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The JonBenet Effect: Four Ways the Ramsey Murder Influenced Pop Culture
Tuesday, Dec. 23 2008 @ 6:17PM
An AP video explaining the "touch DNA" that the Boulder DA used to exonerate the Ramsey family.
JonBenet Ramsey would be graduating from high school this year, if she'd lived past Christmas, 1996. But as anyone and everyone knows by now, the 6-year-old beauty queen was mysteriously murdered on the night of December 25/26, 1996.
Nancy Grace Show producer Rupa Mikkilineni has authored a recap of the case for CNN.com. The article recounts the major developments in the case. A quote:
For many, the images of this tragic story are indelible: A doll-like child smiling flirtatiously at the camera in flamboyant costumes, heavy makeup and grown-up hairstyles parading on a beauty pageant stage. A tiny, lifeless body, dressed in long johns, found on the basement floor by her father.Mikkilineni goes on to note:
Just this past July, John and Patsy Ramsey were exonerated by police of having any role in their daughter's death. Patsy Ramsey died of cancer in June 2006.The article doesn't really touch on just how deeply this murder mystery has become embedded in our national dialogue. The JonBenet murder mystery ranks up there with the OJ Trial, may even outrank it, for the way it's provided grist for the merciless mill of popular culture. A few examples:
1. My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike
Don't get me wrong -- I think Joyce Carol Oates, the novelist who authored this cryptobiography of the Ramsey clan, is brilliant, and I love her writing. That said, I couldn't finish this book. It was too broad in many places, too cartoonish, and conversely, some of the characterizations were way too flat -- and (spoiler alert) Oates's denouement was sabotaged after the book's release by the Boulder DA's announcement that DNA results pointed away from the Ramseys killing their daughter. As a writer I found Oates's exercise fascinating, but I also wondered if the writing of the book was the ultimate sign of cultural saturation where the Ramsey murder was concerned. Is one of America's finest novelists putting their spin on the story just another sign that the truth will never truly be known? Most people still insist that we just don't know what happened -- the hate of Patsy is often strong with this group -- and having a solution to the crime novelized seems to somehow put a metaphysical cap on things. One I don't think the story needs to have yet.
2. The Jonbenet -- Music
Years ago Ted Bundy's Volkswagen was a band that frequently played college nightspots in Middle Tennessee. I got that. It was sick and inappropriate, and frankly a little funny. That said, I'd never pay to see the guys play. I pretty much feel the same way about The Jonbenet, a group out of Houston that is sometimes called post-hardcore and which puts out albums with titles like Devil Music and The Kidnap Soundtrack. That is, I get the joke, and kinda think it's funny, but not very, and I'm pretty sure it wears thin after a while. In the end, a kindergartener dead in a basement is just not the sort of thing you want to mess with, karmically-speaking.
3. Family Guy References
I like Family Guy, which is probably something I should keep to myself, but the JonBenet jokes and references they occasionally throw into the dialogue are a bit too much, even for me. The worst example: in one episode, Stewie (the baby of the family) is cross-dressing, but he objects to entering the Little Miss Texas pageant, referring to it as "a one way ticket to a semen-covered death in the basement." That's not edgy. It's just nauseating.
4. The Sob Sister Cult of JonBenet on YouTube and Elsewhere
Long before folks were posting horrid videos with treacly soundtracks about Caylee Anthony on YouTube, they were working the same sort of nerve with JonBenet Ramsey. The example video below was posted 2 years ago, when YouTube was still pretty new and a relatively novel thing. But I shouldn't single out YouTubers here -- there has been a kind of cult of JonBenet on the Web for 12 years now, hence the current tally of 331,000 hits on Google. Plenty of folks just want to discuss a confounding and tragic unsolved crime, one filled with likely suspects -- the social-climbing parents who paraded the child in front of pageant audiences, the older brother in the shadows, various family friends, a sickly old guy who played Santa, truly scary, predatory malcontents who may have been creepy-crawling homes in Boulder at the time -- but some seem much more drawn to the pathos and tragedy of it all. These are the folks who act as if JonBenet was their own kid, probably while their real kid goes blissfully ignored by the parent in question. The most extreme example ever of this type of sob sister (okay, that's a stretch, but still, it's true in some respects) was probably the JonBenet Ramsey case's most onerous contribution to pop culture -- fantasist and all-around spooky dude, John Mark Karr. He could easily be number 5 on this little list -- but the less said about him, the better.
[CNN.com]
Another cartoon reference would be South Park episode 514 titled Butters' Very Own Episode. I love South Park but this one was a shocker.
Posted 12/25/2008 at 05:52:35 AMAfter finding out through a clueless Butters that her husband is gay, Butters' mom slowly goes mad until she takes Butters in her car and pushes it off the end of a dock into a lake. Thinking she has killed him, Butters' mom contacts the police and tells them Butters was kidnapped by "some Puerto Rican guy".
Butters parents are then befriended by the Ramsey’s, OJ Simpson and politician Gary Condit.
After Butters turns up safe, his parents hold a press conference where they admit that the story was a lie and explain why they are coming clean. It finishes with Butters father saying "and to both of us people all over town would be saying things like" - It then crosses to a long shot of the Ramsey’s with the voice of Butters' father in the background screaming "You know God damn well what happened to your kid so stop acting like victims and confess you murdering murderers. Confess liar, confess!".
Not very nice!
JonBenet Ramsey's parents endured one of the worst case scenario's in the world. First have a child murdered and then have a bunch of narrow minded clowns investigating it. Wow.
Posted 12/25/2008 at 01:51:35 PMKen Stepp
Please remember that the same people who "exonerated" the Ramsey's are the same ones who arrested John Mark Karr. There were a few good ones on the case, the best one quit in disgust two years into the case when he realized the Ramseys would continue to get special treatment because of their wealth and power and that the district attorney at the time was more interested in talking to tabloid reporters and seeing himself in the news than he was in finding the murderer of this precious child.
Posted 12/28/2008 at 11:12:34 AMNo one kills a child and then leaves a ransom note for the amount of $118,000 which was the same amount of the father's bonus the year before. It just doesn't happen.
...and in the meantime, on Christmas, Karr has made clear his intent to kill.
http://jonbenetsblogs.blogspot.com/2008/12/karrs-honor-killing.html
Posted 12/28/2008 at 04:29:13 PMThe only thing that exonerated the Ramsey was Touch DNA and that does not lie. It's DNA that comes from skin cells. These cells that were found on the under garments did not match any DNA from the Ramsey's or any close friends or relatives. This is why the Ramsey were exonerated. Rest assured the person or persons who committed this crime will be found out. The case is being re-opened by the new District Attorney who takes office Jan 13, 2009. As the Book says your sins WILL find you out sooner or later.
Posted 12/31/2008 at 11:39:52 PMI keep coming back to this case, it just haunts you and it won't go away.
Just some comments, "touch" DNA as I understand it is just skin cells. They can come from anywhere, even a factory where things are made. But if this was a sexual assault, why is there absolutely no trace of male dna from bodily fluid?
Admonish me if I am wrong, but there have been numerous comments by pathologists who have looked at the autopsy report that indicate that JonBenet showed signs of "prior vaginal trauma". I believe this child was being molested before the murder, but by whom? I hate to be so graphic but these questions have to be asked.
What stranger could have navigated that house after dark, even friends of the Ramsey's comment on how huge and rambling it is and easy to get lost in. Something like over 9000 square feet.
How did the stranger know that the Ramsey's came downstairs the back way (the spiral case), the ransom note was left at the foot of that staircase. A stranger could not have known that.
Fleet White had looked in the basement for JonBenet that morning, he did not see her body. Why?
Patsy, fashionista, wears the exact same clothes the day after Christmas that she had on the day before. I could care less about fashion and even I wouldn't do that.
Why the denials about JonBenet having eaten pineapple just hours before her death?
A little known fact that most people don't know----and even I didn't snap to this until recently---the Ramsey's had a huge Christmas party in their house several nights before the murder, hundreds of people there. A 911 call was placed to the Boulder police that evening from the Ramsey home, when the operator tried to talk to the caller they hung up. Still they sent a patrolman out to the house, he rang the doorbell and Patsy answered. She immediately told him it was probably just a mistake and sent him on his way. But here is my question, ok, you have hundreds of people at your house, people are drinking, the house is huge. Wouldn't you as the homeowner first check the house upstairs and down just to make sure everyone was ok before just dismissing it as a mistake? Strange, and stranger still that a 911 call has to be placed again several mornings later to report a kidnapping.
But the one thing that tells me it was not a stranger is that insidious ransom note with the bizarre amount of ransom asked for. It just does not in any way fit a sex crime.
Posted 01/08/2009 at 12:20:08 AMI hope Patsy Ramsey is burning in hell, like everyone else who directly or indirectly caused anyone's death.
Posted 01/27/2009 at 04:16:58 AMWhat disturb me is that on Nancy Grace when she was reading the quotes that John Karr made, one of his quotes stated that he wish he could crawl in her casket beside her and MAKE LOVE TO HER. HE SAID HE WANTED TO HAVE SEX WITH A 6 YEAR OLD LITTLE GIRL. So gross and sick. Yes I do agree that the way they made her look in the pageant may of promote her rape and murder. Not that im excusing his crime or anything. But way cant little girls be little girls. That her age she should be playing with dolls not wearing makeup and high heels. Im outrage that some parents dont encourage their kids to enjoy their childhood. JonBenet was a gorgeous little girls, but her parents made her look year and year beyond her age. I cant believe someone said not to blame the pageant. This is the reason teenage girls get STDs and knock up at 17. Is their any girls with republicians parents who dont act like they are 23 when they isnt even 20. My daughters are going to have a childhood because im not Sarah Palin.
Posted 05/31/2010 at 10:07:15 PM