Cold cases permeate the media and captivate audiences of true-crime television shows, puzzling viewers as to why these cases haven’t been solved yet. Perhaps the most chilling and captivating part about cold cases is knowing that the offender lives among us, right under our noses. It eats away at detectives and the public alike when there is no resolution to cases as gruesome as murders. Several definitions lay out what a cold case is: “The National Institute of Justice currently defines a cold case as any case whose probative investigative leads have been exhausted” (“What is a Cold Case,” 2008). In other words, a cold case is a case that hits a dead-end in the investigation, but remains open in the event that new evidence is discovered. Although …show more content…
Dr. Henry Lee used an unopened bag of underwear to test this hypothesis and found DNA on the underwear in the package. This study shows that any of those suspects that were previously let go for not being a match to the DNA, including JonBenét’s parents, could be the killer or killers (Bergara, 2017). JonBenét’s murder is a prime example of a cold case resulting from mishandling of the evidence from the crime scene as well as from an eventual lack of …show more content…
British geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys discovered a use for creating DNA profiles to solve paternity disputes, but is a process which has expanded its use to forensic scientists in solving crimes. In the process of “DNA fingerprinting,” of which a DNA profile is created, DNA evidence from a crime scene can be used to match to criminals already in the database. A DNA profile focuses on thirteen markers, or locations, on the genome that have high variability between people. Consequently, the likelihood of two people having the same results for those thirteen markers is very small (Matheson, 2016). In fact, the chances can be as high as 1 in 1 billion (“What is a Cold Case,” 2008). While this type of testing helps to match DNA to a profile already in the database, it cannot be used for people who previously had a clean record before committing the
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
Everybody had an opinion on what happened at the Ramsey household on December 25, 1996. Most people believed that the family is responsible for killing JonBenet. Ever since that day, the public has held the Ramsey family under a cloud of suspicion. The family did everything they could do to defend themselves. They believe that an intruder must have done it, but most of the public believes that the family should be held responsible for the killing. The main suspect that police keyed in on was the mother of JonBenet. The reason for the suspicion of the mother was the 911 call made by Patsy Ramsey the day of the murder. In this 911 call, the mother seemed very suspicious. Patsy said “We have a kidnapping” ( McClish). “It seemed like she knew something she was not telling” (McClish 2001).
The murder of JonBenet Ramsey has become one of the nation's notorious unsolved murder mysteries. A wide range of crime scene investigators and police officials have searched for clues for JonBenet's killer, but countless authorities have already considered this murder to be one of the most inexplicable cold-cases in America. As the world marks the twenty first year anniversary of the tragic event with still no standing suspects, an abundance of evidence proven through research points to one suspect in particular.
Mei, Gina. "7 of the Craziest Theories in the JonBenét Ramsey Case." Cosmopolitan. N.p., 10 Oct. 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.
Nowadays, DNA is a crucial component of a crime scene investigation, used to both to identify perpetrators from crime scenes and to determine a suspect’s guilt or innocence (Butler, 2005). The method of constructing a distinctive “fingerprint” from an individual’s DNA was first described by Alec Jeffreys in 1985. He discovered regions of repetitions of nucleotides inherent in DNA strands that differed from person to person (now known as variable number of tandem repeats, or VNTRs), and developed a technique to adjust the length variation into a definitive identity marker (Butler, 2005). Since then, DNA fingerprinting has been refined to be an indispensible source of evidence, expanded into multiple methods befitting different types of DNA samples. One of the more controversial practices of DNA forensics is familial DNA searching, which takes partial, rather than exact, matches between crime scene DNA and DNA stored in a public database as possible leads for further examination and information about the suspect. Using familial DNA searching for investigative purposes is a reliable and advantageous method to convict criminals.
Crime is a common public issue for people living in the inner city, but is not limited to only urban or highly populated cities as it can undoubtedly happen in small community and rural areas as well. In The Real CSI, the documentary exemplified many way in which experts used forensic science as evidence in trial cases to argue and to prove whether a person is innocent or guilty. In this paper, I explained the difference in fingerprinting technology depicted between television shows and in reality, how DNA technology change the way forensics evidence is used in the court proceedings, and how forensic evidence can be misused in the United States adversarial legal system.
Saltus, Richard. "DNA Fingerprinting: Its A Chance Of Probabilties." The Boston Globe 22 August 1994: 25.
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...
DNA profiling is used in a variety of ways, such as establishing proof of paternity, or identifying siblings. While DNA contains material common to all humans, some portions are unique to each individual; thus, DNA testing can help solve crimes by comparing the DNA profiles of suspects to offender samples.
There has been many unsolved murder mysteries, and one of them is the case of Jonbenet Ramsey. The case hasn’t been solved for over twenty years. There have been many theories about the case, one of them is The Intruder Theory. The Intruder Theory states that someone broke into the house and murdered Jonbenet Ramsey on that infamous christmas night. There has been enough evidence to support that theory. In 2008 DNA was found to show that it was not anybody from the family. Though many believe that her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and brother, Burke Ramsey are responsible for her murder. So many theories, yet none were answered.
“DNA samples of semen retrieved from the crime scene matched blood drawn from Andrews. At that time, no state had a DNA databank. However, after witnessing the power of DNA evidence, state courts and state legislatures would soon grapple with the issue of whether DNA evidence should be admitted at trial as identity evidence and whether establishing state DNA databanks would be feasible and of value to law enforcement. A review of current law reveals that almost every state has embraced and institutionalized the utilization of DNA fingerprinting for crime fighting purposes” (Hibbert,
If the killer was one of the family members there motive would have been because of their rage. It was said that Patsey was getting mad at Jonbenet for wetting the bed almost every night. She could have snapped and accidently hit her with an object she found near her. She told there gardener that anyone can get away with murder in this country right now because at the time OJ Simpson was found innocent. But there is also a motive for John Ramsey. When the police arrived at the house it was reported that he was making a phone call and saying that he is wanting to leave the area. Why would John want to leave the area if his daughter just died? After that John left for about an hour and no one knows where he went expect him. When he came back he was acting very suspicious. But it could have been an intruder as well that killed Jonbenet. The window in the basement was smashed and they found scruff marks on the wall. There was also a boot print that was found in the crime scene and it didn't match anyones shoe in the house. Eventually the police ruled out the immediate family because of the DNA. The police suspected other people too like John Mark Karr or Michael Helgoth. Karr confessed to strangling to in detail. But they ruled him out because of the DNA didn't match and she didn't die of strangulation. Helgoth also confessed to murdering her on tape. The boot print that the police found was very similar the his shoes that he was wearing. But they ruled him out because of DNA and Michael committed
Kevin, Johnson. “DNA clears Ramsey family in JonBenet’s death.” USA Today n.d.: MAS Ultra-School Edition. Web. 20. Feb. 2014.
Tyler, Tom R. “Viewing CSI and the Threshold of Guilt: Managing truth and Justice in Reality
criminals escape justice, whether it is because of a cold case or botched police work, and hunts