Six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was found dead in the basement of her parents’ home the day after Christmas in 1996.
The tragic details — a tiny beauty pageant contestant bludgeoned in her home after a day of celebrations — captivated the nation and sparked years of fevered speculation about who killed her.
Now, a three-episode Netflix documentary series, “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey,” is introducing a new generation to one of America’s most extensively covered child homicide cases.
JonBenet’s mother, Patsy, called the police hours before her body was discovered in the basement, saying that her daughter was missing and that she had found a ransom note demanding $118,000 — the same amount JonBenet’s father, John Ramsey, had received in a bonus as chief executive of a Lockheed Martin subsidiary.
Initial investigations focused on family members, with police searching the family’s home in Boulder, Colo., seizing computers, files and video and still photography equipment to look for pornography after an examination of her body revealed possible signs of sexual assault.
The former Little Miss Colorado’s doll-like appearance in heavily made-up pageant photos fueled speculation that she might have been exploited, although the Colorado Bureau of Investigation ruled out the pornography theory.
A former police chief inadvertently revealed years later that officers had, in his view, bungled their response by failing to secure the crime scene — they initially thought they were investigating a kidnapping, not a murder.
John and Patsy Ramsey repeatedly denied any involvement in their daughter’s death. They were officially cleared of suspicion in 2008 based on DNA evidence from the crime scene.
