On December 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey reported her daughter JonBenét Ramsey missing after finding a ransom note demanding $118,000. The six-year-old girl used to appear in local beauty pageants and was kind of a celebrity back then. Just hours later, her father John Ramsey would find the lifeless body of JonBenét in the basement of their home in Boulder, Colorado.
The brutal murder of a little girl within the safety of her home gained significant attention, which really didn’t help in this case. The police and media were quick to jump to the conclusion that the parents did it. 28 years later, the case still remains unsolved.
Academy Award-winning director Joe Berlinger takes a closer look at the case in his Netflix documentary, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey. Here are some of the details covered in the series.
Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey #5 – The Gruesome Details Of The Crime
The first episode of the three-part docuseries, Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey, delved into the details of what happened on the day of the crime. According to director Joe Berlinger, the series has a significant amount of never-seen-before material (via Tudum). This material included pieces of audio diaries from Colorado Springs detective Lou Smit, who assisted the Boulder PD.
JonBenét’s alleged attacker wrote a ransom note, demanding $118,000, which happened to be a sum close to John Ramsey’s previous work bonus. It raised suspicions that it was someone who knew the family closely. When no one called to collect the ransom, John was asked to look around the house one last time.
It was during this search that John Ramsey discovered his daughter’s body in a room in the basement. She was tied up and a duct tape was wound around her mouth. She had been strangled with a garrote and suffered a severe skull fracture from the act. The autopsy of the girl also confirmed s*xual assault before the gruesome murder.
Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey #4 – The Gross Missteps From The Boulder Police Department
For starters, the Boulder Police Department didn’t search the entire house immediately after a missing complaint was filed. Two officers were dispatched to the scene after Patsy’s initial call. They only sealed off JonBenét’s room. The Boulder PD were inexperienced in handling a homicide case, which was evident when they allowed the family’s friends into the crime scene and potentially contaminated it.
Boulder PD detective Linda Arndt asked John to search the house once again which was another wrong move from the police. In the documentary, John Ramsey revealed that he and a friend searched the basement and found JonBenét’s body. John removed the tape over her mouth and carried her upstairs.
The police completely forgot procedures and allowed the father to potentially tamper with evidence when he found her body. The judgment against the family began right when the little girl’s body was found. It was revealed in the docuseries that one of the investigators “hissed” that he knew the parents killed the girl.
Detective Arndt later claimed on Good Morning America that she had a “nonverbal exchange” with John, which made her believe that he was the killer. She shared that he was casually checking the mail after the initial disappearance, which Ramsey clarified that he was looking for evidence.
Another investigator Steve Thomas, who had more narcotics experience than homicide, stuck to his conclusion that Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter. He claimed that it was an accident after Patsy became enraged over a bed-wetting incident. Thomas took his theory to live television and presented it to Patsy’s face on Larry King Live. He even wrote a book about the same and was later sued for defamation.
While the docuseries questioned the validity of DNA testing done in the JonBenét case, it was also revealed that the results exonerated the Ramsey family. John Ramsey expressed his doubts in the documentary that the police intentionally kept the results a secret. He shared in the docuseries:
They were told in January by their lab,‘We tested the DNA. There is unidentified male DNA, which excludes the parents and the son, Burke.’ They kept that secret from the media and from the district attorney for months … because it conflicted with their conclusion that we were the killers.
Journalist Paula Woodward shared that the police fed “twisted” bits of information to the media. He accused the police of leaking that Patsy Ramsey had written the ransom note when at least four experts concluded that she did not write it. Charlie Brennan, a writer for Rocky Mountain News, admitted that he wrote misleading or incomplete stories about the case.
One of his stories allegedly disproved the intruder theory, sharing, “absence of tracks (in the snow) was among first clues that led police to suspect members of family.” However, the story didn’t mention that there was no snow in the back of the Ramsey home.
Lou Smit, the Colorado Springs detective, expressed his frustration with the Boulder PD in one of his audio recordings. He shared, “Clearly there’s evidence of an intruder. I say this over and over and over again. Nobody wants to listen.” Smit continued to independently investigate the case until the day he died. He passed away in 2010.
Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey #3 – The Media Firestorm Against The Ramseys
Like the police, the media too considered the Ramseys as the primary suspects in the case. JonBenét’s beauty pageants became a talking point for many, as several media commentators accused the parents of s*xualizing her with the costumes and makeup. Patsy was extremely upset when one of the media comments said that her daughter looked like a “tarted up miniature dwarf hooker.”
A grand jury decided in 1999 that the former couple had “unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly and feloniously permit[ted] a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation which posed a threat of injury to the child’s life or health” (via People). However, the case was not pursued further due to lack of evidence.
The late Patsy Ramsey remembered one media stunt as absolutely devastating. In 1997, Geraldo Rivera, the host of a syndicated daytime talk show, conducted a mock trial on the JonBenét Ramsey case. The jury in the show determined whether the Ramseys were guilty of their daughter’s death. Some expert witnesses were presented in the show, who made some ridiculous comments.
A so-called child abuse expert viewed a videotaped performance of JonBenét pretending to play a saxophone and shared her grossly misguided opinion, “She picks up a saxophone and for the next minute and a half, she m*sturbates with it.” In the end, the jury found Patsy Ramsey guilty of her daughter’s death.
Patsy reacted to the show in a previous interview, stating, “I could not believe what I was hearing. It’s sick for someone to even remotely allude to something so horrible; just nauseates me.” She also shared that the mock trial mortified her and sent her to bed for about two more days.
In 2016, a CBS documentary implicated the theory that JonBenét’s brother Burke Ramsey, who was just nine at the time, was behind the murder. They shared that he had hit his sister in the head with a flashlight. Burke filed a $750 million lawsuit against CBS. It was reported that the defamation lawsuit had been settled in 2019 (via NPR).
Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey #2 – The Large Suspect Pool In The Case
The “umbrella of suspicion” surrounding the parents was a reason for the police to not look seriously into other suspects in the case. From the beginning of the investigation, the police deemed the ransom note fake and failed to look into a possible intruder theory. There were several suspects who fit this modus of operandi.
Michael Helgoth was a suspect at one point because he owned a pair of boots that matched a print found at the scene. While an investigation into Helgoth was launched initially, it was later dropped after his suicide in 1997. John and Patsy hired a private investigator to look into Helgoth and he claimed that the suspect’s family possessed a taped confession from him.
Another former suspect was Gary Howard Olivia. He was a convicted pedophile who was named as a person of interest in the case on 48 Hours Investigates. While he never confessed to the crime, it was reported that he had a photo of JonBenét when he was arrested in 2000.
Bill McReynolds, who performed as Santa Claus, had visited the Ramsey home at the time and was considered a viable suspect. It was reported that his daughter was abducted decades earlier, thus connecting him to the case. However, the police never formally considered him a suspect.
However, Episode 3 of Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey mostly explores the possibility that John Mark Karr is the real culprit. Karr fled the U.S. after being charged with child p*rnography but was later caught and brought back to the country. He knew many details in the case and even made the claim that he had committed the murder.
The evidence didn’t support his claims as the DNA from the crime scene didn’t match Karr. Former district attorney Mary Lacy also shared that the family of Karr testified that he spent Christmas with his family in Atlanta at the time of the murder. However, John Ramsey isn’t entirely convinced and wants the DNA samples to be retested.
Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey #1 – The Fight For Justice For JonBenét Ramsey Will Continue
John Ramsey believes that his daughter’s murder could still be solved with the DNA evidence. He wants the Boulder PD to send the evidence, including the garrote used to strangle JonBenét, to advanced labs that use genetic genealogy and other advanced DNA technology.
He doesn’t believe that the DNA evidence in possession of Boulder PD is of no use unless they accept help. He then wants the DNA results to be cross-checked with all available databases.
John Ramsey also told People in November 2024 that he wanted the police to look into another case that happened nine months after JonBenét’s murder. This was another masked intruder who attacked a 12-year-old girl in her home in Boulder. John believed that it could’ve been the same person, while also adding that the girl and JonBenét attended the same dance studio. He shared:
The police blew it off as, ‘No, it’s not the same.’ I think the method of operation was exactly the same. I believe the killer was in the house when we came home, waited til we went to sleep.
Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn issued a statement regarding the case. The statement read (via USA Today):
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.
Calling the case a “tragedy” that “never left our hearts”, Boulder PD shared that they will continue to work on the case and pursue every lead possible.
All three episodes of Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey are now available for streaming on Netflix.
