On December 26, 1996, six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found dead in her family home — and her mother Patsy soon became a prime suspect.
Helen Davis/The Denver PostPatsy Ramsey with her husband, John Bennett Ramsey, appealing for information about their daughter’s murder.
In the early 1990s, Patsy Ramsey appeared to be living the American Dream. The former beauty queen had a charming home in Boulder, Colorado, a wealthy husband, and two adorable young children.
But on December 26, 1996, that rosy image was shattered when Patsy Ramsey’s six-year-old daughter JonBenét Ramsey was found brutally murdered in the family’s home. It didn’t take long before Patsy Ramsey and her husband John Bennett Ramsey became the prime suspects in the case.
For years, the public has scrutinized Patsy Ramsey and the rest of the family’s every move, looking for clues that would finally help solve one of the most infuriating unsolved cases in American history.
This is the story of Patsy Ramsey.
The Early Life Of Patsy Ramsey
RedditA young Patsy Ramsey with her friend, presumably during her beauty pageant days.
Patricia “Patsy” Ramsey was born on December 29, 1956, in Parkersburg, West Virginia to her parents Nedra Ellen Ann and Donald Paugh.
Her childhood was fairly unremarkable. After graduating high school in 1975, she attended West Virginia University. There, she competed for Miss West Virginia in 1977 and won. She later competed in the Miss America competition, earning a non-finalist talent award and a $2,000 scholarship.
After college, she moved to Atlanta and met John Bennett Ramsey, a divorced businessman who would eventually take charge of the successful company Access Graphics. The couple married in 1980.
In the late 1980s, Patsy and John Ramsey began expanding their family. On January 27, 1987, Patsy Ramsey gave birth to Burke Ramsey, their first child. Then, on August 6, 1990, Ramsey gave birth to their second child, JonBenét.
In 1991, the family moved to Boulder, Colorado for work. There, the couple purchased a 7,000-square-foot home and acclimated to their new life, eventually enrolling the kids in school and getting JonBenét Ramsey involved in child beauty pageants and “glamour” photoshoots.
Then, in 1993, Patsy Ramsey discovered she had stage four ovarian cancer. She decided to undergo an experimental chemotherapy program and two surgeries, which put her disease into remission. This harrowing experience reportedly made Ramsey deeply religious, as she saw her apparent recovery as a “divine miracle” that gave her another chance at life.
But just three years later, the unthinkable happened: Her six-year-old daughter JonBenét Ramsey was found murdered in the family’s home.
The Horrific Murder Of JonBenét Ramsey
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock PhotoThe brutal murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey shocked the nation in 1996.
On December 26, 1996, the Boulder Police Department received an alarming call. Patsy Ramsey had phoned 911 to say that her six-year-old daughter was missing and that a ransom note had been left in the home.
The ransom note was bizarre, to say the least. For one, it was very long, about two-and-a-half pages total. It also demanded a very specific amount of money — $118,000 — for JonBenét Ramsey’s safe return. And the note’s author claimed to represent a “small foreign faction,” signing off as “S.B.T.C.”
Police responded to the call, searching the home for any sign of the girl. Authorities also awaited a call from the kidnappers, as the ransom note’s author claimed that they would call by 10 a.m. This call never came.
Eventually, a detective named Linda Arndt instructed John Ramsey to help search the home in case police had missed anything, according to the officer’s personal statement. During his search, he went into the basement and found the dead body of his daughter. JonBenét had been bludgeoned over the head, strangled with a garrote, and potentially sexually assaulted.
The investigation took on a new face after the discovery — it was now clearly a homicide case — but there was one big problem.
From an outsider’s perspective, the case was already compromised. Even before John Ramsey located the body, several visitors had already entered the home and even cleaned parts of it up. This contamination became worse after police failed to prevent John Ramsey from moving JonBenét’s body upstairs after he discovered her in the basement.
These issues severely hampered the police investigation, but strengthened both authorities’ and outside observers’ speculation that someone in the Ramsey family was responsible for the heinous crime.
Patsy Ramsey Under Public Scrutiny For Her Daughter’s Death
John RamseyPatsy Ramsey, pictured with JonBenét when her daughter was still a baby.
The case of JonBenét Ramsey immediately caught the public’s attention. Scrutiny quickly fell on the Ramsey family — and for good reason.
Many found it suspicious that the ransom note was written on paper that had been torn from a notepad that was already in the Ramsey home. This meant that whoever wrote it must have written it inside the house. Also, the amount of money demanded in the note was identical to a work bonus that John Ramsey received that year. Perhaps most chilling, the garrote used to strangle JonBenét had been created from one of Patsy’s paintbrushes.
According to a 1999 article from The Denver Post, a handwriting expert at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said that the ransom note’s handwriting “showed indications that the writer was Patsy Ramsey.”
Then, the issue of John Ramsey immediately “discovering” the body of his daughter when prompted to search the house set off several alarm bells.
While some people may have assumed that this would be an open-and-shut case, authorities couldn’t seem to rule out the possibility that someone outside the family had murdered the young girl.
There was an open window in the basement, which a hypothetical intruder could have used to enter the home. There was also an unidentified hiking boot footprint close to the crime scene. And in 2008, DNA testing found at least one unknown male’s DNA on JonBenét’s pajamas (though years later, forensic experts said this may have been a composite from multiple people).
While the public has their opinions on these details, no official conclusions were ever drawn by authorities. Today, the murder of JonBenét Ramsey remains one of the most frustrating cold cases in American history.
Patsy Ramsey’s Life And Death After Her Daughter’s Murder
AlamyPatsy Ramsey’s grave. Her daughter’s grave can be seen in the background.
Following her daughter’s murder, Patsy Ramsey appeared in multiple interviews to defend herself and her family members.
The public was highly suspicious of Patsy Ramsey given that she had “found” the ransom note — which bore handwriting that was apparently similar to hers. It certainly didn’t help that she had encouraged her daughter to take part in child beauty pageants during her short life, as many believed it was inappropriate for a girl so young to compete in pageants.
One theory suggested that Patsy Ramsey accidentally killed JonBenét in a rage after the young girl wet her bed. Patsy adamantly denied this.
“Does someone actually think I would kill my child because she wet the bed? I mean, I have lived through stage four cancer. In the grand scheme of things, bed wetting is not important,” Patsy said, according to CBS News.
Other theories explored how Burke Ramsey, the son, could have committed the crime. Despite the fact that Burke was just nine years old at the time, he allegedly had a troubled relationship with his sister — and a family friend claimed that Burke had once struck JonBenét with a golf club.
And of course, others have accused John Bennett Ramsey of being responsible for the murder, especially since he was the one who “discovered” his daughter’s dead body in the first place. However, people who believe that John or Burke killed JonBenét usually also believe that Patsy at least played a role in the cover-up of the crime.
Meanwhile, other theories have focused on sex offenders like Gary Oliva and John Mark Karr, who’ve previously been suspected of committing the crime — even though both men have been cleared by DNA testing.
Throughout it all, the Ramsey family continued to defend their innocence. But the case would follow them even as they attempted to move on with their lives. The stress of the situation only worsened when Patsy Ramsey discovered that her ovarian cancer had returned in 2002.
She continued to fight the disease, but it inevitably took her life on June 24, 2006, when she was only 49 years old. Now, she is buried at a cemetery in Marietta, Georgia, close to her daughter’s grave.
After reading about Patsy Ramsey, dive into the story of Augusta Gein, the mother of serial killer Ed Gein. Then, read the story of Teri Shields, the controversial mother of actor Brooke Shields.
