JonBenét Ramsey case: Ransom note hints that child beauty queen’s killer was college student

Many have claimed that the letter was just a hoax to protect JonBenét's parents, who had long been treated as suspects in their daughter’s death. However, Utah-based private investigator Jason Jensen has a different theory as he says the murderer might have been a student of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), which is not very far from the Ramsey family residence.

Jensen’s theory reportedly emerged from an academic paper about quantum structures written by two CU physicists — named Alex Zunger and Alberto Franceschetti — in March 1996, months before JonBenét’s life was cut short. The paper was about differentiation between pseudopotential and single-band truncated-crystal - or STBC - calculations.

The investigator claimed as reported by The Sun, “The author of the ransom note may have been a student of one of these professors or perhaps a sibling of one of the students. The odds of a paper being written in March 1996 referencing SBTC and a ransom note signed SBTC in Dec. 1996 just 1/2 mile apart seems uncanny to me. I believe the killer or attempted abductor was a local, someone likely living in the neighborhood, so I find this link of SBTC back to the university to be quite compelling.”

Jensen has also rubbished the speculations that JonBenét’s parents are her killers. He explained, “The Ramseys were not involved in the death of their daughter. I have not seen any evidence to overcome the presumption of innocence in this case,” before noting, “My analysis of the ransom note led me to conclude that the author may have had a high school education and read a lot. That is because of three of the words: attaché, deviation, and countermeasures. They are all 11th Grade Vocabulary words. Also the choice to use the printed font of 'a' and 't' rather than the grammar school taught forms of 'a' and 't', indicates that the person read a lot of books.”

The paper, authored by Alex Zunger and Alberto Franceschetti, focuses on comparisons between pseudopotential and single-band truncated-crystal - or STBC - calculations.

"The author of the ransom note may have been a student of one of these professors or perhaps a sibling of one of the students," theorized Jensen, a veteran PI.