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Chapter 1
Christmas Night, 1996
Boulder, Colorado, is the kind of town people dream of moving to. It sits at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where great slabs of rock called the Flatirons rise up behind the houses. It's a university town, full of students, bicycles and coffee shops, and in 1996 it was known for being clean, healthy and safe. Murder was rare there, and the local police had very little experience of it.
On a leafy street in the University Hill neighbourhood, at 755 Fifteenth Street, stood the Ramsey home. It was a big Tudor-style house, spread over several floors, with a basement full of small rooms underneath. That December it was dressed for Christmas.
The family who lived there seemed to have it all. John Ramsey was 53. He ran a computer company called Access Graphics, which had just passed a billion dollars in sales. He was also a keen pilot who flew his own plane.
His wife, Patsy, was 39, a few days off her 40th birthday. She had been Miss West Virginia in 1977. Three years before that Christmas, she had been told she had advanced ovarian cancer. She fought it hard, and by Christmas 1996 she was well.
Their son, Burke, was nine. Their daughter, JonBenét, was six and in kindergarten. She was a bright, chatty little girl who loved to perform, and she had already won a string of titles in children's beauty pageants. We'll come back to that later.
John also had two grown children from his first marriage, Melinda and John Andrew, who were spending Christmas in Atlanta. A third, Elizabeth, had been killed in a car accident in 1992, aged just 22. The Ramseys knew what it was to lose a child. They had no idea they were about to lose another.
A busy December
It had been a full and happy month in the Ramsey house. Two nights before Christmas, on 23 December, John and Patsy threw a Christmas party at home. About thirty friends came, and a retired journalism professor called Bill McReynolds dressed up as Santa Claus for the children.
During that party, someone in the house rang 911 and hung up without saying a word. An officer came round to check, was told everything was fine, and left. It was later put down to a guest's mistake. Still, it's one of those odd little details that has never quite gone away.
On Christmas Eve, JonBenét spent time playing at a friend's house. According to one account, she told her friend's mother something that would later give investigators a chill. Santa, she said, was going to pay her a special, secret visit after Christmas.
That evening the family went to a Christmas Eve service at St John's Episcopal Church. Late that night, once the children were asleep, John fetched a brand-new bicycle from a neighbour's garage, where it had been hidden, and set it under the tree.
Christmas Day
On Christmas morning JonBenét found her new bike. There were presents to open and a house full of new toys.
In the afternoon John went out to the airport to check over his plane. The family were flying out early the next morning to their holiday home in Charlevoix, Michigan, and from there they planned to head to Florida for a Disney cruise.
Late in the afternoon, the Ramseys went to Christmas dinner at the home of their close friends, Fleet and Priscilla White. By every account it was a relaxed, happy evening. The people who were there said nothing seemed wrong, and nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary.
The family left at around nine o'clock. On the way home they stopped at two friends' houses to drop off Christmas presents. Somewhere along the way, JonBenét fell asleep in the car. They were home by about half past nine.
Bedtime
What happened next comes from the family themselves, because nobody else was there. John carried his sleeping daughter upstairs to her bedroom on the second floor. Patsy took off her shoes and changed her into a pair of long johns for bed, leaving on the white top she had worn that day. JonBenét didn't wake.
Burke wasn't quite ready for sleep. He had a new toy he wanted to put together, and John helped him with it for a while before sending him off to bed.
Then John and Patsy went up to their own bedroom on the third floor. Patsy finished the packing for the trip. The alarm was set early, because the plane was due to leave soon after dawn.
The lights went out. The house went quiet.
I find that evening hard to read about, because it's all so ordinary. A family coming home from a Christmas dinner with friends. A little girl asleep in the car. A boy who wants to play with his new toy before bed. Parents thinking about an early start. It could have been any family, anywhere, on any Christmas night.
Somewhere in the hours between that bedtime and the first light of 26 December, someone killed JonBenét Ramsey. We still don't know who. We don't even know for certain when.
At around half past five the next morning, Patsy got up, dressed, and started down the stairs. She was about to find the note.
End of chapter one. 11 more chapters in the full book.
Swipe or use the arrows to turn the page
THE KILLER WHO TURNED CABIN 28 INTO A SLAUGHTERHOUSE
THE KILLER WHO WORE A WHITE MASK
Color My Little Pooch
What's inside: 12 chapters
- 1. Christmas Night, 1996
- 2. The Note on the Stairs
- 3. Found in the Basement
- 4. A Crime Scene Ruined
- 5. What the Autopsy Showed
- 6. The Little Beauty Queen
- 7. Under Suspicion
- 8. The Intruder Theory
- 9. The Other Names
- 10. The Grand Jury Secret
- 11. The Man Who Confessed
- 12. Still Waiting
About this book
"WHODUNNIT DETECTIVE SERIES - THE KILLER WHO CAME AT CHRISTMAS" is a general book by Leigh Ralph with 12 chapters and approximately 12,577 words. It covers key insights and practical takeaways on the topic.
This book was created using Inkfluence AI, an AI-powered book generation platform that helps authors write, design, and publish complete books.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "WHODUNNIT DETECTIVE SERIES - THE KILLER WHO CAME AT CHRISTMAS" about?
"WHODUNNIT DETECTIVE SERIES - THE KILLER WHO CAME AT CHRISTMAS" is a general book by Leigh Ralph covering key insights and practical takeaways on the topic.
How many chapters are in "WHODUNNIT DETECTIVE SERIES - THE KILLER WHO CAME AT CHRISTMAS"?
The book contains 12 chapters and approximately 12,577 words. Topics covered include Christmas Night, 1996, The Note on the Stairs, Found in the Basement, A Crime Scene Ruined, and more.
Who wrote "WHODUNNIT DETECTIVE SERIES - THE KILLER WHO CAME AT CHRISTMAS"?
This book was written by Leigh Ralph and created using Inkfluence AI, an AI book generation platform that helps authors write, design, and publish books.
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