JonBenét Ramsey’s Dad Urges Police to Test DNA Ahead of New Docuseries: ‘We’re Begging’
JonBenét Ramsey’s father is urging police to “do your job” and “test the DNA” on materials left behind at his daughter’s crime scene, as the cold case is set to be revisited in a new Netflix docuseries Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?
The six-year-old pageant princess’ murder has remained unsolved since her body was found in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado, on Dec. 26, 1996. The little girl had been struck in the head, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death.
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Her 80-year-old father, John, has long accused local police of botching their investigation. Now, speaking to People ahead of the three-episode series, which premieres on Monday, Nov. 25, he urges officials to test items that the presumed killer left behind, including a ransom note, a suitcase and the garrote used to strangle JonBenét.
“We’re begging the police to engage,” Ramsey said. “There are cutting-edge DNA labs that want to help and who believe they can move the case forward. … Of the items sent to labs in the beginning, six or seven of them were returned untested. We don’t know why they were not tested, but they were not tested.”
JonBenét’s murder is considered one of the world’s most famous cold cases, gaining widespread media attention. John has continually called for local police to reinvestigate the case and find his daughter’s killer. Both he and his wife Patsy were looked at as possible suspects in the police’s initial investigation, as was their son, but DNA evidence in 2008 exonerated immediate family members. Others believed former school teacher John Mark Karr, who confessed to the 1996 strangulation in 2006, as a prime suspect; the family housekeeper Linda Hoffman-Pugh; or the town’s Santa Claus Bill McReynolds as the potential killer. The Daily Mail reported in 2019 that longtime suspect and convicted pedophile Gary Olivia confessed to “accidentally” killing the six-year-old in a series of letters. But no one has ever been officially convicted of the crime.
Directed by Joe Berlinger, of Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, the series will re-examine the alleged mishandling of the case.
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