The father of JonBenét Ramsey, the six-year-old beauty queen found strangled to death in the basement of her Colorado family home, believes there is evidence in the case that has never been DNA tested.
John Ramsey, now 80, said the DNA analysis of these samples could finally unlock the identity of his daughter’s killer nearly 30 years on.
It came as he repeated calls for new ‘cutting edge’ labs to retest the DNA found on previous evidence.
The Young Miss Colorado was found left on a heap of clothes with an eight-inch fracture to her skull and a fragmented paint brush stuck into her neck by garrote in December 1996.
Speaking on NewsNation, Mr Ramsey said: ‘We want the evidence that has been previously tested and never tested. We think there’s some that has never been tested.
‘We want that re-sampled by one of the cutting-edge labs that’s out there. The government, I don’t think, has the technology yet to do it. An Othram Labs, Bode Labs, those are really cutting-edge labs.
‘Bode did the original testing back in 1997. They came up with Unidentified Male DNA, still unidentified.
‘That was a real problem for the police, because they’d already decided that we were the killers. Like, “how do we explain away this unidentified DNA?” And they tried for a long time find an innocent explanation.’
It comes as Geraldo Rivera apologized for the hurt his 1997 mock trial caused after it found JonBenét’s family culpable for her death in the basement of their home in Boulder, Colorado.
Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét’s body was found at her home in Boulder, Colorado on December 26, 1996
NewsNation’s Geraldo Rivera apologized for the hurt his 1997 mock trial caused after it found JonBenét’s family culpable for her death in the basement of their home in Boulder, Colorado .
John Ramsey, now 80, believes the analysis of DNA samples by ‘cutting edge’ labs could finally unlock the identity of his daughter’s killer
The trial featured in Netflix’s new documentary, ‘Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey’ which explores the mistakes made by police in the investigation.
Rivera told Ramsey during the interview last night: ‘I deeply apologize to you for what you and your family have suffered’ in reference to his special. However, he added that ‘mock trials and moot courts … are not that unprecedented.’
No one has ever caught JonBenét’s killer with the murder haunting investigators and gripping the public’s imagination for nearly three decades.
While initial suspicions centered on her family—father John, mother Patsy, and brother Burke—DNA evidence excluded them as suspects in 1997, and they were formally exonerated in 2008.
And despite a multi-agency task force established in 2023, progress has been slow.
Ramsey continued: ‘We’ve been critical of the police for 28 years for not accepting help [from the Feds].
‘This case could have been solved a long time ago had the police not immediately only focused on Patsy and I.
‘You know, we accepted that and told them, “Look, okay, ell, we understand that we are in the house so we’re suspect, but don’t stop there,” and they did.’
Child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey is seen in 1996, the year she died
John and Patsy Ramsey are shown meeting reporters Thursday, May 1, 1997
Pictured, the Ramsey family seen together in December 1993
A bombshell admission by a police source has also given investigators fresh hope in finally solving the 28 year mystery.
‘We f****d the case up from the start, and now with new blood, we can finally fix it,’ a police source told the New York Post.
The stunning statement came as Boulder’s newly appointed police chief, Stephen Redfearn, doubled down on efforts to crack the case.
Redfearn, who assumed his role in early 2024, has made solving the murder a top priority.
‘He wants it solved and off the books,’ said a department insider claimed. ‘He’s assigning officers and resources to solve the murder, which has been a black mark on the Boulder PD.
‘I’m not sure what it will take to bust it wide open but it feels like it’s within reach. We’re hoping for 2025; this is our year,’ the investigator added.
Ramsey had long argued that Boulder PD had been unwilling to collaborate with external experts who might bring fresh perspectives to the case.
‘They need to accept the help that’s offered to them,’ said Ramsey, now 80. ‘There’s a new police chief brought in from the outside. I hope he accepts help so this can be solved.’
Ramsey urged police to go ‘deeper’ with the samples from the crime scene and ‘sort the DNA we have today and make more sense of it’.
The Young Miss Colorado was found left on a heap of clothes with an eight-inch fracture to her skull and a fragmented paint brush stuck into her neck by garrote in December 1996
The case is one of the highest-profile mysteries in the US, and remains a cold case but there is now renewed interest following the release of a new Netflix documentary
The grave of JonBenet Ramsey in Marietta, Georgia, pictured
He demanded that police finally sample five or six items that were taken from the crime scene but have never been analyzed.
He stated he wants items that have been tested to be resampled due to advances in technology and then compared with the public genealogy database to look for a potential match, as has been done in numerous other cold cases.
Authorities have indeed sent several items for renewed DNA testing, but significant breakthroughs have so far remained elusive.
The DNA evidence in the case has long proved problematic with Boulder police being heavily criticized for mishandling the investigation.
In 2015, former Boulder police chief Mark Beckner admitted crime scene evidence may have been mishandled on a Reddit forum.
‘The crime scene was not handled properly and this later affected the investigation,’ he said.
A department insider defended their efforts, pushing back against claims of negligence.
‘The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing—to include DNA testing—is completely false,’ Chief Redfearn stated.
