The case of JonBenet Ramsey is one of the nation’s most infamous unsolved murders.
And the still unsolved murder has a small, but significant tie to Northern Michigan.
The family of JonBenet was said to be heading to Charlevoix to continue their Christmas celebration in 1996.
Former Charlevoix County prosecutor Mary Beth Kur remembers them well.
I knew who they were. And my children were the same age as Burke and JonBenet. So everybody in Charlevoix knew the Charlevoix connection,” said Kur.
Former Charlevoix police chief Dennis Halverson remembers the Ramsey’s too, for their involvement in the community.
“They seem to get pretty involved relatively quickly. And so Patsy put this bicycle decorating competition together and I remember going there and I saw, you know, eight or nine kids and then one of them just stuck out. I mean, just head and shoulders. You know, if I was one of the other kids, I felt bad even being there. This one young lady was dressed up as I recall, kind of, you know, a little Bo Peep costume or dress and just beautiful, could have been a postcard. And obviously, you know, hard not to vote for her,” said Halverson.
It was December of 1996 when the body of the onetime Little Miss Charlevoix was found in the basement of her Boulder, Colorado home. Shortly after, Boulder P.D. reached out to Kur and Halverson. Police wanted to take a look at the Ramsey’s Charlevoix vacation home as part of their growing murder investigation.
“The first search warrant affidavit, I believe, and the search warrant was to collect historical all handwriting samples, because the note was an integral part of the case. There was a note at the house. A handwriting analysis is done by looking at samples that a person gives at the time of the investigation, but they also want to look at non rehearsed historical samples. So, like a recipe card or a note or something that somebody wrote when they weren’t in the police station to compare it. And so that was one of the things that they were looking for, as I recall. And I think they also just wanted to look and see if there were any signs of an intruder there because they were scheduled to come here the very next day,” explained Kur.
Halverson was also tasked with following up on any tips from the Charlevoix area that may be related to JonBenet’s murder.
“I would I would say all of them, I’ll use the word all, were I would rate them long, low quality tips. But in any investigation, you know, you don’t just not look into one because it sounds kind of weird or goofy or, you know, impossible, you know, that you just don’t do that. And you just take them to a point where you feel pretty comfortable saying, this is this is not going anywhere. But you still you still took the time. You still got in the car. I did a lot of driving around,” recalled Halverson.