There are few things more distressing than an unsolved murder case. Death on a mass scale, whether by conflict or disease, hits differently.
There’s the distance that the imagination fills in to soften the blow. We don’t get afraid as quickly when we can’t see the accurate scale of destruction.
But when a report comes out of a small-time suburban home, on the street like any other, from a family that has never done wrong, it makes us think things about our neighbors.
If it could happen to them, what could happen to you? JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was a six-year-old child beauty pageant queen.
She was brutally murdered and found in her own home, hours after being reported as missing with a ransom note from an undiscovered maniac.
The case is still open today, over 20 years later, surviving even the mother as the truth has evaded authorities for so long.
10 /10 Boulder Beauty Queen
JonBenét, named after her father’s first and middle name, was a rising star of the child beauty pageant circuit.
She was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but her family then moved to Boulder, Colorado, before her first kindergarten year. Her mother, Patricia, or Patsy, was a former beauty queen in the 70s and 80s.
The hobby of pageantry ran in the family, and there were big hopes for young JonBenét to start taking crown after crown with her mother’s supervision.
9 /10 Ransomed
Patsy was the first to discover her daughter’s missing along with a nearly three-page long ransom note, handwritten and demanding a hefty sum of money in exchange for the girl’s safe turnover.
She immediately called the police, and they began a quick search of the surroundings. According to FBI analysts, the ransom note was brought in to help handle the case, “unusually long.”
For a particular amount, the ransom was $118,000, the same amount John got as a Christmas Bonus the previous year.