Later in the afternoon, one of the officers asked Fleet White, a friend of the family and Mr. Ramsey to search the house. The two men started in the basement of the fifteen-room brick mansion. Around 1:30pm, Mr. Ramsey and Mr. White discovered 6-year-old JonBenet dead in the basement of the family's upscale home. The cause of death was strangulation. According to the police report, "JonBenet was covered with a blanket, her wrists were tied above her head, her mouth was covered with tape, and a nylon cord was wrapped around her neck" (Justice). Pictures of the crime scene showed JonBenet "wearing a sweatshirt over a long sleeve shirt, and the lower half of her body was clad in white pajama bottoms over white panties"(Justice). The autopsy report revealed that she might have been sexually abused and that she suffered a blow to her head that left an "eight-and-a-half inch fracture"(Justice). The police thought that either a stranger took JonBenet from her bedroom by force, or she was lured by someone she knew to the kitchen with the promise of food, which would explain the undigested piece of pineapple found in her stomach. .
Later that evening, the Ramsey family went to stay with some friends because their home was now a major crime scene. The JonBenet Ramsey case had been the first and only murder in Boulder Country in 1996. The police on the case had very little experience in this type of crime. In the days to come, they were not sure where to start. Their first suspects were the Ramsey family members. The Assistant District Attorney stated that it was "unusual for a kidnapped victim's body to be found in their home" (Krupaki). The police began to strongly suspect Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey. Investigators looked over the ransom note and determined that a woman wrote it. Next, they took writing samples from both Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and felt the note closely matched Mrs. Ramsey's handwriting, but this was not enough evidence to place her under arrest.
