All language subtitles for How.It.Really.Happened.S01E09_English

My name is JonBenét Ramsey,
and I'm 5 1/2.

5 1/2, okay.

Pick one.
Two left.

Okay.

"What is your favorite
animal at the zoo?"

The monkeys

because they laugh
and stuff and hang around.

[ Laughter ]

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to
"How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

People have heard the name
JonBenét Ramsey for so long now.

It's almost like we forget there
was actually a little girl

who lost her life,

a smart, adorable 6-year-old
who was brutally murdered.

Over the years, police
interviewed nearly 600 people,

took a serious look
at more than 100 suspects

and built up an investigative
file of more than 60,000 pages,

and yet, despite
all that police work,

someone got away with murder.

We sat down with the people
who lived

and breathed that story back
in the day

to find out
how it really happened.

♪♪

I found Boulder to be
a gorgeous place

on the front range
of the Rockies.

I think it'd be a great place
to live.

Zesbaugh: The Ramsey family was
so involved in this community.

They'd been there,
by now, 5 or 6 years.

Patsy Ramsey was
kind of a socialite.

John Ramsey was a C.E.O.
of a big company.

Phelan:
They were avid churchgoers.

They helped others.

They were good people.

Zesbaugh: JonBenét and the cute
older brother, Burke,

and her mom and her
whole family seemed so loving.

Neighbors could only say
good things about this family.

This family was the least
likely family

to have something
horrific happen to,

and then Boulder, of course,
itself is a town that's idyllic.

It's peaceful.

Boulder at that time, you know,

the idea was that something like
this couldn't happen here.

It's just unimaginable
that there would be

that kind of crime
in that kind of neighborhood.

♪♪

Patterson:
The Ramseys, on Christmas Day,

had a normal
Christmas Day at home.

Grace: JonBenét got up on
what many children

consider to be
the greatest day of the year,

saw her presents,

had a wonderful day
at home with her family.

Patterson: JonBenét was playing
with her toys.

Burke, the 9-year-old son,
went down the block,

played with one of the kids
down the block.

About 4:30, 5:00,
Burke came home.

They got cleaned up.

The family went to a Christmas
party at a friend's home.

Patterson: The Whites' house.

They had dinner over there.

The kids played and everything.

They arrived back home
around 9:30 in the evening.

JonBenét was said
to have been so tired,

she actually fell asleep
and had to be carried to bed.

Woodward: She was carried into
the house by her father,

according to her parents.

They took her up to her room.

Patterson: That would've been
the last time

that John and Patsy say
that they saw her.

Man: 5:30 a.m.
JonBenét's mother, Patsy,

goes downstairs and finds

an apparent ransom note
three pages long.

Phelan:
Patsy saw the ransom note

on the steps near the kitchen

and...like anyone,
freaked out.

Suddenly, frantic phone calls
that JonBenét was missing.

After Patsy called 911, she then
called her good friends,

Fleet and Priscilla White.

They came right over
because they had seen

the family
just the night before,

hours before at
their Christmas party.

Whitson: It was approximately
6:00 in the morning

when I received a -- a page

that we had a 6-year-old girl

who had been kidnapped
with a ransom note.

Patterson: My recollection of
Patsy when we got to the house

was that she was on the couch
in the living room,

kind of in a fetal position,
all balled up and everything,

and John was more like
somebody in charge.

Mr. Ramsey was very calm,
cool and collected.

And they showed the police
this ransom note,

which is one of the most bizarre
ransom notes

anybody has ever seen.

There were a number of things
unusual about the note.

Number one, the length
of the note was very long --

three pages.

Walker: I've seen and worked

a number of kidnappings
for the FBI,

and most of the notes
are very short.

They're very terse,
very succinct,

and they give
very specific instructions

almost like bullet points.

So my first impression was,

"This guy
wrote the Magna Carta."

"Listen carefully.

We are a group of individuals

that represent
a small foreign faction.

At this time, we have your
daughter in our possession.

You must follow our instructions
to the letter.

You will withdraw $118,000
from your account."

I have never seen
a ransom kidnapping that asks

for such a specific
amount of money -- $118,000.

"Speaking to anyone about
your situation, such as police,

FBI, et cetera, will result in
your daughter being beheaded."

It was very much
directed at John.

It was addressed "Mr. Ramsey."

It was all directed at him,

no reference to Patsy in there
that I recall at all.

"Don't try to grow a brain,
John.

Use that good Southern
common sense of yours."

The note had said that
they were gonna call

between 8:00
and 10:00 in the morning.

Costello: So police were
searching around the house.

They were trying to figure out
how someone might have gotten in

or -- or gotten out.

Patterson: There were no signs
of a struggle in the house.

There was no signs
of forced entry.

And that's when Mr. Ramsey
went upstairs

to wake up his son, Burke.

You know, he's 9 years old, and
the father is gonna tell him

that his sister is missing.

Patterson:
He was awakened

and driven over
to the Whites' house

and left for the day.

Woodward: There was so much
chaos and turmoil in the house.

They wanted to get him
away from it.

♪♪

At this point, we realize, okay,

we haven't had a call
from the kidnapper

because
the kidnapping note said,

"I'm gonna call you
between 8 and 10,"

and no call has come in.

Hill:
The house was filling up.

The family's minister was there,
their friends, the Whites,

and also another couple,
the Fernies.

And they were all out
in the living room,

and that's where the discussions

were taking place
with Detective Arndt.

Hill: By midday,

most of the police officers
had returned to headquarters

so they could try to figure out
what they were dealing with.

Velez-Mitchell:
So by about 1:00,

the only detective
that was still there

was Detective Linda Arndt,

and it was clear that everybody
was just getting antsy.

You know, they were, like,
frazzled.

"W-what are we gonna do?"

So she suggests to Mr. Ramsey

and his friend, Fleet White,
that they go,

and they search the house again
just one last time.

John:
When I opened the -- the door,

then I turned the light on
and I...

[ Sighs ]

Patsy:
She was down there.

That was her.

Velez-Mitchell: So it was about
8 hours after Patsy Ramsey

had called 911 that John Ramsey
and his friend, Fleet White,

searched the house
one last time.

We waited until after the time
that the call

was supposed
to have been made to us,

and one of the detectives
asked me and my friend

who was there to go through
every inch of the house to see

if there was anything that was
unusual or abnormal,

looked out of place.

So we started in the basement,

and we're just looking.

John says he then moved
to the storage closet.

John: When I opened
the -- the door

and turned the light on...

Patsy:
She was down there.

That was her.

Woman:
The body of JonBenét Ramsey,

strangled and beaten,

is found in the basement

of her parent's Boulder,
Colorado, home.

John: I picked her up,
and I just screamed,

the -- the -- the --
the kind of scream you scream

in a dream when you --
you -- you --

you're trying to speak,
but you can't.

It's just a scream.

Woodward: Rigor mortis had
already sent in,

and he was in --

I guess you would
call it such shock.

When I brought JonBenét up,
Linda Arndt knelt over and --

And, I guess, felt for a pulse
and looked at me,

said, "She's dead."

At that point,
kind of pandemonium

broke out in the house.

I remember seeing Mrs. Ramsey
crying profusely.

It was a mother's wail,

rocking back and forth
and holding JonBenét.

Nobody could say anything.

What do you say
when that happens?

There's nothing you can say
to make it any better.

Woodward:
This little girl was tortured.

Very few people realize that.

Zesbaugh: She had a garotte
around her throat

and a nylon cord that was tied
around her throat very tightly,

leaving a lot of rope burns.

A ligature strangulation around
the neck, now, that is serious.

That's a very violent death.

And I remember my first
thought was,

"I want to catch
the person that did this."

Camerota:
So imagine this scenario --

The family and a couple friends
are sitting around,

and they're waiting for
a kidnapper to get in contact,

and then the father
finds the body.

Patterson: A lot of things
didn't make sense.

If, in fact, she was killed

while they were
"attempting to kidnap her,"

why would they leave
a ransom note

with her body
still in the house?

Walker: The only thing
I could think of was,

"This is now a murder case.

It's not a kidnapping."

My God, what -- what a mess
this crime scene

has been made of by all
these people walking around,

touching this, touching that.

You know, who knows
who was upstairs?

Who knows who was downstairs?

In the eyes of a lot of people,

this home has been
completely contaminated

as far as a crime scene.

I think the cops probably went,
"Oh, no."

In this split second, the police
are now no longer

looking for her kidnapper.

Now they're looking for
the killer of JonBenét.

Hill:
But instead of interrogating
the Ramseys right then,

they actually asked everyone
to leave the house

so they could secure
the crime scene.

Woodward: They should've been
told, "Come with us.

Let's go to police headquarters.
Let's sort this out."

Instead, they went
to a friend's house.

Zesbaugh:
Then it was interesting

over the next few days
to see the Ramseys lawyer up.

John got his own lawyer.
Patsy got her own lawyer.

They each got press people

and PR people to help them
craft statements.

And these high-powered
lawyers tell them,

"Don't talk to the police."

Man 2: What is the status

in regards to a formal
sit-down interview?

We are working obviously
through their attorneys now,

which they have both secured.

I think if you ask anybody
on the street,

one of the first things
they'll say is,

"Gee, if this were my kid,
I'd be --

I'd let them interview me
100 times,

whatever it would take."

Patterson: That's kind of the
feeling that we had is,

"Why are they doing this?

Why -- why aren't
they cooperating?"

♪♪

♪♪

Man 3: One might say,
"Wait a minute.

The parents would be suspects

or at least early on would
be looked at as suspects.

Why would they be allowed
to leave the state

if they hadn't been
formally interviewed?"

There was no legal reason
for us to detain the Ramseys.

They were not under arrest.

They were not being held.

No one had been formally
identified as a suspect,

and we had no legal grounds
on which to detain them

from going to
their daughter's funeral.

Man 4: A grief-stricken family
said goodbye

to 6-year-old
JonBenét Ramsey Tuesday.

Services were held
in the very church

where JonBenét was baptized
more than 5 years ago

before her family moved.

I can tell you that the heart
of God

is broken by the tragic death
of JonBenét Ramsey.

Man 4: The questions persist,

"Why a ransom note
if the child was killed?

Why was her body
in the basement?

And above all,
why this little girl?"

♪♪

And then the very next day
after burying their daughter,

the Ramseys decide to talk
but not with the police.

They speak with CNN in Atlanta.

Cabell: Okay. Well, let me start
out first of all.

Why did you decide
you wanted to talk?

They had not yet really given

any kind of substantive
interviews with police,

and they're on
national television

talking about this case.

Cabell: An FBI spokesman was
quoted as saying,

"At this point,
they don't regard it

necessarily as a kidnapping."

Doesn't sound
like kidnapping to me.

Got to wonder what happened.

W-was this a true attempt to...

I don't know.
...get ransom?

It does --
it makes no sense to me.

I don't know.

You believe it's someone
outside your home?

There is a killer
on the loose.

Absolutely.

I don't know who it is.

I don't know if it's a he
or a she.

But if I were a resident
of Boulder,

I would tell my friends
to keep...

It's okay.

...keep your babies
close to you.

There's someone out there.

Prendergast: It was -- it was a
somewhat histrionic interview

by Patsy Ramsey in particular,

who didn't look like she was
in any kind of condition

to be on -- on television.

Cabell:
When you return to Boulder,

you will sit down
with the Boulder police?

Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.

We want them to know
everything possible --

Everything.

if it can help them.

Whatever they want.

Whatever anyone wants,
we will cooperate.

Man 2: Did it surprise
anybody
with the police department

that this interview
was conducted on CNN

given the fact that they
hadn't
been formally interviewed

by the police department?

I think it would be very safe
to say

police were very surprised
at the interview.

They did not know
it was going to happen.

They were as taken aback
as anybody else.

Walker:
What's interesting is, you know,

the Ramseys go on television

to say that they fully
cooperated with the police.

They've given statements
for the police,

and that was total B.S.

There was a pendulum swing where
you thought initially, "Okay.

This family had nothing
to do with it."

But then the weird
CNN interview

where Patsy Ramsey
looked drugged up,

John Ramsey looked irritated
with her

and very, very icy and stoney,
and then you got sort of

the personalities
of these two people.

"Is this who's involved?

Maybe they did have
something to do with it".

Hill: So when the Ramseys
got back to Boulder

after their daughter's funeral,

the media was all there
waiting for them,

but so were the police.

Woodward:
And this police officer,

he just burst into the room,

you know, "You can't believe
what I've got.

You can't believe this.

You got to look at this
piece of paper."

Woman 2:
15, JonBenét Ramsey.

JonBenét, hi.

Costello: Around this time,

the media
gets ahold of this video,

and it showed
little JonBenét Ramsey

dressed up like a grown-up woman
in a beauty pageant.

She has makeup on and --
and lipstick and big hair,

and it was just bizarre
to see something like that.

Why did she do the --
the pageants?

She loved it.
We had a great time.

She liked it herself?
She was -- she -- she loved it.

JonBenét
was an entertainer.

She loved to entertain.

And you encouraged it?
Absolutely.

Were you a stage mother,
honestly?

Probably.
Yeah, that was you.

What's wrong with that?

She was in those child
beauty pageants,

which turned everybody
against her and her family.

I think that's the biggest
crime of all.

At that time, not a lot
of people knew a lot

about child beauty pageants,

but Patsy Ramsey was
a former beauty queen.

She'd been Miss West Virginia,

so this was a world
that she knew pretty well.

She introduced her to it to see
if she liked it, and she waited

till she was, like, 4 or 5
to gave her a choice.

"Do you think you want to go up
there and do that?"

And -- and the child is kind of
just a natural performer

and said, "Yes."

Woman 3:
Congratulations.

Grant: It started
with those videos

of JonBenét and her outfits.

Juxtaposing that with
the horrendous killing,

it just lends itself
to sensationalism.

Cabell: This started out
as a simple but tragic murder

of a child beauty queen,

but then questions arose,
curiosity arose,

and suddenly the media
descended on Boulder.

It became a media frenzy.

Reporters, producers,

photographers and the tabloids
were there.

We are told now that as many
as 300 media representatives

may be here right
now following this story.

Prendergast: So suddenly, there
was a national press here

and a pretty aggressive press,

much more than Boulder
was used to.

Estrich:
I want to say nothing negative

about a family
going through hell,

but why the hell aren't
they talking to the police?

I just don't understand.

Parshall:
This is a bizarre case,
a mother and father

who get their own attorney,
who get their own spokespeople,

who don't immediately
begin to cooperate

and talk with the police
to try to find the killer.

They wait.

Why don't the police
just take them downtown

and talk to them?

Is that
just not possible?

It doesn't work that way
in a democracy, ma'am.

You are entitled
to Constitutional protections.

You can't be dragged down and
forced to participate in a --

In a formal police interview.

Even though the Ramseys
weren't talking,

the police were actually
making some headway

with that ransom note.

I asked Mr. Ramsey for a sample

of his
and Mrs. Ramsey's handwriting,

and he gave me two notepads.

These pads were pads
that were kept by the telephone,

and each John and Patsy
had their own pads.

Camerota: When the experts
compared the tear patterns

from the ransom note
to Patsy's note pad,

they made a remarkable
discovery.

Woodward: Within about 15
minutes, came back,

and he just burst into the room,
this conference room.

You know, "You can't believe
what I've got.

You can't believe this.

You got to look
at this piece of paper."

It turned out that the kidnapper

had written the ransom note
on Patsy's note pad.

And this police officer,
who was in that meeting,

said everybody looks
at each other and says

"Oh, my gosh.
What's going on here?

These people may have done
something to their daughter,

and we need to look
at this completely differently."

Whitson: That's the first tidbit
of information that we had

that made it look like the
Ramseys were possible suspects.

They may have been involved
with this.

Velez-Mitchell: So after weeks
of searching for clues,

the police come up
with another clue.

They find that the garotte,
made of a broken paintbrush,

that paintbrush actually
belonged to Patsy Ramsey.

I think at the time, people
thought it was interesting

that, "A," there was
a paintbrush involved in it

that was Patsy Ramsey's
that was kept in the basement.

Also, the ransom note
was written off a pad

that was found in the home.

Who writes a ransom note inside
the home and leaves it there?

It's either the father
or the mother.

I mean, this is what everybody
in America pretty much thinks.

That's right.
Yeah.

The question is,
which one?

Were they together
on the deal?

Everybody thought the Ramseys
had some involvement in it.

We know that, the next morning,
the Ramseys were getting ready

to leave to go
to Charlevoix, Michigan,

to enjoy the rest
of the holiday.

There's just no way that
this was an intentional act.

The only logical explanation
for this offense

is that it's an accident
followed by a cover-up.

It is the only
logical explanation.

Van Susteren: The only thing,
obviously, the --

The child obviously was
very well taken care of.

She had the best
of everything,

and the only sort of thing
is whether or not --

Did you lose your --

you know,
could someone lose his temper?

No.

You know, that, I mean,
that was the only thing.

That was the -- the --

Greta, the key point --
people say, "well, you know,

80% of the time,
60%, it's the parents."

In every case,
I will bet in --

Where a parent has murdered
or harmed a child,

there's been a previous
history of that.

The problem with
the "accident" theory --

What kind of accident

would cause a parent
to kill their child?

The most common trigger
in older children

who are killed
is a toileting accident

that leads to
an explosion of rage

and either a severe injury
or occasionally a murder.

Blitzer:
Even bed-wetting could --

Could lead to this kind of a --
a -- a criminal act.

I've seen dozens of cases
where bed-wetting led

to this kind of an act.

Now, she had
a bed-wetting problem,

a serious bed-wetting problem,
that was ongoing for years,

even at this particular age,
age 5 and 6.

That was one of the theories
that was out there,

that JonBenét had wet the bed

and that Mrs. Ramsey

went into a fit of rage
over that.

Velez-Mitchell:
But the Ramseys' friends,

they were having
none of this idea,

that John and Patsy
murdered their own child.

I mean, to them, it seemed
completely preposterous.

It is just ludicrous.

There is just --
there's no way.

When you heard
of this murder,

first time you heard of it,
where were you,

and what did you think?

I was at work, and a mutual
friend called from Denver,

and I, you know, went numb,
couldn't imagine it.

And I guess what really got me
was when I started

realizing that
they were suspecting them.

I mean,
that just blew my mind.

It couldn't happen.
Because?

Because they're such
wonderful people.

I think people want to believe
the best in people

until they're given a reason
to believe the worst in people,

and the sensationalist media
gave people a reason

to believe the worst about the
Ramseys, wasn't evidence-based.

It was based on media coverage.

Then the case takes
this shocking U-turn.

A new detective comes in,
an outsider, goes back through

all the evidence
and tells the police,

"You know what?
You're wrong."

Perhaps, at first, I leaned
towards the parents doing it

only because
of what I had read

and what I'd seen
on television,

but as I got into the case,
I started seeing red flags,

which started
pointing the other way.

Welcome back to
"How It Really Happened."

As detectives dug deeper
into the JonBenét Ramsey case,

some of them believed all signs
were pointing to Patsy Ramsey.

Their colleagues at the Boulder
D.A.'s office were split.

Some bought into
the police theory,

but others weren't so sure.

Three months
into the investigation,

it was in disarray.

The D.A., Alex Hunter,

needed an objective take
on the case.

What he didn't expect
was for that take

to turn
the investigation upside down.

Hill: When the autopsy report
was released

and we found out
how this little girl died,

all of a sudden,
it seemed really surprising

for many people that the parents
could've been involved at all.

The autopsy does not read
like an accident.

It reads like a violent attack.

It's a horrible death.

Man 5: JonBenét Ramsey, 6 years
old, had been strangled,

had her mouth duct-taped,
her hands bound,

her skull fractured.

Whitson:
If you believe Patsy Ramsey

did this to her daughter,

you have to believe
she did all these things

and that then she had
the whereabouts to sit down

and write this ransom note.

And there was one more
horrifying detail

in the autopsy report.

Dr. Spitz: It's quite evident
that there has been an assault

that is interpretable
as being sexual.

There are other questions
that relate to that, of course.

Velez-Mitchell:
When the news came out

that JonBenét Ramsey
had been sexually assaulted,

rumors just started flying that
maybe the father was involved.

Spence: We've got enough
information

that 80% of the people

think that the murderer
in this case was the father.

So, you know, the suggestion
has always been,

I'm sorry, John,
but that you had

somehow been involved
with your child sexually.

But the doctor who saw her
regularly said, "No."

It was almost like a fiction
of the media.

We were accused of -- of --
it was just bizarre.

We were accused of taking her
to the doctor too many times.

She'd been to the --
see the doctor

30 times in 2 years,
the same doctor.

King: Why?

We had a good
health-insurance program.

Patsy:
He enumerated it, bronchitis --

He just did all the --
she had asthma.

You know, the doctor
was 5 minutes away.

Most of the experts agree

that there was
a sexual assault that night

but that there was
no prior sexual abuse.

Four people testified that
there was no prior sexual abuse.

Costello: Speculation
is continuing

to fly around who did this.

Like, was it JonBenét's mother,
Patsy?

Was it her dad, John?

Well, the D.A. at this time
has --

has an idea of someone who can
help him figure this out,

and his name was detective
Lou Smit.

Grant: Lou, in my mind,
was an excellent investigator,

a plotter, a fella who --

who went inch by inch
over crime scenes

and over investigations

and didn't leave
any stones unturned.

Man 6: What's your attitude
approaching this case?

Great optimism, I'd say,
and I'm ready to --

I'm really anxious to go to work
and see what they got.

And despite all these clues
out there

that seemed to point
to the Ramseys, this detective,

he had a completely
different idea.

Perhaps, at first, I leaned
towards the parents doing it

only because of what
I had read

and what
I'd seen on television,

but as I got into the case,
I started seeing red flags,

which started pointing
the other way.

Lou Smit was a well-respected
veteran police detective,

had worked successfully
on many cases.

Costello: And there was really
this feeling

that this guy could
really crack the case.

Zesbaugh: Lou Smit found
evidence in the crime scene

that he thought directly pointed
away from the Ramseys

and to an intruder.

I believe that, sometime

during December 25,
1996...

King: Christmas night.
...Christmas night,

someone got into the house
of John and Patsy Ramsey.

I believe there is some evidence
to suggest strongly

that he may have come in
through a basement window.

There was a scuff mark
down the wall.

There was leaves and debris
on the floor

directly below
that open window.

There was also foliage
under the grate

that covers this window well,
which would indicate

that someone may have opened
and shut the grate.

Also,
there was the suitcase

that was placed
below the window.

According to John Ramsey,

that suitcase was not
underneath that window

prior to that night.

John Ramsey
said that that's not

where suitcases
are normally kept.

There is evidence
on top of that suitcase,

a very small, tiny,
pea-sized piece of glass,

which could've come off
the shoe of the intruder.

There is also what appears
to be a disturbance

on the top
of that suitcase

as if someone may have
stood on it

at some particular point.

He used
the suitcase to get out?

Yes, it would make it
much easier

to get out
of that basement.

He actually at one point
demonstrated

how you could get
through that window,

and he fit through with --
with no problem.

I'll show you how easily
it can be done.

♪♪

I believe that the killer

did take JonBenét
from her bed

and brought her down
to the deepest,

farthest, dirtiest corner
of that basement

and did fashion
a garotte there

that was used
to strangle her,

and then he also
brutally hit her

on the head
with a blunt object.

According to Lou Smit,

the intruder had left
some evidence behind,

a footprint and a palm print
near JonBenét's body,

and these were clues
that could lead to her killer.

Man 7: In the wine cellar,
two footprints

next to JonBenét's body.

One still hasn't been
identified.

Nearby, a partial palm print.

There is evidence that's there
could have been an intruder.

You got a weird shoe print
in the basement.

You got a broken window.

You've got some debris.

You've got a suitcase
next to the window.

Hill:
The question then becomes,

how could an intruder coax
JonBenét Ramsey

down into the basement?

Lou Smit also found tracks
and marks

on the little girl's
back and neck

that he thought pointed to a
stun gun being used in the case,

that perhaps she'd been taken
from her bed and kept quiet

because she'd been stunned.

I think that the stun gun
is one of the best clues

left behind by the killer
as far as a clue,

but it also may explain
why JonBenét did not cry out

when she was
first abducted.

I am convinced that
a stun gun was used.

Lou detailed 10, 11, 12,

13 points that led him
to believe

that an intruder
had committed this homicide

and not an inside job by any one
of the three family members.

So then, at this point,
the question becomes,

who was this intruder?

Santa Claus was
a darn good suspect.

We know one fact for certain,
and that's an intruder

was in our house
and killed our daughter.

That we know for a fact.

So things were really looking up
for the Ramseys.

The evidence seemed to be
pointing to an intruder,

not them.

Moret: Well, are we able to say
at this point that John Ramsey,

the father, has been ruled out
as the writer of that note?

Yes, he has been ruled out,

and he is the only one
ruled out.

King: Was your handwriting
cleared, both of you?

John's definitively was cleared,
and I scored...

And yours was not?
...a 4.5 out of 4.

5 is definitely no match.

And it just, you know...
Patsy's handwriting was --

Because tabloids were printing
that it was yours.

Oh, yes, they love that.

No, that's absurd.

We've looked at leads
whose handwriting

scored much,
much higher than Patsy's

on a --
on a comparison scale.

So if John and Patsy
didn't write the note,

well, then who did?

You know, the police really did
go through dozens and dozens

and dozens
of potential suspects.

And one of the first suspects
was the Ramseys' housekeeper.

Patterson: The housekeeper,
Linda Hoffman-Pugh,

and her husband, Mervin,

were suspects
from the beginning.

In fact, number one,
they were needing money.

She had asked Patsy to borrow
$2,000 shortly before Christmas.

Number two, they had
a familiarity with the house

and with the people
inside the house.

They knew JonBenét.

It would've been possible
for them to go to the house,

take JonBenét
without having a disturbance.

Hill:
When police visited the Pughs,

they discovered the same brand
of duct tape

that had been used
to cover JonBenét's mouth.

Years later, the Ramseys
continued to name her

as a suspect,
but she always denied it.

I think about JonBenét
every day of my life

and have ever
since the day she died.

I've never turned
my porch light off.

My porch light has been on
every night since JonBenét died.

Hill: Then there was
the Santa Claus suspect,

who was a guy
well known around town.

His name was Bill McReynolds.

He was Santa Claus
to the Boulder community

for their parades
and for certain events.

Santa Claus was
a darn good suspect.

McReynolds actually played
Santa Claus

at the Ramseys' Christmas party

just two days
before JonBenét's murder.

And he and JonBenét actually
struck up a friendship.

All children are special
to Santa.

She just happened to be
extra special to me.

She was very thoughtful,
a very caring little girl,

and she actually gave
Santa a present.

You can imagine
how rare that is.

Hill: Police learned the
so-called Santa Claus suspect

may have told JonBenét
that a secret Santa Claus

was gonna make
a special visit to her.

Because JonBenét Ramsey the day
before made a comment

to her friends,

say Santa Claus gonna
visit her that -- tonight.

We later find out
that he had had

his own brush with kidnapping.

Hill: It turns out McReynolds'
own daughter

had also been kidnapped
22 years earlier,

and it also happened
on Christmas Day.

Zesbaugh: His wife had written
a play about a little girl

who was killed.

There were just very bizarre
tentacles to this story

that reached in places that
none of us could've suspected.

♪♪

♪♪

Dr. Pitt:
There's this perception,

it's the wrong perception,

that the detectives
really didn't look elsewhere.

Velez-Mitchell:
But the one interview

that police were
really hoping for,

JonBenét's own parents,
that was still on hold.

Man 2: What is the status

in regards to a formal
sit-down interview?

We are working obviously
through their attorneys now.

Velez-Mitchell:
So four months after the murder,

the Ramseys finally sit down
with police.

Man 8: It's the interview
Boulder police

have been trying to get
since Christmas.

John and Patsy Ramsey sat down
for formal interviews

four months since their
daughter, JonBenét,

was murdered.

The interviews happen now,
we're told,

because the Ramseys have told
their attorneys, "This is it.

We did not kill our daughter.

We are innocent,
and we want this closure."

Woman 4: JonBenét,
she is the child of Patsy

and John Ramsey
from Boulder, Colorado.

Camerota: So one of the things
that we found out

was that the Ramseys actually
had two different stories

about what happened that night.

Woman 5: There's been
tremendous mistrust

between the Ramsey side and the
Boulder police department,

but the Ramseys said,
"Enough,"

and today talked
with Boulder police.

When police sat down
with the Ramseys,

they had a specific
goal in mind.

They wanted to find out
the timeline from the Ramseys.

They wanted the timeline of
the night their daughter died.

And so there were some very,
very specific things

that they needed to get in terms
of locking in the story,

locking in the timeline.

And the autopsy held
an important clue.

This child had undigested
pineapple in her belly,

which means she ate it
within two hours of death.

The evidence seemed to suggest
that JonBenét Ramsey

ate a piece of pineapple
after returning home

from the Whites'
Christmas party,

but John Ramsey said
that she fell asleep in the car

on the way home from the party

and that he carried
her into bed.

Her parents said that
she had been asleep, came home,

and they put her right to bed,
and she never woke up.

Velez-Mitchell:
So if there was no pineapple

served at the Whites'
Christmas party that night,

how did it get into her stomach?

In my career, I never have
a kidnapper or sex predator

bring some pineapple,
feed the victim, say,

"Kid, eat some pineapple
before we kidnap you

or before I sexual assault you."

Dr. Pitt: I'd like an answer

for the pineapple
in the child's gut.

I'd like that to be explained.

I'd like to understand the fact
that the Ramseys said

that everyone was asleep,
that we have -- and --

And the child
was not fed pineapple,

how we end up with pineapple
in the child's gut

and fingerprints
on the spoon and --

and on the bowl
that were Patsy Ramsey's.

So with so many unanswered
questions,

the district attorney
was really feeling the heat

to convene a grand jury.

Kelley: In the summer of '98,

and we're talking nearly
two years after the crime,

nothing had come of --
of the investigation.

There was pressure
from a lot of quarters,

including the governor,
to impanel a grand jury.

Finally, after months
and months of delays,

the district attorney,
Alex Hunter,

finally does what everybody
was waiting for.

Felt like, after two long years
of this little girl

not getting justice that finally
it was moving forward.

Cabell: And frequently lost
behind the sensationalism,

the police investigations
and the legal maneuvering

is the fact that the little
girl died a brutal death.

Zesbaugh: I think we were all
very, very hopeful.

How wrong we were.

All of the original suspects,
including the housekeeper

and the so-called Santa Claus
suspect,

Bill McReynolds,
were cleared by police.

Now it was up to 12 grand jurors
to decide whether or not

there was enough evidence
to indict anyone else.

Would they find answers

the police and the D.A.'s
office couldn't?

That's in part 2 of
"Who killed JonBenét?"

I'm Hill Harper.
Thanks for watching.

♪♪