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Description
The case remains unsolved to this day, and is considered one of the most notorious in the United States.

Born in August 1990, in Atlanta, Georgia, her name was a combination of the names of her parents, John and Patricia, who died in 2006. She became known for being "a little beauty queen", as her mother had enrolled her in several children's beauty pageants. Her father was a millionaire businessman and her own mother had also participated in beauty pageants, having been Miss West Virginia 1977.

She had an older brother, Burke, aged nine at the time of the crime.

On the morning of December 26, 1996, a ransom note was found in JonBenét's home and her mother called the police. In the afternoon, however, her father found the girl's body in the basement of his house. JonBenét had suffered a blow to the head and had been strangled. A garrote was found tied around her neck. The autopsy report also indicated "abrasion and vascular congestion of the vaginal mucosa". The official cause of death, as reported by the autopsy, was asphyxiation due to strangulation, associated with traumatic brain injury.

The case gained national notoriety and was of great public and media interest, in part because her mother, Patsy Ramsey, had entered JonBenét in a series of children's beauty pageants.

In late 1998, Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter presented the case to a grand jury of eight women and four men. The jurors are among the few people who have seen all of the evidence presented by prosecutors in the case against John and Patsy Ramsey. The jury recommended charges against John and Patsy Ramsey, indicating that jurors believed the parents placed JonBenét in a situation that resulted in her death, but the district attorney overturned the charges, saying he and his prosecution task force believed there were no sufficient evidence to justify bringing charges against anyone who had been investigated up to that point.

"The case is full of strange facts, such as a note with a ransom demand - with exactly the same value as money won by the girl's father - a clue that triggered a search that involved not only the family but also the community where the family lived. lived. People who entered the house after other evidence ended up contaminating the crime scene, making it difficult to search not only for the girl but also for the criminal. The ransom note was written with the paper of a pad belonging to the family, something strange, since a kidnapper would not have time to leave a three-page message while kidnapping his victim. When the girl's father found her, he moved her body, further disrupting the investigators' work. These and other mismatched actions ended up transforming the crime involving the girl's death into a true legend," wrote Monet Magazine in 2019.

In July 2008, 12 years after the girl's death and 2 years after the mother's death, Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy made it clear that the parents definitely had nothing to do with the case, as the DNA samples collected from JonBenét's clothes and fingernails belonged to an unidentified male. The test results had been obtained using analysis techniques that had not existed years before and pointed to a "man of Hispanic origin".

In October 2010, Colorado Police reopened the case. "What is absolutely correct is that they are not going to let this case go to the back burner," Denver attorney and legal analyst Scott Robinson told reporters.

In October 2016, new DNA tests, using even more refined techniques, revealed that the DNA found contained "marks" of two unknown people, never identified through the government database.

In January 2019, Michael Vail took to the police a letter written by a friend, Gary Oliva, where the latter confessed to the crime. In the letter Gary wrote: "I never loved anyone the way I loved JonBenét. I let her sleep and her head hit and I watched her die. It was an accident. Please believe me. She wasn't like other kids." Michael had Gary as a suspect because on the day of the murder he had received a call from his friend sobbing and saying that he had hurt a girl. In 2019, Gary was serving a 10-year prison sentence for possession of child pornography and other photos of children, which included footage from JonBenét's autopsy. He had previously been investigated as a suspect in 2002.

Description
The case remains unsolved to this day, and is considered one of the most notorious in the United States.

Born in August 1990, in Atlanta, Georgia, her name was a combination of the names of her parents, John and Patricia, who died in 2006. She became known for being "a little beauty queen", as her mother had enrolled her in several children's beauty pageants. Her father was a millionaire businessman and her own mother had also participated in beauty pageants, having been Miss West Virginia 1977.

She had an older brother, Burke, aged nine at the time of the crime.

On the morning of December 26, 1996, a ransom note was found in JonBenét's home and her mother called the police. In the afternoon, however, her father found the girl's body in the basement of his house. JonBenét had suffered a blow to the head and had been strangled. A garrote was found tied around her neck. The autopsy report also indicated "abrasion and vascular congestion of the vaginal mucosa". The official cause of death, as reported by the autopsy, was asphyxiation due to strangulation, associated with traumatic brain injury.

The case gained national notoriety and was of great public and media interest, in part because her mother, Patsy Ramsey, had entered JonBenét in a series of children's beauty pageants.

In late 1998, Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter presented the case to a grand jury of eight women and four men. The jurors are among the few people who have seen all of the evidence presented by prosecutors in the case against John and Patsy Ramsey. The jury recommended charges against John and Patsy Ramsey, indicating that jurors believed the parents placed JonBenét in a situation that resulted in her death, but the district attorney overturned the charges, saying he and his prosecution task force believed there were no sufficient evidence to justify bringing charges against anyone who had been investigated up to that point.

"The case is full of strange facts, such as a note with a ransom demand - with exactly the same value as money won by the girl's father - a clue that triggered a search that involved not only the family but also the community where the family lived. lived. People who entered the house after other evidence ended up contaminating the crime scene, making it difficult to search not only for the girl but also for the criminal. The ransom note was written with the paper of a pad belonging to the family, something strange, since a kidnapper would not have time to leave a three-page message while kidnapping his victim. When the girl's father found her, he moved her body, further disrupting the investigators' work. These and other mismatched actions ended up transforming the crime involving the girl's death into a true legend," wrote Monet Magazine in 2019.

In July 2008, 12 years after the girl's death and 2 years after the mother's death, Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy made it clear that the parents definitely had nothing to do with the case, as the DNA samples collected from JonBenét's clothes and fingernails belonged to an unidentified male. The test results had been obtained using analysis techniques that had not existed years before and pointed to a "man of Hispanic origin".

In October 2010, Colorado Police reopened the case. "What is absolutely correct is that they are not going to let this case go to the back burner," Denver attorney and legal analyst Scott Robinson told reporters.

In October 2016, new DNA tests, using even more refined techniques, revealed that the DNA found contained "marks" of two unknown people, never identified through the government database.

In January 2019, Michael Vail took to the police a letter written by a friend, Gary Oliva, where the latter confessed to the crime. In the letter Gary wrote: "I never loved anyone the way I loved JonBenét. I let her sleep and her head hit and I watched her die. It was an accident. Please believe me. She wasn't like other kids." Michael had Gary as a suspect because on the day of the murder he had received a call from his friend sobbing and saying that he had hurt a girl. In 2019, Gary was serving a 10-year prison sentence for possession of child pornography and other photos of children, which included footage from JonBenét's autopsy. He had previously been investigated as a suspect in 2002.