Word: jonbenets
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Dates: during 1997-1997
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Nearly three weeks into the investigation of the murder of six-year-old JonBenet, the Little Miss Colorado whose battered body was found in the basement of her parent's Boulder home the day after Christmas, the mystery of her death has only become more confusing. Boulder police have not named a suspect, while JonBenet's parents, John and Patricia, are now communicating with investigators only through their lawyers and a media consultant. And as a side effect of the intense scrutiny the case is receiving, JonBenet's world--the glittering, multimillion-dollar world of children's beauty pageants...
...JonBenet was a veteran of dozens of contests, a confident and adorable pixie who kept scrapbooks documenting her pageant appearances. Those who saw her perform say she was a force to be reckoned with. "She was such a natural," says LaDonna Griego, director of the Colorado program for the All Star Kids organization, based in Dallas. "But she was untouched by it. When JonBenet won, she was just as giddy as the first time, and she was just as happy, it seemed, to be an alternate. At the Christmas pageant, she sat there and just said to herself, 'Please call...
...JonBenet and her mother, Patricia Ramsey, a former Miss West Virginia, the contests may have been good fun. For pageant organizers, they often mean big bucks. Throughout the country, especially in California and the South, a complex network of pageant systems, as they are called, make up the circuit, with pageants sponsored by the likes of Hawaiian Tropic and Beauty Unlimited held in shopping malls and hotel ballrooms. According to Ted Cohen, editor of the International Directory of Pageants, there are about 3,000 pageants a year in the U.S., 500 of which cater to the preteen-and-under...
...then there's potential celebrity. Industry insiders believe JonBenet was being groomed for greater things--talk-show appearances, modeling gigs, commercials, even television sitcom and movie roles. The California contests are particularly popular because talent scouts and casting agents often use them to search for new faces. Six-year-old Randi Anderson, a "Miss Citrus Heights," "Golden Carousel National Queen," "Universal Miss Supreme Beauty," and "Miss American Beauty" who has been on the circuit for only a year and a half, already has a thriving modeling career, and has had her face on the cover of Sacramento magazine...
There is certainly no evidence that JonBenet was performing against her will--and judges say it is alarmingly obvious when a child does not want to be onstage. Indeed, those who saw JonBenet compete say the child was a natural--spirited and spontaneous. One of the events JonBenet was preparing for before her murder was sponsored by Amerikids, a nonprofit youth development group based in Denver. JonBenet and nine other girls ages five to 18 planned to dance next month at the local Ronald McDonald charity ball. "JonBenet and her mother were here every week to practice," says Suzie Dolan...