to determine
11:47that Jambonnet had been pulled directly from her bed
11:50and that her bedsheets were perfectly dry.
11:52The latter is implied to be a significant blow
11:55to the Ramsey family's detractors.
11:57Boulder PD thought the stun gun marks were facing back,
12:01were created from laying on some train tracks.
12:05If anything, they've been doing nothing but dismissing the stun gun.
12:09John and Patsy are revealed to have been indicted by a grand jury.
12:13As I understand it, the grand jurors didn't know who might have done what,
12:17but felt that there was something that happened there.
12:21The grand jury found John and Patsy Ramsey had intent to hinder,
12:25delay and prevent their daughter's killer from being prosecuted.
12:29What they believed was that the parents knew what had happened
12:33or should have known what had happened or should have got her help.
12:36A 1998 grand jury convened to consider bringing the Ramseys up on charges,
12:41eventually returned a true bill recommending to indict them.
12:44However, they wouldn't be charged with Jambonnet's death directly.
12:48Instead, they would stand accused of having been severely negligent
12:52and failing to remove their child from harm's way, which resulted in her death.
12:56What the grand jury was telling us was they found there was probable cause
13:01for these people to be indicted.
13:05But there's a long, long step between probable cause,
13:10which is the lowest standard in the criminal justice system
13:14and proof beyond a reasonable doubt that is the highest.
13:18Alex Hunter, the district attorney for Boulder County at the time,
13:22ultimately declined to press charges against John and Patsy.
13:25While members of the Boulder law enforcement community
13:27have openly voiced their disagreement with this decision,
13:30Hunter justified his actions by citing a lack of sufficient credible evidence.
13:34It would have been easy to bring charges.
13:38But to have brought charges when you didn't feel you could make your case
13:43would have been a horrible thing to do. I feel at peace.
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14:04The Story of Daxos
14:18Cold Case, who killed Jambeneh Ramsey, ends on a frustrating, heartbreaking note,
14:31devoid of any closure for both everyone involved and audiences at home.
14:36The aforementioned Michael Tracy reveals an ongoing virtual correspondence
14:40he shared with a man who only referred to himself as Daxos.
14:43Tracy claims that this Daxos was aware of the journalist's role
14:46in reporting on the Jambeneh Ramsey case and wanted to confess that he was the true killer.
14:51After years of false alarms, this seemed like a real lead for Tracy and the Ramseys.
15:18Daxos was revealed to be John Mark Carr, an American expatriate living in Thailand.
15:23However, while Carr clearly displayed signs of attraction to children,
15:27he was ultimately ruled out as a suspect after failing DNA tests.
15:32We found out that the DNA didn't match a couple of days later.
15:36Insiders said he knew certain details about the brutal crime only the killer could know,
15:40but officials at the Denver Crime Lab say DNA proves he was not at the scene
15:44that dreadful December night.
15:46And John Mark Carr was released.
15:49What do you think of the Jambeneh Ramsey case? Let us know in the comments below.