John Bennett Ramsey
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John Bennett Ramsey, was born on December 7, 1943, in Okemos, Michigan, is best known as the father of JonBenét Ramsey. He was the first to discover JonBenét's body in the wine cellar of the Ramseys' 15-room Boulder home, on December 26, 1996, just hours after her murder.
Controversy:He is said to have carried JonBenét's lifeless body from the basement to the living room. This fact is not consistant with the majority of articles on this case.
Family Life
Before having married Patricia Ann Paugh, also known as Patsy Ramsey in 1980, he was in a prior relationship form which he had 2 children: John Andrew and Melinda. Melinda later died, at age of 22, in a car accident. JonBenet was buried next to her.
Business
John Ramsey's net worth was reported at $6.4 million as of May 1, 1996. A distinguished naval officer, he holds a pilot's license and owns two planes [1]. In 1989, late in his military career, he formed the Advanced Product Group, one of three companies that merged to become Access Graphics. After mandatory military retirement, he became president and chief executive officer of Access Graphics, a computer services company and a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin [2]. In 1996, Access Graphics grossed over $1 billion, and he was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. Immediately following the murder he was "temporarily replaced so the company did not have to bother him about business matters as he grieved," according to Lockheed spokesman Evan McCollum [3]. John soon left his job to move his family to Michigan, where he joined another computer company. Access Graphics was later sold to General Electric in 1997.
In 2004, Ramsey unsuccessfully campaigned for a seat in Michigan's House of Representatives [4].
Case Files
As JonBenét’s was the only murder in Boulder that year, the investigating police had little or no experience in that type of investigation. Regardless, the majority of them immediately thought that the Ramsey’s were guilty. The fact that JonBenet had been found in her own home by her father was considered highly suspicious.
Boulder police brushed aside the thousands of leads that came in, and dismissed the possibility that an intruder had somehow slipped inside the house and committed the murder. Instead, they leaked information to the media, sometimes-fabricated information like charges of pornography and sexual abuse, to put pressure on the Ramseys.
Stories circulated in the media which tended to "prove" the allegations of the police. One story element described how JonBenet had been taken to a local pediatric clinic 27 times over a four-year period. Dr. Francis Beuf, the Ramseys' pediatrician, was later interviewed and stated that he did not believe that the number of visits was excessive and considered JonBenet's medical history to be consistent with other children of the same age. In regards to any evidence of sexual abuse, he stated that in all the times he had examined JonBenet, he had never seen any evidence of any such abuse.
Other stories claimed that the "vaginal abrasion" mentioned in the autopsy report suggested sexual abuse, however this conclusion is not supported by the balance of medical opinion. Dr. Thomas Henry, the Denver medical examiner states:
"From what is noted in the autopsy report, there is no evidence of injury to the anus, there is no evidence of injury to the skin around the vagina, the labia and there is no other indication of any healed scars in any of those areas. There is no other indication from the autopsy report at all that there is any other previous injuries that have healed in that particular area."
Unfortunately, the absence of physical evidence, in itself, is not conclusive but statements given to the media by John Ramsey's ex-wife, Lucinda Ramsey, Johnson and Peggy Ramsey, John's brother and sister-in-law, categorically deny that John Ramsey is, or has ever been, a child abuser. To further defend the claims, John Ramsey's son, John Andrew, and elder daughter, Melinda, told interviewers that their father had always been a loving and gentle person who "cherished" his children and had never abused them in any way. Both children were interviewed as possible suspects in the murder but were later cleared.
Seven years later, in June of 2004, new DNA evidence cleared both John and Patsy Ramsey. Police focoused their attention on a long overlooked intruder theory. Throughout the whole ordeal, the Ramseys maintained their innocence. Even after the whole ordeal with John Mark Karr, JonBenét's case is still unsolved.
