JonBenét Ramsey Case Encyclopedia

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Sources Used at This Site

Academic Works

Journals

• Blaine 1999. Diana York Blaine. Necrophilia, pedophilia, or both?: The sexualized rhetoric of the JonBenet ramsey murder case. Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and Communications 57 (1999): 51-64.. 
• Conrad 1999. Joann Conrad. Docile Bodies of (Im)Material Girls: The Fairy-Tale Construction of JonBenet Ramsey and Princess Diana. Marvels & Tales, vol. 13, no. 2, 1999, pp. 125–169., . 
• Conrad 2016. Joann Conrad. Lost Innocent and Sacrificial Delegate. Childhood Vol 6, Issue 3, pp. 313 - 351 First published date: July-25-2016. On 26 December 1996, 7 hours after Patsy Ramsey informed the police that her daughter had been kidnapped for ransom, 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey's beaten body was found by her father in an unused storage room in the basement of their upper middle-class home. The media and public fascination with this story, and, in particular, with the visual images of JonBenet Ramsey, serve as a point of departure for a discussion of this event and its reception as a signal moment in America's sense of itself. JonBenet's photographic images are the nexus for overlapping and interwoven American narratives on the family, the nation, sexuality, power and violence, inscribed on the body of the emblematic child. The interest in, reporting of and management of information concerning the murder of JonBenet Ramsey suggest a shift in attitude toward the archetypal American child and family and the fragile images of reified innocence and deviance which have undergirded a postwar national ideology. This article seeks to answer not only why such images of this blonde, blue-eyed, murdered child hold such fascination, but what this fascination means to mainstream America's vision and construction of itself. 
• Heltsley & Calhoun 2003. Martha Heltsley and Thomas C. Calhoun. The good mother: Neutralization techniques used by pageant mothers. Deviant Behavior 24.2 (2003): 81-100. This study examines Sykes and Matza's (1957) techniques of neutralization through accounts by 43 mothers whose children participated in six national beauty pageants between September 1996 and May 1997. Respondents used "condemnation of condemners" most often followed by "denial of injury" with equal numbers using "denial of responsibility" and "appeal to higher loyalties." The "denial of victim" technique was not used by any respondents. The respondents were critical of the media's role in creating the "temporary deviant label." 
• Joyce 2014. Laura Ellen Joyce. Writing Violence: JonBenet Ramsey and the Legal, Moral and Aesthetic Implications of Creative Non-Fiction. New Writing 11.2 (2014): 202-207..This essay began as a hybrid critical/creative paper that was presented as part of an all-female panel discussing the intersections between writing and extreme violence. My own paper was on the relationship between my creative nonfiction novel The Museum of Atheism and the real life murder of six-year-old beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey. This essay is an attempt to represent the writing process of the creative nonfiction author, and to consider the ways in which critical theory can be used to highlight, or conversely obscure, fictional writing. In addition to considering the effect of using a real story, a true crime, as the basis for a semi-fictional work, this essay will also consider the relationship I had as a writer to my publisher, editor and agent, and their interventions in the writing process to ensure that facts were deliberately skewed or warped in order to avoid litigation. Finally, I will consider my own relationship to the material, and the impact that this had on the writing process. 
• Kowecki 2013. Victoria Kawecki, Can’t Touch This? Making a Place for Touch DNA in Post-Conviction DNA Testing Statutes, 62 Cath. U. L. Rev. 821 (2013).
• Milhizer 2008. Eugene R. Milhizer. Confessions after Connelly: An evidentiary solution for excluding unreliable confessions. Temple Law Review 81(1) (Spring 2008). 
• Morris & Altschuler 2009. Kevin Morris and Glenn Altschuler. "What We Talk About When We Talk About JonBenet." (2009). 
• Moye 1998. Jimmy R. Moye, The Confluence of Sensationalism and News: Media Access to Criminal Investigations and the Public's Right to Know, 6 CommLaw Conspectus 89 (1998).  
  
• Richards & Calvert 2002. Robert D. Richards & Clay Calvert, Press Coverage of the JonBenét Ramsey Murder and Its Legal Implications: A Dialogue with John and Patsy Ramsey and Their Attorney, L. Lin Wood, 10 CommLaw Conspectus 227 (2002)..  
• Tanaka 2008. Elizabeth Stewart Tanaka. Can You Protect Your DNA When Your Family Does Not-An Analysis of Familial DNA Usage in Criminal Investigations. Quinnipiac Health LJ 12 (2008): 115. 
• Treffers et al. 2013. Stefan R., Ann W. Burgess and Allen G. Burgess. When the Parent is the Suspect in Child Murder, Part 2. Forensic Examiner 22.3 (2013). Research has shown that when a child is murdered, a parent is commonly found to be involved in the child's death. However, when a child is abducted prior to being murdered, the likelihood of a parent's involvement decreases significantly. Despite these findings, there are many instances in which parents have become primary suspects in investigations of child abduction homicides. This two-part series examines four cases of child murder that involved an element of abduction where investigators immediately suspected parental involvement. In three of the four cases, the parent suspects were eventually exonerated by DNA evidence after experiencing extensive scrutiny and persistent suspicions of guilt by police. The outcomes of these cases highlight the importance of carefully examining the crime scene by using victimology and crime scene classifications to differentiate between types of child murders.

Student Papers 

• Behm 2015. Sarah Behm. Who killed JonBenét?: an analysis of a flawed investigation and main suspects. Honors Thesis. Ball State University (May 2015).
• Stone 2012. Elise Stone. University of Findlay. Equivocal Death Analysis--JonBenet Ramsey. Department of Justice Sciences (Spring 2012). 

Print Media

• The Daily Camera Ramsey Archive (Boulder's largest daily newspaper), including links to all their coverage, by date: 1996; 1997; 1998; 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; headlines organized by topic are here.
• Denver Post Online Ramsey Archive (covers February 1997-January 2000).

Other Key Documents and Websites

Documents

1. News releases from the City of Boulder on the JonBenet Ramsey case.
2. Press release from Boulder District Attorney on arrest of John Mark Karr, August 17, 2006.
3. The Bonita Papers. Acording to Internet poster Spade, "These are the unedited "notes" of Bonita Sauer, secretary/para-legal to Dan Hoffman. Bonita intended to write a book from the case documents provided to her boss. But Bonita's notes were sold to the tabs by her nephew." Spade (post deleted) claims that Bonita works in the same office as Larry Pozner. It should be strongly emphasized that much of the information in these papers has not been corroborated. Internet poster Jameson (post deleted) claims Bonita has disavowed much of what is in these papers. User beware.

Key Links

1. Wikipedia has continuously updated articles on Death of JonBenet Ramsey, John Bennett Ramsey and Patsy Ramsey.
2. acandyrose.com is probably the single most comprehensive site of links related to the JBR case.
3. Flight755 15th Street, Passengers in the Vortex is the newest project of ACandyRose's, announced in April 2007: "This is a new series of web pages I have been working on since last August and have uploaded to my domain. I am attempting to gather information from various found materials to cover all the various items, people or issues and evidence "as we know it," surrounding this case that somehow got sucked into this murder vortex. Hopefully this new project series will become a valued tool to find information easier when discussing this case and at the same time set some myths to rest."
4. Jeffrey Scott Shapiro contains links and audio files related to former tabloid reporter Jeff Shapiro.

Photos/Videos

1. Google Images contains nearly 10,000 photos tagged with JonBenet. However, users must be cautious since not all listed images are of JonBenet Ramsey, especially this one.
2. alltheweb.com contains nearly 1,500 images tagged with "JonBenet Ramsey."

Blogs/On-line Discussion Forums

Sites no longer available have been marked with an asterisk (active forums in boldface). For expired sites, the rankings data shown are from 2006 and have not been updated. They are retained here for historical curiosity.

• Forums for Justice. The site forumsforjustice.org was ranked 2,977,202 by Alexa*(1-16-2018).
• Jameson's Webbsleuths. In 2017, Jameson re-activated her site at the link shown (http://www.webbsleuths.org/index.php); it is more current than the old site, also labeled Jameson's Webbsleuths (http://www.jameson245.com/). (Google PageRank=4/10). The site webbsleuths.org was ranked 15,375,799 in Alexa (1-16-2018).
• JonBenet Ramsey Murder Discussion. Hosted by The Community Forum (began in March 2017). The site discussion.community was ranked 271,683 by Alexa (1-16-2018).
• Reddit. There are two discussion forums at Reddit: JonBenetRamsey and JonBenet. The site Reddit.com is ranked 7 by Alexa*. 
• Solving the JonBenet Ramsey Case. This is a blog started by DocG, not a discussion board, but very in-depth discussions occur in the many comments responding to individual posts. DocG himself is a firm believer that John did it but is willing to let those with competing views post comments. The site solvingjonbenet.blogspot.com was ranked 2,285,465 by Alexa (1-16-2018).
• Someone Is Getting Away with Murder. This blog ran from 2010 through 2012 and appears to be no longer active; however the full archive and many links to case materials is still visible. 
• Websleuths (Google PageRank=2/10). The site websleuths.com is ranked 56,811 in Alexa (1-16-2018).

* Note that Alexa only can rank main site URL listed; no separate rankings are available for JBR sections/pages within those sites.