i couldn't get -- i couldn't get it loose. i couldn't do anything but scream. >> and john ramsey carried his daughter rigid from rigor mortis up the stairs and set her body down on the floor. >> later horrifying details emerged. jonbenet had been brutally tortured and strangled. >> we were no longer looking at a straight kidnapping, we were looking at now a homicide. >> made more complicated by a contaminated crime scene. >> we had victims' advocates there, we had uniformed police, we had detectives, people were in the kitchen making sandwiches. >> who knows who was upstairs, who knows who was downstairs. >> late that afternoon john and patsy brought their son home from a friend's house. burke later told police what happened next. >> i thought jonbenet was going to be there. i thought they had found her so i came in so excited.