VIDEO - Eerie Similarities of JonBenet Murder Unsolved and McCann Case

I'm not sure how familiar the UK are with the JonBenet Ramsey case. A lovely little 6 year old girl who was found strangled in her home on Boxing Day 1996 in Boulder Colorado.


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The affluent parents were considered as suspects, but to this day there is no clear indication who may have killed little JonBenet. Her gravestone shows her death as December 25th (though she was found 1.05pm December 26th)

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I have avoided looking at the case in any depth. Madeleine keeps me more than occupied, but for some reason decided to watch a Movie made about the case 'Perfect Murder, Perfect Town' (with Kris Kristofferson and his questionable acting, but you gotta love him!).

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It was split into 24 parts so I had no idea how long the movie was, but was so intrigued by the parallels in the Madeleine case that I felt compelled to upload it all-in-one. By the time I added a 6 minute introduction to the case at the beginning and found an interview with the Detective that spent the day with the Ramsays (controversial to say the least and a MUST SEE) which I added at the end, the video is more than 3 hours long!

It's comprised of more than 1,000 clips (which I have hopefully added in order) with a few unfortunate abrupt endings between each video. I added a black 'space' in between ready for editing but unfortunately the movie was too big for Windows Movie Maker and I decided to download 'as is'.

The investigation was certainly flawed from the start and highlights the Portuguese Police efficiency in comparison. JonBenet's body was found by the father in the basement several hours after the first alert to the police. The initial search did not find her and one lone detective remained , without back up, with the family and friends (compromising the crime scene) during the day.

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Hiring a prominent Atlanta libel attorney L. Lin Wood, and PR and non co-operation with the police as well as hiring their own Private Detective (Kris Kristofferson)

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I was fixated on watching the movie. In 25 parts I didnt realise it was a mini series of about 3 hrs but I thoroughly recommend anyone interested in Madeleine case to give it a shot.

I have only listed similarities with McCann case, there is so much more that is intriguing, culminating with the interview of the detective assigned to the case and in the house with the parents and their friends alone, without backup, for more than 3 hrs and the twenty minute response after Jonbenet's body was found.

She describes her greeting when she arrived at the house as 'cordial' and when pushed by the interviewer kept repeating 'cordial'.

She claims to know who the killer was and also mentions about checking her gun for 18 bullets as she feared no-one would remain alive in the house before the police backup arrived.

She described the eight inch fracture to little JonBenet's head.

The autopsy photos are available for the case and they used some in the video. Truly horrifying

The first 5 minutes is a segment from 20 unsolved mysteries followed by the movie with about the last 10 minutes the interview.

An absolute must watch in my opinion.


Here are some other notable similarities.

1) '...For a long time, the local police supported the hypothesis that her mother Patsy Ramsey injured her child in a fit of rage after the girl had wet her bed on the same night, and then proceeded to kill her either in rage or to cover up the original injury. In November 1997, several handwriting experts determined that Patsy Ramsey more than likely wrote the ransom note. According to a Colorado Bureau of Investigation report, "There are indications that the author of the ransom note is Patricia Ramsey," but they could not definitively prove this assertion.

Another hypothesis was that John Ramsey had been sexually abusing his daughter and murdered her as a cover. The Ramseys' son Burke, who was nine at the time of JonBenét's death, was also targeted by speculation, and asked to testify at the grand jury hearing.[23] In 1999, the Governor of Colorado, Bill Owens, told the parents of JonBenét Ramsey to "quit hiding behind their attorneys, quit hiding behind their PR firm." Police suspicions were initially concentrated almost exclusively on the members of the Ramsey family, although the girl's parents had no prior signs of aggression in the public record.


2)Reports have also questioned the police's overall handling of the case. The police were later claimed by observers to have made several critical mistakes in the investigation, such as not sealing off the crime scene and allowing friends and family in and out of the house once a kidnapping was reported

3) Several defamation suits have been filed against several media organizations by Ramsey family members and their friends over reporting of the murder.

4)the three of them went to a "wine cellar" room where Ramsey found his daughter's body covered in her special white blanket. She was also found with a nylon cord around her neck, her wrists tied above her head, and duct tape covering her mouth

5) other reporters found that snow around the doors of the house had been cleared away. Police reported no signs of forced entry, although a basement window that had been broken and left unsecured before Christmas, along with other open doors, were not reported to the public until a year later.

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6) as a result of newly developed DNA sampling and testing techniques, the Ramsey family members are no longer considered suspects in the case

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7) The Ramseys have consistently held that the crime was committed by an intruder

8) the existence of a connection of the murder to the industry of child pornography

9) Two of the lead investigators in the case resigned, one because he believed that the investigation had incompetently overlooked the intruder hypothesis, and the other because he believed that the investigation had failed to successfully prosecute the Ramseys.

10) Several defamation lawsuits have ensued since JonBenét's murder. L. Lin Wood was the plaintiff's lead attorney for John and Patsy Ramsey and their son Burke, and has prosecuted defamation claims on their behalf against St. Martin's Press, Time, Inc., The Fox News Channel, American Media, Inc., Star, The Globe, Court TV and The New York Post.

11)John and Patsy Ramsey were also sued in two separate defamation lawsuits arising from the publication of their book, The Death of Innocence, brought by two individuals named in the book as having been investigated by Boulder police as suspects in JonBenét's murder. The Ramseys were defended in those lawsuits by Lin Wood and three other Atlanta attorneys, James C. Rawls, Eric P. Schroeder, and S. Derek Bauer, who obtained dismissal of both lawsuits including an in-depth decision by U.S. District Court Judge Julie Carnes that "abundant evidence" in the murder case pointed to an intruder having committed the crime

12)In November 2006, Rod Westmoreland, a friend of JonBenét Ramsey's father, filed a defamation suit against Keith Greer, who posted a message on an Internet forum using the pseudonym "undertheradar". Greer had accused Westmoreland of participating in the kidnapping and murder. Greer has defended his statement.

13) December 28, various local news sources made it clear to their readers that the Ramseys were the principal suspects in the case

14) the level of the family's grief. Vanity Fair quoted a policeman saying that on the first morning, Patsy Ramsey, while weeping, had been "peering at him through splayed fingers." Friends and family members who were present at the time tell a far different story, describing how John and Patsy were so overcome with grief that they were unable to talk without crying. Their opinion was quickly dismissed as being biased.

15) The company, hearing of their loss, had offered the services of one of their jets.

16) Even as they buried their daughter, a new story emerged that revealed that John and Patsy had hired several criminal lawyers. Although Mike Bynum hired the attorneys, it was seen as another indication of the parents' guilt.

17)Alarmed by the mounting criticism, Bynum and members of the family urged the Ramseys to go on television and defend themselves. The following day they appeared on CNN.

18)One of the questions raised during the interview was: "Do you believe that someone outside your home killed JonBenet?"

Patsy answered in a tearful voice: "There is a killer on the loose, 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 their babies close to you."

The next day, Mayor Leslie Durgan gave a press conference to reject Patsy's claim, stating: "People in Boulder have no need to fear that there is someone wandering the streets of Boulder, as has been portrayed by some people, looking for young children to attack. Boulder is safe, it's always been a safe community and it continues to be a safe community."

The Ramseys were outraged. They simply couldn't understand why someone such as Mayor Durgan would say such things publicly when it was obvious to them that JonBenet's killer was still out there. Sadly, they were yet to realize that Durgan's comments were indicative of the opinions of the police and a large percentage of the general public who believed that John and Patsy were solely responsible for the death of their daughter.


19) News stories appeared reporting that the police believed that JonBenet had been sexually assaulted prior to the time of her murder

20) The Ramseys' desire to cooperate with the police did not last long

21) In May, the Ramseys gave a press conference, part of which showed John Ramsey staring into the camera and declaring emphatically, "I did not kill my daughter JonBenet." It was a last desperate attempt to declare their innocence, but no one believed them.

22) The Ramseys said they agreed to the interview primarily to promote their book, in the hope that it would spark renewed interest in the case and help to bring the killer to justice.

23) By the end of November, John and Patsy Ramsey made it clear how they were going to proceed. "What we wanted and what we continue to want is that the investigation continues, that it be staffed with people that are really experienced in homicides and this type of crime," John Ramsey told a Nashville TV station. "The last thing we want to have happen is for the investigation to be shelved."

24) they announced through their attorneys that they would be continuing a court action against The Star newspaper and would be seeking $25 million in actual and punitive damages.

25)the Ramseys, working with their attorneys and others, have tried to crack the case. "We have spent a lot of time and effort and energy trying to develop leads that we thought were useful," Ramsey attorney Bryan Morgan says at one poi

26) Although the Ramseys had been previously accused of hiding behind their attorneys, Ramsey says that it was an attorney who approached him, just two days after JonBenet's death, with an offer of legal help.

27) Eller, one of four Boulder police officers whose careers were damaged over the Ramsey case, left Boulder in 1998 to take up a position in the Attorney General's Office in Florida. To this day, he still harbors strong feelings about the case that led to his retirement from the Boulder Police Department after an 18-year career.

Following the release of the film, Eller gave an interview to The Rocky Mountain News, during which he shared some of his observations about the case.

His main assertion was that, in his view, Boulder police had enough evidence to support an arrest, but not enough to file a murder charge and win a case at trial.

Although falling short of naming the person(s) he suspected, he told reporter Kevin McCullen: "At the time I left the investigation, no, there wasn't. We felt we had probable cause to make an arrest, but there wasn't enough there to nail a homicide charge."

He further claimed that he could have remained with the investigation if he'd "kept my mouth shut," and followed every request of prosecutors in the Boulder District Attorney's Office, but he instead clashed with prosecutors throughout much of his command of the investigation into the death of JonBenet.

28) The Book
On Friday March 16, the Ramseys' book, The Death of Innocence, officially went on sale. The 396-page book, which is an emotional account of the Ramseys' life since JonBenet was killed, includes sharp criticism of how the case was mishandled and how John and Patsy believe it can be solved. The book outlines seven key pieces of evidence that they think might help find the murderer and names several names as being possible suspects:

In response to the book's allegations, Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner later told reporters that all the people named in the book have been individually investigated and are not considered as "active suspects"

It also provides a profile of the murderer as being a male pedophile,

29) They believe that the killer entered their home while they were at a Christmas evening dinner at the home of Fleet and Priscilla White.

30) On the same day their book was released, John and Patsy Ramsey appeared on ABC's 20/20 program to discuss the book. They continued to assert that they had made every attempt to cooperate with the police investigation and had offered to undergo a lie-detector test to prove their innocence.

The following day, Chief Beckner told reporters that the Ramseys' claims of having been cooperative with police detectives investigating their daughter's slaying was a "smoke screen."

31) John Ramsey makes a statement directed at Owens saying, "You've spent three years investigating my family. What are you going to do to find the killer of my daughter?"


32) The Other Book
Steve Thomas, one of the former lead detectives in the Ramsey case, also stepped into the media arena when he appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, saying he believed that Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note. Thomas, who had previously resigned in protest to what he called the "lack of aggressive prosecution of the case," was appearing on the show to promote his own book on the case called JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation

33) John and Patsy Ramsey have lived up to their promise and continue to search for their daughter's killer. They have posted a composite sketch of a suspect compiled by the late psychic, Dorothy Allison, on their Internet site,

34) a demand by Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey or anybody else to put up or shut up.

35) DNA found under both of JonBenet's fingernails has been contaminated and is of limited value.

36) The Denver Post wrote on January 8, 2003, that the Ramseys settled their defamation suit against the New York Post. Terms were not disclosed, but the Ramseys had sought $4 million in damages against the paper. December of 2003, the Ramseys filed a $12 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News Network. In December of 2002, Fox News aired a story on the case with points of view that the Ramseys felt were incorrect.

37) Rumor and innuendo snowballed, becoming increasingly absurd as the media frenzy fed upon the story: The Ramseys must be guilty because they had a lawyer advising them. Patsy's "motive" for killing her daughter was that she wet the bed. JonBenet had been sexually abused. The behavior of the Boulder law enforcement community did nothing to inject common sense into that runaway news story. They steadfastly kept the Ramseys "under the umbrella of suspicion" and insisted that there had been no intruder in the Ramsey household. In 1999, Colorado Governor Bill Owens claimed the Ramseys were hiding behind their lawyers.

38) In a prepared statement, the Ramseys stated that they had decided that it was time to write the book, to be titled The Death of Innocence, so they could fully explain their side of the story and make the world aware of their innocence and their faith in God.

39) Amidst growing criticism and accusations that they were "cashing in" on their daughter's death, the Ramseys announced that any proceeds from the sale of the book would go towards their legal fees and the JonBenet Ramsey Children's Foundation, which the couple established to "help children grow spiritually."

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40 ) Alex Hunter formally announced that he would not be seeking re-election as district attorney, saying that the Ramsey investigation had influenced his decision to step down after his seventh term. He told the media that he had done everything he could with the evidence he had to work with. "I think this case may well be resolved," he said, "But not anytime soon. The investigation is still active and leads are being followed up as we speak." Hunter said he plans to remain involved with the case after he leaves office. "JonBenet's picture is on my desk to remind me of what this case is about, and it has been for three years," he said. "It's about her death and about hoping sometime to do justice for this little girl."

In January 2000, the only activity in the Ramsey case wasn't provided by the police, the DA's office or Lou Smit, but rather by a CBS film crew shooting footage for a television mini-series on the murder investigation of JonBenet Ramsey.

The mini-series, to be called Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, is based on the book of the same name.

Thanks HiDeHo!

I don't have time to watch the video right now, but I've read the posting.

That really is eerie. It's almost like the McCanns have used it as a template (and I've always believed the Ramseys were guilty, too)

Hi HideHo, I too have been shocked by the similarities in the case. I started a thread on it quite a long time ago, which runs to 15 pages. Here is the link to that if anyone wants to have a look...............

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I will leave it here for a while, then merge the two threads if you don't mind to keep all the info in one place.

The biggest difference is JBR body was discovered in the cellar, while Maddie body is still waiting to be found.

JBR's mum had died of cancer taking her secret to the grave. So we will never know now what really happened to her.

Her death is a total mystery as the miniscule evidence found on her stocking or was it underwear could have been contamination from the manufacturer outlet, but because of that the Ramsey were off the hook, so to speak.

Must have taken HideHo all day - loading a 3+ hour video on YouTube.

Thanks HiDeHo, I look forward to watching this at my leisure. I don't remember the case being reported at the time in the U K. I'm a sad person for remembering where I was when I first read an article about it - in the dentist's waiting room! Now of course magazines in those places are never up-to-date so it was two or three years after the event. I've maintained an interest ever since.

tigger wrote:Must have taken HideHo all day - loading a 3+ hour video on YouTube. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

3 Hrs to watch it. A day to download 26 videos, convert them for Windows Movie Maker and take the more than 1,000 individual clips, and place them in order. Computer kept freezing so it would not save the final edited version...but the upload was close to the final.

10 hrs to download to my computer...2 hrs to upload to Youtube and another 2 hrs for processing. 2 hrs to put the 40 similarities together.

I thought it was going to be a quick effort but I dont begrudge the time taken one bit.

I would do anything if it means we can keep the cases alive, upfront and centre. I can't do much but over this last year I have learned how to make videos. Useful for my personal business to!

MANY people put in a lot of effort for Madeleine and its not always recognised....Translators, mods and Admin, Tony etc.

Kudos to everyone who make time to 'do their bit'. Thanks to all!

rainbow-fairy wrote:Thanks HiDeHo!

I don't have time to watch the video right now, but I've read the posting.

That really is eerie. It's almost like the McCanns have used it as a template (and I've always believed the Ramseys were guilty, too)

Well, they saw the Ramseys getting away with it big time.

At about 5 min: 'I can assure you I didn't kill etc. '
Somewhere else quite early: 'my child is missing..'

Compare to: (did you kill your daughter?) 'That's an emphatic no'
Outside Lisbon court: 'This is about this girl'

Forensic language is going to be all over the place. Classic.

I initially watched the videos to compare the police investigation...US compared to Portugal...

Then I saw the rest....