We Have Your Daughter Page 19

  In January 1997, three weeks after JonBenét’s murder, Newsweek magazine published an article with a sentence that launched the dyed-blonde-hair myth about JonBenét and her pageants:

  “Patsy Ramsey regularly had her kindergartner’s hair lightened at a beauty salon.”

  No attribution or beauty salon name was given, and none was needed for this to be instantly accepted as a true fact. The story that JonBenét’s hair was chemically altered to blonde for beauty pageants spread and is still considered accurate. And yet that wasn’t true, according to Patsy, her father, her sister Pam, and JonBenét’s half-sister, Melinda. The blonde hair color came naturally from the Ramsey side of the family. John and his son, John Andrew, both had curly white-blonde hair until they reached eight or nine years of age.

  John Ramsey with white-blonde hair as a baby. © John Ramsey.

  John Ramsey holds his son John Andrew. John Andrew has the same white-blonde hair as his father and his half-sister, JonBenét. © John Ramsey.

  While JonBenét had naturally light brown hair, it often turned blonde from the summer sun and darkened just a little in the winter. According to Patsy, she sometimes had her daughter’s hair professionally rinsed and conditioned in order to get rid of the greenish tinge it acquired from chlorine when JonBenét spent a lot of time swimming in pools. Patsy also told John and a friend at one time that she had JonBenét’s hair “touched up and conditioned” because it had been bleached white from the sun.

  Both John as well as Patsy’s sister Pam, have said that Patsy never colored JonBenét’s hair, nor had it colored. According to Melinda, JonBenét’s half-sister, “That is just something they wouldn’t do because she was a child.” John added, “It’s just not something we would do.”

  Yet, according to the JonBenét Ramsey Murder Book Index, one of Patsy’s best friends told police that, during the Christmas party at the Ramsey home on December 23, 1996, “[She] also noticed that JonBenét’s hair was died [sic] blonde” or “appeared really bleached out.” (BPD Reports #1-229, #5-4724.) This was the only allegation obtained by police from someone who knew the Ramsey family that JonBenét’s hair may have been dyed blonde at any time.

  “JonBenét and I could practice dance routines together and design costumes,” Patsy explained. “I didn’t think of it as anything negative because it was part of what I had experienced as I grew up in the South and it seemed positive and fun. The picture the public got was from the beauty pageant videos that were aired continuously. It seemed she was a child whose life was 100 percent beauty pageants because the only pictures and video available were of the pageants. But that was really a small part of her life and who she was.”

  Susan Stine shared school carpooling duties with the Ramseys. Burke, JonBenét and the Stine’s son went to High Peaks Elementary School, part of the Boulder Valley School District. “There was no dress code,” Stine said, “so JonBenét would mostly wear sweatpants, play pants, t-shirts, turtlenecks and sweatshirts. The school was very casual, and so was she. She never wore make-up to school.” Dresses were for the rare school pictures or end-of-the-school-year events.

  Another friend of the Ramsey family said that “many of the parents, after the murder, had commented that JonBenét just looked like a regular kid at school.” She “would often wear just jeans to school.” This friend explained that many parents of students at the school had not known JonBenét was involved in child beauty pageants before seeing the Ramseys’ daughter in the child pageant video aired on the news.

  Patsy’s attorney, Pat Burke, offered this insight regarding the effect of JonBenét being in child beauty pageants and its relationship to public doubts about Patsy: “Show me one thing, honestly and objectively, that you would ever criticize about her. The honest response is that some people criticize her because she put her daughter in beauty pageants. Yet that was what Patsy was raised doing. That was the culture of her upbringing in West Virginia. To her growing up, it was a good experience that improved her self-confidence and brought her closer to her mother. The worst thing people would be able to say about Patsy was that they didn’t like it that she put her daughter in beauty pageants.”

  In addition to the pageants, JonBenét liked skiing, skating, rock climbing, piano lessons, and just being and interacting with friends and family, according to both of her parents.

  She liked to be part of whatever was going on. On one Thanksgiving, when the whole family was going to her Uncle Jeff’s home, each family was going to bring a side dish. JonBenét insisted she bring her own food to share. She brought white bread rolled up with jelly inside, which she made herself with a bit of help from her mom. She called them “jelly roll-ups” and watched carefully to make sure everyone at the dinner had one. Patsy smiled remembering how she was JonBenét’s assistant that day. “I loved all my children dearly, and I sure was happy having that little girl telling me how to help her make jelly roll-ups.”

  “She was always going full speed and laughing and smiling,” JonBenét’s dad has said.

  Her Uncle Jeff said JonBenét was a loving, sweet, normal little girl who just wanted to do all the things other little girls did. “I cannot remember her in any pageant clothes or dresses. She was just a typical little girl in jeans and a t-shirt, dressed up in a little-girl dress only for a special occasion like Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

  Uncle Jeff is one of John’s best friends. Because Jeff lived in Atlanta and John and his family lived in Boulder, their families didn’t see each other as much as they would have liked. But his memories of his niece are of a little girl who adored her big brother and loved playing with him and his friends, her little friends, and any adult who would agree to play her “kids” games like hide-in-the-leaves or hide-and-seek.

  JonBenét was “very smart and talented, wise beyond her years,” her dad remembers. “She had unusual insight. If I came home from a particularly rough day at work looking serious, she would notice and tell me, ‘I don’t think that’s a good face to wear, Dad. I think you should smile.’

  “She was very aware of people around her,” John added. “She loved the colors of flowers, the fragrance of them and was always surprised when some of them that were so pretty had thorns on them.”

  Family friend and business attorney Mike Bynum didn’t know Burke and JonBenét well, but he once spent several days in Charlevoix, Michigan, where the family had a summer home.

  “I went sailing with them on Lake Charlevoix where, even though they were six and nine, both kids had jobs on the boat. Both were treated with respect and showed respect back to their parents.” Sailing was another family activity that was important to both John and Patsy.

  When John and Mike had to leave Charlevoix on business, Bynum says JonBenét was upset that her dad was going. The two stood for a few minutes in the entryway of their home in Charlevoix. “He got down on one knee and gave her a big hug and then talked with her about why he needed to go and when he would be back,” Bynum said. “He was on her level and talking with her face-to-face. I was impressed with the interaction between the two of them.” Bynum remembers the picture of them, down on the floor, talking it out.

  When police interviewed JonBenét’s teachers after her murder, her homeroom teacher said: “JonBenét was a most unusual gifted student who was very humble and compassionate. Other children loved JonBenét and she was a very sweet girl.” That teacher said she was only vaguely aware that her student may have been in some sort of pageants. JonBenét’s music teacher said JonBenét was a “very humble little girl and very poised and very non-assuming. Not boisterous or egotistical. Very caring and compassionate. No signs of abuse.” And JonBenét’s art teacher described her as a “very mature” student who “seemed to be very normal.” (BPD Reports #5-3145, #5-3150, #5-3437, #5-3355, #5-3146, #5-3375.)

  JonBenét’s teachers were equally enthusiastic about Patsy Ramsey. “Patsy was a volunteer that was a teacher’s dream,” said JonBenét’s homeroom teacher.

  In
a basement in a home in a Southern town, there is a room with JonBenét’s drawings as well as some photographs and clothing neatly stacked together. There are costumes from her pageants. The room gives off a wisp of loss that grows as one continues to look at the items this little girl left behind. On one piece of paper are words she printed: “Mom,” “Dad” (with a sailboat after her dad’s name), “Cat,” “Dog,”

  “Boy,” “Bat,” “Burke,” and then “JonBenét” in her own cursive style. There’s a smiling face after her brother’s name and a hat after hers. The words give a sense of promise.

  There is also a cut-out Christmas tree on a paper sack. The decorations on the tree are bright shiny dots of red, green, lavender, gold, silver and blue. Glue has soaked through and whitened parts of the tree, and then there’s her name at the bottom, something she was just learning to write at the time. One can picture her head bent over her drawing, brow furrowed in concentration, working proudly on this Christmas creation of hers.

  Or there’s the construction-paper US Mail truck; the whimsical drawing with several suns; the finger painting in bright yellows, blues, greens and pink; the ever-present smiling sun in other drawings shining down on cheerful flowers. There’s what might be a self-portrait of a blonde girl with blue eyes, a pink dress and a big smile, created seven months before JonBenét’s murder. She was just a little girl. And the impact of her loss only grows stronger as one touches what remains of what she created.

  JonBenét’s handwriting. © John Ramsey.

  Christmas tree cutouts by JonBenét. © John Ramsey.

  US Mail Truck by JonBenét. © John Ramsey.

  By JonBenét Ramsey. © John Ramsey.

  Finger Painting by JonBenét Ramsey. © John Ramsey.

  A big sack filled with Beanie Babies including turkeys, pigs, giraffes and a lamb sits abandoned on the floor. JonBenét’s dad searches through them with care. Toys and kid stuff, a pair of baby pajamas and other clothing emerges. He studies the packed-away pictures from so very long ago. As he looks at what is left, John says, “This is just a fraction of what we lost because of the incompetence and stupidity of the investigation. This is what’s left of our child.” And he turns away for a brief moment to compose himself.

  Never again would his little girl find the contentment of a job well done, the warmth of the summer heat, the determination of building sand castles on the beach, the happiness of playing with other children just like her.

  No one would ever call her “Mom.” Her lifetime lasted just six years, four months and twenty days.

  In the years since his daughter’s death, John Ramsey has stated “it was a mistake to have JonBenét in the pageants.”

  JonBenét’s Beanie Babies. © John Ramsey.

  “I was persuaded at the time by how much she enjoyed it,” he said. “I didn’t realize that this might be where her killer found her.”

  “She was too young,” he added, “and even though we emphasized that her talent was what was important in her participation, and she loved doing it, this wasn’t what was the most positive for her with the emphasis on looks and make-up. Patsy and JonBenét were doing it just for fun. Looking back, I was not pleased with the competitive environment in that many of the parents there seemed desperate for their child to win and that was quite different than why I believe Patsy and JonBenét were participating.”

  The anti-public sentiment about child beauty pageants has increased internationally with, in some cases, harsh consequences. In January 2014, the French National Assembly passed a law that banned child beauty pageants as part of a larger package of women’s rights initiatives. The new law, which stated that girls under the age of thirteen were no longer allowed to participate in beauty pageants in France, included a carefully detailed description of “child beauty pageants.” There is a criminal penalty for violating the ban. Child beauty pageants have been banned in the Russian city of St. Petersburg as well, and some Russian lawmakers have sought a nationwide ban. Meanwhile in Australia, activists have protested against an American company that has brought its competitive style of child beauty pageants to the city of Melbourne.

  CHAPTER 16

  MONTHS FOLLOWING— 1997 TO 1998

  JonBenét in hula skirt on family vacation. © John Ramsey.

  CHRONOLOGY

  January 1997 to February 1997—The Ramseys are in Boulder living with friends.

  February 1997 to June 1997—The Ramseys live with Glen and Susan Stine1 until they leave Boulder for Charlevoix, Michigan.

  June 1997 to Fall 1997—The Ramseys live in Charlevoix.

  Fall 1997—The Ramseys move to Atlanta.

  “EVERY DAY BEGAN WITH ANGUISH,” said Patsy. “That’s just one of the words I can think to use. We had seen our daughter dead, murdered, and they were terrible images we couldn’t forget. It was this kind of raw dread filled with nightmares and reality.”

  With so many fingers pointed at them and the media surrounding them, John and Patsy Ramsey were emotionally battered. “That’s why the attorneys were such a blessing,” Patsy added.

  On January 13, 1997, the tabloid Globe published six autopsy and crime scene photos related to the Ramsey murder investigation that had been stolen from the photo lab that had processed them. A technician from the photo shop was arrested and charged with theft. So was his accomplice, a private investigator and former employee of the Boulder Sheriff’s office. The technician, Lawrence Shawn Smith, and PI Brett Sawyer were ordered to apologize to the Ramseys and spent three days in jail. The Globe was forced to return most of the photographs, but was never charged with a crime.

  John remembers the day he found out the photos of JonBenét’s autopsy had been stolen and were going to be published. He and Patsy had promised each other they would never look at their daughter’s autopsy photographs.

  “I can’t describe the assault of emotion,” John said. “I hadn’t protected her when she was murdered, and now I wasn’t protecting her most terrible moments in the autopsy.”

  When John told Patsy about the photographs, they both “cried and cried.” “It was such helplessness and despair,” he said.

  Both parents, but especially Patsy, lived in fear of the killer coming back.

  John’s Journal:

  We keep our curtains pulled. Our doors and windows are locked. Going anywhere takes a major organized and planned operation. All the time, we don’t know if the killer is posing as part of the group with the media.

  On one occasion we are being aggressively tailed and I pull into the police station, having alerted them that we were coming. The brazen photographer pulls in right behind us. And backs up and blocks the exit. The police come out and arrest him and we get a police escort to our destination. It’s very unnerving, particularly when you remind yourself that the person could in fact be the killer and not a photographer.

  We get people coming to the door, claiming to have information that can be helpful in solving the case. They’re tabloid reporters.

  Burke was home-schooled by his parents and friends for a few weeks after his sister was murdered. His parents were terrified that the killer would come back and concerned that school would be an easy place to find their son. John and Patsy soon realized, though, that Burke needed to be with his classmates amid the normal routine of school.

  That’s how the “Burke Watch” began. John, family friends and attorneys met with the school principal and district officials to discuss additional protection for Burke if he were to go back to school. At first, a detective was hired by the Ramseys to monitor their son at school.

  Then school parents volunteered to be in the school all day to watch over Burke in his classes. The “Burke Watch” began in February 1997 and continued each day until school ended for the summer in June.

  The Ramseys had moved in with their friends, Susan and Glen Stine, in February 1997. Stine and other friends felt the family was unable to cope alone, yet needed to stay in Boulder to help with their daughter’s murder inv
estigation. Susan Stine, as well as another woman who remained friends with Patsy after the murder and defended her, were each referred to in a Boulder Police Department report as “One of Patsy’s pit-bulls [sic].” (BPD Report #1-1021.)

  “I never in my life have felt as bad or as devastated as they were,” Susan said. “John would get up and get dressed. Patsy would try to get up and be strong for Burke, and once he went to school, she would collapse. She was numb for such a long time. Sleeping was the best, because she could get it out of her head while she slept. John would just sit and stare at whatever was on television, whether it was children’s programming or anything else.”

  “It’s not something I can describe. It was not really living,” Patsy would say later.

  During the Ramseys’ four months with her family, Susan Stine said dinner became the focal point of the day and offered a way to return to routine. Everyone would try to pump themselves up for the kids. But in the first few months, John and Patsy had to be instructed to do basic things like set the table. They had to be reminded to put the silverware, glasses and plates on the table while others cooked and organized the meal. Everyone would meet in the dining room, a traditional room with a red, blue and rose-colored rug, a cozy gathering place.

  Susan would plan dinnertime conversation to include something positive or funny. She would ask her son and Burke to look through books to find jokes and would usually have a few to tell of her own. But Patsy would rarely last through dinner.

  “She’d just wear down after an hour, and either John or I would put her to bed,” said Susan.

  According to a family friend, “Patsy was a ‘limp doll’ when at the Steins [sic].” (BPD Report #1-1019.)