Former Police Chief Mark Beckner Says JonBenet Ramsey Crime Scene Was Instantly Mishandled

Perhaps former Boulder, Colorado police chief, Mark Beckner, didn't exactly understand that his interview on Reddit early this week would be visible to the world, but many who have followed the JonBenet Ramsey case for nearly 20 years were thrilled to hear from him. Ramsey was the 6-year-old pageant queen that was found dead in her family's basement on Christmas Day, 1996. It was a case that absolutely gripped the nation and even though her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were officially exonerated in 2008, there has still been a sense that things just don't add up. Beckner now admits that many mistakes in the handling of the case were made.

The Ramsey's, an affluent Boulder family, had originally reported their daughter missing from her bedroom hours before she was actually found in their basement. Once her body was found, things were not handled by the book and it was in part because of who these people were.

"The crime scene was not handled properly and this later affected the investigation. [The Ramseys'] position in the community may have had something to do with decisions made that day, but I think the primary reason was a perfect storm-type scenario. It was the Christmas holiday and we were short staffed, we faced a situation as I said earlier that no one in the country had ever seen before or since, and there was confusion at the scene... As a result, some evidence was compromised. Yes, after that initial day, we felt pressure from the DA's office not to push too hard on the Ramseys. This was a constant source of frustration and much could be written about this and the reasons for it." explained Beckner.

The former police chief also says that investigators felt from day one that the crime scene was staged. They also noted that Ramsey appeared to have been knocked unconscious after being hit in the head but that strangulation 45 minutes later is actually what killed her. Every other detail about how her body was found from that point on appears to have been intended to mislead police into thinking that it was a kidnapping gone wrong.

Beckner also points out that this is the only case in FBI history where a ransom note has been written and then left at the crime scene, along with a body. That just doesn't add up. Also, after Patsy Ramsey was accused of writing the ransom note, investigators gave her a handwriting test that garnered lots of attention. When asked to write out the sum of $118,000 (which was supposedly the ransom amount), she wrote the literal words, not the actual number. Beckner says the feeling was that she had something to hide and that was why she wouldn't just write out the number.

Interestingly enough, Beckner has never gone on the record to say who he believes actually killed Ramsey because he thinks that the details in the case make it pretty clear. What do you think happened to her? Was the family involved in her death and the cover up that followed?