Patricia Ann Ramsey was an American beauty pageant winner who won the Miss West Virginia pageant at age 20 in 1977. She was best known as the mother of JonBenét Ramsey, a six-year-old child beauty pageant queen who was found dead in her family's home in Boulder, Colorado, on December 26, 1996.
Patsy Ramsey with her daughter JonBenét
Killing of JonBenét Ramsey
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was an American child beauty queen who was killed at the age of six in her family's home at 755 15th Street in Boulder, Colorado. A long handwritten ransom note was found in the home. Her father, John, found the girl's body in the basement of their house about seven hours after she had been reported missing. She had sustained a broken skull from a blow to the head and had been strangled; a garrote was found tied around her neck. The autopsy report stated that JonBenét's official cause of death was "asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma". Her death was ruled a homicide. The case generated worldwide public and media interest, in part because her mother Patsy Ramsey, a former beauty queen, had entered JonBenét into a series of child beauty pageants. The crime is still considered a cold case and remains an open investigation with the Boulder Police Department.
JonBenét Ramsey photographed by Randy Simons on June 18, 1996.
JonBenét's grave at Saint James Episcopal Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia.