The Intruder theory is one that the District Attorney’s office has supported in the past. Within this theory, there are many possibilities of what could have happened to JonBenet. It may have been one intruder or several. It could have been done for a variety of reasons. There are still so many unknowns that it’s hard to even narrow down whether it was an intruder or someone inside the house.

There have been several authorities have investigated the intruder theory and what possibly could have happened to her that night. Let’s discuss those.

Evidence of An Intruder

This evidence supports the following theories.

• Unidentified male DNA in JonBenet’s underwear.
• Unidentified boot mark in the basement room where JonBenet was found.
• At least four easy access points made it so forced entry wasn’t required.
  • Two windows were slightly open to allow the cords for the outdoor Christmas lights to be plugged in inside.
  • One unlocked door.
  • One broken window in the basement.

Detective Lou Smit

Lou Smit was a detective on this case. He worked it hard and tried to understand what happened. Even after he retired, he never stopped looking for the answer even to the day he died. His theory was that someone entered through the broken window in the basement and then subdued JonBenet with a stun gun leading her down to the basement.

Reasoning

There were two small marks found on JonBenet’s body that seemed to look like taser or stun gun marks.

Critics and Contradictions

One might think that maybe the intruder entered through the open windows or the unlocked door. That’s a possibility, but more questions remain.

There were doubts that the marks on JonBenet’s back were actually from a taser. In order to test this, Sgt. Jay Wilson of the Telluride Marshal’s Department volunteered to be tased. After he was tased, they found that Wilson actually had more energy than before, which shows that a taser isn’t the best option for subduing someone.

Moreover, the marks on his skin left by the taser looked nothing like the marks that were found on JonBenet.

Author Stephen Singular

Stephen Singular wrote a book called Presumed Guilty about this case and how he believes the police were too hasty to focus on the parents as sole suspects. He believes that the Ramseys had no fault other than “perhaps unwittingly exposing their daughter to sexual predators”.

His theory is that the intruder was a sexual offender of some kind. He consulted with cybercrime specialists when writing his book. These specialists argued that JonBenet had piqued the interest of child pornographers and pedophiles associated with the child pageant scene in the 90s.

Reasoning

JonBenet was very much in the public eye, and in the public eye, she did not look 4-6 years old. In many of her pageant pictures and outfits, she looked at least 10 years older. This obviously can appeal to many disgusting creeps.

Singular also states that at the time of her murder, there were 38 registered sex offenders living within a 2-mile radius of the Ramsey home. 38 sex offenders. That’s just too many sex offenders.

I sat down and tried to figure out what the average amount of sex offenders in a 2-mile radius was in the 90s. (Guys, that’s a lot of math.) So then I had my more mathematically minded husband sit down and try to figure it out, and we still couldn’t crack it. We just ended up frustrated and depressed.

It’s still insane that there were 38 sex offenders in a 2-mile radius, especially considering that Megan’s law (the law that requires sex offenders to be registered and kept track of) was codified on October 21, 1995. This means the sex offenders in her neighborhood were only the ones that had been registered in the last year. Any sex offenders before that and all of the uncaught offenders were not counted in that 38.

Linda Hoffman-Pugh, the Ramsey’s housekeeper, also stated that JonBenet started wetting her bed in the months before her murder. Patsy started having her wear pullups to bed, but then eventually switched over to a plastic bed sheet. Bed-wetting at the age of 5-6 isn’t always a concern. There can be many causes for bedwetting at this age, and most of them aren’t too serious. But this, along with the other evidence, points to a possibility that JonBenet could have been going through big stressful changes or that she was being molested.

Critics and Contradictions

There was no evidence of conventional rape. No semen was found and there weren’t traditional marks or signs that a rape had occurred. If a sex offender or predator had committed this crime, one would think that there would be more evidence of conventional rape. This definitely doesn’t rule this theory out though.

There were indicators that sexual assault could have taken place either that night or in the past. There was definite vaginal bruising.

Suspects/Persons of Interest

As stated in part 1 of the JonBenet series, there was a long list of suspects and an even longer list of persons of interest in this case. While the Ramsey’s were the police force’s top suspects, there were many intruder suspects that caught the eye of other authorities.

Santa Claus (Bill McReynolds)

Bill McReynolds, otherwise known as Santa Claus while he was working his favorite job, was a name that came up as a person of interest. He had portrayed Santa Claus at the Ramsey’s house just two nights before JonBenet’s murder. This was the third time in a row that he had portrayed Santa at the Ramsey’s Christmas Party.

Some theorize that Santa told her to meet him downstairs the night of Christmas and he would have an extra surprise for her. Others said that JonBenet’s death closely followed the plot of a play that Bill’s wife had written before JonBenet’s murder.

Contradictions

Santa Claus being a suspect is simply based on hearsay and fiction as there is no evidence of either of those things. Police tested his DNA, blood, and handwriting samples and found that Santa Claus was not a suspect.

Further, Linda Harmonn-Pugh stated that Mrs. Claus came with Santa Claus to the party that year. She stated that “Santa looked kinda sick”. Later his wife said that he had recently gotten heart surgery and was still in recovery during that 1996 Christmas Party. The person who did this to JonBenet would have had to be in good shape to commit this crime.

Some people further state that maybe Bill hired someone to do the job for him and record the whole thing. This again is further hearsay as there is no evidence of that. In the investigation, there would have been a video recovered or some kind of conversation between Bill and this mystery intruder.

Aftermath

Even after the police exonerated him as a suspect, the Ramseys insisted Bill McReynolds was a suspect and publicly listed him as one in their book “Death of Innocence: The Untold Story of JonBenet’s Murder and How it’s Exploitation Compromised the Pursuit of Truth” (Whew. That’s a mouthful.)

Janet McReynolds, his wife, stated the following after his death: “He was scarred [and] devastated by the mere idea anyone would suspect him of a crime. He really took the role [of Santa] as his life goal. He loved being Santa, he loved little children, and then the Ramsey case destroyed that career and just devastated him. He loved that little girl. It’s a very sad thing in his life because he genuinely loved children, and it was the happiest part of his life.”

Depending on whether you think Bill McReynolds is innocent or guilty really changes how you interpret this quote from Janet. If he’s guilty, this quote about how hard it was for him to be a suspect is disgustingly insensitive and narcissistic. If he’s innocent, it’s heartbreaking that the Ramsey’s determination ruined his life.

Chris Wolf

Chris Wolf was a reporter whose girlfriend reported him as a suspect after JonBenet’s murder. She noticed that he was behaving very strangely the night of Christmas in 1996 and the following day.

She claimed that Chris and she had a big fight the night of Christmas and he stormed out of the house. He came back the next morning with muddy clothes. When the report of JonBenet came on TV he was furious. Chris also had a sweatshirt with the initials, S.B.T.C, the same initials that the ransom note author had signed the note with. The S.B.T.C. on his sweatshirt stood for the Santa Barbara Tennis Club.

The piece that tied him to the Ramseys is a previous article he had written. He had written an article about John Ramsey’s company Access Graphics. This could have given him insight as to what John Ramsey’s last Christmas bonus amounted to.

Lastly, he was reportedly friends with Bill McReynolds. This had believers of the multiple intruder theory craning their necks for more details.

After a deep search, I found no reasoning or explanation as to why Chris wasn’t a suspect or a person of interest or why he wasn’t looked into further. Basically, the only thing that I found was a court document from a court case where Chris sued the Ramsey’s for defamation. He didn’t win the case.

Part of me wonders if the lack of information was because his power and connections as a reporter helped him bury the story of him as a suspect. This combined with the fact that the police didn’t spend their resources investigating the intruder theory could have caused Chris Wolf to slip through the cracks.

Linda Hoffman-Pugh

A name you know well by now, Linda Hoffmann-Pugh was the Ramsey’s housekeeper at the time of JonBenet’s death. She was named a possible suspect by the Ramsey’s. She was 57-years-old and her husband, Mervin Pugh, was the Ramsey’s handyman.

According to Patsy, Linda had asked for a loan from the Ramseys. She was struggling for money and asked for a loan of several thousand dollars. Patsy says that she declined this loan, which she thinks might have been the motive for Linda committing JonBenet’s kidnapping/murder.

Lies

Linda brings up the loan in her questioning, and she tells a different story than Patsy. Linda willingly brought up this loan and said that Patsy agreed and said she’d get the money to her a couple days after Christmas.

Who is telling the truth?

Linda also claims to not know of the room JonBenet was found in. She stated she had no idea it existed. Linda and her husband had allegedly just recently been inside that room. Why lie about not knowing what that room was or that it even existed?

Suspect?

Although Linda’s questioning and contradictions don’t make her look the best, there wasn’t enough evidence for the police to consider her a true suspect. Not even the Ramseys were sure enough to label her as a suspect in their book.

Michael Helgoth

Michael Helgoth is a favored person of interest, sitting in the top 20 suspect list. A short while after JonBenet’s murder, District Attorney Alex Hunter announced that they were closing in on the killer. Michael committed suicide the next day.

This immediately made investigators look to Michael as the possible killer they were looking for. Upon their investigation of his suicide, they found a pair of Hi-Tec boots that could have made the boot print they were searching for, a stun gun, and a baseball cap with the letters S.B.T.C. They also found that he had a videotape with the newsreel about the unsolved kidnapping and murder of JonBenet.

Could Michael have committed suicide because he knew the authorities were closing in on him? Further investigation brought to light another theory.

Michael was right-handed, but the bullet went from left to right. This points to the fact that it possibly wasn’t a suicide at all. Authorities theorized that possibly there were two or more intruders and Michael was one of them. When the police started getting close, the other intruder silenced Michael.

They later tested the DNA and found that Michael was not a match and they cleared him as a person of interest.

Gary Howard Oliva

Gary Howard Oliva was arrested for two counts of attempted exploitation of a child and 1 count of sexual exploitation of a child in 2016. On January 10, 2019, Gary confessed to JonBenet’s murder to his friend in a series of letters saying that it was an accident.

Police have said that he’s confessed many times over the years and they’ve been investigating it thoroughly, but Gary’s DNA does not match the DNA found at the scene, so they’ve nearly ruled him out. They’ve continued keeping an eye on Gary, but haven’t made any attempts at pursuing him as the killer.

The friend that Gary confessed to, Michael Vail, said that his suspicions started when he got a call from Gary late on the night of December 26, 1996. Vail states. “He was sobbing and said, ‘I hurt a little girl.’” He tried to get more information from Gary but only got that he was in Boulder, Colorado. The next day, the reports came out about JonBenet, and Vil called the Boulder police telling them everything. Vail says they never got back to him. Three months later he called again and was sent to an answering machine collecting tips about JonBenet. Vail then left a message again and he never heard back from them.

Dance Class Rapist

Just a couple weeks ago, The Sun sat down with John Ramsey, JonBenet’s father, who is now 79. John is quoted saying that he believes that there is a connection between an attack carried out just months after JonBenet’s death on a girl who went to the same dance school as JonBenet.

Nine months after that Christmas night a similar attack happened just a few streets away. One of JonBenet’s former dance classmates woke up in the middle of the night to find a man in black standing by her bed with his hand on her mouth. He then sexually assaulted ‘Amy’ (a fake name for her privacy). Her mother ran in and chased the attacker away.

The Sun quotes Amy’s father as believing that if the mother had not heard her daughter’s screams she most likely would have died just as JonBenet did. Amy’s father also believes that this attacker had been stalking his family for quite a while, targeting Amy at her dance school. Amy’s father wanted an investigation done into a possible connection between this attack and JonBenet’s murder.

He then reported that he was “laughed off by Boulder police”. He believes that they were “fixated” on the idea that the murder came from inside the house.

Corrupt and Compromised

A lot of these suspects have been ruled out as the killer because of DNA evidence. This seems a little reckless since the crime scene was extremely compromised. I think when people had to face the fact that a little girl was brutally murdered, they wanted to throw someone away for it. The police wanted to throw the Ramsey’s away, so they solely focused on that theory. The District Attorney’s office was similarly focused on the intruder theory.

The case bounced back and forth between the two offices which further bungled and compromised the evidence. This leaves us more than two decades later with just as many questions as to what happened to JonBenet as the day she disappeared.

Now that we’ve discussed the intruder theory, it’s time to discuss the other side. Next week we’ll explore the possibility that JonBenet’s murder came from inside her own home.

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