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.