A closer look at what police found at the Ramsey family’s Boulder, Colorado, home after their 6-year-old daughter JonBenét Ramsey was found bludgeoned and strangled in the basement on Dec. 26, 1996.
A mysterious ransom note
A two-and-a half-page note left on the stairs of the Ramsey family home demanding a $118,000 ransom.
AP/Boulder Police Department
In the early morning hours of Dec. 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey called 911 to report her 6-year-old daughter JonBenét missing, and found a rambling ransom note left inside their Boulder, Colorado, home.
The crime scene
The Boulder, Colorado, home where the Ramsey family lived at the time of the murder.
CBS News
Several hours later, JonBenét was found dead in the basement of the home. Police found no signs of a break-in.
An unusual murder weapon
The garrote used to strangle JonBenét.
CBS News
JonBenét had been bludgeoned in the head and strangled with this intricately made device known as a garrote.
More evidence at the scene
JonBenét’s father found her in the basement of their home, wrapped in this blanket.
CBS News
JonBenét’s body was wrapped in this white blanket, and her mouth was covered with duct tape.
One investigator’s theory
Det. Lou Smit
CBS News
Retired homicide detective Lou Smit, who was hired to work on the case by the Boulder District Attorney and later worked for the Ramsey family, believed an intruder came into the Ramsey house and killed JonBenét.
The killer’s way in?
Evidence in the JonBenét Ramsey murder case includes an open basement window and a suitcase.
CBS News
Smit believed the killer entered the basement through this window and used the suitcase to climb back out.
Evidence left behind?
Rope found in a guest bedroom at the Ramsey home.
CBS News
Authorities found this rope in a bedroom close to JonBenét’s. The Ramseys said it did not belong to them.
John Ramsey’s quest for answers
In a November 2024 interview with “48 Hours,” John Ramsey says DNA testing on items like the blanket and rope could point to his daughter’s killer.
CBS News
DNA recovered from JonBenét’s body and clothing comes from an unidentified male. Her father, John Ramsey, believes new technology can and should be used to figure out who it belongs to. He is calling for new testing of the garrote, suitcase, blanket and other items of evidence.
The current investigation
Boulder Police Department
CBS News
In November 2024, the Boulder Police Department said, “The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing—to include DNA testing—is completely false.”
If you have information about the case, please call the Boulder Police Department at 303-441-1974 or email [email protected]
Suspect in United Healthcare CEO killing transferred to federal jail in New York City – CBS News
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After being arrested in Pennsylvania, Luigi Mangione is now in federal jail in New York City where he is facing charges related to the killing of United Healthcare’s CEO. Lilia Luciano has the latest from Manhattan.
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JonBenét Ramsey’s dad shares details about progress in long-unsolved murder case – CBS News
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“48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty speaks with John Ramsey to discuss the ongoing investigation into the murder of his 6-year-old daughter JonBenét in December 1996. Nearly 28 years later, Ramsey says he believes the case can be solved “if the police take advantage of all the technology” available to them.
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Delphi double murderer Richard Allen faces up to 130 years in prison at sentencing
Delphi double murderer Richard Allen faces up to 130 years in prison at sentencing
00:15
CHICAGO (CBS) — Delphi double murderer Richard Allen will learn his fate during sentencing on Friday morning.
An Indiana jury has convicted Allen in the murders of 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German and 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams who had vanished during a hike in Delphi in 2017.
The jury of seven women and five men spent about 19 hours deliberating over the course of three days before finding Allen, 52, guilty of all counts.
Allen faces up to 130 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for 8 a.m. CT.
Delphi murders: Timeline of events
On Feb. 13, 2017, Abby and Libby were dropped off at a hiking trail on the Monon High Bridge in Delphi When they failed to meet Libby’s father later in the day, they were reported missing. They were found dead about a mile from where they were last seen with cuts to the throat, according to prosecutors.
Police investigated thousands of leads, and released multiple composite sketches of the suspect based on eyewitness accounts.
Audio evidence from Libby’s cell phone revealed an unknown man had told the girls to go “down the hill.” Libby also recorded a short Snapchat video of a man who police believed was the killer. Although police circulated the photo and audio just days after the killings, the case ran cold for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.
Allen lived in Delphi and worked at a local CVS pharmacy until a clerk related to the investigation in September 2022 noticed he had placed himself at the scene of the killings. Just days after the bodies were discovered, Allen told police he had been on that trail around the time the girls were thought to have been killed. He told them he had been walking in the area and seen three “females” near a bridge but hadn’t spoken to them.
On Oct. 13, 2022, Allen was interviewed again after police searched through former suspects. Allen was arrested after police matched an unspent cartridge found between the girls’ bodies to a pistol recovered from his home during a police search.
Allen was arrested on Oct. 26, 2022, and was charged with two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit a kidnapping five days later. Prosecutors later amended the charges to include two additional counts of murder. Allen pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Over the course of the trial, the prosecution highlighted Allen’s dozens of confessions while incarcerated: He confessed to the crime more than 60 times, prosecutors say, including to his wife, his mother, the psychologist who treated him, the warden, and other prison employees and inmates. They played audio recordings of some of the confessions for the jury. The defense doubted the confessions and said they were made involuntarily and that he was suffering from mental illness at the time.
Monica Wala, the former lead psychologist at Westville Correctional Facility where Allen was housed, testified he initially told her he was innocent but began confessing to the crimes in April 2023, around the time he was placed back on suicide watch.
According to WTHR, Wala testified that Allen had told her, “I killed Abby and Libby. I’m sorry,” and that he originally planned to sexually assault the victims but ran away when he saw a van nearby and that he had cut the girls’ throats and covered their bodies with sticks, she testified.
Allen’s lawyers previously suggested that the girls were killed as part of a pagan ritual sacrifice and accused police of ignoring evidence from the crime scene. In a search warrant request in March 2017, an FBI agent claimed the girls’ bodies appeared to have been “moved and staged” at the crime scene. That theory was not heard by the jury per the judge’s ruling.
Thompkins said Allen’s conviction could be reversed if an appeal finds the jury did not hear a fair amount of evidence.
The defense could file an appeal within 30 days of the sentencing.
This is a developing story.
Elyssa Kaufman
Elyssa is a digital news producer for CBS Chicago. She covers breaking news and manages the station’s social media presence.
Seven inmates were killed in a prison riot in southern Mexico, when inmates resisting transfers to other jails fought police with guns and knives, authorities said late Thursday.
Four police officers and six other inmates were injured in the riot in the city of Villahermosa, the capital of the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
State police chief Víctor Hugo Chávez said late Thursday that officers were met by gunfire early in the day when they entered the prison to transfer two dangerous inmates to a federal penitentiary.
One of the inmates with a gun held out for about three hours, protected by 20 fellow prisoners, officials said.
Mexican army soldiers and National Guard members stand guard outside the Tabasco State Social Rehabilitation Center (Creset) after a riot broke out inside the prison in Villahermosa, Tabasco State, Mexico, on December 19, 2024.
MARIA CRUZ/AFP via Getty Images
Chávez did not specify if police opened fire on the group, but said: “Authorities have to act to defend their own lives, too.”
Fires also broke out in the prison during the riot, and crowds of angry, desperate relatives gathered outside the prison, demanding information about family members locked up inside.
After regaining control of the facility several hours later, authorities found an assault rifle, five pistols, a hand grenade, 23 machetes, 14 knives and 23 homemade shivs.
They did not explain how the firearms got into the prison. Jails in Mexico are known for notoriously loose controls and corruption, to the extent that gangs at some penitentiaries control their own cell blocks and extort other prisoners for protection money.
Last year, an attack on a state prison in Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas killed 17 people, including 10 guards. Twenty-five inmates escaped in the attack, which authorities say was designed to free the leader of a local gang.
In 2016, a prison riot left 49 inmates hacked, beaten or burned to death at the Topo Chico prison in Mexico.
The Palumbo family once oversaw a road building empire in Illinois — until a criminal prosecution in the 1990s sent the family’s patriarch and two sons to prison, and led to a ban on their companies participating in future construction projects involving state or federal funding.
More than two decades later, a younger generation of the family is running another, newer construction group called the Builders Companies that appears to be growing and flourishing — with an arm of the group called Builders Paving, LLC, sharing in more than $80 million in work from the Illinois Department of Transportation over the last five years, records show.
That includes more than $30 million in 2024 alone, including for resurfacing projects and other taxpayer-funded road improvements in Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect, Wood Dale, and Lake and McHenry counties, according to the state agency.
As of September, Builders Paving was also working as a subcontractor on five contracts for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, officials say, with four of them on the Tri-State Tollway where equipment for an affiliate, Builders Asphalt, LLC, was also being utilized.
Records show top Builders executives include Ryan Gandy and wife Kaitlyn Palumbo Gandy — a daughter of Sebastian “Sam” Palumbo who with his brother Joseph and their late father Peter pleaded guilty in 1999 to a scam shortchanging their union employees’ benefit plans. Two of their companies, Palumbo Brothers, Inc., and Monarch Asphalt Company, admitted to overbilling taxpayers on numerous road projects.
Paperwork from the Illinois Department of Transportation explaining the prohibition against certain firms run by the Palumbo family.
Those two companies were permanently banned from state and federal projects, as were “all existing or later created affiliates and successors,” including a Hillside-based business called Orange Crush, LLC, according to the state transportation department, sometimes known as IDOT.
While neither Sebastian Palumbo nor the Gandys would comment, the lawyer they share says Palumbo is not and has never been involved in the Builders enterprise, and that Builders is not subject to the contract “debarment” implemented by the state’s transportation department in 1999.
“Sebastian Palumbo has never owned any interest, direct or indirect, or invested in either of the Builders Companies and has not been an officer, director or employee of the Builders Companies and has never received compensation from the Builders Companies,” says William Dwyer Jr., an attorney representing them. “The Builders Companies are wholly independent of Sebastian Palumbo.”
A spokeswoman for the state transportation department says Builders Paving and Builders Asphalt “have been prequalified by the Illinois Department of Transportation and met the criteria to do business with the state based on the information that was provided in their applications.”
The department, which oversees and maintains state roadways and answers to Gov. JB Pritzker, “is diligently examining further to confirm that all of the rules and regulations concerning any firms prohibited from working with IDOT have been met and are being followed.”
Recent visits to a west suburban construction complex used by Orange Crush showed some Builders equipment also parked at the site.
A Hillside construction complex where Builders Companies and Orange Crush LLC equipment are parked.
Robert Herguth / Sun-Times
A main building at the site includes an emblem of Palumbo Brothers and its iconic slogan, “The Earth Moves With Palumbo.” A slogan for the Builders Companies is “Keeping the Earth Moving.”
Records filed with the Illinois secretary of state’s office show Kaitlyn Palumbo Gandy is part of a firm called Five Sisters Management, LLC, that serves as a manager of Orange Crush.
Dwyer describes her father as “a part owner of Orange Crush” but won’t identify any other owners.
Until earlier this year, Orange Crush’s web site said the firm is “owned and managed by Sebastian (Sam) Palumbo” and with “five asphalt plant and crusher facilities” is “one of the largest asphalt producers in Illinois.”
In January 1999, Palumbo pleaded guilty to enforcing Palumbo Brothers’ “policy of fraudulently reducing the number of hours” worked by the firm’s union employees “as reported to” worker benefit plans, resulting in the company “paying less in employer contributions . . . than was due under collective bargaining agreements,” according to court records.
Palumbo agreed in the plea deal with federal prosecutors he’d never again “serve as an officer, director, employee or direct or indirect holder of greater than five percent of the shares of, or as a consultant to, any business that contracts to build or repair public highways, roads and bridges, where such construction or repair is funded in whole or in part” by federal and state government agencies.
The Hillside construction complex long used by the Palumbos.
Robert Herguth / Sun-Times
Dwyer says that several months after that plea deal, “Peter, Joseph and Sebastian Palumbo together with Palumbo Bros. Inc. and Monarch Asphalt Company entered into Administrative Settlement Agreements with IDOT agreeing to the permanent debarment of the three individuals and the two companies from participating in any contract let by IDOT.”
Dwyer disputes that Orange Crush is subject to the same “contractor debarment,” saying “Orange Crush has voluntarily not participated” in IDOT contracts “so as not to violate Sebastian Palumbo’s plea agreement or his Administrative Settlement Agreement with IDOT.”
Dwyer adds that: “Whether (Kaitlyn) Palumbo was, at one time, an official of the Builders Companies and Orange Crush is irrelevant. The fact that the president of the Builders Companies is Sebastian Palumbo’s son-in-law is irrelevant. Whether the Builders Companies and Orange Crush park vehicles in the same lot pursuant to agreements with the owners of that lot is irrelevant. Whether or not the Builders Companies and Orange Crush are ‘affiliates’ is irrelevant.”
“Orange Crush is not a party to the Administrative Settlement Agreements with IDOT, so its affiliates, if any, are not debarred from participating in IDOT contracts.”
Dwyer says, “The Builders Companies have never subcontracted with Orange Crush to provide any labor or materials in connection with any IDOT contract. Whether those companies do any business with each other unrelated to IDOT contracts or highway work is irrelevant.”
Builders Companies equipment is seen on a Tri-State Tollway project earlier this year.
Robert Herguth / Sun-Times
Builders Asphalt was started in 2005 with five or so employees, according to a company timeline provided by Dwyer. Builders Paving was formed in 2010.
The Gandys both attended college until 2007, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Within the last year or so, Builders Asphalt bought Arrow Road Construction, and the Builders group’s annual sales now tops $200 million, according to the company.
Builders and affiliates have given more than $150,000 to local campaign funds over the years, including roughly $28,000 in 2023 and so far in 2024, records show.
Arrow has also contributed around $150,000 over the years.
Percy L. Julian High School proudly displayed on top of its website a Sun-Times column by one of its graduates.
Lashaunta Moore wrote last summer about how her South Side high school journalism program helped her to pursue a communications career.
“People are always shocked when I revea
l that I am a Percy L. Julian” graduate, wrote the social media coordinator at a Chicago company. “It finally dawned on me … few people know about the career and technical education programs offered by Chicago Public Schools.”
Moore now is growing as a writer as one of the Sun-Times Chicago’s Next Voices columnists — Chicago area residents who won a contest designed to provide a variety of views from the metropolitan area.
The columns are part of a bigger goal in the last few years to better reflect Chicago’s diversity in our news pages and keep pace with changing times. We also have had community listening sessions and beefed up the diversity of our staff to more closely resemble the local population.
Just four years ago, the leadership on our news masthead was largely white and male. Today, the newsroom boasts its first woman and person of color as executive editor — Jennifer Kho. The same is true for the Sun-Times editorial page, which is headed by Lorraine Forte.
In terms of racial and ethnic identity, our newsroom is 64% white, 14% Black, 12% Hispanic, 8% Asian and 2% two or more races. Our news staff is 63% male and 37% female, including those who identify as transgender.
Since February 2022, 67% of new hires have made us more diverse.
Our reporting has grown more reflective of all of our communities, with more people included in our coverage. According to an independent audit completed this year, the number of sources in our stories grew 42% in 2023 compared to 2022, with coverage of 100 unique Chicago area neighborhoods across the city and suburbs — and 53.8% of local stories including sources of color — in just one month.
Community listening sessions
We had three community listening sessions this year in Belmont Cragin, South Shore and Portage Park. We also had a public safety meeting in the Loop. Overall, we have had nine community meetings throughout Chicago since 2022, including one in west suburban Berwyn.
In one session, participants helped us pick stories to promote on the front page. They also suggested story ideas and talked about their neighborhoods and favorite columnists.
Voices
For our Chicago’s Next Voices series, which started in the summer of 2023, we’ve run 17 columns by area residents, ranging from Gen Zers to seniors writing about topics ranging from race relations to parks.
“I grew up in the Chicago area and grew up reading the Sun-Times,” said Moore, 28, who has written three columns. “It is great seeing my name in print. It has given me a voice to showcase my views.”
Now, we are seeking teen voices. High schoolers have until Dec. 31 to submit columns. Under the theme “Looking Ahead,” students ages 13 to 18 are invited to send in an original, unpublished 525- to 600-word writing sample.
Teens younger than 18 must submit a parental consent form to enter.
Winners will each receive $250, and their work will appear in the Sun-Times in 2025.
An original piece can be submitted at suntimes.com/chicagovoices.
Norma Jean McAdams discovered her inner blues diva late in life. With encouragement from Buddy Guy, she started a band with her guitarist husband and began performing regularly around Chicago.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s family moved into the Trumbull Park Homes in the ‘50s, where they encountered hatred from white neighbors and where Frank London Brown chronicled the struggles of Black lives and desegregation.
Hasta el 31 de diciembre, se anima a los escritores de 13 a 18 años a enviar al Sun-Times un relato inédito sobre el tema “Mirando hacia adelante”. Los ganadores serán seleccionados por el personal del Sun-Times y los textos se publicarán en impreso y en línea.
As a female comic in a male-dominated field, Madeline Esterhammer-Fic felt excluded. Her solution: Put on her own show in Edgewater.
Through Dec. 31, writers 13 to 18 years old are encouraged to submit an unpublished story to the Sun-Times on the theme of “Looking Ahead.” Winners will be selected by Sun-Times staff, and submissions will be published in print and online.
Nestor Gomez dragged a patio chair to the beach and watched as it was moved from shade to sun to sand. Online, neighbors complained about and defended the chair. Then, it disappeared. But that wasn’t the end of this story.
Few people realize what a wide range of career and technical education programs the Chicago Public Schools offers, says guest columnist Lashaunta Moore, who learned broadcast media skills at Percy L. Julian High School in Washington Heights.
Illinois is one of the safest states in the nation for members of the LGBTQ+ community, with many protections, guest columnist Christopher Bigelow says. It’s the right thing to do as other states are making the opposite choice.
In retirement, Samuel T. Cicchelli, our latest Chicago’s Next Voices columnist, took a part-time job as a crossing guard. He says the students and family members he’s encountered have given him an education in how to appreciate his fellow human beings.
Southwest Side native Valery Pineda writes of how she never thought the doors of the downtown skyscrapers would be open to her — and how she got there and found her career.
Being falsely accused of faking an impairment for a parking spot shows the need to raise awareness that disabilities can take many forms, Chicago’s Next Voices columnist writes.
The permanent Bally’s casino promises an escape, but Chicagoans should look to the 1915 Eastland disaster as a cautionary tale of a promised respite from the dreary and mundane.
My parents educated the next generation here. My grandfathers laid bricks and pounded nails here. My grandmothers answered phones at the Sears Tower and stitched patterns to clothe the nation. Let’s stay in this city that gave us our history and make it new — again.
Seniors face challenges in getting around and, ah, getting it on, Randi Forrest says, and need an outlet to share concerns — including how to get by in a world geared to younger people.
Chicago’s Next Voices columnist Lashaunta Moore: Hard work and life hacks can open doors and unleash talent, especially for those from underserved communities.
Protests had erupted in Chicago as minority students were bused to majority-white schools. Amid all of that, two young girls, one white, one Black, sat together as new friends. One was my daughter.
When we talk about the best years for movies, you’ll hear arguments for 1939 and 1946 and 1959, 1975 and 1994 and hey what about 2007? All GREAT years for film. It’s a fun debate without right or wrong answers — but I think it’s much trickier and I would argue nigh impossible to definitively call out any given year for being among the worst. I don’t think 2024 will be remembered as one of the GOAT years in movie history, but here’s just 10 of the films that fell short of making my list of the 10 best:
“Emilia Pérez”
“Maria”
“A Real Pain”
“Blitz”
“We Live in Time”
“Saturday Night”
“Blink Twice”
“Civil War”
“Bikeriders”
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”
That’s an impressive and disparate roster of films ranging from blockbusters to period pieces to sharply honed indies, from biopics to musicals to sequels and prequels — all of them well worth your time. Pretty good year. Pretty pretty pretty good.
And that’s before we even get to my Top 10!
10. ‘Nosferatu’
The new version of “Nosferatu,” starring Nicholas Hoult, is the stuff of nightmares.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has voiced its protest over the depiction of rats in Robert Eggers’ visually stunning, deeply disturbing and weirdly beautiful, gothic retelling of the vampire classic. Yeah, well what about the humans who had to endure arguably the most chilling cinematic depiction since “Willard”?
I mean that in the most complimentary way. Everything about “Nosferatu,” from the bone-chilling visuals to the performances by the chameleonic Bill Skarsgård as the lovestruck and blood-struck Count Orloc and Lily-Rose Depp as the human object of his obsession to, yes, those rats, is the stuff of nightmares — and the stuff of one of the best horror movies of the 21st century. See it:In theaters starting Tuesday.
9. ‘His Three Daughters’
Carrie Coon (left) and Elizabeth Olsen play sisters worrying about their dad’s health in “His Three Daughters.”
Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen shine in this brilliant set-piece by writer-director Azazel Jacobs about three siblings (one is a stepsister) who gather in the New York apartment where their father is in the room down the hall and is dying. Each of these three brilliant actors is given multiple showcase moments, and they’re spectacularly, devastatingly, memorably great. See it:On Netflix.
8. ‘Sing Sing’
Colman Domingo plays a man acting and writing with a prison’s theater troupe in “Sing Sing.”
The always riveting Colman Domingo gives one of his career-best performances as an imprisoned man who lives to write and act in this astonishingly original work from director Greg Kwedar, written by Kwedar and Clint Bentley. Based on the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, “Sing Sing” joins “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Birdman of Alcatraz,” “Cool Hand Luke” and “The Hurricane” on the short list of the best prison movies ever made. See it:In theaters (for the second time) starting Jan. 17.
7. ‘Challengers’
Mike Faist and Zendaya star as tennis players in a complicated marriage in “Challengers.”
It’s a tennis-a-trois, done with dark humor and bruising style by director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes. This is kind of like the “Tin Cup” of the tennis genre, only without the easy warmth and charm. Zendaya is quite wonderful as a mostly terrible person who goes from tennis ace to tennis coach after a crippling injury, and Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor are terrific as the best friends who both fall for her. The last moment of this film is bonkers — and perfect. See it:On Prime Video and MGM+.
6. ‘A Complete Unknown’
“A Complete Unknown,” about Bob Dylan’s rise to fame, stars Timothée Chalamet as the singer-songwriter.
We’re not supposed to compare performances because it’s an exercise in apples and oranges, yet we do it every year with all those awards shows, so I’ll jump in and say that with due respect to Rami Malek and his Oscar-winning turn in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Timothée Chalamet and the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” blow the doors off that performance and that film. See it:In theaters now.
5. ‘September 5′
The ABC Sports control room at the 1972 Olympics switches gears to cover an act of terrorism in “September 5.”
Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum tells the story of the ABC Sports crew’s coverage of the Munich massacre at the 1972 Olympics in docudrama style, with most of the action taking place in and around the control room as the legendary Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) and his team wrestle with the ethics of covering an act of terrorism in real time. This is one of the best movies about TV news coverage I’ve ever seen. See it:In theaters starting Jan. 10.
4. ‘Babygirl’
A powerful CEO (Nicole Kidman) has an affair with an intern in “Babygirl.”
We’ve often heard the term “Elevated Horror” — but is there such a thing as “Elevated Erotic Thriller”? Writer-director Halina Reijn’s sexy, stylish and unnerving workplace drama certainly fits the bill, with Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson igniting the screen as a powerful, married CEO and the intern with whom she has a torrid and dangerous affair. It’s somehow classy and wonderfully trashy at the same time. See it:In theaters starting Wednesday.
3. ‘Fancy Dance’
Jax (Lily Gladstone, right) hopes to keep custody of her niece (Isabel-Deroy Olson) in “Fancy Dance.”
Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) gives one of the most resonant and authentic performances of the year as Jax, a member of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation in Oklahoma who is prone to getting into trouble and is desperate to maintain custody of her 13-year-old niece Roki (Isabel-Deroy Olson) after her sister Tawi (Hauli Sioux Gray) disappears. Equal parts thriller, police procedural, cultural study and family drama, “Fancy Dance” never hits a wrong note. See it:On Apple TV+.
2. ‘Anora’
A Russian oligarch’s son (Mark Eydelshteyn) married a Brooklyn stripper (Mikey Madison) on a whim in “Anora.”
Writer-director-editor Sean Baker’s frantic and raw and searing crime drama/romance/comedy reminded me of the Safdies’ “Uncut Gems” in that it’s so visceral and so intense that it’s almost uncomfortable to watch. After getting memorably charred, literally, in both “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” and “Scream” (2022), Mikey Madison gives a nomination-level performance as the adult dancer who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch. (Mark Eydelshteyn is electric in the role.) A wholly original piece of work that is reminiscent of the best original indie of the 1970s. See it:In theaters and on demand.
1. ‘Small Things Like These’
Once again, we’ll compare performances. As much as I admire Cillian Murphy’s Oscar-winning turn in “Oppenheimer,” I’m an even bigger fan of Murphy’s quietly heartbreaking work in this instant masterpiece from director Tim Mielants about a simple and decent family man in the small-town Ireland of 1985 who cannot turn his back on a scandal that’s been playing out in the local convent for as long as anyone can remember. Murphy’s Bill Furlong is the most unlikely hero you’ll ever see in one of the best movies you probably haven’t seen, but my hope and prayer is that you give it a look. “Small Things Like These” is one of the prime reasons why this was actually a damn good year for the movies. See it:On demand.
The details of the murder are still shocking today, nearly three decades later. On Dec. 26, 1996, the 6-year-old daughter of John and Patsy Ramsey, a well-to-do couple living in Boulder, Colorado, was found dead in the family’s basement. JonBenét Ramsey, an outgoing child who performed in local beauty pageants, had been bludgeoned and strangled.
JonBenét Ramsey
Polaris
It is a story I began covering for “48 Hours” in 1999 and will return to in “The Search for JonBenét’s Killer” airing Saturday, Dec. 21 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. The program is a look back at how we covered the case in 2002. It’s a television time capsule, allowing viewers to hear Patsy and John Ramsey talk about their daughter and how her death and the following investigation upended their lives.
Shortly before 6 a.m. on the morning after Christmas, Patsy Ramsey called 911. She had awakened, she later told police, to find her daughter missing and a two-and-a-half-page note left on the stairs demanding a $118,000 ransom.
In the early morning hours of Dec. 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey called 911 to report her 6-year-old daughter JonBenét missing, and found a rambling ransom note left inside their Boulder, Colorado, home.
AP/Boulder Police Department
Despite a written warning not to notify anyone, the Ramseys called Boulder police, who searched their home and recommended the family wait for a call from the kidnappers. Later that day, a Boulder detective suggested John Ramsey and a family friend look through the home to see if anything looked out of place. When John Ramsey entered a room in the basement, he found his daughter dead on the floor, with a white blanket over her body and duct tape across her mouth.
The tragic discovery of the child by her own father, after officers had already searched the home, was the beginning of a yearslong, error-plagued investigation. JonBenét Ramsey’s murder was the first homicide that year in Boulder.
The case, after the acquittal of football star O.J. Simpson, immediately became the next international media sensation. Pictures of the photogenic 6-year-old competing in child beauty pageants appeared in the tabloids, while armchair detectives filled the airwaves, debating the contents of the ransom note.
Unidentified male DNA was left on the child and tests, performed just weeks after the murder, excluded anyone from the Ramsey family, including JonBenet’s 9-year-old brother Burke. Those results were initially kept from the press and public as investigators continued to focus mostly on John and Patsy Ramsey as suspects in their daughter’s murder.
While the couple gave DNA, hair, blood and writing samples in the days following the murder, they hired attorneys and didn’t speak to investigators until several months later, in April 1997, and again in June 1998. Video from that 1998 interrogation, aired publicly for the first time by “48 Hours,” shows a combative Patsy Ramsey denying any involvement in her daughter’s murder. When told that investigators had scientific trace evidence linking her, she responded, “That is totally impossible. Go retest.” She then added, “I don’t give a flying flip how scientific it is. Go back to the damn drawing board. I didn’t do it. John Ramsey didn’t do it. So we all got to start working together from here, this day forward to try to find out who the hell did it.”
In 2008, after more DNA tests again excluded the Ramsey family, the Boulder District Attorney at that time, Mary Lacy, publicly exonerated the Ramseys and sent them a letter of apology.
Investigators considered the theory that JonBenét may have been killed by an intruder, and over the years, looked at other persons of interest, including a neighbor who played Santa Claus and at least two people who confessed to the murder.
The only arrest in the case was made in 2006 after a man living in Thailand by the name of John Mark Karr claimed to have drugged, sexually assaulted and accidentally killed JonBenét. No drugs, however, had been found in the child and Karr’s DNA did not match what was left at the scene. Karr was later released.
Patsy Ramsey never lived to see the Boulder district attorney’s apology or have her name cleared. In 2006, she died, at age 49, of ovarian cancer. But John Ramsey, who remarried in 2011, has continued to push the Boulder police to find and arrest his daughter’s killer.
If JonBenét Ramsey had lived, she would have turned 34 years old in August. In an interview with “48 Hours” in November, John Ramsey said he can’t imagine his daughter as a grown woman, but only as a 6-year-old. He said he is confident that the unknown male DNA profile in the case will ultimately lead to a suspect in her murder. He is asking investigators in Boulder to turn over that DNA to an independent private lab that can employ the same technology, genetic genealogy, that was used to identify the Golden State Killer in 2018, and countless others since.
JonBenét Ramsey had been bludgeoned in the head and strangled with this intricately made device known as a garrote.
CBS News
Ramsey also said there are seven items of evidence from the family’s home that could still be tested for DNA including, he said, the garrote used to strangle JonBenét, a rope found in a guest bedroom, as well as a blanket. The Boulder Police Department, however, in a release in November, disputed Ramsey’s contention that they are not testing evidence.
“The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing—to include DNA testing — is completely false,” read a Boulder Police statement. Still, in a nearly six-minute video that was also released, the current Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn admits, “there were things that people have pointed to throughout the years that could have been done better and we acknowledge that is true.”
John Ramsey, who turned 81 in early December, has lived under a cloud of suspicion for nearly three decades, but he said the weight of constant public scrutiny was nothing compared to the loss of his child.
“It was just noise level stuff,” Ramsey said, “We were so devastated and crushed by the loss of JonBenét … it didn’t matter … it didn’t matter.”
He is speaking out now, he said, because an arrest in the case would finally give some peace to his son Burke, now in his 30s, and his two older children from his first marriage.
“… identifying the killer,” he said, “isn’t gonna change my life at this point, but it will change the lives of my children and my grandchildren. This cloud needs to be removed from our family’s head and this chapter closed for their benefit.”
In addition to fighting to keep his daughter’s case in the public eye, Ramsey is working to see the passage of The Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act, which would allow a murder victim’s family to request a federal review of their case.
“That would be a huge step forward to fix a fundamental problem in our system in this country,” Ramsey said, “not a complete solution, but it’s a step forward.”
Erin Moriarty
Erin Moriarty is a “48 Hours” correspondent and host of the true-crime podcast, “My Life of Crime.”
Nic Van Horn is in the middle of finding a new Chicago home for his family, and new rules on real estate agent commissions are adding some stress — even though they’re are intended to help consumers.
In August, the National Association of Realtors implemented two major changes as part of a $418 million antitrust settlement. The changes are described by some housing experts as the industry’s largest shift in homebuying, upending the traditional model of sellers paying both parties’ broker commissions:
Buyers and real estate agents now sign a contract disclosing the broker’s commission before the buyer is shown homes.
Broker commissions are no longer displayed on the multiple listing service, the database licensed brokers and agents use to share information about properties for sale as well as commissions. That practice was effectively enabling brokers and agents to collude on commission rates, since they could see what their competitors were charging.
Historically, only sellers signed a contract with an agent and paid broker commissions, baking both the seller’s and buyer’s fee into the sale price. The seller’s agent usually agreed to split the commission with the buyer’s agent. That meant homebuyers often didn’t incur a direct cost when working with a real estate agent.
The shared commission usually ranged from 5% to 6%.
Now, buyers and sellers set commissions through separate negotiation with real estate professionals, according to NAR, which says broker commissions have always been negotiable.
Van Horn was aware of the NAR settlement and its implications before his family started house hunting. It’s made him more aware of his options, but it also unleashes anxiety about what the end of the homebuying process will look like.
“It’s increased some uncertainty just around like, ‘Okay, are we going to be able to get the buyer’s agent commission covered by the seller, or are we going to have to do something else?’” Van Horn said. “We haven’t gotten to a point where we’ve been putting in offers, so I’m kind of more curious to see how that’s going to go once we get to that point, and what the negotiation is going to be like.”
Not every buyer is like Van Horn. Despite implementation months ago, agents and brokers say consumer awareness about the settlement is lagging. The real estate professionals are worried about where commissions are headed, and October data did show a dip in Illinois, but it’s too soon to say whether that’s significant.
Awareness ‘runs the gamut’
Van Horn says he’s clear on the three paths for paying his Realtor, Grigory Pekarsky at boutique firm Vesta Preferred: Either his family or the seller pays Pekarsky’s buyer commission directly, or the Van Horns bake the commission into their offer on the home.
“One way or another, we’re going to have to work it out,” Van Horn said. “The agent has to get paid.”
Many buyers still have not heard about the settlement and the series of class-action lawsuits filed by homeowners that led to it, Pekarsky said. “I think it’s gonna take at least 12 months — probably more like 24 months — to really see the true impacts of how the settlement’s gonna shake out.”
Awareness of the settlement “runs the gamut” with buyers at real estate brokerage Baird & Warner, said Laura Ellis, an executive at the firm. The brokerage did a big push to train its agents for the changes.
Laura Ellis is chief strategy officer and president of residential sales at Baird & Warner.
Barry Brecheisen/For the Sun-Times
Some potential buyers have reached out to the brokerage to ask what the new changes are — and what it means for them, Ellis said.
“The single biggest fear that the buyers have is that they are going to have to come up with a significant amount of extra money, and they may not be able to afford it — and that’s just not the case,” Ellis said. “We have very few buyers that are paying cash for the services of their agent. It’s still being done through the transaction.”
Too early to assess commission dip
Realtors have been concerned about how they might be affected by the settlement, including fewer sales for some agents, agents fleeing the industry and lower commissions.
In Illinois, the average commission was 5.07% in August, according to a report from real estate data company Clever. That’s down from 5.35% in 2023. But factors other than the change in the rule could be affecting that drop, and agents interviewed for this story said they haven’t noticed a change.
At Baird & Warner, commission rates have either held or gone up a bit, Ellis said, though she noted it’s only been a few months, and the industry still needs to see how it levels out.
“What we’re seeing is that the really skilled, professional agents have gotten better at articulating their value than they even were before,” she said.
Tommy Choi, president of the Illinois Realtors association and a member of NAR’s board of directors, said he also hasn’t witnessed a shift in commissions. NAR says commissions have always been negotiable and has denied any wrongdoing throughout the settlement process.
Choi, co-founder and owner of Weinberg Choi Residential at Keller Williams ONEChicago, has said his personal commission rates haven’t changed much either. “It feels pretty consistent to what our business standards are and how we negotiate that with the clients that we work with.”
There were some fears from the real estate industry that the settlement could lead to agents exiting the industry, including some hobbyists who sell only a few homes a year, primarily to family or friends.
That hasn’t been the case so far, Choi said. Many buyers, like Van Horn, are continuing to rely on real estate agents for their market expertise.
“The consumer is basically screaming that, ‘Hey, this is the largest investment I’m making in my lifetime. … I don’t want to navigate these waters by myself,’” Choi said.
The practice changes have been in place about four months, so many of the impacts are still being realized. But empowering consumers in a deal is always a good thing, said Jerrold Bregman, partner at California-based BG Law.
“With buyers and sellers having increased bargaining power, these changes will likely lead to lower negotiated fixed commission rates,” Bregman said. “This will likely spur activity once interest rates drop enough to entice homeowners with ‘golden handcuffs’ to bring their homes to market.”
Buyers, beware
Illinois real estate laws will change in 2025 to require signed buyer-broker agreements, which NAR members already use because of the settlement.
Sammy Lubeck, a Realtor at Baird & Warner, said he’s seen some hesitancy from people to sign a contract before even seeing a house. Others appreciate how more conversations at the beginning of the homebuying process increase transparency and help build trust with their agent.
“In the past, when the buyer-broker agreement was not required, many agents shied away from it,” Lubeck said. “It’s a positive for the industry, because the buyers are going to know who they can truly rely on to guide them through the process. The agents, since they have that signed buyer-broker agreement with their clients, it gives them a lot more confidence that the buyers are going to stay loyal to them and not just go to another agent to show them a house.”
Pekarsky advises buyers to “run the other way” if a buyer-broker contract includes a cancellation fee. Buying a home is a huge investment, and potential buyers should feel comfortable working with their real estate agent — even if they have to walk away from the contract.
Pekarsky and Lubeck suggest buyers interview multiple real estate agents before signing an agreement with anyone.
“Look at the contracts, and make sure you choose the broker that jives perfectly well with what you’re looking to accomplish,” Pekarsky said. “It’s a time to make sure that you can financially get ahead and use real estate for what it is — which is wealth building — and you can only do that with proper representation.”
Van Horn’s family is looking to move back to Chicago around the mid-summertime, once the school year has wrapped up for his kids in Michigan. Having a Realtor guide him through the process has been valuable, he said. The next home he’s seeing is one Pekarsky put on his radar — and being off-market, it isn’t one Van Horn could’ve found himself.
“He does a really good job of bringing things to us proactively that we’re not necessarily looking at,” Van Horn said.
