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DNA as an investigative tool
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Summary of jonbenet ramsey case
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Twenty-two years into the murder of JonBenet Ramsey murdered in her Boulder, Colorado and Ramsey’s case is still unsolved. JonBenet Ramsey’s autopsy entailed blunt force trauma, sexual assault, and unimaginable aggression (ABC 20/20, 2016). On December 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey revealed her six-year-old daughter has disappeared from her bedroom. Patsy immediately believed her disappearance was strange considering her husband John Ramsey, their ten-year-old son, Burke, and herself was sleep. Patsy Ramsey frantically dials the emergency hotline, reports her daughter kidnapping, and soon thereafter a Boulder Police officer arrived.
According to Mrs. Ramsey’s statement to the police, she was awakening JonBenet at 5:45 am for a family trip to Charlevox,
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The ransom note suggested the perp was not of the Ramsey family, but a possible suspect from John Ramsey job; The note was directed to Mr. Ramsey and referenced his job. Secondly, why would someone leave a ransom note if the victim was already dead? If the crooks wanted or needed the funds they would not have murdered the victim before receiving the ransom. The ransom note was staged to remove the Ramsey’s as suspects. On top of the ransom note the Boulder Police Department, the Ramseys’, the Ramseys’ lawyers, close friends, and legal team contributed to the investigative nightmare of the victim JonBenet. The home was presumably a kidnapping crime scene however the excessive people in the home corrupted the scene. The police did not seal off the crime scene, allowing family and friends to walk around the home. An additional issue is the father John Ramsey, John Ramsey discovered his deceased daughter removed the tape from her mouth, loosened he wrists, and removed the blanket that covered her lifeless body (Douglas & Olshaker, 2000). Not only did Mr. Ramsey remove key evidence from the victim, but transferred the body from the crime scene in the basement to the living room on the second floor and recovered the body with another
The knife that served as the murder weapon was sourced from the kitchen. Their bodies, which were burnt quite badly, were found in their bedroom, which was upstairs. This crime scene was uncovered by fire officers who responded to a 000 call by a neighbor at approximately 3:34am, after Jeffrey had told him his parents and his brother were dead. At this point, Jeffrey creates his alibi that his brother Christopher is responsible for the murder of their parents and setting the bodies on fire, but it was he who murdered
The Jonbenet Ramsey case has remained unsolved for twenty years now, and I realize, it might not ever be solved, but I do have a theory. My theory involves three different things, the build up, the murder and the cover-up. In the end, I do not think that there was an intruder that broke in the house, the evidence just doesn’t add up to that. I feel as if somebody in the family killed her, and the Ramseys covered it up. If you go even deeper, John Ramsey could have compensated John Mark Karr to take the blame, and to get some of all of the post-murder weight off of his chest. In order to find who killed J.B.R., we have to look into the Ramseys’ lives first. We know that the Ramseys had money, a lot of it. And the odd amount of money in the ransom note just doesn’t make any
After reading ‘The Murder of Helen Jewett” it gave me insight on how crime in New York City was in the 1830’s and another view on how life for men and women differed. The book starts off talking about Dorcas Doyen famously known as Helen Jewett and how she was highly thought of but then the news comes out of nowhere with several stories about her past some twisted to make her seem as bad as a prostitute who has bounced around a few times could be seen. But her actual story was that she was born in 1814 in Temple, Maine to a regular working family. She lost both of her parents at a young age her mother died when she was at the early ages of her life and he father who was an alcoholic died shortly after her mother. She was put in a home, orphaned
According to news reports, Lambert and Lindsey were involved in bitter divorce battle and subsequent alimony and child support battle which had dragged on for years in the courts in Florida. The parties had three (3) children, ages 16, 18 and 20, who made public appeals and pleaded with the community for information leading to the return of their mother after Kimberly Lindsey went missing from her West Palm Beach Home after a brutal altercation with Dr. Lambert on October 27, 2013. Ms. Lindsey was reported missing after she failed to show up at her job as a Nurse for the West Palm Beach School District. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office reported that a body was found October 31, 2014 in a sugar cane field in south Florida. After DNA testing, it was reported that the DNA was a match to Kimberley Lindsey (WPBF.com). According to Police this murder was “brutal and premeditated”; the body had been decapitated...
A great deal of people viewed Simpson as a role model and someone they desired to be. Not for one second did any of those people even think about the thought of a man that “has it all” being on trial for murder. When most people view celebrities like Simpson, they imagine them with no flaws, but they only observe a glimpse of the person’s life. Some would say a majority of Americans prefer watching someone else’s life than pursuing their own, some Americans would even say that they have an infatuation with celebrities.
Patty Hearst was a normal 19 year old girl, living in an apartment with her fiance and attending university in Berkeley, California, until one day her life, and the lives of everyone around her changed forever. On the evening of February 4, 1974, some members of the left-wing radical group called the Symbionese Liberation Army barged into Hearst’s home armed with guns, and beat up her fiance before kidnapping Hearst and bringing her to their house where she was kept blindfolded in a closet for 59 days. While locked in the closet, Patty Hearst was verbally and sexually abused and she was denied the use of even a toilet or toothbrush if she didn’t tell them that she agreed with the group’s ideas and beliefs. It is believed that while being locked in the closet like this, Patty was being brainwashed by the SLA and that she may have even developed Stockholm Syndrome, a condition in which a person who was kidnapped starts to empathise with their captor, and even starts defending them. This is how the Symbionese Liberation Army convinced Patty Hearst to join their group. They released an audio tape to the public in which Patty Hearst said she was changing her name to Tania and that she had decided to join the SLA. She then helped the SLA rob a bank and steal an ammunition belt from a sports store. After this, she started travelling around the country with two members of the SLA named John and Emily Harris, to try avoid being captured by the police. During this time, the police found a house where some members of the SLA were hiding out. Attempts to make the SLA members surrender ended up in a massive gunfight, ultimately ending up in the deaths of 6 SLA members. The FBI eventually found and arrested Patty Hearst on September 18, 1975. T...
A crime being committed is the first event to initiate our criminal justice system. On June 12th 1994 a double murder was reported at the residence of Nicole Brown Simpson the ex-wife of the then beloved Orenthal James (OJ) Simpson. It was discovered that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman had been brutally murdered and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) began their investigation, this being the second step in our criminal justice system.
Immediately, a forensics team was called to aid in the investigation and soon the entire apartment was filled with police officers and detectives. Inside the apartment, however, they found nothing: there were no signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle, and most importantly, no signs of Paulette. The girl's parents (specially her mother) did countless of interviews where they pleaded for their daughter’s safe return: **“She is an angel, she is a beautiful little girl; she never cries, never throws tantrums, she’s the sweetest”**, [Lizette was quoted saying] (https://youtu.be/5_UW_6YRaZI?t=315). In record time, Paulette’s picture was everywhere, with every single news outlet following the case closely: was Paulette kidnapped? Had she perhaps wondered out on her own? Could she be still alive?, an entire nation wondered and for the time Paulette was missing she was what everyone talked about. On the 27th of March, several news crews were allowed into the apartment as Lizette, sitting on her daughter’s bed, recalled what had happened that fateful night: she put her daughter to bed, kissed her goodnight and then she left the room. That night she didn’t hear any weird noises, the dogs didn’t bark and everything seemed fine. It would be nine days, on the 31st of March, until Paulette’s body was found:“The girl was found
In Corsicana, Texas Cameron Willingham and his family’s home was burned down the twenty-third of December is 1991. According to the report Cameron was asleep when the fire started and survived the accident with only a few injuries, as for his children they were not so lucky, they lost their lives to the tragic accident. At the time of the accident Cameron’s wife was buying presents for their children for Christmas. According to a witness and her Daughter Diane and Buffie from a few houses down went outside and saw Cameron screaming, “My babies are burning up!” Diane and Cameron tried countless attempts to rescue the girls from their room until the fire department could get there. According to the New Yorker “The house, in short, had been deliberately transformed onto a death trap.” According to the reports on December twenty-fourth and twenty-seventh of 1991 the fire was declared arson and they later decided to conduct a criminal investigation. Cameron was questioned by the investigators on December 31st and was then later arrested on January 8th of 1992 for the death his three daughters.
The story started as how Cheryl Brown witnessed how Ken McElroy, an illiterate hog farmer died after terrorizing the small town of Skidmore, Missouri for more than a decade. While watching him before of his death, she remembered everything that he’d done to the people leaving in the town, especially what he did to her father, Bo. As McElroy sat down in his truck, he was shot to death without anyone knowing who did the shooting. More than 40 people saw what happened but no one has been prosecuted. The people were relieved as they knew what happened to the man who terrorized them for more than ten years.
Sue Grafton once stated: “Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they're right.” This is clearly the thought the Boulder Colorado police conceived in the case of little beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. As many have observed from the onslaught of media coverage, the day after Christmas 1996, six year old Jon Benet Ramsey was found buried under a white blanket, bound, beaten, and strangled to death in the wine cellar of their Boulder home. With such a strikingly rare and glamorous story of a six year old beauty queen dead, who was a part of a “perfect American upper-middle class family”, combined with a lack of a lead and ever mounting suspicion piling up against the parents it was no surprise to find that it was fuel to the media and soon stories sold and became a matter of competition between the press. So, like wildfire, this heart-breaking story spread, stretching across the nation, shattering the souls of the world. News broadcasts, magazine and newspaper articles, and television specials all shaped and molded peoples perceptions of this beautiful child’s murder, especially her parents, John and Pasty Ramsey’s involvement or lack there of. The police and FBI’s merciless quest to connect Jon Benet’s murder to her parents, seemed to cause the them to overlook important evidence, or at the very least dismiss suspicious findings that would otherwise send red flags to investigators. There are many contributors as to why this case remains unsolved including lack of investigative expertise, failure to protect valuable evidence, and focusing too much on the parents as suspects but, ultimately, the over involvement of...
clear to me that the Ramsey family murdered JonBenet. I think that Burke, her older
In The Murder of Helen Jewett, Patricia Cohen uses one of the most trivial murders during the 1800’s to illustrate the sexiest society accommodations to the privileged, hypocritical tunneled views toward sexual behavior, and the exploitation of legal codes, use of tabloid journalism, and politics. Taking the fact that woman was made from taking a rib from man was more than biblical knowledge, but incorporated into the male belief that a woman’s place is determined by the man. Helen had the proper rearing a maid servant, but how did she fall so far from grace. Judge Weston properly takes credit for rearing her with the proper strictness and education. Was Helen seduced at an early age and introduced to sexual perversions that were more persuasive that the bible belt life that the Weston’s tried to live? Was Helen simply a woman who knew how to use what she had to get what she wanted? Through personal correspondence, legal documentation, census reports, paintings, and newspapers we are able to make our own determinations. Cohen provides more than enough background and history to allow any one to make their own opinion how the murder of a woman could be turned into a side show at a circus.
In conclusion, even though this happens in the 90’s, someone should have been caught, tried and serving their sentence today. Crime Scene Investigation Management is a severe and detail job. The facts to make every step clear to investigators in the number one in finding the person or people who commit this crime. All standard procedures are significant when it comes to reporting details in a court of law. With DNA use to free the person they thought killed JonBenet, the evidence from a flashlight, garrote, fluids from her body that were in her underwear should have come up with a suspect. The written letter with no fingerprints, everything was wipe down clean as well as contamination around the house. Documentaries, movies, books, and magazines
The events leading up to her murder were typical events for a family on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve night, the whole family attended a Christmas party at a friend’s house. They came home at about 9:30 PM and JonBenet was carried upstairs to her bedroom at 10:00 PM. This was the last time she was seen alive. The next morning at about 5:00 AM Patsy found a ransom note on the bottom of the staircase. The note described the kidnapping of JonBenet and demanded $180,000 or JonBenet would be killed. Patsy quickly went to JonBenet’s room and, just as the note had stated, she had been kidnapped. Patsy...