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After Being Shelved, ‘Murder of JonBenét Ramsey’ Series Is Back On · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine spending like tens of millions of dollars to film
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this premium eight episode television series.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, massive budget.
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Speaker 1: Right, massive budget, starring a list actors like Melissa McCarthy
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and Clive O. And you have the absolute best in
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the business working on it.
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Speaker 2: The team behind Yellowstone, right.
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Speaker 1: Exactly, the powerhouse production team behind Yellowstone. So you write
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the scripts, you build these elaborate sets, you film the
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entire thing, the episodes are edited, the show is completely
0:25
in the can, ready to go, ready to air, and
0:28
then the studio executives lock it in a vault and
0:31
just refuse to air it, just kill it entirely. They
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effectively kill it, yeah, burying it because they are absolutely
0:37
terrified of being sued. That is exactly what almost happened
0:41
to a show that is now slated to be one
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of Netflix's biggest releases of Winter twenty twenty six. So
0:47
welcome to the Deep Dive.
0:49
Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
0:49
Speaker 1: We have a massive stack of sources today. We're looking
0:52
at recent Hollywood train announcements, some Deep Dive industry reports,
0:55
and comprehensive historical case files. And our mission for you
1:02
listening right now is to unpack this truly unprecedented collision.
1:06
Speaker 2: It really is unprecedented.
1:07
Speaker 1: It is we are exploring the intersection of Hollywood's massive
1:11
true crime industrial complex basically and one of America's most perplexing,
1:16
terrifying thirty year old unsolved mysteries.
1:19
Speaker 2: The John Bene Ramsey case.
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Speaker 1: Exactly the revival of the shelved limited series The Murder
1:24
of John Bena Ramsey.
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Speaker 2: It's an incredible story of risk, really both legal and
1:29
narrative risk. And you know what is so fascinating here
1:32
is the timing and the immense cultural weight of this
1:36
rescue by.
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Speaker 1: Netflix because of the anniversary, right as.
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Speaker 2: We approach the thirtieth anniversary this tragedy, which occurred on
1:42
December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety six. By the way, this
1:45
series represents so much more than just a standard streaming acquisition.
1:48
Speaker 1: It's way bigger than that.
1:49
Speaker 2: It is. It's a mirror. Yeah, it forces us to
1:52
look at this enduring, agonizing search for justice and weighed
1:56
against our collective, sometimes deeply voyeuristic of SSS session with
2:00
true crime. Oh absolutely, the fact that the show itself
2:02
almost became a casualty of the exact same legal mindfields
2:06
that have haunted the actual criminal case for three decades.
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I mean that tells you everything you need to know
2:12
about the power this story still holds over us.
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Speaker 1: I want to start right there, actually in the corporate boardrooms,
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because before we can even begin to understand why this
2:21
specific unsolved case still captivates the public or you know,
2:25
terrify AES network executives, we really need to look at
2:29
the unprecedented journey this TV project took just to survive.
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Speaker 2: The behind the scenes drama is wild.
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Speaker 1: It's insane. According to our trade sources, this series was
2:38
originally greenlit by Paramount Plus back in twenty twenty four.
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The working title was Unspeakable the Murder of John Bana
2:45
Ramsey Right, And it was produced by one hundred and
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one Studios, And if you follow television production, you know
2:50
one on one's studios they are the juggernaut behind the
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Tailor Sheridan Universe.
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Speaker 2: Yellowstone land Man nineteen twenty three.
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Speaker 1: All the massive hits they make really premium televisions. So
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they wrapped production on this in early twenty twenty five.
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It was supposed to be the launch pad for a
3:05
brand new true crime anthology series for Paramount, but then
3:11
a massive corporate merger happens. Oh yes, Skydance acquires Paramount,
3:16
and suddenly this highly anticipated, fully finished project is quietly,
3:21
just unceremoniously killed. It's put in turnaround. First, can you
3:26
just give a quick explanation for the listener of what
3:28
turnaround actually means in Hollywood?
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Speaker 2: Oh? Certainly so. When a studio puts a completed or
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in development project in turnaround, they are essentially writing off
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the cost of the project as a tax loss.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they are telling the creators, look, we are taking
3:42
this off our books. We will not air this, we
3:44
will not distribute it. But this is key. You have
3:47
the right to try and sell it to another distributor
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to recoup the costs.
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Speaker 1: So they're just washing their hands of it.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a financial ejection seat. But what's crucial here
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is why Skydance pulled that lever. When a company like
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Skydance executes a massive merger, they bring in armies of
4:01
lawyers and risk assessors.
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Speaker 1: Right doing their due diligence.
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Speaker 2: Yes, they aren't just looking at potential viewership or subscriber bumps.
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They are looking closely at liability.
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Speaker 1: But wait, I need to stop you there, because true
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crime is everywhere. Every single network has dramatizations murders, serial killers, scandals.
4:20
So why was this specific show suddenly viewed as so
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incredibly toxic that they would rather eat a massive financial
4:27
loss than.
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Speaker 2: Err it Because of the legal concept of defamation, specifically
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in the context of an unsolved case involving living people. Okay,
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producing a dramatization of an open case is entirely different
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from producing a documentary. How so Well, in a documentary,
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you can interview journalists, you can rely on police reports,
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and you can hide behind the legal shield of words
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like allegedly you know you are reporting on an investigation
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you're observing. But this is a dramatization. You have actors
4:56
reciting dialogue written by a screenwriter. You have directors instructing
4:59
actors on how to look, how to cry, how to
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react in private moments behind closed doors where there were
5:04
no actual witnesses.
5:06
Speaker 1: Oh I see.
5:06
Speaker 2: So if you write a scene where a character who
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represents a real, living, unconvicted person acts in a way
5:14
that implies.
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Speaker 1: Culpability, like giving a guilty look.
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Speaker 2: Exactly even just a suspicious glance, or a line of
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dialogue that suggests they know more than they are saying,
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you are actively inviting a defamation.
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Speaker 1: Suit because you are presenting a fictionalized interpretation as reality,
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and if that interpretation damages a real person's reputation, they
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can sue the studio.
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Speaker 2: Precisely, And you have to understand the history here. The
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Ramsey case has a notoriously aggressive thirty year history of litigation.
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Speaker 1: They've sued before, oh heavily.
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Speaker 2: Over the decades, individuals connected to the family and the
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family themselves have successfully sued or settled with major media
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corporations for defamation. The legal threshold for proving malice or
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reckless disregard for the truth is very high.
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Speaker 1: But just going to chord as exactly.
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Speaker 2: The cost of just defending those lawsuits can be astronomical.
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Skydance looked at the show, looked at the litigious history,
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and decided the legal exposure simply wasn't worth a subscription revenue.
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Speaker 1: So they basically created a beautiful, expensive legal bomb, and
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Skydance decided not to touch it. In fact, Paramount TV
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Studio is one of their hands, so completely clean of
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it that our sources note they won't even receive credit
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on the final Netflix version.
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Speaker 2: Everyone just scattered.
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Speaker 1: They really did but then at the eleventh hour, Netflix
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swoops in they acquire the eight episode series. They have
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Richard Legrevinize as the showrunner, who has incredible pedigree. I
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mean he wrote Behind the Candelabra, So suddenly it's back
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from the dead. Why does Netflix take a risk that
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Skydance ran away.
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Speaker 2: From It comes down to data in infrastructure. If you
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look at the broader picture of Netflix's strategy over the
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last five years, this is a calculated, highly informed gamble.
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Look at the staggering global success they've had with the
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monst anthology series First Dahmer than the Menendez Brothers. They
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have proven that high end traumatized true crime is one
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of the most lucrative genres on the planet.
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Speaker 1: The numbers are insane on those shows, they really are.
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Speaker 2: Furthermore, they already tested the waters with this exact intellectual property.
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In twenty twenty four they released the documentary Cold Case
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Who Killed John Benet Ramsay?
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Speaker 1: Oh right, the docuseries.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so they have the exact granular viewershift data. They
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know the global appetite for this specific mystery is just ravenous.
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And crucially, Netflix has a legal apparatus built specifically to
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defend controversial content.
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Speaker 1: They have the lawyers for it exactly.
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Speaker 2: They decisially decided their legal shields are strong enough to
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absorb whatever fallout might come.
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Speaker 1: So they bought the minefield because they know exactly how
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much gold is buried in it.
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Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
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Speaker 1: But to navigate a story this sensitive and this culturally massive,
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you need a cast that can carry the nuance. And
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this is where the trades really highlight something fascinating choices.
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Speaker 2: It's a brilliant lineup.
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Speaker 1: We have Clive Owen playing John Ramsey, which makes total sense.
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He has this immense stoic gravitas. We have Alison Pill
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playing Detective Linda Arn't, Shay Wigham playing the district attorney
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Alex Hunter. But the absolute centerpiece of the entire production
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is Melissa McCarthy stepping into the role of Patsy Ramsey. Yes,
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and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this,
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because Melissa McCarthy is undeniably brilliant, But to the general public,
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she's a comedic icon. Bridesmaids, Spy, the Heat Why cast
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one of the world's most famous comedic actors as a grieving,
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intensely scrutinized mother at the center of a horrific child
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murder investigation.
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Speaker 2: Well, it is a phenomenal, incredibly demanding piece of casting
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precisely because of who Patsy Ramsey was. When you look
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beyond McCarthy's broad comedy, you see a profound dramatic.
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Speaker 1: Capability, Right, can you ever forgive me.
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Speaker 2: Exactly look at her Oscar nominated performance there. She has
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an unparalleled ability to play deeply flawed, tragic, and fiercely
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defensive characters. But to understand why she's perfect for Patsy,
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you have to understand Patsy's public persona.
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Speaker 1: Tell me about that.
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Speaker 2: Patsy Ramsey was not just an affluent suburban mother. She
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was a former beauty queen. She was deeply embedded in
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the child pageant world. Her baseline existence, her daily life
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was about presenting a highly curated, polished, perfect image of
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wealth and happiness to the world.
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Speaker 1: So she was always kind of on stage.
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Speaker 2: She was in many ways of.
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Speaker 1: Performer, right, So she's someone who is used to projecting
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an image, and then the worst imaginable tragedy strikes and
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the entire world is suddenly analyzing her every tier. Her
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vocal inflection on television interviews, her body language.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, and this is where McCarthy's skill set becomes vital.
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The actor playing Patsy has to walk a razor thin,
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almost impossible tightrope. Oh so, she has to portray the visceral,
9:50
agonizing reality of a mother who has just lost her
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child in the most brutal way imaginable. She had to
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humanize that grief, but simultaneously, because the show must dix
10:00
blore the public suspicion surrounding the family, she has to
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portray a woman who acts and weighs the public found
10:05
bizarre or staged.
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Speaker 1: That sounds incredibly difficult.
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Speaker 2: It is. She has to play a woman who is
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trying to maintain a performance of normalcy while her reality
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is completely shattered. If McCarthy plays her too warmly, critics
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will say the show is biased and defending the family.
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Speaker 1: But if she plays her too coldly, if she.
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Speaker 2: Plays her too coldly or calculated, it feeds the tabloid
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monster and invites the very defamation suits. The studio fears.
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She has to live in that murky, ambiguous middle ground.
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Speaker 1: It's a performance within a performance which brings us to
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the tragedy itself. The reason the show requires such masterful
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acting and the reason it generated such intense legal panic
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all comes down to the baffling, contradictory reality of a
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single night in Boulder, Colorado.
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Speaker 2: The timeline is everything.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, to understand why the truth has been buried for
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thirty years, we have to look at the timeline, and
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the deeper you get into the Kiss files from our sources,
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the less sense any of it makes.
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Speaker 2: The timeline is where every single standard investigative assumption just
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breaks down.
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Speaker 1: Let's set the scene exactly as the case histories lay
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it out. It is late December nineteen ninety six. The
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Ramseys live in Boulder. They are an incredibly affluent family,
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and that wealth is a crucial factor in how this
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case unfolds.
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Speaker 2: Right, Oh, absolutely central.
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Speaker 1: John Ramsey is the president of Access Graphics, which is
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a highly successful computer services company, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.
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No less, they live in a massive, sprawling, multi level
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home at seven fifty five fifteenth Street. They have two children,
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a nine year old son, Burke and their six year
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old daughter. John Benet and John Beney is heavily involved
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in the child beauty pageant's circuit she holds titles like
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little Miss Colorado.
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Speaker 2: This setting is vital to the psychology of the case.
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This is the absolute picture of American suburban safety, wealth status,
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and the very visible, highly specific world of child pageants.
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They put the family in a spotlight even before the tragedy.
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It created an area of invulnerability that the crime completely shattered.
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Speaker 1: So it's Christmas Day. The family goes to a friend's
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house for a Christmas party. They return home that night.
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According to their statements, everyone is put to bed. Everything
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is perfectly normal. But the next morning, the morning of
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December twenty sixth, everything fractures. At five thirty am, Patsy
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Ramsey wakes up, walks down the back staircase, and discovers
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a ransom note, and at five point fifty two am
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she calls nine to one one to report her daughter missing.
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Speaker 2: And that twenty two minute window from the moment Patsy
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says she found the note to the moment the police
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are dispatched. Yeah, is the beginning of an investigative fog
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that is never lifted.
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Speaker 1: We really need to spend some serious time breaking down
12:42
this ransom note, because looking at the case files, this
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piece of evidence defies all logic. First of all, it
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is two and a half pages long. Yes, it's roughly
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three hundred and seventy words. I want to emphasize to
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you listening how insane that is. In the history of
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criminal kidnappings, a ransom note is usually a few hurried sentences.
12:59
You know, we have your child, bring this much money
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to this location. Don't call the cops.
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Speaker 2: It is practically unheard of. In forensic behavioral analysis, Well,
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you have to consider the psychology of a home invasion.
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If an intruder breaks into a house to kidnap a child,
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their primary objective is speed in stealth. They want to
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get in and get out before anyone wakes up. Right,
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you don't want to hang around exactly. Sitting down to
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write a three hundred and seventy word essay introduces a massive,
13:24
unnecessary risk of discovery. It implies the author felt incredibly
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comfortable or had a significant amount of time to spend
13:31
in the home.
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Speaker 1: And it wasn't just long. It was theatrical. The note
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referenced action movies like Dirty Harry and Speed. But the
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detail that truly shifted the entire trajectory of the investigation
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is the demand itself.
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Speaker 2: The dollar amount.
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Speaker 1: Yes, the note demanded exactly one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars,
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not a million dollars, not half a million, one hundred
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and eighteen thousand dollars, and our sources point out that
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this was the exact to the dollar amount of a
13:57
corporate bonus that John Ramsey had recently received from his company.
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I mean, how is that possible?
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Speaker 2: That is the detailed that instantly directed police suspicion inward.
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You have to ask yourself, how does an outside intruder,
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a foreign faction, as the note claimed to be, know
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the precise dollar amount of a private corporate bonus.
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Speaker 1: It's two coincidental.
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Speaker 2: It strongly suggests an intimate knowledge of the family's private finances. Furthermore,
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the note was not brought to the scene. It was
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written on paper torn from a legal pad found inside
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the Ramsey's own home.
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Speaker 1: Wait their own notepad.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and it was written using a sharpie pen belonging
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to the Ramseys, which was found put back in its place.
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Speaker 1: So the kidnapper doesn't bring a note, they break in,
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find a notepad, find a pen, sit down in the house,
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write two and a half pages of movie quotes, demand
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an exact bonus amount, put the pen away, and leave
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the note on the stairs.
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Speaker 2: That's what the evidence suggests.
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Speaker 1: It is completely bizarre. But as baffling as the note is,
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what happens after the nine to one to one call
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is an absolute tragedy of par poo.
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Speaker 2: It is the textbook example of how a crime scene
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is destroyed.
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Speaker 1: The nine one one call goes out. The police arrive,
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but Patsy had also called friends to come over, and
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I want to make sure I understand the mechanics of
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this failure. The police get there and they don't secure
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the house.
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Speaker 2: Why because they were operating strictly under a kidnapping protocol.
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What does that mean When a child is missing and
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a ransom note is present, The immediate assumption is that
15:23
the child is alive and somewhere else. The house is
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viewed as the staging area for the parents to await
15:29
a phone call, not the site of a homicide.
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Speaker 1: Oh I see.
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Speaker 2: Consequently, the Bolder Police Department did not secure the perimeter
15:37
of the seven hundred and fifty five to fifteenth Street home.
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They didn't take off rooms. They allowed friends, victims, advocates,
15:44
and family members to walk freely through the house. People
15:48
were in the kitchen, cleaning up, making coffee, comforting the parents.
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Speaker 1: I was trying to think of an analogy for this,
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and the best I can come up with is that
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treating that house like a gathering space instead of a
15:57
crime scene is like trying to read a vital document
16:00
after someone dropped it in a puddle.
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Speaker 2: That's very apps like.
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Speaker 1: The letters are still technically on the page, but the
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ink is bleeding everywhere. You can't tell a C from
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an E. Every footprint, every stray fiber from a friend's sweater,
16:11
every wiped counter completely scrambled. The forensic data tragically accurate.
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Speaker 2: The microscopic trace evidence, which is the absolute bedrock of
16:19
modern forensic science, was trampled. Any clear path that could
16:23
have pointed definitively to a suspect was erased by well
16:27
meaning friends and a staggering lack of command presence by
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the initial officers, which.
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Speaker 1: Leads to the most heartbreaking and legally destructive moment of
16:35
the entire day. It's around one pm. Detective Linda arn
16:39
is at the house and she makes a fateful request.
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Yes she asks John Ramsay and his friend Fleet White
16:46
to search the house from top to bottom to see
16:47
if anything is missing. John goes down into the basement.
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Now this basement is a labyrinth of different rooms. He
16:54
goes to a specific room, the wine cellar, a door
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that had been checked earlier that morning but hadn't been
16:59
fully opened because it latched. John opens it and he
17:02
finds John Binnet.
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Speaker 2: The details from the case files are deeply disturbing. She
17:06
was found on the floor, partially covered by a white blanket.
17:09
She had a piece of duct tape placed over her mouth,
17:11
her hands were bound, and there was a garroat tightly
17:14
wrapped around her neck.
17:15
Speaker 1: Let's explain the mechanics of this, because I think a
17:17
lot of people hear garat and just think of a
17:19
piece of rope. But the sources highlight that this was
17:22
a highly specific, complex device. How does a grot actually
17:27
work in this context?
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Speaker 2: It wasn't just a simple ligature. It was constructed from
17:31
a length of white nylon cord, but it utilized a
17:35
broken piece of a wooden paintbrush handle as a toggle.
17:38
A toggle Yes, this creates a mechanical advantage. By tying
17:42
the cord around the neck and inserting the stick, the
17:45
killer could twist the stick using it as a lever
17:48
or a fulcrum to tighten the cord with immense ratcheting force.
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Speaker 1: That's horrifying.
17:53
Speaker 2: It is a torsion mechanism. This requires time to construct
17:57
and a grim understanding of mechanical Leverageignificantly, the paintbrush used
18:01
to create this device belonged to Patsy Ramsey's art supplies
18:04
found nearby in the basement.
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Speaker 1: Again, the weapon is sourced from within the house. So
18:08
John finds his daughter, and you can completely understand the
18:11
sheer panic and instinct of a parent in that moment.
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He doesn't wait for the police. He picks her up
18:17
and he carries her body upstairs.
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Speaker 2: And while utterly understandable on a human level, the forensic
18:22
devastation of that single action is.
18:25
Speaker 1: Absolute because he moved her.
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Speaker 2: By picking her up and moving her, he destroyed the
18:30
primary crime scene. He brought her body upstairs into the
18:33
living room, a secondary location that had already been heavily
18:36
contaminated by the friends and police. The positioning of the body,
18:40
the immediate trace evidence on the floor, the integrity of
18:43
the blank y was all compromised from the moment he
18:46
carried her up those stairs. The investigators were effectively blindfolded.
18:50
Speaker 1: It is agonizing to read, and as we look at
18:52
the autopsy and the physical evidence, we see exactly how
18:55
that contamination ruined everything. Because without a pristine room, the
19:00
police had no choice but to interrogate the microscopic world,
19:03
the actual forensics on the body, and the specific anomalies
19:06
in the house. But instead of providing clarity, the physical
19:09
evidence just plunged the investigation into total chaos.
19:12
Speaker 2: That is the profound tragedy of this case. The evidence speaks,
19:17
but because its context was destroyed, it speaks in riddles.
19:20
Speaker 1: Let's break down the autopsy findings. The official cause of
19:23
death was listed as asphyxia by strangulation associated with cranio
19:28
cerebral trauma, meaning she suffered a massive skull fracture from
19:32
a blunt force impact and she was strangled with the groat.
19:36
The coroner noted vaginal trauma though there was no seman present,
19:40
but then tucked inside the autopsy report is a detail
19:44
that completely upends the timeline the parents provided. The pineapple.
19:48
Speaker 2: Ah, Yes, the pineapple is arguably the most fiercely debated
19:52
piece of circumstantial evidence in the entire file.
19:55
Speaker 1: The coroner found partially digested pineapple in her stomach, and
19:58
upper intestinal tract, and upstairs, investigators found a bowl of
20:02
pineapple with a large serving spoon sitting out on the
20:04
kitchen table. Now why is this so critical? Because the
20:07
parents' timeline stated that they came home from the party,
20:10
Jean Manet was asleep in the car and they carried
20:12
her straight to bed, right, But the digestive rate of
20:14
the pineapple proves she was awake, she was in the
20:17
kitchen eating a snack shortly before she died.
20:19
Speaker 2: It completely shatters the narrative of a house asleep waiting
20:23
for a predator to break in. It forces investigators to
20:27
ask deeply uncomfortable questions. Who gave her that pineapple?
20:32
Speaker 1: Yeah? Who served it?
20:33
Speaker 2: If an outside intruder broke into the house to kidnap
20:36
or murder her, did they stop in the kitchen, find
20:38
a bowl, serve her pineapple, and sit with her while
20:42
she ate it? That completely defies the behavioral profile of
20:46
a violent, stealthy home invasion.
20:48
Speaker 1: It really does.
20:49
Speaker 2: Conversely, if a family member gave her this snack, why
20:52
was it completely omitted from their timeline? Why would they
20:55
lie about it? It is a piece of the puzzle
20:57
that refuses to fit into a clean story.
21:00
Speaker 1: And it gets even more complicated when we look at
21:01
the actual forensic science. Let's start with the handwriting on
21:04
that two point five page ransom. Note the police have
21:07
Patsy Ramsey provide extensive handwriting samples, and our sources note
21:11
that the initial police analysis pointed heavily toward Patsy, but
21:15
legally it was ultimately deemed inconclusive. Why couldn't they just
21:19
match it?
21:19
Speaker 2: Because handwriting analysis, despite what we see in movies, is
21:23
not a binary science like fingerprinting. It is highly subjective,
21:26
so it's not a sure thing. No. It relies on
21:29
a document examiner identifying subtle similarities in letter formation, spacing,
21:34
and pressure. But if a person is writing under extreme
21:37
psychological distress, or more importantly, if they are intentionally attempting
21:42
to disguise their handwriting by writing with their non dominant
21:45
hand or altering their style, it becomes incredibly difficult to
21:49
make a definitive, legally binding match.
21:52
Speaker 1: So it was just a clue, not proof exactly.
21:55
Speaker 2: The similarities gave the police a strong intuitive direction to look,
21:59
but it wasn't silver bullet they could take to a jury.
22:01
Speaker 1: But then we get to the actual silver bullet. The DNA,
22:04
and this completely contradicts the internal anomalies like the note
22:08
and the pineapple. Investigators found what is known as touch
22:11
DNA on John Benet's clothing, specifically on the waistband of
22:14
her long John's and on our underwear.
22:16
Speaker 2: Wait before we go further, can you explain exactly what
22:19
touch DNA is compared to regular DNA, because I think
22:21
people will assume it means a pool of blood. That's
22:24
a vital distinction. When we think of traditional DNA evidence,
22:27
we think of bodily fluids, blood, saliva, semen. These yield large,
22:32
robust DNA profiles. Touch DNA is entirely different. It refers
22:38
to the microscopic skin cells epithelial cells that are left
22:41
behind simply when a person touches an object.
22:44
Speaker 1: Just from touching something.
22:45
Speaker 2: Yes, every time you touch a table or a piece
22:48
of clothing, you leave behind trace amounts of your genetic material.
22:51
The technology to extract and amplify these microscopic, often degraded
22:56
samples was in its infancy in nineteen ninety six. As
22:59
the years progressed, scientists were able to isolate a profile
23:03
from the clothing, and that profile belonged to an unknown
23:05
mail It did not match John Ramsey.
23:07
Speaker 1: It did not match Burke Ramsey. It was an unidentified
23:10
outsider exactly.
23:11
Speaker 2: And this is the great schism of the John Binney
23:13
Ramsey case. You have the behavioral evidence, the note written
23:16
on the family's paper, the impossibility of one hundred and
23:19
eighteen thousand dollars demand the pineapple, all screaming that the
23:23
event was internal, contained within the family. But then you
23:26
have the hard biological science, unknown male skin cells deposited
23:31
in the victim's underwear at the exact site of the assault,
23:34
screaming that an outside intruder committed the crime.
23:37
Speaker 1: And that schism didn't just confuse the public, it literally
23:40
tore the local government apart. The sources detail this massive,
23:44
bitter institutional warfare between the Boulder Police Department and the
23:48
District Attorney's office.
23:49
Speaker 2: It got very ugly.
23:51
Speaker 1: The police, looking at the behavioral oddities and the staged
23:55
feeling crime scene, zeroed in on the family. But the
23:58
District Attorney, Alex Hunter and later DA Mary Lacey, looked
24:02
at the touch DNA and the contaminated crime scene, and
24:05
they balked.
24:06
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate clash between investigative theory and prosecutorial reality.
24:11
A detective builds a narrative, they connect the dots of
24:14
bizarre behavior. But a district attorney has a completely different job.
24:18
Speaker 1: They have to prove it in court.
24:19
Speaker 2: Exactly, they have to walk into a courtroom and prove
24:22
that narrative to twelve ordinary people beyond a reasonable doubt.
24:26
Alex Hunter looked at the bleeding ink of that crime scene.
24:29
He looked at the inconclusive handwriting. He looked at the
24:32
fact that unknown male DNA was on the victim, and
24:35
he knew that any competent defense attorney would point to
24:38
that DNA, point to the unsealed house, and easily create
24:42
reasonable doubt.
24:43
Speaker 1: But hold on. This is the part of the deep
24:45
dive that literally made my jaw drop. The sources reveal
24:48
that in nineteen ninety nine, the authorities actually convened a
24:51
grand jury. Twelve citizens sat in a room, reviewed the evidence,
24:56
and they voted to indict John and Patsy Ramsay on
24:58
charges of child endangerment and accessory to a crime.
25:01
Speaker 2: They did.
25:01
Speaker 1: They voted to formally charge them, and yet da Alex
25:04
Hunter refused to sign the indictment. He put it in
25:07
a drawer, declined to prosecute, and the public didn't know
25:10
this grand jury vote even existed for fourteen years. It
25:13
was kept completely secret until a judge ordered its release
25:16
in twenty thirteen. How is that legally possible? How does
25:19
a single da override a jury of citizens?
25:21
Speaker 2: It sounds shocking, but you have to understand the specific
25:24
legal mechanism of a grand jury. A grand jury does
25:27
not determine guilt. They operate on a much lower legal
25:31
threshold called probable cause. Probable cause, yes, they are simply asked,
25:36
is it probable, based on the evidence presented that a
25:39
crime was committed by these people? It is essentially a
25:42
fifty one percent certainty standard. Furthermore, a grand jury is
25:47
a one sided presentation.
25:49
Speaker 1: Only the prosecutor speaks exactly.
25:51
Speaker 2: The prosecutor presents their evidence, and there is no defense
25:54
attorney in the room to cross examine witnesses or poke
25:56
holes in the theories. It is notoriously easy for for
26:00
a prosecutor to get a grand jury to indict, But
26:03
Alex Hunter knew that an indictment is just a piece
26:06
of paper. He had to try the case at the
26:08
beyond a reasonable doubtstandard, a ninety nine percent certain.
26:11
Speaker 1: Which he didn't think he had right.
26:13
Speaker 2: He made a highly controversial but mathematically calculated legal decision.
26:17
If he took them to trial with that flawed evidence
26:19
and they were acquitted, double jeopardy attaches, they could never
26:21
ever be tried again, even if new undeniable evidence surface
26:25
years later. He refused to pull the trigger on a
26:27
flawed gun.
26:28
Speaker 1: And the secrecy rule surrounding grand jury's is why it
26:31
stayed buried for so long. This boardroom warfare between the
26:36
cops who thought they had the killers and the lawyers
26:38
who knew they didn't advocase is going to be the
26:41
dramatic engine of the Netflix series. You have Shay Wiggham
26:44
playing Alex Hunter. You can just imagine the screaming matches
26:47
over conference tables. It showcases a system that completely cannibalized.
26:53
Speaker 2: Itself, and nature abhors a vacuum. When the official justice
26:57
system fails to deliver a coherent answer, the void is
27:00
instantly filled with speculation, rumor, and competing theories.
27:05
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the theories themselves. Because the evidence
27:07
was so contradictory, three distinct narratives emerged to explain the unexplainable. Now,
27:13
before we dive into these, I want to be incredibly
27:15
clear to you, the listener. We are strictly relying on
27:17
the curated case files and sources provided to us today.
27:21
We are breaking down these theories as they exist in
27:23
the public record.
27:24
Speaker 2: Yes, that's an important distinction.
27:25
Speaker 1: We are absolutely not taking a side, nor are we
27:28
endorsing any viewpoint. Our goal is simply to explain what
27:32
these theories are and why people believe them based on
27:35
the mechanisms of the evidence.
27:36
Speaker 2: It is essential to maintain absolute objectivity here because the
27:40
passionate defense of these various theories is exactly what fueled
27:44
the thirty years of bitter public debate.
27:46
Speaker 1: Let's start with theory one family involvement. This is the
27:50
narrative that the Boulder Police Department aggressively pursued in the
27:53
early days. It focuses heavily on Patsy Ramsey, positing that
27:58
the death was not a premeditated murder, but a tragic
28:01
accident resulting from a sudden snap.
28:03
Speaker 2: Of rage, an accidental death that was covered up right.
28:06
Speaker 1: The theory suggests an altercation late at night, perhaps over
28:09
the pineapple or over a bed wedding incident, which Jean
28:12
Benay had a history of. In this scenario, Passey strikes
28:15
her daughter in a moment of lost temper, causing the
28:18
fatal skull fracture. Then, realizing the horrific magnitude of what happened,
28:22
and terrified of losing their remaining child and their pristine
28:26
social standing, the parents construct an elaborate cover up to
28:29
make it look like a kidnap and gone wrong.
28:31
Speaker 2: The proponents of this theory rely almost entirely on the
28:35
internal anomalies. They point to the sheer absurdity of the
28:38
two and a half page ransom.
28:39
Speaker 1: Note, which we discussed exactly.
28:41
Speaker 2: They argue that the note, being written on the family's
28:44
own notepad, with their own pen, and demanding the highly
28:47
specific one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars bonus amount, is
28:51
definitive proof of an inside job. They point to the
28:55
Pineapple timeline, and crucially, they point to the fact that
28:58
the initial police walk through the found no obvious, undeniable
29:02
signs of forced entry into the home.
29:04
Speaker 1: So no broken door or anything.
29:06
Speaker 2: Right to those who believe this theory, the complex garrote
29:08
wasn't the tool of a sadistic killer. It was a desperate,
29:12
panicked attempt to stage a crime scene and misdirect the police.
29:16
Speaker 1: It relies on the idea that the cover up was
29:18
so bizarre and nonsensical precisely because it was improvised by
29:22
terrified people in the middle of the night. Now, there
29:24
is an offshoot of this family involvement theory, theory two,
29:27
often referred to in true crime circles as BDI Burke
29:31
did it.
29:31
Speaker 2: This theory shifts the initial accidental act of violence away
29:34
from the parents and onto the nine year old brother
29:36
Burke right.
29:38
Speaker 1: The speculation here is that Burke and John Benet got
29:41
into a dispute late at night in the kitchen, potentially
29:44
over that bowl of pineapple. The theory posits that Burke,
29:48
perhaps not understanding the lethal force he was using, struck
29:52
his sister with a heavy object like a flashlight, causing
29:55
the fatal.
29:55
Speaker 2: Trauma, and then the parents finder Yeah.
29:58
Speaker 1: The parents, discovering their daughter dying or dead, decide they
30:01
cannot lose both their children to the justice system, so
30:04
they stage the kidnapping and the strangulation to protect their
30:07
nine year old son.
30:09
Speaker 2: It is vital to contextualize this is our sources explicitly
30:12
note this is widely considered a fringe theory by many experts.
30:15
It's very controversial, extremely it has been fiercely, consistently and
30:20
vehemently denied by the Ramsey family. Burke Ramsey was a
30:23
child when this happened. He has lived almost his entire
30:26
life completely out of the public eye, yet he has
30:28
been subjected to immense, often cruel, public scrutiny whenever this
30:33
theory is resurrected in the tabloids. The psychological underpinning of
30:37
this theory is that it attempts to explain the parent's
30:39
bizarre staging behavior without attributing actual murderous intent to them.
30:45
It frames their actions as an extreme, misguided form of
30:49
parental protection, and.
30:50
Speaker 1: Then we pivot to the complete opposite end of the spectrum.
30:54
Theor or three, the intruder theory. This is the theory
30:57
that the Ramsey family has steadfastly maintained since day, and
31:00
it is the theory with the most significant forensic science
31:03
backing it up. It is the argument is straightforward, A
31:05
sadistic killer, completely unknown to the family, broke into that
31:08
massive house, committed this horrific crime in the basement, and
31:11
staged the note to throw off the timeline.
31:13
Speaker 2: And this theory hinges entirely on the external physical evidence
31:18
The cornerstone of the intruder theory is the biological fact
31:22
of the unknown male touch DNA found on the waistband
31:25
of the victim's long johns and inside her underwear.
31:28
Speaker 1: You can't ignore the DNA exactly.
31:31
Speaker 2: It is an undeniable scientific reality that an unidentified man
31:35
left genetic material on the victim at the exact site
31:38
of the sexual assault.
31:40
Speaker 1: But the supporters of this theory don't just rely on
31:42
the DNA. They point to a broken window in the
31:45
basement as the point of entry. They point to unidentified
31:48
footprints found near the body. They point to unidentified hairs
31:52
found on the blanket that did not match anyone in
31:54
the family. And there is even a neighbor who reported
31:57
hearing an unexplained scream in the middle of the night.
32:00
Speaker 2: A major figure in championing this theory was Lou Smitt.
32:03
He was a highly respected veteran homicide detective who was
32:06
initially brought in by the District attorney's office to help
32:09
build the case against the parents. Oh really, yes, But
32:12
after reviewing the file, Smit completely changed his mind and
32:16
became the family's strongest advocate. He looked at the garat
32:20
He argued that the complex torsion mechanism, the use of
32:23
the cord and the fulcrum pointed directly to a seasoned, sadistic.
32:27
Speaker 1: Killer, someone who knew what they were doing right.
32:30
Speaker 2: He argued that a panicking mother in the middle of
32:32
the night does not have the presence of mind or
32:35
the dark mechanical knowledge to construct a ratcheting garat. He
32:39
also focused heavily on the bizarre SBTC sign off at
32:42
the bottom of the ransom note.
32:43
Speaker 1: What did that mean?
32:44
Speaker 2: Well, some analysts interpret it as an acronym for saved
32:47
by the cross or something similar, suggesting a ritualistic, deeply
32:51
disturbed motive from an outside predator.
32:54
Speaker 1: And this intruder theory wasn't just a fringed defense, It
32:57
held massive legal weight. Our sources highlight that in two
33:00
thousand and eight, DA Mary Lacey took the unprecedented step
33:04
of officially publicly writing a letter exonerating the Ramsey family,
33:09
based specifically on the advancements in touch DNA testing. Now
33:13
later officials clarified that her letter wasn't legally binding in
33:16
a courtroom, but it demonstrates how incredibly powerful that DNA
33:20
evidence was. It changed the official stance it did, And
33:23
let's be clear, to this day, the Boulder Police Department
33:26
still classifies this as an open, active homicide investigation. They
33:30
have logged over twenty one thousand tips. They are still
33:33
actively looking for that intruder.
33:35
Speaker 2: The tension between these narratives, the internal psychological anomalies of
33:40
the family versus the hard external DNA evidence of an intruder,
33:45
that is exactly what created a media firestorm that burned
33:48
for decades.
33:49
Speaker 1: A total media circus.
33:50
Speaker 2: Which brings us to the final piece of this puzzle,
33:54
how the public actually consumed this tragedy.
33:57
Speaker 1: Welcome to Part five of the deep dive Trial by
34:00
Media and the True Crime Machine. Because these conflicting theories
34:03
didn't just stay quietly tucked away in Manila folders on
34:05
a detective's desk and Boulder. They were aggressively.
34:08
Speaker 2: Leaked, oh constantly.
34:09
Speaker 1: Factions within the police department leaked against the DA, the
34:12
DA leaked against the cops, and all of it was
34:14
broadcast to the world, creating a media circus that frankly
34:18
changed the entire landscape of how society consumes true crime.
34:21
Speaker 2: It was an absolute paradigm shift. You have to look
34:23
at the era. It was late nineteen ninety six into
34:26
nineteen ninety seven, the twenty four hour cable news cycle
34:29
was just reaching its.
34:30
Speaker 1: Adolescence CNN, Fox News exactly.
34:33
Speaker 2: They needed content to fill the hours, and this case
34:36
had every single conceivable ingredient for a tabloid explosion.
34:39
Speaker 1: It was a perfect storm. The tabloids zeroed in relentlessly
34:42
on the family's extreme wealth. They constantly showed footage of
34:46
the massive house, but more than anything, they fixated on
34:49
Patsy's pageant mother image.
34:51
Speaker 2: That became the focal point.
34:53
Speaker 1: Every single night on the news. They played those home
34:55
videos of Jean Benet competing in pageants on a loop.
34:58
The heavy makeup, the elaborate adult costumes, the teased hair.
35:02
It created this deeply unsettling juxtaposition that the media really exploited.
35:07
Speaker 2: It allowed the press to paint a very specific narrative
35:09
of superficiality hiding a dark, twisted underbelly. It felt like
35:13
a suburban gothic horror story. And because the investigation was
35:16
so deadlocked, the media stepped in to act as the jury.
35:19
Speaker 1: They definitely did.
35:20
Speaker 2: The Ramseyes were tried, convicted, and endlessly debated in the
35:24
court of public opinion. Long before that secret grand jury
35:27
ever sat down in nineteen ninety nine.
35:29
Speaker 1: When I was reading through the sources, I realized this
35:32
case was essentially the analog blueprint for modern Internet sleuthing. Obviously,
35:36
this was before Twitter, before TikTok, before massive reddit threads,
35:41
but the behavior was exactly the same.
35:43
Speaker 2: It really was.
35:44
Speaker 1: It was a massive nationwide Reddit thread playing out on
35:47
the covers of grocery store tabloids and evening news panels.
35:51
Everyone sitting in their living room felt like they were
35:54
an armchair detective. They were analyzing Patsy's blinking rate during interviews.
35:59
They were dissecting the syntax of the ransom note on
36:01
morning talk shows.
36:03
Speaker 2: It was the birth of a very specific modern kind
36:06
of public voyeurism for the nation. As the case files observe,
36:10
it represented a profound loss of innocence. The concept that unimaginable, intimate,
36:15
horrific violence could occur inside a seemingly impenetrable, wealthy suburban
36:20
fortress on Christmas night shattered a core cultural illusion of safety.
36:24
Speaker 1: It made people feel unsafe in their own homes.
36:26
Speaker 2: It terrified people, and human beings often process terror through
36:32
obsessive consumption.
36:34
Speaker 1: Which brings us full circle back to Netflix, Richard Lgravinese,
36:37
Melissa McCarthy, and the ethics of this upcoming show. Here
36:41
we are almost exactly thirty years later, and we are
36:43
still consuming it. We are still mining this family's tragedy
36:47
for content we are based strictly on the sources we've reviewed.
36:50
It raises a massive debate. Does turning this real, unresolved
36:54
pain into an eight episode prestige entertainment product actually add
36:58
value to the world, or does it just rehash a
37:01
family's trauma for corporate profit.
37:03
Speaker 2: It is the defining ethical question of the entire true
37:06
crime genre. Defenders of the Netflix series and dramatizations in
37:09
general argue that these shows for a vital purpose. They
37:12
keep the case a lot.
37:13
Speaker 1: That's the main defense.
37:14
Speaker 2: Yes, they introduce the facts to a brand new generation
37:17
of viewers who weren't born in nineteen ninety six, and
37:21
in our current era where modern forensic genealogy is solving
37:24
decades old cold cases on a weekly basis, keeping the
37:27
story loud and present in the public consciousness could theoretically
37:31
generate the one tip needed, or the intense public pressure
37:34
on the police department needed to finally crack that touch DNA.
37:38
Speaker 1: But the critics have an incredibly strong counter argument. Our
37:41
sources explicitly note that John Ramsey has been highly vocally
37:46
critical of various media portrayals over the years.
37:48
Speaker 2: He has not been happy with him now.
37:50
Speaker 1: Critics argue that Netflix and studios like them are simply
37:54
profiting off a tragedy that irrevocably destroyed a family. They
37:57
are taking the absolute worst night of real people lives
38:00
and packaging it into bingeable weekend content. The ethical scrutiny
38:04
on the production team is going to be intense. They
38:07
are walking a razor thin line between illumination and exploitation.
38:11
Speaker 2: They absolutely are, and the fact that Skydan's originally shelved
38:14
the project proves that the industry is fully aware of
38:17
how dangerous that line is. But ultimately, the magnetic, inescapable
38:22
pull of the mystery and the cultural legacy of the
38:24
case overrode the corporate hesitation.
38:27
Speaker 1: We have covered an immense amount of ground today. Let's
38:29
trace the journey we just took. We started in the
38:32
high stakes corporate boardrooms of Paramount and Netflix, breaking down
38:36
how a massive television project starring a listers was killed
38:39
by legal fears of defamation. Put in turnaround and then resurrected.
38:44
Then we descended into the tragic, utterly confusing timeline of
38:48
December nineteen ninety six in Boulder. We examined the impossible
38:52
psychology of a two and a half page ransom note
38:54
demanding an exact corporate bonus.
38:56
Speaker 2: We look at how treating a crime scene like a
38:58
gathering space destrayed the content of the evidence. We broke
39:01
down the mechanics of the garat and the timeline paradox
39:04
of the pineapple.
39:04
Speaker 1: The pineapple was crazy.
39:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. We explored the critical distinction between touch DNA and
39:10
bodily fluids and how those contradictions led to a complete
39:14
breakdown of the institutional justice system, culminating in a secret
39:17
grand jury indictment that a DA refused to prosecute.
39:21
Speaker 1: And we impartially laid out the three major theories that
39:23
rushed into fill that void, the family staging theory, the
39:27
brother theory, and the intruder theory backed by the science
39:30
of the DNA. Finally, we looked at how the cable
39:32
news media turned this localized tragedy into the blueprint for
39:36
our modern obsessive true crime culture. This case, more than
39:40
almost any other, remains a haunting symbol of the absolute
39:43
limits of our justice system.
39:45
Speaker 2: It is a stark reminder that sometimes having all the
39:48
pieces of the puzzle doesn't give you the picture. Sometimes
39:51
the evidence just leads to an infinite loop of questions.
39:54
Speaker 1: So for you listening right now, here's the takeaway. The
39:56
next time you queue up a true crime drama on Netflix,
39:59
whether it's it's the Monster series or this upcoming John
40:02
Benny revival, or any other dramatization, take a moment to
40:05
think about the invisible tight rope the creators are walking.
40:09
Think about the legal mind fields. They are constantly trying
40:13
to balance the noble pursuit of the truth with the unrelenting,
40:16
profitable demand for our entertainment.
40:18
Speaker 2: It's a delicate balance.
40:20
Speaker 1: And remember that beneath the scripts, the brilliant casting of
40:23
actors like Melissa McCarthy, and the beautiful cinematography, there are
40:26
real lives and real families who are still desperately waiting
40:30
for closure.
40:31
Speaker 2: And I want to leave you with one final lingering
40:33
thought to mull over when you turn this off. We
40:35
spend a lot of time discussing the unknown male touch
40:38
DNA found on the clothing as forensic genealogy continues to
40:43
advance at an astonishing exponential rate, mapping out family trees
40:47
and solving impossible cold cases every single week. We are
40:50
entering an era where the hard science might finally suddenly
40:55
catch up to thirty years of speculation.
40:57
Speaker 1: It's possible.
40:58
Speaker 2: So consider this. If that might roscopic trace of unknown
41:01
male DNA is run through a new genealogical database and
41:05
it's finally matched to a definitive name tomorrow, well how
41:09
will we collectively reckon with the three decades we spent
41:12
turning a grieving family's darkest tragedy into our favorite bingeble
41:16
armchair mystery.
41:18
Speaker 1: It's a heavy, necessary thought. It turns out, when you
41:21
look closely at the machinery of the true crime industrial complex,
41:24
the broken pieces aren't always in the evidence. Sometimes they're
41:27
in how we consume it. Thanks for joining us on
41:29
the deep dive. We'll see you next time.