The Jonbenet Ramsey Case -- The World Knew Jonbenet Only After 6- Year-Old's Death

BOULDER, Colo. - In a ruffled, pink cowgirl outfit, JonBenet Ramsey bounced across the stage, flashing her million-dollar smile.

"I want to be a cowboy sweetheart," she sang, with a white hat atop her moussed, golden curls.

The performance captured on video was played around the world after the 6-year-old beauty-pageant participant was found strangled and beaten on Dec. 26, 1996.

She was born Aug. 6, 1990, in Atlanta to John Bennett Ramsey, a successful business executive, and his second wife, Patsy, a one-time Miss West Virginia.

JonBenet was named after her father, with the name pronounced "zhawn-ben-AY." She spent most of her life in the mountain town of Boulder.

JonBenet attended High Peaks Elementary School, where she made the honor roll in the month before she died, and was a member of St. John's Episcopal Church.

Family and friends said she was an active, inquisitive, giving child who loved Shirley Temple movies.

In the last year of her life, JonBenet followed her mother's footsteps into beauty pageants. After her death, the world would take a closer look at the children's beauty-pageant circuit, where youngsters parade in makeup and elaborate hairstyles, sometimes when they are barely out of diapers.

She learned how to walk, gesture and perform and collected a wardrobe of elaborate costumes, including that of a Las Vegas showgirl and a cowgirl. Although JonBenet loved to perform, family and friends said the competitions did not rule her life.

In her last months, JonBenet charmed judges into awarding her the titles of Little Miss Colorado, Little Miss Charlevoix, Mich., Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, America's Royale Miss and National Tiny Miss Beauty.

As they traveled to competitions, mother and daughter would sing their favorite song, a tune from "Gypsy," a musical and movie about a mother obsessed with making her daughter a star.

"Wherever we go, whatever we do, we're gonna get through it together," they would sing, a minister told mourners at JonBenet's funeral.

JonBenet was buried in Marietta, Ga., next to the grave of her half sister, Elizabeth Ramsey, 22, who died in a car crash in Ohio in 1992. In the coffin, JonBenet was dressed in a beauty-pageant dress and tiara, with a stuffed toy animal in her arms.

Said a family friend, Dee Dee Nelson-Schneider: "This child was like a little doll."