On the night of December 25th, 1996, The Ramsey family went to a Christmas party at their former friend’s home, Fleet and Pricilla White. Their families were close, and their daughters were the same age. The family stayed through the buffet supper, where JonBenet had cracked crab and shrimp. They left the White’s and made two quick stops to drop off gifts to friends. JonBenet was tired from a long day and fell asleep in the car. When they got home, John woke his sleepy daughter and she was taken upstairs and put to bed.

According to former Detective Steve Thomas, Patsy said that JonBenet was wearing a red turtleneck and long john leggings. When the body of JonBenet was found, she was wearing a white long sleeved shirt with a sequined star on the front. Someone had to have re dressed her, if Patsy is correct about her statement that JonBenet went to bed wearing a red turtleneck. On the morning of December 26,1996 there was a 911 call made from 755 Fifteenth Street at 5:52. Patsy was very alarmed and told the operator,” There’s a note…and our daughter’s gone,” She talked a little, mentioning that the so called ”ransom note” was ended by the initials, SBTC. She was crying and moaning “Send someone please, please!” It has been reported in several publications that Patsy didn’t hang up the phone right and that the Boulder Police sent the tape of the 911 call to the Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles, who detected noise in the background. Patsy moaning,”Help me Jesus,” over and over. Also in the background, the company claimed to hear Burke in the background trying to talk to his parents. The Boulder police have said that the FBI and the Secret Service heard nothing in the background and the Ramseys have said that Patsy had hung up directly after the police were well on the way.

The note was long almost 3 pages of a legal pad written in black sharpie ink. It was very detailed and addressed to John Ramsey. There were threats of death and the amount of the ransom was small change, to him. $118,000 wasn’t much money to John Ramsey. But the number is significant because it the same as his bonus from the firm that year. Hundreds of employees might have access to that number, and it was on all his pay stubs. The letter said that the Ramsey’s were not to call police or anyone else, and that killing JonBenet would be easy. They would be in touch. It was a very long note and typically ransom notes are short and to the point. The kidnappers would call between 8:00 and 10:00 to arrange a transfer of cash. By this time, the house was no longer a pristine crime scene, because the Ramsey’s had their four best friends, their Pastor, two women from Victims Advocacy Unit., and two officers were in the house, and no one was in control. Patsy was hysterical and John stunned. All their friends were in the home and touching lights, glasses, leaving behind stray hair and footprints in a home that was a crime scene.

Detective Linda Arndt was at the Ramsey home at about 1:00 that afternoon. The time for the kidnappers to call was long past and Arndt was very suspicious that the Ramsey’s were not outwardly upset by the fact that the kidnapper hadn't’t called. At that moment in time, she had tried several times to get another officer over to help her control the situation. She then made one of the most crucial errors in this case. She suggested to John and Fleet White that they take a top to bottom tour of the home, to see if anything was amiss. Both men agreed to do so.

John jumped out of his chair and instead of going to the third floor, John and Patsy’s lavish bedroom suite, at the top of the house he ran down the stairs to the basement, Fleet right behind him. John had to have felt a frigid fear, but he did not show it. There was a broken basement window, that he told Fleet he had broken. There was a suitcase underneath the window that turned out to have a blanket and a child’s book inside. They turned the corner and John reached to open the door to a small room off the basement that the family referred to as the Wine Cellar. No wine was stored there; it had a few shelves and a bare bulb for light. John switched on the light and began screaming, ”Oh my God, oh my God!” He had found the lifeless body of his daughter wrapped in a blanket with her hands and neck attached loosely by a string with a stick made into a crude garrote that was deeply furrowed into the skin of her neck. Stray hair was found in the stick. There was a Barbie nightgown on the floor next to her. Fleet touched JonBenet’s bare foot and instinctively knew she was dead. Both men ran upstairs, yelling, ”She’s here! Call 911,please! She’s here!” John put his daughter on the hard floor of the foyer, and Patsy’s friends were helping her off the floor, where she had been weeping for several hours. Detective Arndt didn’t have a two way police radio and she was clearly in need of assistance. Arndt picked up JonBenet’s lifeless body and moved it near the Christmas tree.

When Patsy and her friends saw the lifeless JonBenet, Patsy threw herself over JonBenet’s body screaming hysterically, “Jesus, you raised Lazarus from the dead, please raise my baby!” The Reverend had everyone join hands as they prayed the Lord’s prayer over her. Arndt called for an ambulance and back up officers. The Ramsey child had been found dead in her own home. Detective Arndt, as a law enforcement officer, made yet another crucial error by moving JonBenet’s corpse. There could be trace evidence lost and precious little to be gained by moving the body. And once she was moved, someone covered her with a sweatshirt sitting nearby, and then she was covered again with a blanket. At that point, she could have picked up evidence from John (who ripped duck tape off her mouth) Patsy (who threw herself on the body) and evidence from Detective Arndt, the blanket and sweatshirt. Even Fleet White, because he felt JonBenet’s lifeless foot. The number of people in the house combined with the shock of finding JonBenet dead, it was complete and total chaos. The Reverend tried to help Patsy, she was hysterical. Finally back up arrived, but by that time, it was too late to get the scene under control. Officers could only try and salvage what was left and get everyone out of the house. At 10:40 PM, JonBenet was wheeled away to the county morgue.