No Fresh Tracks Outside Home After Jonbenet Reported Missing

Police responding to JonBenet Ramsey’s home the morning she was reported missing found no footprints in the snow surrounding the house, sources said Monday.

That is one of the earliest details that caused investigators to focus their attention on the slain girl’s family, police sources said.

Although there was no significant storm prior to the 6-year-old girl’s Christmas night murder, it had snowed lightly several times between Dec. 23 and 26, weather records show.

These snowfalls all came on top of an existing snow cover that persisted from about Dec. 16 through Dec. 26, when the child beauty queen was found sexually assaulted and strangled in the family’s basement.

Still, police said, the first investigators arriving at the Ramsey home in response to mother Patsy Ramsey’s 911 call at 5:52 a.m. on Dec. 26 reported no fresh tracks leading to or from the house.

And although police handled the crime as a possible kidnapping for more than seven hours - until John Ramsey found his daughter in the basement - investigators considered the lack of footprints to be significant.

Other details contributing to investigators’ belief that JonBenet’s killer might be someone close to the family include that police found no sign of forced entry to the 15-room mansion. Also, the 2-page ransom note discovered by Patsy came from a legal pad found in the home.

In other developments:

Dr. Henry Lee, a respected forensics scientist, traveled to Boulder last weekend to review the Ramsey case. Lee, an expert in crime scene reconstruction and evidence collection, is working as part of the expert prosecution task force.

Officials had little response Monday to publication in the Globe of eight pictures from inside the Ramseys’ home.

The photographs, which the supermarket weekly obtained through a confidential source, show scenes ranging from the frilly accents of JonBenet’s bedroom to the barren basement room where her body was discovered.

Police spokeswoman Leslie Aaholm reported that a Boulder detective has returned from Charlevoix, Mich., where a search warrant was executed for a second time on the family’s vacation home.