JonBenet Ramsey's dad received letter naming his daughter's 'killer' after Netflix doc
It is the 28th anniversary of the death of six year old JonBenet Ramsey on 26 December, and the unsolved case has taken another turn following the release of Netflix documentary Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey. JonBenet’s father, John, has revealed that he has been contacted by a woman who claims her ex-husband is his daughter’s killer.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, John Ramsey said: “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."
The death of beauty pageant contestant JonBenet is one of the most famous cold cases in America. The six year old died on the night of 25 December 1996 at her parents’ home in Boulder, Colorado and her body was found during a search of the house the following day, a few hours after she was reported missing. JonBenet had a broken skull and a garotte was tied around her neck, with the official cause of death listed as "asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma".
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Photos of JonBenet in her pageant costumes were shared around the world as the police investigated. Her mother Patsy was initially a suspect, and she was accused of writing a ransom note that was reportedly found in the house. The media also ran articles declaring dad John and also Jon Benet’s nine year old brother Burke were potential suspects.
However, DNA evidence taken in 2003 from JonBenet’s clothes belonged to an unidentified male and it is widely believed that an intruder was responsible for her murder. One man even confessed to the crime - John Mark Karr, who was arrested in Bangkok in 2006 after he claimed he had killed the little girl. However, his DNA was not found on her body, and his claim that he had drugged her when no drugs were found in her system led police to believe it was a false confession.
The new Netflix documentary looks at all the theories, the finger-pointing by the police and press, and the believed mishandling of the case by Boulder police, who were inexperienced when it came to murder investigations.
Following his wife’s death from cancer in 2006, John Ramsey has spent years demanding answers and pushing for new DNA techniques to be used in the search for his daughter’s killer. He told the Mail that solving the case is “not going to change my life at this point – I just turned 81 – but it'll change my children's lives, my grandchildren's lives. They need to have this cloud removed, clarified, and an answer. That's why we're pushing so hard to get an answer.”
