1990-1996
JonBenét Ramsey News: Netflix Docuseries Reexamines Cold Case
Almost 30 years later, a new docuseries revisits the tragic and mysterious death of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, who was found in the basement of her Colorado home. Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey aims to crack the infamous case of her brutal murder in 1996, which remains unsolved.
The three-part Netflix series reexamines the case, scrutinizing the many missteps made by law enforcement throughout the investigation, and highlighting the impact of the media frenzy that followed. The documentary also reviews the steps Colorado authorities, private investigators, and Ramsey’s family have recently taken to finally close the investigation.
Following the release of Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey on November 25, the Boulder Police Department released its annual update on the case earlier than normal due to renewed public interest. Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said he receives “frequent” updates from detectives and that the department had been in contact with Ramsey’s family as recently as mid-2024.
Who Was JonBenét Ramsey?
Child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey was only 6 years old when she was found dead in her Boulder, Colorado, home the day after Christmas in 1996. Her murder, which is still unsolved, became one of the decade’s most famous police investigations. Some theories about what happened that night have pointed the finger at the Ramsey family, but her parents and brother were never charged and formally absolved of any wrongdoing in 2008 after a fresh round of DNA testing. Other explanations involve an unknown intruder. More than 25 years after her death, Ramsey’s killing remains shrouded in mystery.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: JonBenét Patricia Ramsey
BORN: August 6, 1990
DEATH: December 26, 1996
BIRTHPLACE: Atlanta, Georgia
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo
JonBenét’s Short Life
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was born on August 6, 1990, in Atlanta. She was named after both her parents. John Bennett Ramsey, her father, was a multimillionaire businessman, and Patricia Ramsey, her mother who was commonly known as Patsy, had been named Miss West Virginia in 1977.
In 1991, the couple moved with their children—JonBenét and her older brother, Burke—to Boulder, Colorado, when John’s business, Access Graphics, merged with Lockheed Martin. The family lived in a spacious and luxurious home in the college town roughly 30 miles northwest of Denver.
Burke wasn’t JonBenét’s only sibling. She also had three older half-siblings from her father’s first marriage: Elizabeth, who died in a car accident in 1992; Melinda; and John Andrew. By the time JonBenét was born, her half-sisters were both adults and John Andrew was nearing 18; none lived at the Ramsey home in Colorado.
An outgoing child beauty queen, JonBenét enjoyed being the center of attention. Patsy entered her daughter into beauty pageants throughout the country. By age 6, JonBenét had already won multiple pageant titles thanks to her bouncy blonde hair, poised smile, and glittery costumes. She was named America’s Royale Miss, Little Miss Colorado, and National Tiny Miss Beauty, among other titles.
Back home, JonBenét was enrolled in kindergarten at High Peaks Elementary School. Her parents doted on her in every way they could, giving her everything she needed to live a comfortable life. In addition to their $1 million Colorado home, the Ramseys owned a vacation home in northern Michigan. It was apparently because of the family’s wealth that JonBenét became a target.
Mysterious Death
Early on the morning of December 26, 1996, Patsy called the police after finding a three-page ransom note demanding $118,000 for her daughter’s safe return. The only other people believed to be at the house at that time were John and Burke, JonBenét’s father and brother, and the only sign of a break-in was an open basement window. The family, their friends, and authorities began searching for the 6-year-old girl.
Hours later, John and a friend found his daughter lying dead in a room in their basement. JonBenét had been strangled—the official cause of death, as determined by an autopsy—with a garrote made from cord and one of her mother’s paintbrushes. She also sustained a fracture to her skull as well as bruises and abrasions on various parts of her body. There were signs she had been sexually assaulted, though DNA evidence from a perpetrator was limited. Her death was classified as a homicide.
Murder Investigation
Upon initially arriving at the Ramsey home, the Boulder Police Department made crucial errors that compromised the investigation. Believing they were investigating a kidnapping, they didn’t seal off the house as a crime scene until after JonBenét’s body had been found. Police also didn’t interview her parents separately during initial questioning and later shared evidence and reports with John and Patsy. Further complicating matters, John removed duct tape that covered his daughter’s mouth and carried her body upstairs immediately after finding her.
No major leads were made, though the Ramseys became a main focus of the investigation. Much of the public viewed the parents as guilty after hearing about evidence that didn’t paint them in the most innocent light: John and Patsy, who had hired separate defense lawyers, weren’t always quick to cooperate with the investigation, and their media appearances made them appear culpable. The cryptic ransom note was discovered to be written on paper found at their house, and handwriting analysis didn’t exclude Patsy as its author. Curiously, the ransom amount matched John’s year-end bonus, plus fiber retrieved from the duct tape that bound JonBenét’s body matched the same fiber on her mother’s clothes.
All the while, JonBenét’s parents remained adamant that they didn’t kill their daughter. They hired private investigators and offered a reward for information in the case. Four months after JonBenét’s death, in April 1997, police formally interviewed John and Patsy for the first time. They were interviewed again in June 1998. In addition to DNA evidence the couple provided, police also searched their homes for clues.
Other theories placed blame on JonBenét’s brother Burke, who was 9 years old when his sister died. He was also questioned in June 1998, though experts doubted a child could have committed the murder. Officials made plain Burke was only ever a witness in the case, not a suspect, in May 1999.
Outside of the Ramsey family, other people have been subject to public suspicion over the years. This includes convicted child sex offender Gary Oliva, electrician Michael Helgoth, pageant photographer Randy Simons, and even the town Santa, Bill McReynolds. However, none of these people have been charged in the case.
Grand Jury Investigation
With the police investigation stalling, Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter convened a grand jury to review evidence in the case. The panel of eight women and four men first met in September 1998. Their investigation included a tour of the crime scene, and they heard testimony from then-12-year-old Burke as well as JonBenét’s half-siblings.
The grand jury voted to indict John and Patsy in 1999 on charges of child abuse leading to death and accessory to a crime. However, the district attorney decided not to prosecute them. That October, Hunter closed the probe and said there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges against anyone without disclosing the indictment (its existence was made public for the first time in January 2013). Even so, the Ramsey family continued to face public scrutiny.
Additional Developments in the Case
In 2000, the couple released their memoir The Death of Innocence: The Untold Story of JonBenét’s Murder and How Its Exploitation Compromised the Pursuit of Truth. A year later, they filed an $80 million defamation suit against a former detective for the Boulder Police Department after he wrote a book claiming John and Patsy killed their daughter. The Ramseys settled the lawsuit, which also named a co-author and the book’s publisher, for an undisclosed amount in March 2002. Patsy died of ovarian cancer at age 49 four years later.
In August 2006, focus turned to John Mark Karr, an American teacher working in Thailand who confessed to the murder. Karr was arrested and quickly extradited to the States, but hopes that JonBenét’s killer had finally been found were over just as quickly. Mary Lacy, the Boulder district attorney who took over after Alex Hunter, dropped the charges against the teacher after DNA testing found he wasn’t at the crime scene.
The next major breakthrough in the case also followed DNA testing. An analysis conducted in 2007 determined JonBenét’s killer isn’t a blood relative. In July 2008, Lacy wrote a letter to John formally clearing him, his late wife, and his son Burke of the crime. “No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion,” she wrote. Lacy explained the DNA evidence belonged to an unknown man, though an outside forensic expert who reviewed the lab reports later questioned whether the sample belonged to just one person.
Burke resurfaced in a surprising appearance on The Dr. Phil Show in September 2016, breaking his 20-year silence about the case and maintaining his family’s innocence. While he offered no new evidence, he surmised that it was “probably some pedophile in the pageant audience” who attacked and murdered his sister.
Just days later, the two-part CBS documentary The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey was released, which floated the theory that Burke was responsible for JonBenét’s death. True-crime enthusiasts latched onto this, launching a whirlwind of new speculation directed at him. That December, Burke sued the network and several people involved in the documentary for $750 million, claiming that the series ruined his reputation. He settled the defamation lawsuit for an undisclosed amount in January 2019.
Latest Updates
The investigation into who killed JonBenét Ramsey has sprawled to include almost 2,500 pieces of evidence, samples from more than 200 people, interviews of 1,000-plus individuals, and more than 21,000 tips. As of December 2021—25 years after JonBenét was murdered—investigators had analyzed nearly 1,000 DNA samples, according to CNN.
Authorities created a digital database of the case file in 2023, the same year the Boulder Police Department consulted with the Colorado Cold Case Review Team on the investigation. In November 2024, Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said his department is currently reviewing the team’s recommendations on next steps.
Over the years, many books, documentaries, movies, and true-crime shows have featured their own theories about JonBenét’s murder. This includes the 2016 documentaries The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey and The Killing of JonBenét: The Truth Uncovered, the Lifetime original movie Who Killed JonBenét? (2016), Casting JonBenét (2017),and most recently 2024’s Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey on Netflix. Paramount+ is working on an upcoming limited series about the case starring Melissa McCarthy as Patsy and Clive Owen as John.
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Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
