Here comes a little criminal sleuthing piece for you to think about during Christmas. Ten years ago something gruesome happend in Boulder, Colorado. Six year old JonBenet Ramsey was found dead on Christmas the 26/12-96 in the basement of her home. Please read the full background of the story here as I will only tell you about a small piece of the puzzle which I think has been overlooked through the years. The whole case is very strange, invloving things like the strangest ransom note ever and a very strange crimescene.JonBenet was found in a room in the basement called the wine cellar. It was not used by the family for storing wine but more a kind of a storage room. This room was windowless and dark and the only entrance to the room was a wooden door. The interesting thing about this door was that it had a small wooden latch fitted at the top of the door. As the door was opening outwards the latch had no real use other than to keep the children out of the room when it was used for storing Christmas presents. Now, when the first oficer arrived at the house the winecellar door was latched. This led him not to search the room as he was securing the house for a possible intruder still lurking in the house. The latch told him that no intruder was in that room as it was latched from the outside. Later in the day the father did a search of his own and found the door still latched. He open it in found JonBenet on the floor. Assuming that it was the killer who placed JonBenet in the wine cellar he/she must have latched the door behind him/her. Think about it, who would be in the state of mind to latch this door?
An intruder would not only have to know about the latch but would also have to consciously latch it. As the latch didn't have any real use why would he. During later interviews the father expresses his astonishment that he found the door latched when he was looking for JonBenet. He even states that he was so surprised that the door knob slid out of his hand when he pulled on it the first time, then realizing that the door was latched. The mother said when interviewed that she sometimes latched the door. She did it during Christmas when she used the room to hide Christmas presents from the children and didn't want them to enter the room.
You can see the latch on the top left of the door in the picture.
