Casting JonBenet (2017) - full transcript

Hello? Hello.

My name's Hannah, and I'm auditioning

for the role of JonBenet Ramsey.

Do you know who killed JonBenet Ramsey?

All units, 75515th Street. Possible 207.

Copy. Kidnapping?

That's what they said.

All right, do you want me to do a test,

or are you good?

Hello, I'm Amy Dowd, and I'm auditioning

for the role of Patsy Ramsey.

My name is Teresa, and I'm auditioning

for the role of Patsy Ramsey.

As far as acting goes,

I'm not a professional actress.

I have been in pageants.

In 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985.

I'm normally typecast

as the loving mother,

and then also as... a bitch.

Usually Mom, or the friend,

is what I've played.

A wife.

Okay, so I just brought a couple

of my pageant pictures.

Again, this was two years ago

with the Mrs. Colorado pageant

and the one thing I have quite

in common with Patsy is,

both of us are not the really thin girls.

We're a little bit heavier.

So this was when I was in New York,

and, um,

it was 19... 88,

I believe this was taken.

I noticed that you had some of the other

women who are auditioning for Patsy

wearing the red top,

but for me, it's the pearls

that make who Patsy was.

In every interview she did,

she always had the pearls on.

So when I was researching her

I made sure that the pearls were on.

She always wore these kind of earrings.

I didn't have one with a pearl in it,

but these were really close

to what she was wearing.

And she always wore

the open collar shirt and the jacket.

This is very close

to what she wore on Larry King.

My mom lives up Flagstaff Road,

which is,

if you've ever been up Flagstaff,

it starts out as Baseline Road.

So to come down the mountain

and go into town,

unless you cut off at 9th Street,

you literally drove by 15th Street,

and that's where

the Ramsey house is located.

It was a media circus.

It was the biggest thing to really happen

to Boulder in a very long time.

Definitely, we'd never had a murder,

especially of that... caliber

that I could remember.

I actually drove up to the house

the day after the murder,

'cause I live not that far,

and just sat there, and I cried.

I said a little prayer for the child.

Some of my voice students knew JonBenet,

and they were devastated and sad.

As an actress,

I would really draw

on my experience as a mother,

and I've been through an awful lot

with my son.

And just thinking about

the things I've been through,

in that he's older.

He's been in the Marine Corps,

and some of the experiences are...

I have personal experience with murder.

My brother was murdered

in Colorado Springs,

so my parents actually met

with the Ramseys several times,

because they had that in common.

And there was so much speculation.

So much.

And everybody pointed their finger

at Patsy.

Did you say he was reading with me?

Police.

755, 15th Street.

We have a kidnapping. Hurry, please!

A note is left

and your daughter's gone?

- Yes.

- How old is your daughter, ma'am?

She's six years old.

She's blonde. She's six years old.

Six years old.

How long ago was this?

I don't know. I just got the note,

and my daughter's gone.

- Okay, what's your name?

- What?

- Please.

- Okay, calm down.

- Please send someone to help me. Hurry.

- Ma'am--

- Morning.

- Yeah, Merry Christmas.

So you want my name

and then the part?

- Yeah.

- There we are. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Hack Hyland.

Hi, I'm Gary Foster. I'm auditioning

for the part of John Ramsey.

Hi, my name is Ed Hickok. I'm auditioning

for the role of John Ramsey.

I'm a husband, times 30 years tomorrow,

a father of three,

a psychologist in private practice,

and a felon, because of fighting the IRS.

And it was while I was cooling my heels

at the federal prison camp

that I decided that when I got out,

that I wanted to try my hand at acting.

Yeah, it's a paid theater.

It was with Theatre Or.

It was called My Mother's

Jewish Lesbian Wiccan Wedding.

It was the regional premiere.

I get Nick Nolte. I get Jeff Bridges.

I get a young... What's his name?

Kris Kristofferson.

If you want to change, like,

if you wanted to dye my hair,

or shave my head for a wig...

I don't care what you want to do.

I don't have a problem with it.

I'm trying to remember.

'96, I believe, wasn't it?

When she died, I think.

Six years old in 1996.

Let me see where I was in '96. Boy!

Actually, I was selling cars in Utah.

I mean, I hope that doesn't

hurt my chances here, but...

I had just moved here

literally weeks before,

and I was working out in what would

end up being my ex-brother-in-law's gym.

I was personal training in his facility.

And I remember, it was just a big stir.

I mean, it was on the news constantly,

and everybody was talking about it.

Tragic story. Horrible.

John's company was in Boulder.

The woman I was dating at the time

worked directly for John.

In fact, she was in line

to be his successor.

And he relied on her heavily,

so I was with her the night of the murder,

and I was effectively her alibi,

but they also did hair

and samples from her,

because, you know,

she had something to gain by John's loss.

But she was cleared, and I knew that

'cause I was with her.

He is a confident businessman.

He's an intelligent guy.

He's got a good education.

He's at the top of his game.

He owns a small company

that even owns a private airplane.

John Ramsey was a very successful man.

And I respect that.

He seemed always straightforward

and honest in the interviews that I saw.

I envied him at the time,

because he was the CEO

of a very successful company

and I was trying

to make my way up the ladder,

so I thought he was...

I thought he had it all.

It's the morning of the 26th.

December 26th.

And they find the ransom note,

"We have your daughter.

Don't call the police."

And they... they called the police.

It was after the police

investigated the house,

and then John Ramsey and--

was it the police,

were searching the house?

So him and his friend

walked down the basement,

and they went through the train room

'cause he was big into trains,

and that's when they opened the door

to the wine cellar

and saw her covered

in her favorite white blanket.

And go.

Good day, my name is RJ Clay,

and I'm here auditioning

for the part of the police chief,

but if I fit any other part perfectly,

I would be willing to take that as well.

So I'm a Denver policeman.

I've been a police officer since 1994.

I'm actually a meat manager

for King Soopers,

which is a grocery store chain out here

in Colorado.

Well, I'm currently

a fugitive recovery agent.

I run a small service

out of Longmont, Colorado.

And for a night job, I am a sex educator.

I do a lot of corporate gigs, barbecues,

and I'm a big wedding guy,

'cause I actually will interview

the bride and groom

and I'll write a song just for them,

play it at their ceremony.

A normal flogger,

you use the handle as a counterbalance,

and you can swing.

Right?

A poi flogger is designed

to be used with two hands,

and these are designed to florentine,

which is a way to give light sensation.

But it takes a little coordination.

I don't know if I can do this sitting.

And it gives a very light sensation.

Hand me the rainbow-colored handle.

Yeah, with the-- just one of 'em.

So I got interested

in this particular case

because it occurred

when I was a police officer in Chicago.

And we used the investigation techniques

from the Boulder Police Department

as a "how not to" for our cadets.

As a matter of fact, we used it last night

to debrief an incident that we had,

where a couple of skinheads

stabbed each other.

Well, first of all,

they didn't keep track of people coming

and going through the house.

Virtually anybody who wanted

to walk in that house after the crime

was allowed to.

So the evidence was compromised

in all sorts of ways.

And the ransom note.

I read that and...

it's incredible.

It's incredible that nobody's been charged

with anything on that.

It seems to me like...

it was pretty clear.

Well, the first thing, right away, is,

it was a three-page ransom note

that was handwritten.

And most people are in a hurry

when they're doing a crime.

They're not going to sit down

after murdering some young little girl.

First of all, they go out

and find the paper and the pen

they thought was from inside the home.

So they're not going to sit there

and write a three-page handwritten letter,

thinking out all this fun stuff

that's in the letter.

If you're a criminal wanting to do

an in-and-out kind of kidnapping,

who takes the time to write out

two and a half pages of a ransom note?

That's a little ridiculous.

They say, "We are a group of individuals

that represent a small foreign faction."

I don't know what that means

and I don't think, to this day,

the police know what that means.

It almost seems like,

in places, it shows concern.

I mean, in certain places,

they're really nasty.

They say, "We're going to behead her.

We'll kill her."

But in other places, they say things like,

"Make sure to bring along

a big enough attaché."

And in one spot they said,

"Make sure you're rested,

because it's going to be

an arduous sort of procedure

to get her back."

Then the next big thing,

obviously, is the dollar amount.

Any type of a kidnapper

is gonna want a million bucks

or 100,000 or a quarter-million.

They don't list $118,000 specifically.

They asked for $118,000.

Exactly that amount.

Which was the same amount

of John's bonus, Christmas bonus.

The ransom note also came

from inside their house, on notepads.

And the pen that was used

was the Ramseys'.

For me personally, I love breast torture.

Whipping nipples, tits...

doing breast bondage, as well as

arm sleeves and stuff along those lines.

Hold on a second.

I've got to take this. It's work.

Give me five minutes.

- Just whenever?

- Yeah.

Hey, Robert. It's Mark.

I got the coroner's report.

I'm faxing it over right now, so...

You know, what I can tell you is that...

she died from asphyxiation

by strangulation.

There was also...

some sort of head wound

that occurred.

That likely occurred

before the strangulation.

Right, right.

Well, she was laying

on her back on the floor,

covered by a blanket,

and... yeah.

Ligature marks on the wrist,

and... yeah.

All right.

Well, I'm gonna fax it over to you.

Okay. I've got to go.

All right. Thanks.

All right. How's everything else?

Wife and kids good?

Good, good.

Holidays are going well?

The JonBenet Ramsey case

is a case like we have never seen before,

a case like I don't think any

of you have ever seen before.

There have been many stories

and much speculation

about who killed JonBenet.

Prejudging and media hype

have never solved a crime.

The reality of the situation

is that often

these types of investigations take time.

Are the Ramseys still the focus

of this investigation

or have they been elevated

to the status of suspects?

No comment.

No more questions.

Was Patsy involved?

This is Patsy writing? Okay.

Let me just read it real quick.

"The pink cowboy sweetheart costume."

"The pink cowboy sweetheart costume

was made out of some polyester fabric

I bought in Atlanta.

I doctored up

the white cowgirl hat and boots.

It was precious."

"It was precious.

That summer, JonBenet went prepared.

I could give her that.

I couldn't give her the stage presence

that God gave her.

That was a gift."

"JonBenet was looking forward to the day

she could wear real evening gowns,

just like her mother."

"Just like her mother."

It is so narcissistic. I'm just shocked.

I don't remember that. I read this book,

and I don't remember it.

Wow.

She was no longer doing

the beauty queen thing.

She'd gotten too old.

And so this was her opportunity

to live it again through her daughter.

The little girl really loved it.

From what we can tell, she loved it.

She was not forced into it. It was not,

"You have to go do this."

She really loved it.

So it kind of feels like a...

a legacy thing for Patsy, actually.

I know a lot

of people think that's weird,

to have a little girl dressed up

where she looks like a 20-year-old woman.

But that's the pageant system.

And a lot of those girls go on

to do great things...

or work at Hooters.

From what...

I heard and kind of put together...

it sounded like...

that family was really screwed up.

Patsy was at least involved.

I'm not sure if she did it.

I hope she didn't,

but I think she might have.

She just made me angry.

Watching her...

Listening to her

and then her husband...

I think he's the innocent one.

I don't believe he was involved

in any way.

I just think he's innocent.

The more manic side

of this whole situation

seemed to come from Patsy's side.

She seems more inclined to be the one

that might have struck someone in anger

than John does.

More than anything, I think it was

the ransom note that was written,

that handwriting experts said

she most likely wrote.

I found that pretty interesting

because I've had my handwriting analyzed.

And it was fascinating,

because I wasn't there.

It was an ex-boyfriend

who showed this handwriting expert...

a birthday card that I gave him.

But this expert could actually tell

that I had had a trauma

to my right ankle.

And sure enough, I had

reconstructive surgery on my right ankle.

Why would-- She has no motive.

I'm frustrated as a parent.

I'm frustrated with my kids.

There's no motive to kill them.

There's no motive to do that.

I could see the jealousy aspect.

Since Patsy Ramsey was

a beauty pageant queen herself,

maybe her daughter was having

a little bit more success

or wasn't listening to her.

You know, I don't know

if Patsy Ramsey's background was

any mental illness or anything like that,

but of course we know she died of cancer.

And sometimes, when there's disease,

there's dis-ease.

And then we heard about the bed-wetting,

and the general discord in the family,

and we were...

That's why everybody was thinking

it had to be in the family.

You know, JonBenet Ramsey

was a bed-wetter,

and I know that

there had been people interviewed

that said that that

had infuriated Patsy Ramsey.

And she wet her bed, actually, that night.

There was one article

I remember reading just recently,

and it identified Patsy

as the lead suspect,

and went so far as

to say she murdered her daughter.

And what it cited

that incited so much rage in me

was that the stressors

that Patsy was under...

one of them being the holidays,

and another one being

her impending 40th birthday.

And I'll be 39 next month,

and if someone said

that my impending 40th birthday

caused me so much psychic strain

that I would consider killing my child...

I don't know what shade of ballistic

I would go on them,

because talk about putting women in a box.

I mean, the mother had to do it.

She was about to turn 40.

She's jealous.

Her little girl was frustrating.

She wet the bed.

Maybe it was an accident.

She threw her against the tub...

and then covered it up.

You know, people are quick to judge.

They talk about how

they were so upset and all the pain,

but, like, you don't see any of it

in their face, at all.

You know, I don't know why no tears fell.

I think... was she detached?

Did she ever really love her little girl?

You don't know how you're gonna react.

My personal reaction was quite violent.

I screamed. I cried.

My parents told me in the back of a car,

and I remember just screaming,

"Who killed my brother?

Who killed my brother?"

At that point in time,

we didn't even know he was murdered.

We just knew he was dead.

But I had

this just overwhelming impression

that it was not a natural death,

and it was not an accident.

I was screaming so loud that people

actually came out of the building

to see what was going on.

So that was my reaction.

I watched my parents.

It was far more subtle and private.

Push your chair in a little bit, Gary.

Is Gary "John"? Okay.

- Hi, John.

- Patsy.

- Hi, nice to see you.

- Hi. J. Michael Sterling.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- It is like, us against the world.

- It is, yeah. Absolutely.

I mean, they're both raw. Still.

I mean, it's still so new.

If I was being interviewed with my wife

about something like that,

I'd have my arm around her.

I'd be holding her hand.

I'd be consoling her.

I don't recall seeing them do that.

You know,

they were never really too close.

Like, they weren't like this, or...

I mean, but I might just angle in.

I don't think I would angle in.

There's a separation, and even

sitting here setting up for the scene,

it's like we would

naturally be sitting closer.

I did not... I mean, I said hello and then

I tried to not make eye contact with you

'cause I wanted to keep no conversation.

- Exactly. Like, "We have a job to do."

- Right.

Although we're friends on Facebook

or something, right?

- I was like, "Oh, my God!"

- I know!

- "I've never met you. Cool."

- We finally meet in person!

To those of you who may want to ask,

let me address very directly.

I did not kill my daughter JonBenet.

There have also been innuendos

that she has been or was...

sexually molested.

Those were the most hurtful innuendos

to us as a family.

I can tell you those were

the most hurtful innuendos

to us as a family.

They are totally false.

I'm appalled either John or I

could have been involved

in such a hideous, heinous crime.

But let me assure you

that I did not kill JonBenet.

I did not have anything to do with it.

I loved that child

with my whole heart and soul.

Oh, man.

How do you go on camera

and say these lines,

and make them look real?

The funny thing is, when you watch them

talking about this it works either way.

It does. It does!

- You can say, "Okay, they're lying."

- Yeah.

- "They're telling the truth."

- "Look at the body language." Yeah.

I mean, it's just hard to say.

It just... it's hard to say.

I mean, a lot of their behavior was odd.

So you're saying

that you think she did it?

I think John didn't do it.

You think John didn't do it? Interesting.

It's like she was more concerned

for who she was protecting.

I believe she was protecting someone

in the family.

I'm not gonna state who

because I really don't know

which person that may have been,

but I believe it was someone

that they both loved very much.

My name is Ryan, and I'm auditioning

for the role of Burke.

Hello.

I'm Jase. I'm...

Um...

I'm ten years old.

I live in Colorado.

Littleton...

Yeah, Littleton.

So I've been

in this one commercial that...

I forgot what it was.

It didn't play here,

but I was just an extra in it.

I was one of the flying monkeys,

one of the Oz-ians,

one of the tough guy munchkins...

...and then I also did

a Denver mattress commercial,

where all I did was wait

for nine hours for the whole day.

Skipped school just because of that

and then I got to jump on the bed

for nine minutes.

That's all I did.

All the other things I tried to do,

I didn't get the part.

My house has a pool in the backyard.

If something happened...

and I do know that the son,

the brother of JonBenet,

did actually hit his sister

with either a golf club or a baseball bat

a month or two

before this incident took place.

But to me, that was, you know,

a brother and sister...

just having an argument, type of thing.

But whoever struck that girl was so angry

and so livid and so mad at her,

with either the flashlight

or a baseball bat,

the skull fracture was intense.

It was a mortal wound,

from everything that I've seen,

but what really finished her off

was the strangulation.

I mean, at one point,

me and my friends had read a book

about people hanging, you know.

And so we built

this little platform thing

and hung each other,

like on-stage, kind of thing.

It was just fooling around,

and we didn't get hurt.

We were fine. Nobody really got hung.

But as an adult,

think of walking into that situation.

Here are these four kids,

they're all ten years old,

something like that,

hanging each other in the garage.

How stupid can you be? But we were kids.

So could it happen? Yeah.

I have two sisters and one brother.

I'm the oldest.

I just have one sister.

Sometimes she'll take, like--

I have trading cards of Peyton Manning.

She'll give them to my little brother,

and I'll be like, "Gabby, what the heck?"

But it's nothing big, really.

Sometimes I'll tease her a little bit.

But it's just brotherly love, I think.

She calls me a scaredy-cat

and calls me a bunch of names,

and I don't like that, because she just

sings a bunch of annoying songs

and calling me names, and...

I ask her to stop a lot,

but she just never does,

and... yeah.

But she's getting nicer.

It's happened about two weeks ago.

She's beginning to become nicer,

which I'm really happy about.

'Cause sometimes I have tears,

'cause it kept going,

but it has started to stop,

which is good.

Oh, yeah. Cool.

"If you tell someone a secret,

it is no longer a secret."

If you tell someone a secret,

it's no longer a secret.

If you tell someone a secret,

it's no longer a secret.

If you tell someone a secret,

it's no longer a secret.

If it was the brother, if it was her son,

I think she would choose her son over...

over truth.

There is no way a nine-year-old

could pull off a murder like this.

The knots were sophisticated,

the head wound that actually killed her...

I don't think he would have the strength

to do something like that.

Ow!

There it goes.

Well, first, Burke,

maybe you could draw me a picture.

A picture of your family.

Would you do that for me?

I can't draw.

It's just so I can get

to know your family.

Um...

Okay. "Dad."

So who's next?

Who's the next person you would draw?

Mom.

So is she the kind of mom

that gives you lots of hugs and kisses?

Yep.

Both you and your sister?

Or just you? Or just your sister?

Just... the both of us.

Burke?

Is there anyone else in your family

you were going to draw?

Nope.

I know that sounds crazy,

but just about any theory in this

whole situation sounds pretty crazy.

You know, parents killing their kids,

brothers killing their sisters,

intruders coming in to kidnap a kid

and writing the letter,

but not kidnapping the kid,

just leaving the kid there...

I mean, any theory is kind of cracked

in this situation.

I know the neighbors heard a lot of ruckus

and saw lights on.

I know the stairway was a spiral stairway,

and it was very steep.

I definitely believe that JonBenet Ramsey

was fed pineapple.

Maybe the window was open

before the snow fell.

This is where the confusion comes up,

because there were knots tied

on that rope mechanism

that was used to strangle her,

and the knots apparently required

some level of expertise.

There are some very bizarre things

that are tied to this case.

For instance, JonBenet was six years old,

and she died on December 26 of 1996,

and I think that's kind of odd

that there's all of these common numbers

involved in this particular time

that she died.

And that sometimes indicates

that there is somebody's signature on it.

And from people who run

in some pretty sick circles.

You know, who knows

how weird these judges are

and these little girl pageants.

Maybe she was letting someone have time

with her daughter

in some kind of weird sex thing,

and that got carried away,

and it went too far.

At the time, there was a lot

of talk that there was a child porn ring

going on in Boulder.

But the crime that's committed in Boulder,

you don't find a lot

of break-ins or assaults.

You find a lot of white-collar crime

and possibly the child porn angle,

which everybody just is very like,

"Why wasn't this investigated?"

Well, you might assume for instance that

this might be some sort of rotating club,

where on this Christmas Eve,

or this Christmas Day,

a party at the Ramseys...

that there might have been

some reciprocity that the Ramseys...

John Ramsey in particular, might have been

invited to somebody else's house,

with somebody else's little girl.

It's always somebody you know.

In cases like that, nine times out of ten,

it's somebody you know.

I, as a child...

twice, I was...

two times, gentlemen that we knew,

one of them was a neighbor,

one of them was a family member,

tried to molest me.

Both people I knew. Both nice, older men.

I didn't have a clue.

They...

for years,

they were just friends of our family,

and then one day...

you know, they start with little comments

that you don't understand,

and slowly but surely they lure you

into this...

into this place they want you to be,

and for me it was...

I remember the neighbor

making comments about...

I must have been about...

about six, six or seven,

and him making some comment

about, you know,

"Hey, it won't be long before you'll be

getting your little mosquito bumps."

And I'm like, "What?

What is he talking about?"

I didn't get that.

Because I didn't have any mosquito bites,

and I didn't know anything about sex.

I knew nothing.

And next thing I know,

when his wife is away--

and he was in his 70s--

he invited me in with some candy.

And he was our neighbor

for a couple of years.

So I went in. I had no problem with that.

My mother never said, "Don't do that."

And he gave me some comic books

with some pornography in them.

I didn't know what it was.

I just knew it was wrong.

There are people that have written books

and still have blogs about it.

That there is a whole dark,

mysterious corner of Boulder

that has not been touched on,

and maybe it's because,

as the story goes, there's people

within the police department

that perhaps knew about it,

or knew somebody in it, and wanted...

At any rate, there was a point

where there was protection

over that particular lead.

And it was not followed.

I know there was a Santa Claus that was

at the party,

that maybe could have done it.

Oh, I started this in 2006.

After I blew my knee out,

I couldn't work, so...

A lot of people used to say

I looked like Santa Claus,

so I just...

Even without a beard,

they said I looked like Santa Claus.

So I just grew a beard.

I figured, "Well,

I've got to do something to make a buck."

And it was pretty profitable.

And besides that, it made

Christmastime more enjoyable.

You get addicted to the love.

Very quickly.

Someone puts on the red suit, once, twice,

it's more addictive than heroin,

I'm sure.

I like children.

I like making children smile.

I like giving gifts.

- Why they think Santa is a suspect...

- In the JonBenet...

"JonBenet, do you want to know a secret?

I'm going to come and visit you.

I'm going to give you

an extra-special visit after Christmas."

We went to the ceremony

that they had for JonBenet,

and the pastor says,

"Would anybody like to say anything?"

And as soon as he said that,

a guy jumped up and said, "I do."

And he started talking about how he was

in JonBenet's bedroom,

and he was talking to her

about where Santa lived,

and she said that it was in her heart,

and that--

and then he told her that JonBenet lived

in his heart.

And he showed this little vial

of something,

glitter, or something,

that she had given to him.

And I just thought,

"This guy... is the killer."

'Cause this was

the most bizarre thing I had ever seen.

This is why I have

a background check every year,

and the professional Santas

that I mingle with

have background checks.

They have the insurance.

They were trained.

We're trustworthy.

Just as an aside

which I don't tell most people,

we wear white gloves.

And the main reason we wear white gloves

is because in a photo,

it's much easier

to identify where your hands are.

How was the guy

going to sneak into the house?

Especially if he's going to come around

looking like Santa Claus.

I mean, you don't go around

in a red suit in public

and not be noticed.

You know, it's a bunch of crap.

You know,

I really think it was John-- Patsy Ramsey.

I think she just threw a fit.

I think she was...

You know, she probably was the royal bitch

of a mother.

You know, pushing her kid

into something that's not being a kid.

I mean, it's like...

you know, when we're kids all we want

to do is grow up,

and when you get old, you go, "Why?"

You know?

I mean, it's like...

Why do I have to wear a wig?

My name is Dixon White,

and I'm auditioning

for the role of John Mark Karr.

I do not rate my little lovers.

I mean, JonBenet was unique.

As all of them were unique.

But she was my bride.

I loved her so much.

After I lost her, I...

I fell in love again.

With other girls.

But she always...

will be my little JonBenet.

There were a lot of weird things

going on with John Mark Karr.

I believe he married a 13-year-old girl,

which was apparently legal

in Alabama at the time.

John Mark Karr was in Thailand,

and they were--

he was being pursued for some other...

pedophilia acts that he had performed

in other countries.

And he wouldn't give a direct location

so they couldn't find him.

But then he came forward,

and when they caught him, he said,

"I was with JonBenet

the night that she died."

Yeah, he's a messed up person.

They said he was into child porn

and things like that.

I don't think he had anything

to do with it.

He was very convincing.

Convincing, in the fact that he is creepy.

He is so creepy,

to the point that

what he says, he believes.

And I think the police

believed him as well. I really do.

Until that forensic evidence said,

"No, it's not him."

It's very difficult for any of us

to relate to this person.

Somebody that would,

maybe for attention purposes,

maybe for self-punishment purposes...

I'm not sure why he confessed,

although I guess

that happens fairly often.

False confessions.

But... just a really peculiar human being.

Speaking as John Mark Karr,

she was beautiful.

I mean, she was just a little doll.

If you look at her beauty pageant tapes,

like, researching the role,

I'd watch these...

Getting into my mind, I would watch

these pageant tapes of her,

and just taking off

her little masks, and how...

parading around in her costumes

with all her make-up on.

And she was a beautiful little girl.

People would say she was cute

and this and that,

but in his mind, he sees that as,

like, pure beauty.

And...

and that's why he was attracted to her.

"She, of course, was...

She was asleep from the time that

I took her from her bed into the basement.

She had nothing to say."

The trauma of it still...

it still haunts me. I mean...

to this day, I just...

love her so much.

Karr. Let's go.

I mean,

JonBenet was obviously stressed out,

because... I guess she had

a history of wetting her bed,

pooping in her bed...

So maybe Patsy got up

in the middle of the night

to check on her.

She wasn't there.

She went all through the house,

searching, and found...

the most horrific scene she could find.

Her husband having sex with her daughter.

And not just having sex, but weird sex.

And...

of course she would go ballistic

and picked up a golf club and swung it

and...

mistakenly hit JonBenet instead of John.

The autopsy shows that

there was some abuse to her genitalia.

Something, incredibly,

that the district attorney dismissed as,

"Being a bicycle experience."

Which blew my mind when I read that.

But anyway, this is Boulder

and so, you know,

that's what you have to deal with.

But I thought that there had to be

some sort of... sexual escapade

that got out of hand.

In my opinion as a sex educator,

there's really no way that that

could have been done by accident.

Ligature marks take

a significant amount of force to leave,

especially as deep as they were

with JonBenet Ramsey.

That doesn't happen by accident.

That's a very deliberate act.

And a significant amount of time

to leave those marks.

Um...

I found someone close to me dead.

And it's an awful experience.

I've lost somebody I loved.

And...

and I know what it's like

to have a little bit of suspicion.

I didn't have suspicion for long,

because they did an autopsy

on this person.

But I understand this idea

of people thinking things about you,

of, you know, the immediate rush of...

somebody wanting

to find somebody to blame.

And to have fingers pointed

at you falsely,

and...

you know, to have

somebody you love be lost,

and to be misunderstood about it

and to probably

be grieving alone like that...

or with his wife.

But to feel isolated... in that grief

and the mourning that he experienced...

You know, he--

So that I can relate to

from my own personal experience.

You know, it's hard for me.

It's hard for me sitting here

talking about it as myself.

To not just-- I mean,

I'm holding back weeping over...

the loss, you know?

Because I myself have lost three children.

So I...

I know what that feels like.

So when that woman looked in the camera

or was talking to Larry King

or whoever she was talking to

or sitting in that interrogation room,

she was, you know-- and this is coming

from an acting point of view,

someone who believes that

in order to act,

you tell the truth.

You know, you look in the camera

and you tell the truth.

You believe, you commit.

You are that person.

You are one 100 % there.

Committed.

When she was there--

to me, it was the poorest acting job...

one of the poorest acting jobs

I think I'd ever seen.

Sorry, you'll have to hop off this

'cause I'll move these ones back.

Try that and then I think

at the front for your legs...

Is there any way

at all I can be leaning back more?

Yeah.

Or would it be better

if I took that completely out--

No, it's more about my back and core.

And I think this feels a little better.

But if I can't relax my core,

I can't get where I need to get.

If you'd prefer to try one

of these chairs...

I would, yeah.

I just have to...

JonBenet...

when we pulled up to the house...

she was sound asleep.

Because I remember getting her out

of the car...

and she was just out.

So he's probably, at this point,

aware that he's a suspect.

She's so sick and tired...

of talking to...

over and over and over...

answering the same questions.

And they're just trying to dig.

You're going down the wrong path, buddy.

Nope. Mnh-mnh.

If she got up in the night

and ran into somebody...

Somebody wasn't supposed to be there.

Look, if she got up in the middle

of the night and ran into somebody,

then somebody was there

that wasn't supposed to be there.

Yeah, I took her upstairs.

I laid her on her bed.

That's usually what I would do.

That's usually what I did.

I remember, I either took her shoes off

or her coat off

and kind of got her sort of ready.

And then Patsy took over.

Then I went to bed.

Whatever transpired after that,

whether it was an accident or intentional

or premeditated...

or whatnot.

It was not one of her three family members

in that house. Period.

Period.

End of statement.

Okay, people, here we go.

Christmas night, interior Ramsey house.

Kill the house lights.

This is a tough piece, because...

I don't think you can just come at it...

as an actor and say...

"Wow, isn't it cool I get to do this?"

Because that won't read

for what you are trying to do.

You've got to--

I think it really has to be...

considered an act of public service,

to a certain degree,

to have any--

to maintain any kind of integrity

about why you might want to come in

and expose yourself to this.

I've talked to very few people about this,

and they said,

"Do you really want to do that?"

That was my first reaction

when I heard about it, too.

I said, "Whoa, that's heavy duty."

And then once I dug into it a little more,

it's like,

"There may be something that could

come out of this that could help."

It's got to be better than nothing.

So...

that's how I think I can credibly come

at this without...

this notion of,

"Hey, isn't this a cool acting gig"

kind of thing.

Carolyn to make-up, please.

For me, it's really--

I adore both of my children.

My daughter is a ten-year-old,

a really vivacious actor,

artist, musician.

She's just wonderful.

And all I have to-- I'm getting there.

All I have to do is think about...

walking down the stairs

and turning a corner and finding...

her little legs...

and then coming around the corner

and going into the room

and seeing just a little body

and her little light...

not being there anymore.

I hate to admit this, but I remember--

I mean, I didn't hit my child,

but when he went to potty training,

he would never really make me that angry,

but the week that he decided he wanted

to start,

he peed on everything.

And it was the one thing

that sent me through the roof,

and I remember standing there

screaming my lungs out at him.

And to this day,

I feel so horrible for doing it.

Horrible.

And I think I could imagine...

playing like that.

Screaming at this child,

because I'm so angry that she wet her bed.

Going back to that moment of,

"Wow, how could my child press

that button I didn't even know I had?"

And being just so pissed off

at something so stupid,

but you're just so exhausted,

that now I'm not even in my right mind.

That's how I could see

where that would start.

When you grow up in a household

where there's a dysfunction...

My mother was also an alcoholic,

but she was a functioning alcoholic.

She actually worked

for the police department,

and she was a dispatcher.

And all those years,

I knew she drank,

and I kind of understood as a child

a little bit what an alcoholic was.

But we also knew there was

something else wrong with my mother.

And we all knew. There was five of us

in the family, five children.

And we all knew

there was something wrong.

And it wasn't until my mother went

into a nursing home

where she was actually finally diagnosed.

I remember them calling me up and saying,

"Did you know your mother...

well, she's an alcoholic,

but do you know that she has

borderline personality disorder?"

And I was taken aback,

'cause I hadn't heard the term.

I had heard bipolar,

but I hadn't heard that term.

And then I looked it up and I read it,

and it was like, "Wow, that's my mom."

And for the family,

it was such a great thing

to have that to attach it to,

because then we knew...

we knew there was something.

You know, it kind of validified

what we all thought,

that there was something wrong with Mom.

I have always grieved the fact

that I didn't have kids.

And I've grieved it for a long time.

I was divorced and didn't have kids,

and I...

It's just been really sad, and it's

taken me to some really dark places.

Because I always wanted to have kids,

my whole life.

And the realization

that that may not be the case

kind of cuts to the core

of your masculinity.

And the prostate is very much connected in

with masculinity.

And I really do believe

that there is a mind-body connection.

And so, back to her situation,

you kill your daughter,

your daughter comes from your ovaries

and your uterus

and if you look at her cancer,

it was ovarian cancer.

And I'm just throwing it out there

as a theory,

and I wouldn't have been able to have

this conversation or talk like this...

when we first met a few months back,

because I wasn't diagnosed

with cancer yet.

I think it's just

in people's human instinct

to protect their children.

One of my sons, he did something wrong.

Legally.

Morally, I won't go into details,

but I think he was very justified.

And it was very minor.

Of course, it wasn't murder.

It was a minor thing.

But I understood totally why he did it,

and I probably would have done it myself.

And I didn't turn him in.

I protected him.

Because I'm his father,

and I believed that was morally correct.

John lost his daughter,

and he's about to lose his son as well.

You know, it really puts you

in a position. What do you do?

My father,

before my mom got the divorce,

he was drunk in the backyard

and was chopping wood

and said, "Come out here, get out here."

And I did, and my mom saw

through the window.

And I already saw her running

toward the backyard where we were

and he put an axe through my skull.

And that's what got her a divorce,

was that incident.

And we'd been-- we'd been--

I can't even tell you how many times

I'd been slapped, kicked,

hit, beaten, all those things.

I...

But to the world?

Perfect family.

To the world,

my father was the most charming...

charismatic...

handsome man...

that you could ever...

You would never know he had

the temper that he did when he drank.

I had a girlfriend who...

She had a liver disease.

And...

One night we went to bed,

and when I woke up in the morning,

she was dead.

And she had had a...

they call it just a liver failure.

Her liver just shut down and quit working,

and then she had a heart attack.

And, yeah, it's a shocking situation

to find a loved one...

you know...

no longer alive.

It's really an eerie thing.

I mean, you...

When you first notice

somebody's not breathing...

and you shake the person.

And then, oh, God, I remember,

like, lifting up her eyelid

and seeing this eyeball staring straight

to the ceiling.

It's the creepiest thing I've ever seen

in my life.

I mean, when you just... you just...

You just see lifelessness

in a human body, and it's...

it's awful.

All right, first positions, everybody.

You know...

You are-- you're in a state of shock.

You're in, like, a state of denial,

because you're telling--

It's too overwhelming.

And so you tell yourself,

"This isn't happening."

I'm sure he was going through a lot

of those things,

if he was innocent

and just found his daughter.

I'm sure he was going through a lot

of that same stuff.

- Speed.

- Thursday, 2.6 take one. Marker.

Ready and...

Settling in...

and... action.

Thursday, 2.1 take three. Marker.

Mommy?

Okay, honey.

Quiet, please.

Good girl. Mommy's sweet girl.

Good girl, sweetie.

What pants do you want?

Look, you know we're going

to my parents' house, right?

My black pants are for when I'm going

into meetings.

Pick something like the brown pants.

"The children were nestled all snug

in their bed...

while visions of sugar plums danced

in their head..."

You don't even get it.

I am so tired of this.

"'Ooh! Ooh! I want some,'

said Jane Banana."

Mom.

Mom?

Sweetie, what's wrong?

Honey, what's the matter?

Give me my daughter!

Fucker! Give me my daughter back!

Don't touch me.

♪ There she is ♪

♪ Miss America ♪

♪ There she is ♪

♪ Your ideal ♪

♪ With so many beauties ♪

♪ She took the town by storm ♪

♪ With her all-American face and form ♪

♪ And there she is ♪

♪ Walking on air, she is ♪

♪ Fairest of the fair, she is ♪

♪ Miss America ♪

♪ There she is ♪

♪ Miss America ♪

♪ There she is ♪

♪ Your ideal ♪

♪ The dreams of a million girls

Who are more than pretty ♪

♪ May come true in Atlantic City ♪

♪ Or they may turn out to be ♪

♪ The queen of femininity ♪

♪ There she is ♪

♪ Miss America ♪

♪ There she is ♪

♪ Your ideal ♪

♪ With so many beauties ♪

♪ She took the town by storm ♪

♪ With her all-American face and form ♪

♪ And there she is ♪

♪ Walking on air, she is ♪

♪ Fairest of the fair, she is ♪

♪ Miss America ♪