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.
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