Editor’s note: This story includes graphic descriptions of violence that some readers may find disturbing.
Whoever duct-taped JonBenét Ramsey’s mouth shut, bludgeoned the six-year-old Colorado girl and strangled the child beauty queen in her own home has evaded capture for almost 28 years.
Now, a new Netflix documentary series reexamines the gruesome December 1996 killing and suggests modern technology might help solve the homicide that has riveted and perplexed the country for decades.
Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey features lengthy interviews with JonBenét’s father and namesake, John Bennett Ramsey, who has lived under a cloud of suspicion despite being formally cleared in 2008.
“Our big frustration almost from Day One is that we knew the police did not have the capacity or the capability or the experience to deal with this case,” Ramsey, now 80, told CNN Tuesday.
While researching the case, director Joe Berlinger was stunned by “just how trampled the crime scene was.” But even after the initial, botched police investigation, Berlinger said he believes advanced technology, such as genetic genealogy, “can solve the crime.”
Here’s what we know about the quest for JonBenét’s killer, including the overseas arrest of an innocent man and how investigators are trying a new strategy after 21,000 tips:
The little girl was a local celebrity – and may have drawn unwanted attention
By age six, JonBenét had amassed more titles and tiaras than many beauty queens several times her age: Little Miss Colorado. Little Miss Charlevoix. Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl. America’s Royale Miss. National Tiny Miss Beauty.
The kindergartener was already wearing high heels and following the footsteps of her beauty queen mother, Patricia “Patsy” Ramsey, a former Miss West Virginia.
John and Patsy Ramsey, shown in May 1997, pleaded for the public’s help in finding their daughter’s killer. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
A week before her death, JonBenét was featured in a Boulder Christmas parade – with her name displayed along the side of her float. Her father later told CNN that may have been a mistake.
On the night of December 25, 1996, JonBenét, her brother Burke and their parents returned home from Christmas dinner at a family friend’s house. Patsy Ramsey tucked her daughter into bed.
The next day, JonBenét’s lifeless body was found in the family’s basement with a cord around her neck.
A cryptic ransom note and a grisly discovery
The morning after Christmas, Patsy Ramsey went to the kitchen to make coffee. On her way down the spiral staircase, she found a lengthy, bizarre ransom note.
The note was written on paper taken from Patsy Ramsey’s notepad. It demanded a peculiar amount of money – US$118,000 – the same amount John Ramsey received for his Christmas bonus as president of Access Graphics.
It’s still not clear why that exact dollar amount was demanded, or by whom.
Fearing her daughter had been kidnapped, Patsy Ramsey called 911. Investigators found no immediate signs of forced entry into the family’s upscale house.
For several hours, no one could find JonBenét. Officers didn’t properly secure the sizeable home, and family friends came and went freely.
Eventually, John Ramsey and a friend went down to the basement and opened a cellar door.
“JonBenét was there. I saw her immediately,” John Ramsey told CNN in 2016. “And it was a rush of relief. I thought, ‘God, I found my child.’ And then I pretty quickly realized that she may not be alive.”
JonBenét had a rope embedded deep into her neck. At the end of the rope was a broken paintbrush that looked like it was from Patsy Ramsey’s art set. There was also evidence the six-year-old had been sexually assaulted.
The coroner who performed JonBenét’s autopsy said the child died from suffocation in conjunction with forcible trauma to her skull. JonBenét had an 8.5-inch skull fracture.
Almost three decades later, it’s still not clear why someone wrote a ransom note describing a kidnapping when the killer left JonBenét’s mutilated body in the house.
‘We were aghast’ after the botched police response, JonBenét’s father says
Law enforcement and forensic experts have said local authorities made mistakes in the early hours and days of the investigation.
Failing to secure the house while people drifted in and out meant the crime scene had been compromised. Potential evidence was not promptly collected to eliminate the possibility of contamination.
John Ramsey said he believes police spent too long focusing on him and Patsy rather than looking for whoever actually killed their daughter.
“We knew they were totally focused on Patsy and I, and we were aghast,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan Tuesday. “But I said to them, ‘OK, great. Let’s work through that and then don’t stop there.’ Well, they did stop there. And our big frustration with the police all along has been that they’ve refused help from the outside that could have helped.”
But Boulder police have reiterated their efforts to find JonBenét’s killer.
“The killing of JonBenet was an unspeakable crime and this tragedy has never left our hearts,” Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn said in a statement posted on X Tuesday. “We are committed to following up on every lead and we are continuing to work with DNA experts and our law enforcement partners around the country until this tragic case is solved.”
Last year, Boulder police announced a new strategy in trying to resolve the case that has haunted the community for decades.
“Boulder Police Department (BPD) convened a panel of outside experts (Colorado Cold Case Review Team) to review the JonBenét Ramsey homicide investigation,” the department said in December 2023.
“The purpose of the review was to generate additional investigative recommendations and determine if updated technologies and/or forensic testing might produce new intelligence or leads to solve the case.”
This week, police refuted the notion that detectives aren’t using every investigative tool possible.
“The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing — to include DNA testing — is completely false,” Boulder police said Tuesday.
“Additionally, it was the Boulder Police Department — not the Colorado Bureau of Investigation — who convened the Cold Case Review Panel in December 2023 as part of its investigation efforts.”
A grand jury voted to indict her parents … but no charges followed
After two years of public fascination, rampant speculation and no suspect arrested, the Boulder County district attorney convened a grand jury in 1998. The grand jurors met regularly over 13 months to hear testimony from law enforcement and civilians – including JonBenét’s brother, Burke, who was in the house at the time of his sister’s death.
But John and Patsy Ramsey were not asked to testify.
The grand jury voted to indict the parents on charges of child abuse resulting in death and being accessories to a crime – though that news didn’t come to light until more than a decade later, after the district attorney declined to file charges.
In 2013, the Boulder Daily Camera broke the news that grand jurors voted to indict John and Patsy Ramsey back in 1999. But at the time, District Attorney Alex Hunter said there was insufficient evidence. And in an extraordinarily rare move, the county’s top prosecutor went against the grand jury’s wishes.
“There had never been a circumstance quite like this,” Stan Garnett, another former Boulder County district attorney, previously told CNN. “A grand jury had returned a true bill, the DA had refused to sign it and … it remained secret for a long time. And eventually its existence became known.”
Back in 1999, the grand jury didn’t have DNA findings that emerged in 2008. Over the years, DNA testing improved – and eventually led authorities to clear the Ramseys of suspicion in JonBenét’s death.
Forensic scientist Dr. Angela Williamson said a DNA sample had been taken from the crotch of JonBenét’s panties, where the girl’s blood was found.
The DNA of an unknown male was detected – but the DNA didn’t match anyone who had been near the scene or who had handled her body. The results excluded John, Patsy and Burke Ramsey.
Patsy Ramsey didn’t live to see the 2008 apology from a Boulder County district attorney clearing her and her husband of suspicion in their daughter’s death. She died of ovarian cancer at age 49 in 2006.
Modern DNA technology reveals a new clue
More than a decade after JonBenét’s death, a test using touch DNA – or trace DNA – from JonBenét’s long johns indicated the same unknown male made contact with the young girl’s underwear, Williamson said.
“Whoever committed this offense must have pulled down her long johns – but then they pulled them back up, because she was found dressed,” Williamson told CNN.
Technicians tested DNA on both sides of the long johns’ waist band. “It’s the same DNA,” Williamson said. “It’s the same male that’s in the underpants that’s on the side of the long johns.’
But the identity of that male remains a mystery.
A teacher claims he killed JonBenét
Only one arrest has been made in connection with JonBenét’s death – but it turned out to be the wrong man.
In 2006, teacher John Mark Karr was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand. The 41-year-old repeatedly said he loved JonBenét and was with her the night she died. He also insisted her death was an accident.
Karr allegedly told an investigator that he had drugged JonBenét and sexually assaulted her before accidentally killing her.
But soon after his arrest and return to Colorado, prosecutors said DNA evidence proved he had nothing to do with her death. The district attorney decided not to charge him.
Thai police escort American teacher John Mark Karr at the Thai Immigration Department in Bangkok on August 17, 2006. (SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
New DNA techniques fuel hope for answers
In the decades since JonBenét’s death, detectives have probed 21,000 tips, travelled to more than a dozen states and spoken with over 1,000 people in connection with her killing, Boulder police said.
Despite myriad dead ends, authorities have not given up on finding JonBenét’s killer. Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said if critical evidence or information emerges, JonBenét’s killer could be brought to justice.
The challenge is finding that elusive information.
“Whether it is DNA or other evidence,” the district attorney said, “more is needed to solve this murder.”
Both Berlinger and JonBenét’s father said they hope genetic genealogy will help bring JonBenét’s killer to justice.
“Certain cold cases in recent years have been solved because of that,” Berlinger said. “Golden State Killer, Green River Killer – there have been a lot of advances, particularly with genealogical DNA.”
Investigative genetic genealogy combines DNA analysis from a lab with genealogical research, such as tracing a person’s family tree via GEDMatch – a free website where people can upload their DNA raw data files.
Investigators can take an unknown suspect’s DNA profile and upload it to a public database to learn about the suspect’s family members. Investigators can then use the genealogical information and other evidence to build back through the family tree and identify potential suspects.
Police aren’t saying what investigative avenues are currently being pursued.
A grieving father’s relentless search for justice
Since Patsy Ramsey passed away 18 years ago, John Ramsey has remarried and moved to Utah. But the agony of JonBenét’s death follows him everywhere.
Despite helping with the Netflix documentary, John Ramsey said he doesn’t intend to watch it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever watched any of the broadcasts that I’ve participated in over the years … it’s hard to watch that stuff,” he told CNN. “My wife Jan is watching it. She will be my filter and say, ‘Well, you watch this part, but don’t watch this part. It’ll be too hard for you emotionally.'”
Ramsey said he doesn’t expect the grief to subside for his family.
“This has not gone away from our life for 28 years.”
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CNN’s Julie In, Faith Karimi, Eric Levenson and Andi Babineau contributed to this report.