Erik S. Lesser/Liaison
JonBenet Ramsey’s Father Speaks Out! Why He Says Authorities Have Been ‘Very Reluctant’
n 2003, testing on trace DNA found on the panties of JonBénet Ramsey — the 6-year-old child beauty queen who was bludgeoned and strangled in her family’s Boulder, Colorado, home on Christmas Day 1996 — confirmed it belonged to an unknown male. But local investigators never linked it to a suspect.
Now, JonBenét’s father, John Ramsey, 80 (mom Patsy died of ovarian cancer at 49 in 2006) — who’s spent years trying to get investigators to turn over the remaining DNA to the FBI or a genetic genealogy lab to determine if the killer can be identified through modern familial DNA databases — fears any remaining evidence has disappeared.
“For 27 years, we’ve been trying to get [police] to accept help,” Ramsey exclusively told In Touch at CrimeCon, adding that authorities have been “very reluctant to tell us anything.” He’s worried “the only logical reason they won’t commit to testing it anymore is because they lost it.”
Ramsey explained that he wants the Boulder Police to transfer the evidence of the case to the FBI in hopes that they would use the familial database to find the killer. “If we do that, then we’ve done the best that could be done and if we don’t come up with the evidence at least we tried,” he said.
Ramsey spoke to the Boulder Police chief several weeks before CrimeCon, where he was told they cannot share any updates about what is going on in the case.
While on a panel at CrimeCon with Paula Woodward, Ramsey complained that the FBI doesn’t have the jurisdiction to take over a case unless the Boulder police chief makes the request.
“We have a real screwy system in this country,” he said. “All they must do is transfer custody of the evidence to the FBI and we would be very happy with that step. It’s very frustrating.”
Ramsey also mentioned the Idaho College Murders, in which four college students were brutally murdered in their residence in November 2022. He admitted he originally thought the case wouldn’t be solved since the murders took place in Moscow, Idaho, and the town lacked an experienced homicide squad.
“When the police chief got in front of a TV audience and said, ‘This our case we’re going to manage it,’ and I said to myself, ‘This is not good,’” Ramsey said, which was met with laughs from the crowd. “He bought in everybody he could get his hands on; he had 40 FBI agents on site, he had state police. That department recognized they are not skilled at everything, and I’ve complimented them a lot.”
Bryan Kohberger became a suspect in the murders of Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Kaylee Goncalves and was arrested in December 2022. The case is still ongoing.
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