JonBenét Ramsey and Alaskan serial killer Israel Keyes

Israel Keyes has been labeled the most diabolical and organized serial killer there ever was, who baffled the FBI for years until he was caught. How could a man with a family living in Alaska, be capable of murdering around the country for over 14 years? Then we re-examine the infamous case of JonBenét Ramsey, 6 year old beauty pageant queen, and closely look into 7 different suspects.

Sources:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/young-jonbenet-ramsey-is-murdered
https://abcnews.go.com/US/killed-jonbenet-ramsey-investigators-dying-search-family/story?id=75186109
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/who-killed-jonbenet-ramsey-8-possible-suspects-129125/the-electrician-129377/
https://www.distractify.com/p/jonbenet-pineapple-bowl
http://sites.gsu.edu/moyasfinalproject/support-3-maybe/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Keyes
https://robinbarefield76.medium.com/israel-keyes-the-monster-who-moved-to-anchorage-a55c2edbc073
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2012/12/04/police-release-detailed-account-of-koenig-murder/
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/new-information-released-in-serial-killer-case

Transcript

Episode 22
Liz: [00:00:00] Hi, Emily. Hi Liz. We have a new president. 
Emily: [00:00:03] I am so happy 
Liz: [00:00:05] today. We're not drinking today, but I think we should share our coffee to that to Joe 
Emily: [00:00:09] Biden and Kamala Harris. Yes. In case you guys can tell, we really 
Liz: [00:00:14] hate Trump. We can talk about this for hours. Um, but we'll just cut it off there and say, we hope that you're as happy as we are.
And 
Emily: [00:00:23] now we bring you episode 22, 
Liz: [00:00:25] 22. 
Emily: [00:00:27] So I'll start off with my recommendation and it is that. Last week, my boyfriend and I binge watched all the mission, impossible movies. Okay. Every single one of them. And I have to say, they're amazing. 
Liz: [00:00:41] I've never seen any of 
Emily: [00:00:42] them that you would love them. I'm sure I would.
The first one's a little corny, cause it was done in like the eighties or nineties. It was done a while ago, but they only get better and better. I think Tom cruise is a nut job, but 
Liz: [00:00:55] I love him. We were just talking about him about Scientology recently. He's so strange, but great actor, 
Emily: [00:01:01] young Tom cruise is so good looking.
It's so cute him in his twenties. It's insane, but that is my recommendation. Go watch all of them. 
Liz: [00:01:09] Now it's your turn. I know. Okay. My recommendation is an series that I just started watching last week or two weeks ago. And I can't believe I hadn't seen it before, but sex in the city. 
Emily: [00:01:22] You just started sex in the city.
Liz: [00:01:24] Yeah. Can you believe 
Emily: [00:01:25] that? Are you starting 
Liz: [00:01:26] from season one? Oh yeah. I'm like already on season four. 
Emily: [00:01:29] It is so amazing. It 
Liz: [00:01:31] is so good, but it's really making me miss the city a lot. I mean, I know that we're in the city right now, but I mean the real city, they're always in crowded bars and clubs and it just take me back.
They're always at good 
Emily: [00:01:44] restaurants and they're always wearing designer clothes. Oh yeah. 
Liz: [00:01:48] The, the outfits are amazing. Oh, last 
Emily: [00:01:51] question. Who do you want Carrie to end up with? I 
Liz: [00:01:53] love Aiden, right? Aiden's great. And he has a 
Emily: [00:01:56] cute dog and he is a woodworker. He can make like chairs and stuff. I think it's 
Liz: [00:02:02] great.
I like Aiden. Well, now we will go to the murder stuff. I don't know if that was bad transition. Murder and stuff. Okay. Let's go. Cheers.
So today I'm covering the infamous crimes of Israel keys. 
Emily: [00:02:30] I don't 
Liz: [00:02:31] know who this is. He is not the most well-known, but he's certainly a very horrific serial killer in American history. God, I love it. All right. My references are Wikipedia, Robin Barfield, 70 six.medium.com. Love it, Alaska public.org and sbi.gov.
Emily: [00:02:52] Oh my God. I'm so excited. Does this take place in Alaska? 
Liz: [00:02:55] Yeah. Yeah. Well, parts of it. Okay. Okay. Okay. So normally when I do a serial killer, I start with the early life where they were born, how they were raised, et cetera, and then move into how they started their crimes. But I'm going to do it a little differently.
This time. I'm going to start with the most famous crime and the one that got him caught. Okay. I'm here for it. On February 1st, 2012, 18 year old, Samantha Canuck was working the late shift at the common grounds. Espresso coffee stand in Anchorage, Alaska. Now, when I say coffee stand, I mean, it's a stand it's eight feet wide and about eight feet long.
So one person can be in there at a time pretty much. Okay. It's kind of like a drive-through slash walk up. So you walk up, order your coffee and then go back to your car. Samantha had just landed this job and she was pretty excited about it, but her dad was kind of concerned that she would be working there late and alone, but Samantha assured him that it would be fine because there were surveillance cameras and there was a panic button there just in case.
Oh, no. Yeah. You can tell where this is going. Yeah, so she was scheduled to work until 8:00 PM that day. And although she didn't have a car, her boyfriend had said that he would come swing by and pick her up and bring her home. Unfortunately, a man named Israel keys had been planning to burglarize common grounds for a few days.
And on this dark and snowy night in Alaska, he pulled a ski mask over his face, parked his car down the road and walked up to the stand. So at 7:55 PM. So she almost makes it to the end of her shift, but Israel walks up and orders a coffee and yes, he's in a ski mask. So I was like, why wasn't this a red flag, but it is Alaska.
So I guess people actually do wear those if it's, I don't know, sub Arctic conditions. Yeah. Okay. So he walks up and orders a coffee. Samantha makes the coffee and hands it to him, but then he pulls out a gun and demands money. So she did what anyone would do. And she gathered all the money from the register.
Um, and handed it to him, but key is then forced his way into the stand and zip-tied Samantha's hands together. Why didn't she press 
Emily: [00:04:56] the panic button? 
Liz: [00:04:58] I think she was just frozen, you know, like when you think, you know, you need to do something, but in the moment, yeah. You might just not remember until probably the second after he zip ties her hands and she's like, fuck.
Yeah. So he turns out the light in the stand and then he walks Samantha down the road towards his car. At one point, she was able to actually break away from him, but he chased her down and tackled her. No, and I don't think this was in a very populated area either. So keys get Samantha into the car and starts to drive her around and tells her that this was a kidnapping for ransom.
Samantha responded that her family really didn't have that much money. So he's not going to get much out of this. Uh, and he says that, you know what, they're going to raise money by seeking the public's help. Like he's going to hold her ransom. And hopefully the public will come together and donate the money that he needs to release her, what a Dick.
And he told her that if she cooperated, he would return her to her family on harmed. At one point, keys realized that Samantha didn't have her phone on her, which was a key part of the plan because he wanted to send texts from her phone. So he drives back to the coffee, stand, goes into the stand and gets her phone and then goes back to the car.
He then drives to another part of town and sentenced two texts from her phone, one to her boyfriend and one to the owner of common grounds. And he makes it seem like Samantha was just having a really bad day and she decided to leave town for the weekend. And after that he took the battery out of her phone.
No. Also, I mean, red flag that she would just text people and be like, I'm having a bad day. I'm leaving town. The girl doesn't even have her own car. Yeah. I went by it keys then ask Samantha, if she has a debit card, she told him she did have one, but she shares the bank account with her boyfriend and that the ATM card was in his truck.
Samantha also said that her boyfriend's truck would likely be parked outside of her house later that night. And she told keys exactly where her house was and gave him the pin to the debit card, because she's under the impression that if she cooperates she'll be able to go home, Oh, no keys. Then drive Samantha to his house, which he shared with his girlfriend and young daughter.
No. Then he ties her up and he puts her into a shed that was next door to the house. While his girlfriend and kid are inside. Oh my God. He told her that he would kill her if she screamed. And then he turned on a radio really, really loudly so that no one would be able to hear her. If she really did try anything.
He also told her that he had a police scanner. So he would know if she tried to alert the neighbors. After he has her all settled and tied up in the shed keys, then drive to Samantha's house to retrieve the debit card from her boyfriend's truck, which he successfully does while he's there though Samantha's boyfriend sees him from inside and yell something at him, but he's able to get away with the card in time.
Oh my God. And Samantha's boyfriend was already kind of worked out because he had gone to the coffee stand and was obviously shocked when Samantha wasn't there. Yeah. So after he leaves the house, that house keys drives to an ATM to make sure that Samantha had been truthful about the pin number that he gave her, what she was, he then drives back to his house.
He goes inside of the actual house. He's really careful not to wake his girlfriend or his kid. He then pours himself a glass of wine. What a crazy person, crazy how all these people, I feel like we talk about, just take a moment for themselves just to like, have a drink. 
Emily: [00:08:16] I think it shows that they're not worried about getting caught because they think they're smarter than everyone else.
Yeah. 
Liz: [00:08:22] So after he has his leisurely glass of wine, he then goes to the shed where he's keeping Samantha and he rapes her and then he strangled her to death. No, 
Emily: [00:08:32] no, no, no. Yep. I was thinking 
Liz: [00:08:35] she might live. I know I was thinking that too. I was, I was reading, but unfortunately not. So then he wraps her body in a tarp and shoves it into a cabinet in the shed.
Oh my fucking God. Next morning. Keys wakes up his daughter for school. And then he calls a cab to go to the airport where he headed to new Orleans, because he was going on a cruise that he had booked a few months ago, alone, alone, 
Emily: [00:09:00] fucking weirdo. But yeah. 
Liz: [00:09:02] Yeah. So he's gone for like two weeks and then he eventually returns from his vacation.
To Anchorage on February 17th. So he kidnapped Samantha on February 1st. So this whole time, her family has no idea where she is. He is when he returns, then just starts preparing a ransom note that demands money to be put into the checking account that the debit card was linked to. He then goes back to the shed where he had started Samantha's body.
Oh, this is so disturbing. No, don't, don't say that he puts makeup on her face. And so as her eyes open with fishing lines so that he can make it look like she's alive, then he poses her body holding a copy of a recent newspaper and takes a picture to make it seem like he's been keeping her alive this whole time.
Holy shit. Isn't that disgusting. 
Emily: [00:09:56] Also, it's been over two weeks. I, the body must smell. 
Liz: [00:10:00] I know. I didn't even want to think about that. 
Emily: [00:10:03] Oh my God. How did the wife not smell a dead body? 
Liz: [00:10:07] I don't know. The only thing I can think of is if the shed is really far away from the house and it's also freezing there.
Yeah. The body like fro yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, so keys includes that picture in the ransom note that he sends to Samantha's family, where he demands them to deposit $30,000 into the ATM account. If they want to see her alive again. He places, the ransom note, somewhere around town, and then he texts her boyfriend, the location so that he can go find it.
And then after that keys has no use for Samantha's body anymore. So he dismembers, it drives it to Matt, a new skill Lake where he cut a hole in the ice end, put her body in, into the Lake. No, meanwhile, it's so sad. Samantha's father deposited the money into the account because he had been able to raise the money through donations from the community I'm going to cry.
And then he was working with police at this point. Obviously the plan was to catch the kidnapper by tracking his ATM withdrawals. Authorities were eventually able to determine that the person they were looking for was driving around the country in a white Ford focus and that he had somehow ended up in Texas from Alaska.
The FBI was involved too. So they, along with the Texas Rangers tracked the ATM withdrawals as they were occurring in Texas. And then ultimately on March 9th. So this is about a month and I would say five weeks after he kidnapped an anther, Texas highway patrol pulled over a white Ford focus matching the description of the vehicle they were looking for.
And Israel keys was driving the car. When the car was searched, they found Samantha's cell phone has stolen debit card. A mask and a gun. Oh 
Emily: [00:11:52] my God. 
Liz: [00:11:54] Keys is obviously arrested. And then he's sent back to Anchorage a few days later, 
Emily: [00:12:00] what idiot that takes out multiple deposits. Like that's how they're going to track your whereabouts.
Just 
Liz: [00:12:07] take out one part of me wonders if he wanted to get caught, because he had been committing crimes for so many years prior to this, he knew what he was doing and he knew how not to get caught. 
Emily: [00:12:17] Really? Well, we haven't heard about his prior crimes, right? Whoa, my 
Liz: [00:12:22] God. So at first keys refuses to talk to the police, but after a few weeks, he admits to abducting Samantha from the coffee stand.
And then when investigators asked him if Samantha was alive or dead, he said that she was dead, but he wasn't ready to give the details yet. What a little 
Emily: [00:12:39] bitch. She wasn't 
Liz: [00:12:40] ready to die yet. Right? Like, come on. He says to them, quote, I'll tell you everything you want to know. I'll give it to you, blow by blow.
If you want. I have lots more stories to tell. So at this point everyone's sitting in the room, kind of looks at each other and they're all realizing at the same time that they're in the presence of a serial killer. Oh my God. So key's has two demands before he says, he'll give any information to the police one.
He wanted a speedy trial and the death penalty, and he wanted that death penalty to be carried out within a year. And two, he wanted the details of his crimes kept out of the media because he didn't want his daughter and his girlfriend. And he also named his clients because he had a construction business.
He didn't want any of those people in his life to really know what he, what he was capable of. This 
Emily: [00:13:29] is crazy on so many levels, obviously that didn't work because here you are telling us his story, but it does sound like he wanted to get 
Liz: [00:13:37] caught. Right. So keys eventually does give up the location of Samantha's body.
So the family has her cremated and they held a Memorial service for her investigators. At one point, found information on key's computer, about a Vermont couple that had gone missing no, when they confronted him about this, he smiled and he told them that he had left the bodies of bill and Lorraine courier in an abandoned house near Burlington, Vermont.
Emily: [00:14:06] That gives me such 
Liz: [00:14:08] chills. This is like a couple that was in their fifties also when asked why he murdered them. He says, quote, it was just random. So keys finally tells the investigators about basically what I would call his double life. So he would fly to an area of the, around the country and then rent a car and drive sometimes for hundreds of miles until he found a victim or victims.
And this is insane. He buried murder kits around the country and locations that he thought were interesting or would be good to commit a crime. And he would plant these years before he would come back and commit a crime there. Oh my God. Yeah. So they've been found in multiple States. 
Emily: [00:14:53] Could you imagine coming across 
Liz: [00:14:54] that?
I think they were in the middle of nowhere, kind of. Okay. Oh, wow. But these kits were five gallon buckets with tightly sealed lids and they contained items such as shovels, plastic bags, money, weapons, ammunition, and bottles of Draino to help him dispose of bodies. 
Emily: [00:15:12] I mean, he's a smart 
Liz: [00:15:14] guy. I know. So that's why it feels like he almost wanted to get caught with this using the debit card.
He 
Emily: [00:15:20] knows how to knock at cot. 
Liz: [00:15:22] Exactly. And just to give an example of how he used one of these kits. Keys planted one near Essex Vermont two years before he murdered the couriers that couple. Oh, wow. On June 2nd, 2011, he flew to Chicago, rented a car and drove almost 1000 miles to Vermont. And he spent a few days just relaxing and fishing before he started to search for a victim.
And he says that he ended up choosing the courier's house because it had an attached garage that allowed for easy access for him to get into. And he also said that he knew that there were no children living there because his one rule was that he wouldn't kill kids. Oh, like good for you. What a sweetheart?
So he snuck into their house in the middle of the night shot, bill courier, then sexually assaulted Lorraine. Before he strangled her, he then brought their bodies to an abandoned farmhouse. And I read that at some point it was demolished. So their bodies were sort of taken with wherever the remains of that farmhouse were taken.
So their bodies were never recovered. Oh, keys gave investigators hints about some of his other crimes, including 20 to 30 home burglaries across the United States, a bank robbery in New York, a rape and several murders. But he only gave them small details because he liked the idea of playing games with them, that they would know that he committed these crimes, but they didn't have enough information to actually solve them.
What a fucking Dick in conclusion, the FBI believes that key is murdered, at least 11 people between 2001 and 2012, but there could be countless more victims. They're also not rolling out that he murdered in other countries. 
Emily: [00:17:01] Oh my God. 
Liz: [00:17:03] Yeah. So on December 12th, 2012, Israel keys committed suicide via self-inflicted cuts and strangulation in his cell at Anchorage correctional complex.
Why did he do that? 
Emily: [00:17:15] Why didn't he just wait for the death penalty? 
Liz: [00:17:18] I don't know. No. If they were actually going to follow through with the one-year thing, it feels very rushed. Yeah, I think he just wanted to, as soon as he was done, he wanted to go because maybe he really couldn't bear the fact that his daughter and his girlfriend were going to know what a psycho he was.
He also left a suicide note that had a poem of some sort called an ode to murder. Oh my God. No, no, no, no, but he didn't leave any clues about other possible victims then in 2020. So that's last year. Yeah. Wow. The FBI released the drawings of 11 skulls and a pentagram, which had been drawn in blood and found underneath key's bed in his jail cell.
What's his deal guys deal? I don't know, but the FBI is currently actively. Searching for more information, if anyone has any ideas or about his whereabouts or potential crimes that happened, they have a whole timeline of where he traveled in what year. So if there's any crimes that have been unsolved, they could possibly be linked to them.
So this is like still an active investigation, 
Emily: [00:18:20] but it's, he is, he would fly somewhere and then drive and sometimes to another state, like exactly. That's exactly how you don't get caught. Right. Was. His first victim or I'm sorry, his last victim. What was her name again? Samantha. Was she the only time that he killed in Alaska?
Yes. 
Liz: [00:18:38] So another reason why he probably wanted to get caught because one of his rules was that he, he wouldn't kill close to home. Yeah. And that's, I mean, he could, you can't get closer then the shed next door to your house. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm just fascinated that there are potentially so many other crimes that he's responsible for, but we just don't know.
And I'm so upset that he killed himself. So that it'll be that much harder to ever link him to anything. I can't believe people like that exists. I know it's disgusting. Well, I like how you 
Emily: [00:19:09] told the story. I liked that you started with his last crime first. 
Liz: [00:19:13] That was good. Yeah. I mean, that is the crime that we also have the most information on.
Oh, you're right. So, but yeah, and clearly the crime that he wanted to leave his legacy with. Well, Liz, 
Emily: [00:19:24] thank you for bringing us our first 
Liz: [00:19:26] Alaska murder. Oh yes. We love you Alaska. They don't have any Alaska. I don't think anyone actually listened to them Alaska, but maybe they will know. All right. Should we take a break?
Yeah, for a sec.
Emily: [00:19:47] I am doing the case, uh, Jon 
Liz: [00:19:49] Benet, Ramsey. Oh, okay. Let's go. Everybody knows 
Emily: [00:19:53] this case, but let's dive into the 
Liz: [00:19:55] details. Let's do it. Did you see that there was a 20, 20 special about it this weekend? Yes. And I 
Emily: [00:20:00] want to watch it before I did this, but I 
Liz: [00:20:02] haven't yet. I haven't either, but I also heard that there was really no new details.
Emily: [00:20:06] I mean, exactly nothing new will ever 
Liz: [00:20:09] come from this case. If you've seen one documentary about John, but I you've seen them all. 
Emily: [00:20:13] And the reason why I chose this plan was because my friend Katherine reached out and she asked me to do it. And she's been a really vocal supporter of ours. So I love it. So appreciate you.
And this one's, 
Liz: [00:20:27] you're like a radio host. I have to stop dedicating these two people. Someone called him out there, like high school crush. And they're like, and this one's for you. Um, all right, let's be Tony. 
Emily: [00:20:37] Didn't say that. And my sources are history.com. ABC news. Rolling stone distract, defied.com and, uh, GSU Georgia state.
Oh, it's definitely Georgia state. Okay. As we know, JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado. This is technically a cold case, and there are so many theories about who did it. So I'm going to give you guys some background about the day she was murdered, and then we're going to look at all the potential suspects.
So on December 25th, the Ramsey family. So this is John and Patsy are the parents. Jon Benet is the daughter and Burke, the son, they went to a Christmas party and then they returned home late and the parents put the kids right to bed. It was entailed John and Patsy Ramsey. So the parents, they found a ransom note in their house, and then they realized that JonBenet was missing.
So they found this ransom note and it was three pages long. It said that the parents shouldn't call the police and they'll get further instruction the next day between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM. With next steps, the kidnapper also asked for a very specific number, $118,000. In ransom. And that number is actually the exact amount of John Ramsey's bonus from his employer for his Christmas bonus.
Liz: [00:22:04] Yeah. I remember hearing about that and it's just way too much of a coincidence like that is such a specific number. 
Emily: [00:22:11] It shows that it had to be someone who was somewhat close to family or someone in the family. Also whoever wrote the ransom note, they pretty much just took it from the movies. So the ransom note was very similar to the kidnap drama called ransom, which was playing in Boulder at the time.
And it also took lines of dialogue from movies like dirty Harry and speed, which is just 
Liz: [00:22:36] weird. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:22:38] That's seems a little staged. 
Liz: [00:22:40] Yeah, exactly. 
Emily: [00:22:42] So the parents find this note and they contact the police at 5:52 AM to report their daughter missing. 
Liz: [00:22:49] Wait, but you said they came home from a Christmas party.
So what they waited till 5:00 AM. 
Emily: [00:22:54] We'll no, sorry. The whole family went to the Christmas party. They came back, put their kids to bed. Then somehow someone re realized in the middle of the night that their daughter was missing and there was a ransom note. Also 
Liz: [00:23:06] seems weird, but, okay. Right. 
Emily: [00:23:07] I think that timeline does not make sense and people debate about the nine one one call because it's Patsy Ramsey, the mother calling, and she's very frantic on the phone, which makes sense.
But she's not giving the operator any information. She's not saying this is my name. This is my address. My daughter's missing. Come here. She's just going on and on and freaking out. And. It's an issue because she's not giving any important information which you have to do in a situation like that.
Liz: [00:23:34] Absolutely. I think the first thing you would say is your name, address, and what's happening. So that, especially if it's, especially if it's your child that's missing. Yes. 
Emily: [00:23:44] So that's why a lot of people think her call was fake, but at the same time, everyone responds differently to situations. So I don't know how I would react in that.
Police arrived shortly after the parents call nine one one, and they just start looking around the house, trying to find clues. However, the issue is that the Ramseys, their neighbors and friends came over once they heard the news as well. So now there's a ton of people in the house, which obviously leads to contamination of the crime scene.
So off the bat, this case, isn't going well. Then after several hours of searching the house, the police leave to go back to the station to continue their search. And one detective whose name is Linda Arndt. She stays with the Ramsey is just to stay with them as they await for their daughter. But when 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM, you know, that window that the ransom note specified, came and passed.
The Ramsey's just didn't do anything they'd even acknowledge at the time came. So the detective who was with them got really 
Liz: [00:24:46] suspicious. You would think the second, the clock struck 8:00 AM, you'd be super on edge. Like 
Emily: [00:24:51] exactly. So the detective starts to suspect the parents. So she turns to them and she says, why don't you do another look around the house, see if the police missed anything.
And according to this detective John Ramsey, the father just beelined it right to the basement and went to, it was essentially a wine cellar and it was the one place that the police didn't check. And that's where he found his daughter's dead body. 
Liz: [00:25:15] So 
Emily: [00:25:16] suspicious. So he found her, his daughter, she was beaten.
She was strangled and she had tape on her mouth. So he took off the tape and he carried her upstairs. So again, you're contaminating the crime scene. But on the other end, it's your baby girl. I get that. You want to bring her upstairs? 
Liz: [00:25:33] I, this case is just so emotional that it's, it's just so hard. 
Emily: [00:25:38] And as for the lining it to the one place and finding her body, a lot of people think that's suspicious, but also I think it's really weird that that was the one place.
The police didn't check. 
Liz: [00:25:48] I was just about to say that. Why would the police leave any place on searched? 
Emily: [00:25:52] I don't know. I don't know. JonBenet's cause of death was strangulation with a makeshift. I don't know if I'm saying this word right, Garrett. 
Liz: [00:26:01] I have no 
Emily: [00:26:02] idea. You would never have seen one in real life, like in movies, you know, when someone has the string and there's two like handlebars at the end of the string.
So you can strangle somebody, but then you have a grip on the string. 
Liz: [00:26:13] Yes. How do you know? I've never seen one in real life now I'm kidding. Yeah. Like in a mob movie. Exactly. 
Emily: [00:26:19] So everyone go Google it, but yeah, that's a good way to think about it. So her cause of death was strangulation with a makeshift one.
So essentially a string, but it was tied to one a Patsy, the mother's paint brushes. 
Liz: [00:26:33] Oh. So they found the weapon, they 
Emily: [00:26:35] found the weapon and it was a homemade weapon made of one of the mother's paint, brushes, and a string. Which is weird. Very weird. She also had an eight inch skull fracture shocks from a stun gun and was sexually abused with that same paintbrush 
Liz: [00:26:55] horrifying.
Oh 
Emily: [00:26:56] my God. So JonBenet's body was buried in Marietta, Georgia. The Ramsey's hometown on December 31st, 1996. Now let's get to the suspects. Cause as we know, this is a cold case and there's so many theories out there. Reddit is just crazy about this. So I have about, let's see. Three, I have about seven suspects to go 
Liz: [00:27:18] through.
Let's get into it. I'm so glad you're doing this. And I feel like, obviously I know a lot about this case, but there were a few details that I didn't quite remember. 
Emily: [00:27:25] Like I didn't remember that she was sexually assaulted 
Liz: [00:27:28] me and either, and my jaw hit the floor. When you said that, I noticed 
Emily: [00:27:31] that. Exactly. So the way that the conspiracy theories work or how people group them, there's essentially two theories.
One is that it was somebody within the family. And then the other side of theories are, it was an intruder in the house. Okay. Initially, a ton of speculation from the public and the police went on the parents. So let's start on that angle. Let's do it. I already said this, but the $118,000 ransom being exact match for the father's bonus is just very strange.
And peop some people think that, you know, he was the one who probably 
Liz: [00:28:05] wrote it. Yeah. I mean that or someone that he worked with, I 
Emily: [00:28:08] mean, I don't know, sorry, I don't have much insight. I'm just going 
Liz: [00:28:11] to leave that there. It's it's very, very 
Emily: [00:28:13] weird. Also the three page ransom note, the paper was the mother's paper.
So it was paper 
Liz: [00:28:19] from, in the house. Right? I remember this now, too. First of all, I remember hearing investigators say that a three page long ransom note is pretty unusual. Very, very long. I think typically they just say like, we took your daughter, this is what we want. 
Emily: [00:28:34] And to murder the girl and then sit there and write a three page note is very risky.
Liz: [00:28:39] That's so true. I did not even think about that. 
Emily: [00:28:42] Yeah. So it was her paper. The husband and wife weren't really cooperative with the police. They refuse to go in for interviews. When there were interviews, they had like a third party do it. The parents really shielded away from the police. So people think, you know, they're covering something up.
However other people say the police suspected them. And the police zeroed in all the resources on them. So clearly the parents were pissed off and the parents were like, I'm not going to go in and waste time and give you an interview when you should be really catching the intruder. 
Liz: [00:29:13] Yeah. 
Emily: [00:29:14] I mean, I get that side of the story.
Exactly. So I think that's something to keep in mind. So the fact that, and I should've mentioned this earlier, JonBenet was active in the beauty pageant scene. She was a beauty pageant queen and that included, wearing these cute little outfits and wearing a ton of makeup and getting her hair done. And a lot of people think that that industry sexualizes young.
Liz: [00:29:37] Totally. Can you remind me of her age again? 
Emily: [00:29:40] She was six years old. So the media just loved kind of attacking from that angle. They essentially said, if you're going to subject your six-year-old to these beauty pageants, you're a bad parent. You most likely killed her, which I think is a crazy line of thinking.
All right. So those are some reasons why people suspect the parents. Now looking at the dad since he was the one who beelined it for the body. I mentioned this. That's why the detectives really thought it was the father. People say he purposely contaminate the scene when he carried his daughter up. Also a detective on the scene claimed over here, the dad having a conversation, trying to book the family flights to go to Atlanta just hours after they found their dead daughter.
His response was we're from Atlanta. We just wanted to be with our family. And I'm also like, it's not like he was trying to flee the country. He was going to a state nearby. Yeah. 
Liz: [00:30:33] And it's not like she was still missing. So 
Emily: [00:30:36] I don't think it's the dad, some people out there do. And that's their reasoning and logic.
Now, moving over to the mother, why read? It really thinks the mother did it. There was rumors that she was a really nice woman, but she would have sometimes these fits of anger and rage and she would just snap. This is not proven, but some people say this. So the theory is Jon Benet was wetting the bed often because she was six years old.
That's you know, that happens. And her mother just in a fit of rage when she realized that Jon Benet, what the bed, she pushed her daughter down and JonBenet hit her head on the bathtub and then the mother accidentally killed her daughter. So then she staged the whole crime scene to make it look like there was an intruder.
That's just all speculation. I think that's just fucking crazy. 
Liz: [00:31:21] I don't think of parent could stage someone sexually assaulting their daughter, their six year old daughter. Oh 
Emily: [00:31:27] yeah. So that's why people think the mom and then I have a section called but on mine. And the first thing is the sexual assault.dot, dot.
That's my notes. I agree. I don't think a parent could do that. Also. The police found a shoe print of a shoe, right by her body that no one in the family had. So there's just like this unidentified shoe print lying around, which is interesting. Also, this took place in 1996, so they didn't really have DNA, but eventually in 2008 there was new DNA testing technology.
So they tested the DNA, found at the crime scene and it completely exonerated the whole family, no DNA of theirs was found on her body. However, they did find DNA of one, possibly two unidentifiable men. Interesting. So for the longest time, people speculate the family at the end of day, DNA doesn't approve it.
And DNA does show that, like I said, one to two random men were DNA were found on her. So that just like throws another wrench into who committed this crime. Oh, I said exonerate the family, but there was one person I have left out the brother Burke. 
Liz: [00:32:34] Yeah. Let's talk about 
Emily: [00:32:35] him. So this is the most popular theory.
Everyone thinks Burke did it and I'm on the fence about it. So according to John, his parents, they were at a Christmas party. And upon coming home, they immediately put their kids to bed. But when they did an autopsy JonBenet, they found pineapple in her system, which would disprove that she went right to bed.
People think that means that after the Christmas party, she would've had to eat some pineapple and then go to bed. So one of the most popular theories was that. He was eating pineapple and perhaps she tried to steal some from him or she did something to upset her brother. And he hit her across the head with a flashlight, a really heavy flashlight.
And that's what broke her skull and killed her. And then the parents staged the whole scene because they knew their one daughter was dead and they didn't want to have their son taken away from them. Now, why is this most popular one? Just the pineapple theory. Everyone's like, we know she had pineapple and in his interviews he kept changing his story about pineapple.
He wants told the police, yep. I was eating a snack. I was eating pineapple. He then told them we, you know, we love pineapple. We have it all the time. And then in another interview he denied eating pineapple with her. And when they showed him a picture of the bowl, like the family bowl that they always ate pineapple out of.
He pretended he didn't know what it was. So like that's a silly detail to lie about. You're lying about your sisters. The last few moments we know she was alive. 
Liz: [00:33:59] How old is he? He was nine years old. Okay. So only three years older than her. Yeah. So, 
Emily: [00:34:06] I mean he's nine years old, maybe he's getting confused, but people were really suspicious about the lying about the pineapple.
Also, he would often leave excrement around the Ramsey house. According to the Ramsey, former housekeeper, he was known to Lee feces specifically in Germany's bed and spread on the walls in her bedroom. Oh 
Liz: [00:34:25] my God. 
Emily: [00:34:26] So I think this was the older brother getting mad. Apparently he had a history of abuse. If you're spreading poop everywhere.
I think mentally you're kind of messed up. Absolutely. When crime scene technicians visited JonBenet's room after sealing it off, they found feces smeared on a box of candy. She had gotten for Christmas. And according to an old family friend of the Ramsey's Burke was really easy to get angry. And once he struck JonBenet with a golf club after he got mad at her, and that was only a week before her murder.
Liz: [00:34:57] Yeah. I mean, understandable why this is a popular theory. 
Emily: [00:35:00] Yeah. History of violence. Apparently he was really jealous of her getting all the attention, being in the pageants. And then with the pineapple, everyone pretty much think Burke did it, but I like, I sent them on the fence about it. So I want to move into the intruder theories and look outside the family.
The reason why the intruder theory is hotly debated is because if you look at the crime scene, it was nearly impossible to get in the house. All the doors were locked. However, there was a window in the basement that was unlocked and the window was small, but they tested it and someone could have went through the window easily.
The only thing is there was cobwebs in the window. So people said, if you go through the window, you're going to, you know, hit the 
Liz: [00:35:39] cobwebs. Yeah. Especially if the windows that small, but nobody 
Emily: [00:35:42] knew about the cobwebs until a few days after the murder, one of the detectives went to the house and took a picture of the window and noticed the cobwebs.
So there's debate. Maybe someone went through, knocked over the cobwebs and then a spider came and made them again, like it's really easy for a spider to spin up a web. So then other people are saying, no, those cobwebs were there from the murder. So we don't know if those cobwebs are new or old and the possible intruders.
I have four people here. One is Gary, Olivia. He was a 32 year old known sex offender in Boulder, Colorado. After her murder was made public. His high school friend came forward and said a few days after her murder, he called me crying, saying I heard a little girl. I heard a little girl. Also, I mentioned that she had marks from a stun gun.
This man, it was proved that he owned a stun gun. And a few years after all this happened, he was arrested on a drug charge and they found, cut out pictures of her from magazines in his backpack. 
Liz: [00:36:44] Oh my God. That's so creepy. 
Emily: [00:36:46] However, he was always a suspect, both circumstantial. And then years later, when they did DNA testing, he didn't match the 
Liz: [00:36:53] DNA.
So he's just a creep, not necessarily a murderer, 
Emily: [00:36:58] we don't know, but no, the next one is Michael Goff. He was an electrician who worked nearby at an auto salvage yard. The random footprint that was found in the basement was similar to a pair of shoes that he owned. Also, he recently had a property dispute involving the Ramseys.
So the theory is he wanted to go in and kidnap her for ransom to get the money back. And it's speculated that once he realized that the police were going to question him, he committed suicide. He actually killed himself two days after the press conference, announcing that the police were going to zero in on a new suspect.
Liz: [00:37:32] Wow. I did not know that. 
Emily: [00:37:35] But his DNA also didn't match X bill, Mick Reynolds. This one's so sad. He was a friend of the Ramsey's an old man who dressed up as Santa Claus. The week before her murder to go around the town to surprise the children. He was rumored to have paid a little too much attention to her going as far as to arrange a secret visit from Santa Claus on Christmas.
So like he was doing it for all the kids, but people think that JonBenet was his favorite. Obviously the press loved this idea of the local man who dresses up as Santa is actually just like a deranged pedophile. So the press just went with it. And it's really sad because over time people realized that it was highly unlikely that he was involved and the press just sensationalized and character assassinated a friendly old 
Liz: [00:38:21] man that is so upsetting.
Emily: [00:38:25] Heartbreaking. So, yeah, I don't think he's a suspect. I just wanted to get that in there. It wasn't Santa. And the last one is John Mark car. He was a former school teacher and in 2006, he confessed out of the blue to the murder and a graphic sexual detail to a university of Colorado Boulder professor named Michael Tracy over email.
And then Tracy immediately reported this man to the police. So the police questioned him. And they just rolled them out. And he said, this guy's just a pedophile who's after notoriety and fame, his DNA doesn't match. He wasn't even in Boulder during this time. And this guy apparently is now living a new identity and a new gender in the Pacific Northwest.
Again, just to creep. So, I mean, those are all the suspects. Did you know the intruder theory? Like some of those are really compelling. 
Liz: [00:39:14] I know I'm especially taken aback by the one who committed suicide. 
Emily: [00:39:19] Right. And the one who called his friend only a few days after, I don't know. I just think a lot of people, zero in on the brother and myself included, but after I did a lot of research, I thought.
How much would it suck to be that brother and everyone thinks you killed your sister only to find out it was one of these horrible men that we discussed at the end. 
Liz: [00:39:37] I know. I wonder what his life is like. He went on 
Emily: [00:39:40] Dr. Phil and he gave a really fucking weird interview. 
Liz: [00:39:43] Don't go on Dr. Phil, who do you think did it.
I'm like you, I always thought it was the brother, but now that I've heard those other few suspects, I'm not so sure 
Emily: [00:39:52] let's post on our Instagram. When this goes out a poll and say brother 
Liz: [00:39:56] or intruder, the ransom note just gets me. But also 
Emily: [00:39:59] I don't blame the parents if they're covering up for their son. I 
Liz: [00:40:02] know.
I, yeah, it's a tricky one. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:40:06] Well that is the case of JonBenet 
Liz: [00:40:08] Ramsey. So curious to hear people's opinions. Yeah. 
Emily: [00:40:13] Should we. Should we wrap it up? 
Liz: [00:40:16] I think so 
Emily: [00:40:18] you guys have been a great audience happy inauguration day. 
Liz: [00:40:22] Yes. I'm feeling hopeful today, feeling hopeful on an ending note. As we always say, please go follow us on Instagram and on Twitter.
And if you're enjoying the podcast, please rate, review and subscribe and tell your friends. And if you have any interesting stories that you'd like us to cover. Shoot them over to us via DM, and we would love to look into them. All right guys, have a good 
Emily: [00:40:44] one. Bye .