JonBenet Ramsey Case: Why The Grand Jury Wanted To Indict Her Parents

JonBenet, a six year-old beauty queen, was found murdered in the basement of her parents' posh home in Boulder, Colorado on Christmas, 1996.

In a frantic call to 911 at 5:52 a.m., Patsy Ramsey told Boulder police she'd found a ransom note on the staircase leading down to the kitchen, demanding $118,000 for her daughter's return. There was never any follow-up from an assumed kidnapper.

Hours later, JonBenet's body was found by her father and a family friend.

The little girl had tape across her mouth and a ligature buried deep in the skin of her neck through use of a garrote fashioned made from cord and a broken paintbrush taken from her mother's art supplies. Some of the same cord was bound around her right wrist. During her autopsy it was also discovered that she'd suffered a blow to the skull from a blunt object.

The coroner ruled that her death was the result of asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma. There were also signs of vaginal trauma, although whether that had preceded her death could not be determined. A thoroughly contaminated crime scene didn't help determine what had happened.

John and Patsy hired multiple lawyers, including Hal Haddon, one of the most highly respected criminal defense lawyers in Colorado. He then hired a public relations consultant, who many experts believed did more harm than good on how the grieving parents were perceived, especially when some law enforcement sources were publicly complained that the Ramseys were not cooperating with the investigation. In fact, they declined to submit to detailed police interviews until April 30, 1997.

One key investigator, Boulder police Detective Steve Thomas, later wrote an exhaustive, blistering resignation letter chastising Hunter for timidity and labeling the D.A.'s office as "thoroughly compromised."

On the flip side, a month later, one of several outside experts drafted by Hunter's team, Lou Smit, also resigned. He quit saying he could no longer serve a prosecution team that he believed was wrongly targeting the Ramseys in defiance of evidence.