There have been few crimes more tragic or more painful than the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Almost three decades after the crime, there is still no solace for the child’s parents.
When the crime first occurred, it quickly grabbed national attention. On December 26, 1996, every parent’s worst nightmare came true. Six-year-old beauty pageant contest, JonBenét, was missing. What followed was a rollercoaster of a case that ultimately had no resolution. After discovering a ransom note demanding $118,000, the family found that their daughter had been killed and left in their basement.
Boulder, Colorado police turned their attention on JonBenét’s parents, in what is now considered a massive fumble. To this day, no charges have been brought, and the case still remains unsolved. So who are JonBenét’s parents and why did the authorities close in on them so quickly?
The Ramsey family is the subject of a new Netflix documentary
John and Patricia “Patsy” Ramsey have had to endure something no parents should. Mother and father to then nine and six-year-old children, they experienced a media frenzy following the death of their daughter. Patsy was a former beauty queen and entered JonBenét into many pageants, some of which she had won. She was crowned Little Miss Colorado, which added to the public’s fascination with the case.
Patsy was the one who initially discovered her daughter was missing the day after Christmas. According to Time Magazine, she called the police and a few hours later, John found his daughter in their basement. Her death was brutal and accompanied by a ransom note, indicating the perpetrator was someone outside of the household. The parents became the main suspects in the killing, but have maintained their innocence to this day. Attention also turned to JonBenét’s brother Burke, but he was also cleared of wrongdoing. All DNA results concluded that no one in the family killed the child. Tragically, Patsy would never get closure out of the worst moments of her life, as she died in 2006 from ovarian cancer.
There have been many docuseries attempting to succeed where the authorities failed, and the newest is the Netflix production, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey. Close to 30 years after the fact, there still have been no solid leads in this disturbing case. Both Burke and John Ramsey participate in the documentary trying to hone in on who killed JonBenét. The documentary covers familiar territory, such as the police’s belief that Burke was somehow responsible. The trailer for Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey pokes holes in the story, pointing to the ransom demand, stating:
“We thought ‘this is crazy, he didn’t write that note.’”
Footage also points the finger at the media circus that was happening at the time that contributed to making unfounded accusations against John and Patsy.
“I did not kill my daughter, JonBenét,” John says to the cameras in archival footage.
The documentary also covers the strange false confession of John Mark Karr, which was later disproven. The biggest revelation in the trailer is the conclusion that the case should start over from scratch if there is any chance of solving it. Viewers can watch this new deep dive into an old true crime case when Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey premieres on Netflix on November 25.
