After Patsy Ramsey called 911 at 5:52 a.m. on December 26, 1996 to report that her daughter JonBenet Ramsey was kidnapped, she and husband John Ramsey also contacted some of their friends, who immediately came over to support the couple.

In turn, in addition to responding officers, there were people walking around the Ramseys’ 5,000-square-foot home all day before John found JonBenét’s body in the basement shortly after 1:30 p.m.

“I should have removed all those people from the scene, that was a mistake at the crime scene,” said the retired Boulder police detective Bob Whitson remembered in the Netflix docuseries Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey. “But at the time it looked like a legitimate kidnapping. So I thought, this is the support system for the Ramseys, and I’m going to let them stay.”

Because he didn’t know she was dead when he found her, John said in the series that he first tried to loosen the cord that tied her hands. The knots were too tight, he said, but he did remove a piece of duct tape covering her mouth and threw it on a blanket that had been near the body.

He then carried her upstairs, which investigators say caused the evidence collected from her body, the pajamas she was wearing, the tape, etc., to be contaminated.

“There may have been some evidence on the duct tape if it had not been removed,” Whitson said in the series.