Less than two weeks after the murder of 6-year-old child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey, her 9-year-old brother, Burke, sketched drawings of his family at the request of a child psychologist. The artwork did not include JonBenét.
It was an omission that conspiracy theorists have drawn on during the past 20 years of the unsolved Boulder murder, theorists who point to Burke Ramsey as the killer of his sister.
“I don’t remember what was going through my head. But she was gone, so I didn’t draw her,” Burke Ramsey said in an interview on network television.
On Tuesday’s episode of the “Dr. Phil” talk show, host Phillip C. McGraw presented a variety of case theories and details of the murder investigation, asking Burke Ramsey questions about the psychologist tapes, Patsy Ramsey’s 911 call to police, the ransom note found inside the home and the bed-wetting theory, among other topics.
McGraw asked Burke Ramsey if he remembered attending his sister’s funeral.
“I remember the viewing,” Burke Ramsey, now 29, said. “The casket was small; her eyes were closed.”
Burke Ramsey stood silently before the casket. “I stood there, I guess, in disbelief.”
And so the tone was set for most of the show. Questions drew responses that fell into a pattern of “no,” “absolutely not,” “I don’t remember” and “I didn’t really get it.”
Burke Ramsey told investigators, as well as McGraw, that he stayed in his room overnight, Dec. 25 into Dec. 26, the time frame in which JonBenét suffered a blow to the head and was then fatally strangled within about a two-hour period. Burke Ramsey said he didn’t get out of bed until his father, John, came to his room and got him, late in the morning on Dec. 26 with police investigators and family friends gathered in the 15-room home.
But theorists, based in part on the Boulder police investigation, say Burke Ramsey’s voice can be heard at the end of Patsy’s 5:52 a.m. 911 call, when the phone inadvertently did not disconnect as it was placed on a kitchen countertop.
Theorists allege that Burke asked: “What did you find?”
“That is something, pretty good, I would remember. I wasn’t there” when the 911 call was made, he told McGraw.
McGraw showed Burke Ramsey a copy of the ransom note found in the home — a note some theorists claim Patsy Ramsey wrote.
As a mom, Patsy Ramsey was a stickler for “good handwriting,” Burke Ramsey said. He characterized the note as “too sloppy” to have been written by his mom.
“It is not something I really want to look at a lot,” Burke Ramsey said of the note.
Bed-wetting theorists have pointed at Patsy Ramsey as her daughter’s killer. Patsy flew into a rage, according to theorists, after finding that JonBenét had wet the bed. The girl was struck in the head, or had her head slammed, and was knocked unconscious. Patsy mistakenly thought JonBenét was dead, and the subsequent strangulation was part of a red-herring cover-up, they allege.
“Did she wet the bed at (age) 6? I don’t remember,” Burke Ramsey said. “Every kid does that. It would be embarrassing. Parents would just clean it up.”
Burke Ramsey said his mother was not a strict disciplinarian, nor did she fly into anger or rage.
“We didn’t get spanked, nothing of the sort, nothing close, nothing near laying a finger on us, let alone killing your child.”
“Did you hit your sister over the head with a baseball bat or a flashlight?” McGraw asked.
“Absolutely not,” Burke Ramsey responded.
McGraw asked Burke Ramsey if he sexually assaulted or abused JonBenét.
“No.”
An answer to the ultimate question: “Did you murder your sister JonBenét?” will be aired Monday during a third installment of the Burke Ramsey interview.
