On Dec. 26, 1996, 6-year-old child beauty pageant contestant JonBenét Ramsey was found dead in the basement of the family’s Boulder, Colo. home, along with a ransom note asking for $118,000. Autopsy results released in Aug. 1997 revealed that JonBenét had suffered asphyxiation due to strangulation.
A week after JonBenét’s death, her parents, socialite Patricia Ramsey—the 1977 Miss West Virginia—and businessman John Ramsey made their first appearance on national TV on CNN, pleading for the public’s help finding their child: “There’s a killer on the loose,” Patsy Ramsey said.