JONBENÉT Ramsey was murdered on Christmas Day 1996 and the identity of her killer has been a mystery for decades.
After the Netflix documentary Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey aired on November 25, 2024, her father received a letter that altered the landscape of the long list of suspects in the case.
JonBenét’s tragic murder
JonBenét Ramsey lived in Boulder County, Colorado with her dad John Bennet Ramsey, mom Patricia, known as “Patsy”, and brother Burke.
She competed in several child beauty pageants, after following in the footsteps of her beauty pageant winning mother.
On the night of December 25, 1996, JonBenét was killed at her home and hidden in the property’s basement.
Her disappearance on December 26 prompted a search for the six-year-old, culminating in the discovery of her body concealed behind a door in the basement.
This sparked an investigation into who murdered JonBenét which had two lines of inquiry.
Two theories emerged: one positing that a family member was responsible for her death, while the other suggested an intruder, possibly gaining access through the property’s two open windows or basement door, committed the crime.
Shocking confession
A Netflix documentary entitled Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey landed on the streaming platform on November 25, 2024.
The series sparked a renewed interest in the case and led to John Bennett receiving a shocking letter in the post.
He revealed to the Daily Mail: JonBenét’s father told the Daily Mail: “Based on all this publicity, recently I got a letter from a lady saying, ‘My ex-husband’s the killer, and I’ve kept this inside for as long as I can – please, please call me.’
“We reached out to her, but she didn’t answer the phone, so I don’t know.
“We’ve shared at this point with a private investigator.”
Although this has not yet led to an arrest, John Bennett hopes it will help his family find peace.
JonBenét’s family
John, Patsy and Burke were never named as suspects in JonBenét’s murder but much of the police inquiries into the six-year-old’s death focused on her family.
Patsy was the person to report her daughter as missing, after discovering a two-and-a-half page ransom note on the kitchen staircase.
The note was written using a pen and some paper that belonged to the Ramseys, and it asked for a monetary amount equivalent to John’s annual Christmas bonus.
The note including such specific details and being so unusually long led the police to believe that the family might have been involved.
JonBenét’s autopsy revealed what was believed to be pineapple in the six-year-old’s stomach and her older brother Burke’s fingerprints were on a bowl of pineapple in the kitchen.
His parents claimed that he had been asleep in his bed all night, though, and there was no physical evidence to dispute this.
Burke sued CBS after one of their documentaries appeared to imply that he was the killer, but the case was settled and amicably resolved to the satisfaction of all parties in 2019.
Both John and Patsy were publicly exonerated by Mary Lacy, the Boulder County District attorney, and Burke was cleared of suspicion.
Gary Howard Oliva
The convicted pedophile Gary Howard Oliva was publicly named as a suspect in 2002, however he was never charged.
He was found to have phoned a school friend on the night of JonBenét’s death, where he confessed that he “just hurt a little girl”.
It was also uncovered that he had been near the Ramsey’s house at the time of JonBenét’s death.
When he was arrested in 2016 for two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a child and one count of sexual exploitation of a child, he was found to have several pictures of JonBenet.
Some of these photos included her autopsy pictures.
Oliva’s DNA was found not to match traces on JonBenét’s body, but his handwriting showed a striking similarity to the writing on the ransom note found in the Ramsey home.
John Mark Karr
On August 15, 2006, John Mark Karr confessed to the murder and sexual assault of JonBenét while teaching in Bangkok.
However, his confession quickly fell apart as he was unable to give any details beyond the ones which had been reported in the press.
Also, JonBenét’s autopsy had not indicated the presence of any drugs in her body and there was no evidence to suggest the teacher was even in Boulder County at the time of her death.
Karr’s DNA did not match the traces found on JonBenét’s body either.
