By Marilyn Bardsley  

(Continued)

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Inexperienced police department rushes to judgment

The uniformed police officers were openly suspicious from the start. The Ramseys, treating the ransom demand seriously, were already taking steps to raise the ransom money. The note said that the kidnappers would call, but no call came.

It was while the police were waiting for the call that they made several critical mistakes. They did not conduct a proper search of the house, the area was not sealed off and friends of the Ramseys were allowed to walk in and out at will. No moves were made to protect any forensic evidence. The scale of their mistakes became apparent later that afternoon when a detective asked Fleet White, a friend of the Ramseys, to take John and search the house for "anything unusual." They started in the basement and that's when John found the body of his daughter.

Ramseys Home

As this was the only murder in Boulder that year, the investigating police had little experience in that type of crime, with very few of them having conducted a murder investigation at all. Regardless, they immediately assumed the Ramseys were guilty. The fact that JonBenet had been found in her own home by her father was considered highly suspicious. By the time her body had been taken from the house that evening, some of their suspicions had been passed to a local journalist.

On December 27, the Rocky Mountain News quoted an Assistant District Attorney as saying, "It was very unusual for a kidnap victim's body to be found at home - it's not adding up." Police had also indicated to him that they held a strong belief that the parents were responsible. Julie Hayden, a television reporter for Denver 's Channel 7, also covered the story on the same day and drew the same conclusion. She later explained that from her first exposure to the case, the police had made it very clear that they were not scouring the area looking for "some mad kidnapper" but instead, concentrating their efforts on John and Patsy Ramsey.

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