The curious circumstances around 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey's death have baffled people around the globe for nearly 25 years. The Ramsey family awoke on Christmas morning 1996 to find the little girl wasn't in her bed. As they looked around the house for her, a peculiar ransom note was found, spurring the family to call the police.
Authorities thought they were dealing with a kidnapping, but hours later the case would take a turn. Investigators tasked John Ramsey, JonBenét's father, to search the home along with a family friend for anything that seemed out of place. When he searched a back room in the basement, John uncovered his little girl's dead body.
The many unknowns of the case caused it to become a media circus. The court of public sentiment found John and wife Patsy, who has since died, suspicious and believed they were involved, if not responsible, for their daughter's death. Others thought that the couple's older child, big brother Burke, may have been to blame. It caused a lot of heartache for the Ramsey family. Those who believe in their innocence feel resources were wasted that could have found who was really responsible. The case remains unsolved to this day, though the Ramseys were officially exonerated in 2016.
A new documentary may revive interest in the case and finding the killer. JonBenét Ramsey: What Really Happened? is now streaming on Discovery+.
Whether you're a true crime fanatic or a casual observer of headlines in the last 25 years, chances are you've heard of the JonBenét Ramsey murder case. The 6-year-old beauty pageant competitor was found dead in the basement of her home on Christmas Day 1996. Authorities were on the scene when the body was discovered, believing they were working a kidnapping case.
For many years, investigators worked the case, but there were a lot of issues. For one, the crime scene was not protected and, therefore, heavily contaminated. The crime occurred while the family slept, leaving no witnesses. There were questions of inept police work.
Then there were issues with the press. The confusing details of the case that came out early on didn't paint the Ramsey family in the best light. Combined with JonBenét's participation in beauty pageants, a lot of people questioned, at best, John and wife Patsy's judgment and, at worst, their innocence.
Some also wondered if the couple's other child, older brother Burke, had something to do with the little girl's death. The theories dominated the public discourse on the case for two decades before the Ramseys were officially exonerated. To date, the case remains open.
A new documentary takes yet another look at this case to determine what investigators may have missed and if there's any way of solving this case. JonBenét Ramsey: What Really Happened? began streaming January 4 on the newly launched Discovery+. The documentary features unreleased audio from Lou Smit, a homicide detective who kept an audio diary while working on the case.
John appears in the documentary, alongside his oldest son, John Andrew Ramsey, and Lou's daughter and son, who share his side of the story since he has died. In an interview with USA Today, John and John Andrew discussed their memories of Lou and the investigation.
"If [Lou] had thought for a moment that Dad or (his late wife) Patsy were capable of this murder, he would have pursued them to the end of this Earth," John Andrew asserted.
"Lou was a true victims' advocate, and that’s all you can ask for."
John and John Andrew also shared that the audio tapes are new to them.
"I was not aware of the audiotapes … It's a real asset to solving this case, still," John said.
He said hearing Lou's voice was a "nice warm feeling. He was quite a person … a legend in Colorado for what he'd accomplished in his career."
John admitted that he couldn't watch the whole documentary, but that he appreciated its dedication to clearing his and Patsy's names.
"It's just hard to revisit that for me, quite frankly," he said.
"The death of JonBenét took away my desire to live for a while; the actions of the police took away my ability to live normally and that, to some extent, continued for a long time in the way we were treated and assaulted."
While the police blame the public for crafting the narrative, John feels it was the other way around.
"The police drew a conclusion immediately that day, the next day and then tried to find the evidence to prove it. And the evidence they were finding was, unfortunately for them, contradictory to their conclusion," he said.
"But they never admitted that and struggled with that for years and spent millions of taxpayers' dollars trying to prove otherwise."
John's biggest hope is that the documentary will "keep the case alive. We're hoping somebody will come forward with some information that will be helpful."
John Andrew agreed. "There's no upside in doing these documentaries for my dad and I personally; it's painful. We're reliving a trauma … but it's a lever we pull to apply pressure to the police to do the right thing."
John Andrew also hopes it sheds light on the missteps law enforcement can make so other families are more cautious.
"What the police did to our family is a massive miscarriage of justice, and it needs to be documented, it's history, it's the unfortunate truth. It shouldn't happen again. It shouldn't happen to another family," he said.
John Andrew says that many of the experts who have worked on the case throughout the years are willing to aid in any way possible. It's the Boulder Police Department, he argues, that holds things up.
"[They] all [are] willing to help. But right now, the case resides with the Boulder Police Department, and they aren't listening, so we'll have to apply some pressure to get them to listen to some experts. This can be solved," he says.
"It's gonna take hard work, it's gonna take passion … If you don't have the heart, it doesn't get solved. And the reality is, the Boulder Police don't have the heart."
