Two decades later, justice elusive for Jon Benet

Ransom note found at scene holds key to solving slaying

Every crime reporter has a story from their past they cannot shake. A case that either touched them on a profound personal level or one that remains mysteriously unsolved. This time of year, I think of a story I covered 20 years ago this week that remains with me for both reasons: The Christmas-time death of 6-year-old Jon Benet Ramsey in Boulder, Colo. As the mother of a daughter, I can’t help it. Every year visions of Jon Benet’s beautiful face and her obvious potential come flooding back to me.

Ahead of the sad anniversary of her death you probably noticed a glut of articles, programs and amateur conclusions about the case. Each mentioned that mysterious 2½-page handwritten ransom note the Ramseys say was left behind by the killer or killers.

That is the one piece of evidence I think is a key to solving the crime. Whoever wrote it was surely involved in the crime.

The phrases and words used in the ransom note provide tantalizing clues to its authorship, and some forensic document examiners have opined that it was likely written by a woman. Nurturing phrases like, “I advise you to be rested,” before delivering the ransom are what experts call “maternalistic language,” and they report finding six such statements in the note. Before her death, mother Patsy Ramsey vehemently denied she wrote it.

Various forensic examiners working for law enforcement, a lawyer suing the Ramseys for defamation and various television networks have all ruled out father John Ramsey as the author of the note. They also concluded that Patsy Ramsey cannot be excluded from being the writer. This, after they compared the ransom note with extensive handwriting samples the couple provided police shortly after the murder. Additionally, the tablet the note was written on and the pen used to write it were identical to items discovered inside the Ramsey home. And a “practice draft” of the letter was found crumbled up nearby.

Retired FBI profiler Jim Clemente hosted a recent CBS special on the case, and his experts determined it would have taken more than 21 minutes to write the note.

I recently had occasion to speak with one of the forensic examiners who has extensively studied the ransom note. Cina Wong’s reputation took a beating in 2000 when the Ramseys’ lawyer got her disqualified from testifying on behalf of a man who filed a $50 million defamation case after the Ramseys had named him as a suspect in their book, “Death of Innocence.” But Wong is imminently qualified, has become internationally recognized during her 25-year career and has testified under oath in some 60 cases. She is writing a book to lay out her findings in the Ramsey case and how she reached them. Her discoveries are persuasive.

First, after studying the awkward looking writing at the beginning of the note, Wong says she saw the writing style changed after the first few paragraphs. This, she says, is evidence the writer was deliberately disguising their handwriting. Wong then referred to a “Master Pattern” chart that listed all the different ways the note’s author wrote the letters a,b, c and so forth. She noticed the ransom writer’s distinctive Q looked just like the number 8 and there was unique spacing of letters within certain words.

“Basically,” she told me during a telephone call, “Whoever has handwriting that matches all of these patterns is your ransom note writer.” Interestingly, Wong says, that Master Pattern was developed by the Ramseys’ own handwriting expert.

Wong quickly determined John Ramsey’s writing had no similarities to the ransom note. Patsy Ramsey, on the other hand, wrote the letter “c” in a compressed way so that it almost resembled the point of an arrow. The same was seen on the ransom note. Patsy wrote five distinctly different styles of the letter “e,” and all five were seen on the ransom note. Patsy penned three different styles of the letters “a,” “d” and “h,” and all were seen on the ransom note. Patsy’s letter “q” looked just like the number 8.

“In all, I found 200 similarities between Patsy Ramsey’s handwriting and the ransom note,” Wong told me.

So, does that mean Patsy Ramsey is, indeed, the person who wrote that note? Experts like Wong don’t speak in absolutes. She would only say, “It is highly probable that Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note.” Make of that what you will.

The mystery continues, and justice for Jon Benet remain elusive.