" The list of suspects narrows. Soon there will be no one on the list but you ." — Alex Hunter , Boulder District Attorney, Feb.
13, 1997 JonBenét Ramsey would have turned 34 years old on Aug. 6. But she never even made it to 7.
The youngest child of John and Patsy Ramsey was found dead in the basement of their Boulder, Colo., home on the afternoon of Dec. 26, 1996—almost eight hours after Patsy frantically called 911 to report that her 6-year-old daughter had been kidnapped.
Patsy had awakened at around 5:30 a.m. to find a two-and-a-half-page, sloppily printed ransom note at the bottom of the stairs that threatened to "behead" the child if her parents didn't fork over $118,000 in ransom to some "foreign faction.
" It was John who discovered JonBenét's body shortly after 1:30 p.m. on his second search of the house, which by then was already full of police and family friends.
He carried the child, who was still dressed in the pajamas she wore to bed the night before, up the stairs and laid her down near the Christmas tree in the living room. JonBenét had been strangled and her skull was fractured from a blow to the head. The medical examiner later discovered vaginal injuries and there were spots that appeared to be blood on her underwear, though blood smears found on her body weren't in places that would correspond with the stains.
What was tragic and horrifying in any respect within moments turned into a crime of baffling circumstances: Why the ransom note when JonBe.