John Ramsey Wonders if the Success of His Company Was To Blame for His Daughter's Murder

The house where JonBenét Ramsey was murdered on Christmas day in 1996 tells a story that goes beyond the tragedy that occurred inside. Built in 1927, the single-family home boasts five bedrooms, eight bathrooms, impressive walk-in closets, balconies, fireplaces, and a two-car garage.

The house faces east and is blessed to have an unfettered view of the Rocky Mountains. It's hard to imagine something as horrific as murder in a lovely home like that.

Sadly, that's precisely what happened when 6-year-old JonBenét was killed on that cold December day. John Ramsey and his wife Patsy found a ransom note before JonBenét's body was discovered several hours later. Before they realized she was dead, the Ramseys were led to believe she was kidnapped and could be saved by giving her abductors $118,000.

That's not a small chunk of change. Could John Ramsey afford to pay that if he had to? Let's take a look at what he did for a living.

On Dec. 21, 1996, four days before his daughter was killed, John was celebrating a huge milestone with his employees. According to The Daily Camera Access Graphics Inc., the computer distribution company where John was president, had made $1 billion in revenues that year. The mood of the office that morning was surpassed only by the Dixieland jazz band brought in to mark the occasion.

John proceeded to thank the 300 employees for their hard work and dedication, saying it wouldn't have happened without them. Because of these fine folks, the company's sales increased 25 percent. In 1989, CAD Distributors Inc. of Boulder, CAD Sources Inc. of Piscataway, N.J., and Advanced Products Group of Roswell, Ga. merged to form Access Graphics.

The following year, the company raked in $59 million in sales which had increased 1600 percent in five years.

Access Graphics became a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin in 1991, and was getting about "60 percent of its revenues from selling hardware and software from Sun Microsystems Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.," reported the outlet.

At the time, Access Graphics was one of only two distributors for Sun in the United States.

In November 1997, The Daily Camera reported that Lockheed Martin reached an agreement to "trade Boulder-based Access Graphics Inc. and certain other assets to General Electric Co. for $2.8 billion in stock," along with an agreement that John would step back as president.

Despite that decision, he was not entirely out of the game. Access spokeswoman Julann Andresen said John would be operating as a consultant for Lockheed Martin.

It's possible the timing had something to do with this change, but Lockheed Martin spokesman Charles Manor said the death of John's daughter was not a factor in this decision.

This deal was expected to net Lockheed Martin $300 million.

In December 2022 John spoke with The U.S. Sun where he referenced the infamous Daily Camera article written about Access Graphics' big $1 billion year. Per the outlet, John was worth around $6.4 million in 1996 and he lamented the fact that his company's sizable revenue was now public knowledge.

"I had a gut feeling it wasn't a good idea," he said. For John, this was a way to show appreciation for his employees. Now he worries that kind of money was the impetus for his daughter's murder.

In a 2015 interview with Barbara Walters, John revealed that the fallout from JonBenét's murder hit him hard, financially. While his net worth hasn't been made public, we do know that John and his third wife run a retail store in Moab, Utah.

He is still looking for his daughter's killer.