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Investigators in Netflix’s ‘Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?,’ which went up today, talk about how the demands and length of the ransom letter were unprecedented.
One of the most startling pieces of evidence to surface following the discovery of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey’s death in the family’s Boulder, Colorado, home was the eerie ransom note that the murderer most likely left behind.
Authorities talk about one of the most well-known and dramatic murder cases in history in Netflix’s Cold Case.
Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?, which went live on the streaming service on Monday, November 25. It started on the morning of December 26, 1996.
When John Ramsey discovered his young daughter, a beauty pageant queen, dead in a little used basement chamber. The girl had been beaten, sexually raped, and garroted to death.
Related: Exclusive: John Ramsey Explains Why He Didn’t Weep Upon Discovering His Daughter JonBenét’s Body
When John’s wife Patsy noticed their daughter was missing earlier that morning, she alerted the police.
Patsy, who has since passed away, hastily disclosed on the conversation that she had found a handwritten ransom letter demanding $118,000.
Which is exactly the amount of a recent employment bonus that John got, in exchange for JonBenét’s safe return.
The ransom note is discussed by detectives in the first episode of the three-part documentary series.
In the episode, former Boulder police investigator Jeff Kithcart states, “I was going through the notebook.
That contained Patsy’s handwriting, and I came across an entire sheet of paper in the notebook still attached with what appeared to be the initial ransom note.”
It stated, ‘Mr.,’ followed by what could have been the first vertical stroke of a ‘R.’ It could have been the initial draft of what I thought might have been the ransom note.
“I was shocked to find that,” Kithcart continues. The ransom note seemed to have been composed at the Ramsey home using that notepad.
An interview with FBI agent Ron Walker from 2006 is featured later in the program, when he talks about how the demands and length of the message were unusual for a kidnapping ransom note.
Walker describes the message as “quite unusual to see this magnum opus.” “Your ransom notes are usually brief and direct.”
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The $118,000 is the next item that truly catches your attention, he continues. A really strange number to request. Although $118,000 is a low amount.
It is also a fairly normal amount because it is just not what one would anticipate seeing. 200,000, 300,000, 250,000, a million, or half a million are what you anticipate seeing. Not 118,000, though.
Walker claims that these elements convinced him that the memo was “basically fraudulent.” The note wasn’t actually one of kidnapping.
Although there have been several speculations as to who could be accountable, no one has ever been named as the note’s author or prosecuted with JonBenét’s death.
John says he is optimistic that the murderer will be apprehended over thirty years after his daughter was killed.
In this week’s cover story, he tells PEOPLE, “If it remains in the hands of the Boulder Police, it will not be solved, period.”
“It will be resolved if they accept all of the available and offered assistance that is available.” I do think it will be resolved.