Original subtitles

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.

♪♪