CBS Panel: Burke Ramsey Killed Sister JonBenet

Investigators say parents John and Patsy then covered it up
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 20, 2016 6:21 AM CDT
CBS Panel: Burke Ramsey Killed Sister JonBenet
A 2006 photo of John Ramsey hugging son Burke at the graves of Patsy and JonBenet Ramsey.   (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)

A team of investigators who pored over evidence in the JonBenet Ramsey murder 20 years after the fact presented its conclusion Monday night: Brother Burke Ramsay did it. The scenario laid out by the panel: Burke, who was just a shade under 10 at the time, hit his sister in a rage with a flashlight when she stole a piece of his pineapple from a bowl he was snacking on before bed. (A bowl on the kitchen table and the contents of JonBenet's stomach helped lead to that theory.) Panelists do not think he killed her intentionally, but they were unanimous in asserting that parents John and Patsy Ramsey then took over and concocted an elaborate fake kidnapping story as a cover-up, reports E! Online. The show includes an interview with a former neighbor who said Burke had a temper and once hit JonBenet in the face with a golf club.

“If you really, really use your free time to think about this case, you cannot come to a different conclusion,” renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Werner Spitz, a member of the panel, tells CBS Local. “It's the boy who did it." Among other things, the panel is sure that Patsy Ramsey wrote the unusually long three-page ransom note found in the home. And the supposed stun gun marks on JonBenet? Investigators say they more likely came from a piece of track from Burke's railroad set, perhaps as he was poking his sister in an attempt to revive her. In part one of the show, the panel replayed the original 911 call, which keeps recording after Patsy thinks she has hung up. With enhanced audio, the panel makes the case that Burke can be heard speaking to his parents, though he was supposed to have been sleeping. (Burke, meanwhile, tells Dr. Phil that it was "probably some pedophile" from a beauty pageant who killed his sister, reports People. (He was seen as "socially awkward" in the first part of the interview.)

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