sábado, 13 de dezembro de 2008

Child Beauty Pageants: Fun or Fiendish?


Pageants Can Provide a lot of Fun for Kids, but Critics See Them as Potential Havens for Pedophiles.



Child beauty pageants are alive and well, with more than a quarter million kids competing each year. But with renewed focus on the murder of pageant queen JonBenet Ramsey and the growth of the pageant industry, critics wonder if pageants may be attracting unsavory elements.




When the Ramsey story first broke 12 years ago, it was fueled in no small measure by the pictures of 6-year-old JonBenet in makeup and Las Vegas showgirl outfits. Many were repulsed, saying pageants sexualized little girls. But some parents apparently liked what they saw.



Mark Gado, a police detective in New Rochelle, N.Y. has investigated pedophile cases for 10 years and has just written a book about a pedophile priest. He says there's no proof that pedophiles use these events to find children to assault.



"Parents, I believe, have nothing to fear putting their children in these types of child pageants," says Gado. The larger question for parents may be whether these contests help or hurt a child's self-esteem.


The movie "Little Miss Sunshine," about a family whose daughter gets into a child beauty pageant, pokes fun at this subculture. Many, if not most, parenting experts say these contests can be emotionally damaging for kids.




But Thumper Gosney, a former Little Miss Texas who was in many pageants alongside JonBenet Ramsey, remembers her time as a child beauty queen fondly.
"We were 5 years old. We just competed together. It was great."










sexta-feira, 12 de dezembro de 2008

REST IN PEACE SWEET ANGEL









A special little girl was made, by GOD one lovely day.




He made her very special in every kind of way. Spun threads of the purest gold, he used to make her hair,put two emralds in her eyes and bade them sparkle there.





Petal cheeks and lily skin, made her face complete. He made her sound of body, purest heart and mind,innocence and joyfulness was carfully entwined. He made her cute, and clever, to sing and then to dance, He gave her natural beauty, no make-up could enhance. Then He found a place on earth for her to live and play, and creed then, that this little girl's name be 'Jonbenet'.






Unknown to this world of ours the devil went to work, and found a monster in some slime where only demons lurk.To be more foul and twisted, more cruel than we could know, with features mind and body, where hate alone could grow. He showed It how to murder, cheat, to use his devil horns, to hide it's lies behind it's eyes, to take on human forms. He showed it how to tear appart, leave innocence defiled, and set it on the Earth that day, to desecrate a child.



It crawled out of the gutter shying from the light. For Chrismas cheer and blessings, filled that very night. But as the snow lay on the ground after christmas day, It must of heard her singing, for it found our 'Jonbenet' Then cloaked in utter darkness that wretched fiened so dead.




Manifest beside that child, and dragged her from her bed.




Her beauty terrified it, her youth did make it weak. It felt she must be trodden on, her detruction made complete. It took her to the cellar, and drank her life away


The evil bubbled from him, to where her body lay.


It walked away and left her, like a broken spell.... and vanished back into the night, to go back down to hell. Looking back on these events, no one understands, Is why this strength of evil had to tie her little hands.



Now GOD looked up in wonder as she came running through his door, and threw her arm around his neck and wept a little more,Oh! FATHER it was awful, I could'nt even scream....... please hold me tight, I'm filled with fright, after this awful dream.





The LORD took her gently to him, and wiped her tears away..... she had forgotten all that passed, before the end of day. Oh! The earth and all within so hard to comprehend.... but Jonbenet, your memories stay, and will never have an end.

The Strange World Of Jonbenet















IN PHOTOGRAPHS, HER CHARACTERISTIC expression is a fixed smile of concentration, earnest and studied. It could be perky, coy or sweet, although the only sure way to tell is by her costume. Strapless ball gown, sailor suit, swimsuit--JonBenet Ramsey, who was found murdered in the basement of her parents' home in Boulder, Colo., the day after Christmas, worked hard at winning beauty contests, but her mother must have worked even harder.













And her father paid for her portfolio of professional photographs, a world beyond the artless family-album snapshots we are accustomed to seeing when a child is killed. But the effect is distancing rather than illuminating: in all the miles of film that were lavished on JonBenet it is hard to find one frame that captures her soul.







A little girl of striking beauty and presence, inhabiting a subculture of pageants and spangled finery that many Americans barely knew existed--a consuming passion in some families, and a source of concern to many child psychologists. There is no reason to think that her murder had anything to do with her career as a child beauty-pageant winner, but now and forever the two images are joined in the public mind: the doll-like little girl in her pink cowgirl suit, belting out "Cowboy Sweetheart"; the battered body behind the basement door. She touched millions of Americans--and her sad end intrigued millions more who were struck both by the grisly nature of the murder and the novelty of putting mascara on the lashes of a 6-year-old.











Life






JonBenét Ramsey was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but the family relocated when she was nine months old. Her first name is a portmanteau of her father's first and middle names, John Bennett; her middle name is that of her mother, the late Patricia "Patsy" Ramsey, who enrolled her daughter in a variety of different beauty pageants in several states.




In addition, she funded some of the contests in which JonBenét was involved. Patsy Ramsey was a former beauty queen, having held the title Miss West Virginia 1977; her sister became Miss West Virginia 1980.




JonBenét held a number of child beauty contest titles, including: America's Royal Miss, Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, Little Miss Charlevoix Michigan, Little Miss Merry Christmas, Little Miss Sunburst, and National Tiny Miss Beauty. JonBenet's mother, Patsy, embellished her child's pageant entry forms by saying the child spoke French and other things to make the child seem more "eligible" for pageant participation.



John Ramsey, JonBenét's father, is a former president and chief executive officer of Access Graphics, a computer services company.

In September 2008, when on Oprah, John Ramsey stated that labeling his daughter as a "beauty queen" was an unfair representation of her life, as she also participated in rock climbing, violin lessons and other activities.

JonBenét is buried in Saint James Episcopal Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia, next to her mother.



Murder case



According to the testimony of Patsy Ramsey, on December 26, 1996, she discovered her daughter missing after finding a two and a half-page ransom note on the kitchen staircase, demanding $118,000 for the safe return of her daughter, which was the exact value of a bonus her husband received earlier that year.

Despite specific instructions in the ransom note that police and friends not be contacted, she telephoned the police and called family and friends. The local police conducted a cursory search of the house but did not find any obvious signs of a break-in or forced entry. The note suggested that the ransom collection would be monitored and JonBenét would be returned as soon as the money was obtained. John Ramsey made some arrangements for the availability of the ransom, which a friend, John Fernie, picked up that morning from a local bank.

Police investigation


In the afternoon of the same day, Boulder Police Detective Linda Arndt asked Fleet White, a friend of the Ramseys, to take John Ramsey and search the house for "anything unusual."





John Ramsey and two of his friends started their search in the basement first. After first searching the bathroom and "train room," the two went to a "wine cellar" room where Ramsey found his daughter's body covered in a white blanket. 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.

Critics of the investigation have since claimed that officers also did not sufficiently attempt to gather forensic evidence before or after JonBenet's body was found, possibly because they immediately suspected the Ramseys in the killing. Some officers holding these suspicions reported them to local media, who began reporting on January 1 that the assistant district attorney thought "it's not adding up"; the fact that the body of the girl was found in her own home was considered highly suspicious by the investigating officers.
The results of the autopsy revealed that JonBenét was killed by strangulation and a skull fracture. A garrote made from a length of tweed cord and the broken handle of a paintbrush had been used to strangle her; her skull had suffered severe blunt trauma; there was no evidence of conventional rape, although sexual assault could not be ruled out. The official cause of death was asphyxiation due to strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma.

Crime scene



The bristle end of the paint brush was found in a tub of Patsy Ramsey's art supplies, but the bottom third never was located despite extensive searching of the house by law enforcement in subsequent days. Experts noted that the construction of the garrote required a special knowledge of knots. Autopsy also revealed that the child had eaten pineapple only a few hours before the murder, of which her mother claimed to be unaware. Photographs of the home, taken the day JonBenét's body was found, show a bowl of pineapple on the kitchen table with a spoon in it, and police reported finding Patsy's fingerprints on it. Neither Patsy nor John claim to remember putting this bowl on the table or feeding pineapple to JonBenét.
While it was reported that no footprints led to the house on snow-covered ground, other reporters found that snow around the doors of the house was 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.

Later developments




In December 2003, forensic investigators extracted enough material from a mixed blood sample found on JonBenét's underwear to establish a DNA profile. The DNA belongs to an unknown male.




The DNA was submitted to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a database containing more than 1.6 million DNA profiles, mainly from convicted felons. The sample has yet to find a match in the database, although it continues to be checked for partial matches on a weekly basis.



Later investigations also discovered that there were more than 100 burglaries in the Ramseys' neighborhood in the months before JonBenét's murder, and that 38 registered sex offenders were living within a two-mile (3 km) radius of the Ramseys' home, an area that encompasses half the population of the city of Boulder, but none of the sex offenders had any involvement in the murder.

Later developments


On August 16, 2006, 41-year-old John Mark Karr, a former schoolteacher, confessed to the murder while being held on child pornography charges from Sonoma County, California.


Authorities reportedly tracked him down using the Internet after he sent e-mails regarding the Ramsey case to Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado. Once apprehended, he confessed to being with JonBenét when she died, stating that her death was an accident. When asked if he was innocent, he responded, "No."


However, Karr's DNA did not match that found on JonBenét Ramsey's body. On August 28, 2006, prosecutors announced that no charges would be filed against him for the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. In early December 2006, Department of Homeland Security officials reported that federal investigators were continuing to explore whether Karr had been a possible accomplice in the killing.


No evidence has ever come to light that placed the then-married Alabama resident Karr near Boulder during the Christmas 1996 crime. Evidence linking Karr to the killing is highly circumstantial in nature. For instance, handwriting samples taken from Karr were said to match the ransom note. In particular, his technique for writing the letters E, T and M were described by the media as being very rare.

Defamation lawsuits


Several defamation lawsuits have ensued since JonBenét's murder.


Lin Wood was the plaintiff's 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.


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 the evidence in the murder case overwhelmingly pointed to an intruder having committed the crime.




Speculation


Case speculation by experts, media and the parents has supported different hypotheses.


For a long time, the local police supported the hypothesis that her mother 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. 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.


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, nor any suspicious behavior towards their children.