'The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey' Wants Us to Believe Her Brother Did it—But the Show Overlooks Key Evidence
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Georgia Hardstark is the co-host of the hit true crime/comedy podcast, My Favorite Murder, along with comedian Karen Kilgariff. As a longtime amateur crime sleuth, Georgia has always been fascinated with true crime stories and the people who work tirelessly to solve them.
Well the murder cat is out of the murdery bag, and this is one f*cked up kitty. If you watched the second episode of CBS’s The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey last night, you’ll have learned the theory that’s prevalent with us Internet sleuths that are obsessed with the case. When I surveyed the Facebook group of my true crime podcast, My Favorite Murder, the overwhelming majority of #murderinos agreed: JonBenét’s 9-year-old brother Burke hit her in the head in a fit of pineapple-induced rage, and the parents, in a desperate act of trying to make things alright, covered it up.
It’s a theory in which I don’t take any glee or excitement. What a sad set of circumstances for parents to find themselves in, and what an insanely irrational decision (covering it up with a ransom note, the 911 call, allll of it) to put into motion without thinking it through, and then having to just go with it. But it’s also just that: a “theory.” There were some very compelling pieces of evidence presented to support it in the series, but just as Making A Murderer and Serial before it, there were a lot of pieces left out of The Case Of that contradicted it. So even though my favored theory was being presented, I found myself disagreeing on grounds of fairness, or even just thinking about how a defense attorney would be able to tear the evidence apart.
I’m still of the mind that this case hasn’t and won’t ever be truly solved until a reliable informant comes forward (I’m looking at you, Fleet White), but with all the evidence presented in the 20 years since JonBenét’s death, this is the one that makes the most sense to me. If you apply Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation is the conclusion The Case Of came to.
Here’s how the evidence stacks up―and what’s still missing:
Patsy & John
While John has always struck me as a cold, calculated, cult leader-like businessman (I don’t think you can be the CEO of a multi-million dollar company without being a bit of a narcissist), Patsy’s demeanor in interviews has always been so much more telling to me. She switches between adamant and firm to weepy and befuddled…as if the reality of what happened keeps seeping through the cracks in her coached persona. Everyone sees Patsy as the mastermind of the cover-up, but I see her as the accomplice (the “patsy!”) to a controlling, brilliant head of the family who jumped into action when his trophy wife’s prized daughter was hurt, and there was no turning back from there.
Can we also stop blaming Patsy’s fatal cancer on her guilt or karma? That’s not a thing and it’s insulting to people who have cancer.
Brothers can be dicks
While watching the show last night with my equally true crime obsessed friend, Cat Solen, she and I shared moments from our personal minefields that was growing up with older brothers. That love/hate/screaming relationship is like no other. While the extent of my story ends with my brother cracking an egg, not a flashlight, over my head, Cat reports that her teeth marks are still present on her brother’s arm, the evidence of a particularly passionate fight. Although my brother never actually hurt me, that overwhelming urge to punish your sibling for imagined wrongdoings, as a kid is something I’m familiar enough with to be able to picture Burke, in a fit of pissed off jealous anger (reportedly untreated anger, at that) hitting his “perfect” sister over the head. Not to kill, maybe not even to wound, but to get her back for whatever wrongdoing he perceives to have just been committed against him.
Burke’s interviews
There’s a theory out there that Burke truly doesn’t know what happened that fateful night. That his parents covered it up so completely, that they didn’t even make him aware of the fact that he put the wheels in motion. My absolute favorite part of The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey is Burke’s childhood interviews by social workers. For a kid that young to be able to lie well to a trained professional who has an agenda seems nearly impossible. It seems to me that Burke isn’t in on the game. That he’s been told a story by his parents, the same one being fed to the media. But just like his mother, the truth seeps into the cracks of Burke’s facade once the right questions are asked.
What’s sad to me is that it’s pretty unlikely that Burke would have been legally punished had he actually struck the initial blow to JonBenét’s head, which means that the subsequent cover up wasn’t for his sake, but for his parents-who valued appearances above all else.
Ok, but what about the sexual assault?
The experts on the show quickly explained away any evidence that JonBenét had been sexually assaulted. But evidence that JonBenét had been sexually assaulted-both on the night of her murder and in the past-had been found by physicians who initially examined the body (aside from the Ramsey’s doctor!) and confirmed in Chief Mark Beckner’s Reddit AMA. The evidence of JonBenet’s sexual assault isn’t something that can be brushed off with a vague explanation to fit a theory, as The Case Of tried to do. Whenever there is a conclusion that ignores important details in order to point to one scenario in a case that has a lot of possible theories, it invalidates that scenario. It is extremely frustrating to me. I’m sure the producers needed some sort of wrapped up package to present at the end of the series, but eventually the rest of the evidence is going to invalidate all the correct evidence that was presented by the show experts.
As obsessed with true crime cases as I am, it’s always hard to learn about a child’s death for obvious reasons. I loved when the silly theory that JonBenét was actually Katy Perry surfaced because it made for such a happy ending, just as I love the crazy government conspiracy theories (Illuminati, MK Ultra, etc) because they make the case so much more diabolical and complex. In reality, though, the simple answer is so much sadder and scarier. The simple answer is so human and is why, I believe, so many other murders happen. It’s the heat of the moment, a decision you wish you could take back but can’t, it’s consequences not imagined when actions are taken. It’s not an ending worthy of a sweet six-year-old little girl. It’s why I think we’ll never truly know the answer of what happened to JonBenét Ramsey the night she was killed. The horror of the who, what, and why is just too sad to comprehend, and we’d rather forever speculate on the possibilities, than be confronted with the true ending to the story.
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