Chapter One: Depravity, Handled Deftly

---

Chapter One: Depravity, Handled Deftly

The masquerade began at 5:52 a.m. on December 26, 1996. “We have

a kidnapping! Hurry please!” Patsy Ramsey cried to the 911 operator.

By then, as the autopsy report has since revealed, JonBenet Ramsey

already lay dead as rigor mortis set in, stiffening her muscles and

freezing her limbs within death’s grip. Her mangled corpse lay

discarded in a distant corner of the basement described as a wine

cellar, but really a storage area in a dark room. The right side of her

head had suffered a blow severe enough to embed bone fragments

into her brain as the skull fractured itself extended eight inches down

the side and back of her head. The blow did not cause the little girl’s

death immediately. The strike from a blunt object caused internal

swelling and bruising while also rendering the beautiful child as

useless as a sex object. It didn’t take a physician to confirm that the

grotesque end of JonBenet’s beauty pageant career had arrived.

The six-year-old had apparently spent the last few years of her life

being exploited as an itty-bitty sexual attraction. According to

physicians who read the autopsy report, injuries to JonBenet’s vagina

occurred weeks or months before her last

1assault and eventual murder. Her little hymen was a rag. Penetrations

of her uterus likely occurred by intruding fingers. The vagina showed

signs of abrasions from molestation long before the night of

Christmas 1996. No family would wish to hear or see published the

depraved details of JonBenet’s sexual abuse. Without the

extraordinary power of money to orchestrate a ruse and counter

intuitive story of an intruder, JonBenet’s sickening family secrets might

well have gathered traction for the public and raised an unignorable

demand for “justice.”

Although any child’s death would naturally attract curiosity and

attention, gruesome news gatherers of the tabloid world exploited the

confluence of a very wealthy family, a former Miss America

contestant, and the lustful readership the tabloid press nourishes and

serves. Justice is not what the tabloids pedal. Depravity handled

deftly rolled the tabloid presses and made the world go around,

printing money from advertising sales and spiking readership that the

calculated commercial handling of JonBenet’s fate produced. The

traditional news outlets of the late 20th century, such as radio,

television, newspapers, and magazines, operated in a more

conservative era when the internet was just in its infancy. They sought

to inform with editorial candor but refrained from passing judgement.

On the other hand, the tabloid formula for news reporting emphasized

big red headlines, photographs with a punch, and quotations for

shock and gore that outweighed

2professional demands for social grace, or at least attention to the

concept of “innocent until proven guilty.” The legal complexities of

prosecutions were for lawyers, most of whom did not read tabloids

unless a client made the headlines. As long as the mystery sold

newspapers, whether solved or exploited—JonBenet's peculiar

circumstances captivated a worldwide audience. In this case,

although newspapers bought ink by the barrel, John Ramsey had the

money to match them. He could and did hire a legal team to sit at the

table and placed his bet that he had enough gold, and therefore clout,

to publish his version of the story.

The value of sex, murder, and fame cannot be underestimated in the

American mind, nor does any media ignore the value of its

exploitation. Within 24 hours of the first broadcast of the murder of a

six-year-old beauty pageant winner, born to a former Miss West

Virginia and fathered by a man with a billion-dollar company, the

mouths of kiddy porn enthusiasts began to water. The world of

journalism exploded like a worldwide firebombing. Tabloid magazines

hungering for fresh meat after the spectacular profitability of the O.J.

Simpson trial virtually parachuted editors and photographers into

Boulder, Colorado, for the scoops to come.

Boulder, a boisterous, hip, and sheltered college town, awoke to

gangs of electronic, print, and tabloid reporters infiltrating the city.

Robin Williams, in the television comedy Mork and Mindy, gave

Boulder’s residents a self-image of

3being “cool.” The visage of the grotesque torture of an innocent

fairytale princess stung the citizens of Boulder who lived in a wealthy

playground removed from the grit and crime of big cities. Even the

Boulder Police Department (Boulder P.D.) was unprepared for this

one-of-a-kind grisly murder of a child from one of its elite families.

JonBenet’s nine-year-old brother, Burke, was awake at 5:52 a.m. on

the morning of December 26, 1996, when Patsy made her 911 call. An

enhanced examination of the 911 recording identified Burke’s voice,

saying, “What DID you find?” On such a calamitous morning during

such a vital phone call, it is odd, strikingly odd, that John and Patsy

claimed their son was asleep at that moment. Much later, after every

detail of that morning came under scrutiny, the odd

“misremembering” of Burke’s presence during the call sinks in value.

It becomes only one more curiosity in a scandal of curiosities while

years lap up important facts, and they enter into the digestive tract of

“curious” remnants of a “true crime” mythology.

“We’re not talking to you,” John responds. That exchange makes the

couple’s claim that Burke was asleep not just odd but suspicious.

Why would any parent not speak to a kidnapped child’s brother? The

older brother’s bedroom shared the second-floor suite with his

sister’s bedroom and playroom between them. Could he have heard

the kidnapper? Should the

4parents ask if he heard anything before denying he was awake at the

time of the call for help?

Patsy said she found the three-page ransom note neatly arrayed on

the stairway leading to the kitchen. In that three-page letter, the

“kidnappers” threatened to “behead” her daughter if they so much as

talked to a “stray dog.” Nevertheless, Patsy talked and talked a lot. She

not only called 911 but also had close friends:1 Fleet and Priscilla

White, John and Barbara Fernie, their minister, Rol Hoverstock,

JonBenet’s pediatrician, Dr. Francesco Beuf, and his wife, Penni. She

asked them all to come to the home. She also contacted her sister,

Pam Paugh, and parents, Don, and Nedra Paugh in Atlanta. Nedra was

the beauty contestant’s family matriarch. Pam Paugh also competed

in pageants and won Miss West Virginia in 1980 after Patsy’s crowning

in 1977.

Before the guests could arrive, the Ramseys provided Officer Rick

French, the first Boulder police officer on the scene, with the ransom

note. “Note” hardly describes the 376 words of this bizarre ransom

demand. Unlike a typical brief and curt ransom note, the writer’s

personality flowed through the ink, full of confidence and imagination.

Despite the claim of coming from a “small foreign faction,” it was

anything but foreign in its phraseology. The letter grows immensely

threatening and personal.

5Mr. Ramsey,

Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent a small

foreign faction. We [word crossed out] respect your business but not

the country that it serves. At this time, we have your daughter in our

possession. She is safe and unharmed and if you want her to see

1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter. You will withdraw

$118,000.00 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills, and the

remaining

$18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size

attaché to the bank. When you get home, you will put the money in a

brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to

instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting, so I advise you

to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call

you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and, hence, an

earlier [word crossed out] pick up of your daughter. [“delivery”

scratched out] Any deviation from my instructions will result in the

immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be deprived of her

remains or proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your

daughter do not particularly like you, so I advise you not to provoke

them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as police, F.B.I.,

etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you

talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If

the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will

be searched for electronic devices, and if any are found, she dies. You

can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with law

enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand

6a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to outsmart us. Follow

our instructions, and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back.

You and your family are under constant scrutiny, as are the authorities.

Don’t try to grow a brain, John. You are not the only fat cat around, so

don’t think that killing will be difficult. Don’t underestimate us, John.

Use that good Southern common sense of yours. It is up to you now,

John!

Victory! S.B.T.C.

7