The JonBenét Conspiracies: The Nightmare After Christmas — Ep. 1 | MK Confidential

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In Colorado it has all the makings of a murder mystery. A ransom note, a dead body, Strange

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Twists and turns for nearly 30 years, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey has haunted America. Not just because she was a beautiful six year old girl. Not just because she was found dead inside her own home the day after Christmas, but because almost every piece of this case seems to point in two directions at once. Was there an intruder or was the family involved?

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I did not kill my daughter. JonBenet.

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What parent would ever strangle their own child?

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Over the next five episodes we will go back to the beginning of the JonBenet Ramsey case. And we'll be back every day for the next eight weeks with many more cases. This is true crime like you've never heard it before. This is MK Confidential. There have been suspects, confessions, theories and explosive accusations, and more TV documentaries on JonBenet Ramsey than we can count. But underneath all of that noise is the story of a six year old girl whose death became a national obsession to much of America. JonBenet first appeared not as a child, but as a pageant image. Big hair, makeup, sequined costumes, a practiced smile beneath the stage lights. Her mother, Patsy, had been a pageant queen herself, Miss West Virginia, and JonBenet was following in her footsteps. After her death, the videos played over and over on a loop. JonBenet waving from a parade float, JonBenet singing in a sparkling outfit. Those images fascinated the country and in some ways distorted the case right from the start. Because the pageant girl America saw on TV was only one version of this little girl. She was also a kindergartener, a daughter, a little sister, a six year old kid who played with friends and loved to perform.

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She just had this effervescent personality, just like Patsy. I mean just ta da, here I am, you know.

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That Christmas, she asked her father for one more turn on her brand new bike.

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She wanted to keep riding her bike. And I said, well, we'll do it later. Of course there wasn't a later.

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Within days of her killing, JonBenet was no longer simply a murdered child. She'd become a symbol. The child beauty queen, the little girl in makeup, the face on every supermarket tabloid and television screen in America. And while the country argued over her parents and her pageants and her family's private life, the most important fact remained unchanged. Someone had killed her.

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Someone killed this six year old child. We know that this is the story

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of a murdered child. And the family, the police, the lawyers and community forever changed by what happened inside that house.

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She did mean something in this world.

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I'm Megyn Kelly and this is MK confidential. We wouldn't be celebrating America 250 if it wasn't for a strong foundation set by the framers. Hamilton built America's financial foundation on the principle of sound stable money, a principle later embodied by the gold standard. However, we abandoned that discipline in 1971 and have seen inflation erode the dollar's value ever since. What's the foundation of your savings? Is it gold? Is gold even in there? Or is it something that could be shaken, disrupted, devalued? Birch Gold Group has been helping Americans solidify their savings with gold for the past 15 years. They will help you convert in whole or in part an existing IRA or 401k into a tax sheltered IRA in gold. Learn how gold can fit into your portfolio by texting MK to the number 989898. You will receive a free no obligation info kit with an A rating with the Better Business Bureau and countless five star reviews. Consider having Birch Gold help build your foundation with Gold. Text MK to the number 989898. It's the day after Christmas. December 26, 1996. It is a clear chilly morning in Boulder, Colorado. Less than 4 degrees outside. Candy canes line the winding walkway to the Ramsey House at 755 15th St. It's a large brick Tudor style home in a well to do neighborhood, elegantly decorated for Christmas. John Ramsey is up before dawn puttering around. He talked about that morning with cnn.

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We were planning to get up early and fly to Michigan to meet my older kids for like a second Christmas, our normal routine like that, if we're gonna go somewhere is let the kids stay in bed and then when we're ready to go, we get them up and then we go. They might stay in their pajamas in the car.

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The Ramsey's private plane is prepped for the trip to Michigan loaded with presents. John's a tech entrepreneur and CEO worth $7 million. His company Access Graphics just cleared $1 billion in annual profits. John met his wife Patsy in Atlanta back in 1979. They married a year later. He hesitated at first due to their 13 year age gap. But he eventually asked the beauty queen out for a date and the rest is history. Patsy was a former pageant queen, crowned Miss West Virginia in 1977. Their six year old daughter JonBenet seems to be following in Patsy's footsteps and is already active in child beauty pageants. John had been married before Patsy. He was divorced and brought three kids into their marriage. When JonBenet was born, she had four siblings. Two older sisters, Beth and Melinda, and an older brother, John Andrew, all from John's first marriage. Patsy gave birth to JonBenet's older brother Burke in 1987. Burke is nine years old at Christmas time, just one month shy of the big double digit birthday. That night before bed, Burke asks his dad to help put together one of his new toys. John sits with him and the two build it together. The Ramsay family had already endured extraordinary loss. John's eldest daughter Beth died in a car accident A few years earlier. I spoke with John about this.

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I got a phone call from my brother and he said, John, Beth is gone, she's killed. And I, there's nothing I could do. I couldn't get her to the best doctors. I couldn't rush to her side. It was over.

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More of that conversation as we move deeper into this case. Shortly after Beth's accident, Patsy received a life threatening diagnosis. She spoke with Barbara Walters about it on ABC back in 2000.

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I am a cancer survivor of stage 4 cancer. John has lost a child in an automobile accident. That completely changes your outlook. When you are standing on the brink of death with a terminal illness, your priorities suddenly line up in a row and you know exactly what the important things are in life.

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John elaborated on that when we spoke.

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Patsy didn't say it, but I know she was trying to pack a lot of mother daughter time into what she maybe felt was a limited lifetime.

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Patsy underwent a grueling course of experimental chemotherapy at a time when few women successfully fought off ovarian cancer. She beat the odds and went into remission. By Christmas of 1996, the Ramses see themselves as fortunate, healthy again, financially secure, surrounded by family and preparing for another Christmas celebration in Michigan. That is the life they believed that they were waking up to. But downstairs, on a narrow back staircase near the kitchen, three sheets of lined white legal paper are waiting. Patsy spoke with CNN a week after the murder.

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It was quite early in the morning, and I had gotten dressed and was on my way to the kitchen to make some coffee. And we had a back staircase from the bedroom areas. And I always come down that staircase, and I'm usually the first one down. And the note was lying across the three pages, across the run of one of the stair treads. And it was kind of dimly lit. It was very early in the morning. And I started to read it, and it was addressed to John.

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Here's how John told it to me.

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You know, I was getting ready to get dressed and she screamed. I could tell from the scream it was a. Something was very, very wrong. And I ran down and. And she had this ransom note. And, you know, it was just a unbelievable thing.

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The ransom note is incredibly long, one of the longest in the history of kidnapping. Mr. Ramsey, listen carefully with an exclamation point. We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We respect your business. Business is misspelled, but not the country that it serves. At this time, we have your daughter in our possession. Also misspelled. She is safe and unharmed. And if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter. Patsy's reaction was one of sheer panic.

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I can't remember exactly what the first few lines said, but somewhere it said, we have your daughter. And it clicked. You know, your daughter. And I just bounded back up the steps and threw her door open and she was not in her bed.

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The note continues. You will withdraw $118,000 from your account. 100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining 18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get home, you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting, so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence an earlier pickup of your daughter. Any deviation of my instructions will result in. In the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper Burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you, so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation such as police, FBI, etc. Will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies.

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If you.

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If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us, but be warned that we are familiar with law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to outsmart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the authorities.

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That was the worst moment, was suddenly realizing that someone had your daughter, your child, and it's taken her and she was gone and we didn't know where she was. And it was dark, it was cold outside.

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Don't try to grow a brain, John. You are not the only fat cat around. So don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't underestimate us, John. Use that good Southern common sense of yours. It is up to you now, John. The note is signed Victory with an exclamation point and then the letters SBTC

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Just told Patsy to call the police. Call the police. Call 911.

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At 5:52am Patsy calls 911 from the Ramsey home landline. We have a kidnapping. All right, please explain to me what's going on. Okay, there's a nut left and our doctor's.

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Does it say who took her?

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What?

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Does it say who took her?

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I don't know.

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Oh my God. Please.

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Kathy. Patty.

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Patty. Patty.

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John's heart sank.

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You have this instinctive, just horrible feeling in your stomach that you know, where's my child?

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After Hanging up with 91 1, Patsy calls two couples who are close to the family and asks them to come over.

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I called our friends that we had had dinner with the night before and just, you know, JonBenet is missing, you know, can you come over, help, you know. And then I called another couple, close friend of ours, and they came right over.

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Within minutes of the 911 call, the first Boulder PD officer pulls up in front of the Ramses. Officer Rick French shuts off his engine in the pre dawn dark. John and Patsy meet him at the front door and tell him what's happening. They show him the ransom note which now lays on the wooden floor outside the kitchen. Their son Burke is still sleeping upstairs. Officer French later describes Patsy as visibly shaken and frantic, while John seems calm and under control.

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That morning with JonBenet, it wasn't over yet. I could get her back if I kept my wish about me and focused on getting her back to whatever I could possibly do. I didn't. I was focused on getting her back and I felt I could get her back.

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Officer French conducts a quick search of the house looking for a possible exit route the kidnapper might have used. In the basement, he comes to a door secured with a makeshift latch. He stops in front of the door and studies it. He stops but does not open it. He will later defend that decision by saying he did not think it was a way out of the home. Police ask John And Patsy if JonBenet could have just run away from home. But John is adamant. She's six years old. It is dark and it's freezing cold outside. No, she did not just run away. John and Patsy are thinking, we need to close the roads. We need to deploy roadblocks, close the airport. But they assume the police know what they're doing. The Ramsey's friends arrive. Fleet and Priscilla White. John and Barbara Fernie. The women take the nearly hysterical Patsy into the sunroom. Victim advocates arrive at the house as well, bringing bagels and coffee. They all try to help the Ramseys. Washing dishes, cleaning countertops, anything to help pass the time. While waiting for the kidnappers promised wall phone call, John talked about this moment with Barbara Walters.

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Back in 2000, people were making toast in the kitchen. And yes, a kidnapping is a crime scene, but. But we were so focused on getting JonBenet back. That was the task.

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home phone line to be tapped and traced. Sergeant Robert Whitson pulls up to the Ramsey house. He parks and quickly reads the ransom note. He thinks about the unusual nature of a child being held for ransom. The first he's heard of this in 22 years on the force. He calls in the FBI. John takes Burke to a nearby friend's house. He phones a banker friend who raises his credit limit to $118,000, the exact amount of the ransom. And they wait. Hours go by, but no word from the kidnappers.

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If you're with your child and you're at a department store or grocery store and you look around and the child's gone, it's a terrible feeling. And I think all parents have experienced that. And that was the feeling we had. And it, it went on for till, I don't know, one in the afternoon.

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From the road, the Ramses is kind of a deceiving house. Outside, it doesn't look that big, but inside, it's huge. The house sprawls across more than 6,500 square feet, with multiple floors, additions, staircases, narrow hallways, and rooms that do not connect in any obvious way. John and Patsy had converted the top floor into their master suite. JonBenet's bedroom is one level below, near Burke's room and almost across the house from her parents. A sound in the middle of the night would be nearly impossible to hear. Soon, more police arrive, including detectives and a forensics team. They dust the house for fingerprints and search for other clues, but find no obvious signs of a struggle and no clear crime scene. A phone call's made, and Police put a K9 unit with a tracking dog on standby. The dog is never called to the house. Sergeant Robert Whitson goes upstairs and looks in JonBenet's bedroom. It appears largely undisturbed. Her clothes and toys are there the bed is not made and as clearly Ben slept in, but no JonBenet. He shuts her door as officers seal it with yellow and black crime scene tape and tells John Ramsey nobody goes in there. The police do not cordon off the rest of the house. Below all the bedrooms lies the main living level, the kitchen, dining areas and the back spiral staircase the family uses every day. And then there's the basement, a maze of storage rooms, utility spaces and passages. Burke keeps an electric train set in the basement in what's known as the train room. Nearby is a small windowless storage room the family calls the wine cellar, even though no wine is kept there. This is the room Officer French passed in his early morning search. Without opening the door, officers ask for handwriting samples from John and Patsy to compare to the ransom note. John provides two notepads, one with his writing, one with Patsy's. The Boulder PD handwriting expert Detective Jeff Kithcart finds something immediately interesting behind the obvious sample of Patsy's handwriting. One page of the notepad contains a partial phrase Mr. And Mrs. Followed by a black vertical line. To Kithcart, this line looks very much like the beginnings of an R. And like this page is the first draft of the ransom note. Suddenly it seems the ransom note was written inside the Ramsey home using the family's very own scribble pad. The ransom note had promised that the kidnapper or kidnappers would call between 8 and 10am 8am rolls around 8:30. John paces the floor. 9am comes and goes. The mood in the house becomes increasingly tense. 10am and still nothing. Patsy sits with her friends in the sunroom.

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At one point I said, well, what are we doing here? You know what, what's the plan of action? You're so frustrated because you don't. I mean, you want the whole world to just stop right there so that you can go find this baby.

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It's now early afternoon. The forensics team and other officers have packed up and left. Detective Linda Arndt finds herself the only law enforcement officer at the house to control. Seven civilians. John and Patsy, four family friends and the Ramsey's pastor, the Reverend Rol Hoverstock of St. John's Episcopal Church. These people have been in and all over the house. You've got bagels everywhere, orange juice, coffee. People preparing food and drinks throughout the day cleaning up the place. John paces around the living room and Patsy sits virtually motionless in a chair. Arndt calls for police backup to help control the scene, but no one arrives. She expressed her frustration to ABC in 1999. Both times I was told everybody's in a meeting. They got your message and that was it. Around 1pm in an effort to keep John occupied, Arndt pulls him and one of his friends aside. She tells them to conduct a top to bottom search of the house to see if anything is amiss.

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We went to the basement, which to me was a logical place to start. Third floor. You couldn't get into the third floor from outside. So we went to the basement and went into what we call the train room where the kids had a train set up. And there was an open window and a suitcase propped up under the window as if it were to be a step. And I told my friend, I said, that suitcase should not be there. That's way out of place. We wouldn't have put it there. The only other room in that basement was this. We called it a wine cellar, but it was an old coal cellar. Dark, one door going into it, no entrances from the outside. And I opened the door and of course immediately found JonBenet.

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JonBenet's body lies in a pile covered with a white blanket. There's duct tape over her mouth.

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I knew instantly, instantly what I'd found. I'd found my daughter.

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John pulls the tape off and throws it aside. His friend bolts up the stairs yelling for someone to call 91 1. John tries to loosen the bindings on JonBenet's wrists but they're tied too tightly.

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So I just picked her up and carried her screaming. Actually, I was screaming to upstairs to take her to help.

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Detective Arndt hears John scream from the basement and runs to meet him at the top of the stairs. She quickly tells him to put JonBenet's body down. Then she moves it next to the Christmas tree.

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And he asked if she was dead.

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And I said, yes, she's dead. John stays close to JonBenet repeating the phrase, my little angel, my little angel. The ramses Pastor sees JonBenet's body and begins praying aloud. Patsy heard John scream from the basement and her friends held her back.

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And I said, what? You know, what. What is it? And Barbara, my friend, just grabbed me and said, no, just stay. Just stay right here. And I kept saying, what? What? What is it? What is it? And. And let things go. We walked into the living room and. And she was there. And John said, she's gone.

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Patsy throws her body over JonBenet's.

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I remember walking in and seeing her lying there in front of the Christmas tree. I knelt down over her and just laid my body on her body and my cheek against her cheek and it was cold. And Father Ra was there and he started saying the last rites, I believe. And I just kept saying, no, no, you know, ask. Ask God to raise her.

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Detective Arndt asks John to call 911 and then calls it herself. She declares a code black. In other words, a murder. The ambulance arrives about 15 minutes later. Law enforcement and the forensics team rush back to the Ramsey house. Though moving the body twice presents a unique challenge for evidence collection. Officers hurry to clear the scene, so John and Patsy relocate to a friend's house in South Boulder.

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We were ushered out of the house pretty quickly and we never went back in that home. That was the last time we were in that home. Past Santa Claus in his sleigh and a double row of candy canes, Deputy coroners brought the body of six year old JonBenet Ramsey from her upscale home. Someone inside this house had made a 911 call saying that little JonBenet had been kidnapped. Well, when police got here, they went inside the house and a short time later they found the little girl's body.

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The Boulder county coroner arrives at the Ramsey home around 8pm on Dec. 26. His examination is short, lasting about 10 minutes. But several things become clear right away. According to the autopsy, whoever killed JonBenet took white olefin cord and tied her wrists together. The person used the same cord to make what's commonly known as a garrote or a ligature to strangle JonBenet. A garrote is a brutally simple mechanism. It uses a cord around the neck and some kind of handle to twist that cord tighter. The more it's twisted, the more pressure it puts on the neck, cutting off air and blood flow. It's similar to a tourniquet, but with a deadly purpose. Police say the knot on this garrote was tied by someone who understood how a garrote is made. And the fact that her hair and her gold cross necklace are tangled in it suggests that JonBenet was alive when it happened. JonBenet also has very distinct red marks below her throat that match the shape of her own fingers. It looks like she tried to claw on the cord wrapped around her neck as it choked the very life out of her. The cord is wrapped around JonBenet's neck so tightly that it has cut a deep furrow into the skin.

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It was so deeply embedded in her skin that I did see it.

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The cord is knotted and attached to a broken stick at the back of JonBenet's neck. That broken stick was part of a paintbrush handle from Patsy's art Supplies stored in the basement near the room where JonBenet's body was found. The coroner performs JonBenet's full autopsy the following morning at 8:15am he lists two causes of death, either strangulation or a blow to the head. He can't determine which happened first, but either would have killed her.

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You can't comprehend that anybody would be that evil.

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There are also microscopic fibers of the paintbrush handle from the garrote found in JonBenet's vagina as well as signs of injury to the interior tissue. This leads investigators to believe JonBenet was sexually assaulted with the paintbrush handle. The tiny blood vessels inside JonBenet's eyelids had burst and investigators find surprisingly little bleeding from the massive wound to her head. There's an 8 inch crack in her skull attributed to blunt force trauma. Putting those two facts together, some experts believe the strangulation happened first meaning that by the time she was struck in the head, her heart may have already stopped or was barely pumping. Boulder police find two items that they think might be involved in the head injury. A baseball bat found outside the Ramsey's house and a Maglite flashlight found in the kitchen. But there is no physical evidence on either one. No useful fingerprints, no DNA, nothing. It's two weeks after the murder and Boulder Chief of Police Tom Cobey holds a town hall to answer reporters questions about the ongoing investigation. JonBenet's death was the first murder reported in Boulder for 1996 and it happened with just five days left in the year. That lack of homicide experience matters as there have been major mistakes at the crime scene. Mistakes that cannot be undone.

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Did police search the house after the 911 call but before the body was found? They did a preliminary search of the house. And remember this is a very big house. Did they look in the room where the John Ramsey sign said the girl's body was or did they not? It doesn't appear that they got down. That room was down in a part of the basement that it doesn't appear that they got to.

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But one person has zero doubt in her mind about who the killer is. Boulder Detective Linda Arndt and John leaned down opposite me and his face was just inches from mine and we had a non verbal exchange that I will never forget. As we looked at each other, I remember and I wore a shoulder holster, tucking my gun right next to me and consciously counting. I've got 18 bullets because I didn't know if we'd all be alive when people showed up. I knew what happened. You were afraid because you thought the killer was still in the house. Mom knew it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And she's not the only one. Join me tomorrow for the next chapter in our story on MK Confidential.

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Hey, what's going on over there? It's me, Trevor Noah. You know me. You. You. You don't. You don't know me.

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Oh, you do.

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I was worried there for a second. Well, if you know anything about me, you'll know. I love having interesting conversations. Conversations where we scratch beneath the surface, like what's really going on in the news? Or what is that celebrity really thinking about that scandal that they had? Or what's the worst way to be a parent? I mean, you want to find that out so you can be the best parent, right? Well, regardless of what it is, this podcast is all about figuring that out. Talking to interesting people who have interesting ideas that give us an interesting perspective on the world that we're living in. So make sure you tune in. Check out what now with Trevor Noah, available Now on the SiriusXM app.

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space on my time.

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