JonBenét Ramsey’s Dad Breaks Silence, Demands New DNA Testing

JonBenét Ramsey’s father, John Ramsey, is breaking his silence once again and hoping for answers in his daughter’s unsolved 1996 murder. Ramsey, 79, is hopeful to see the case taken out of the Boulder, Colorado police department’s hands because he has little faith in them finding JonBenét’s killer. He also urges the Boulder police to release any DNA evidence they may have to a genealogy lab.

Boulder police have been reluctant to hand off the case to outside investigators, but it recently said it was in talks with private DNA labs. They also vowed to talk with the Colorado Cold Case Review Team in 2023. However, Ramsey is becoming impatient. In a new interview with The U.S. Sun, he said he thinks there is a reason why Boulder police have been slow to accept outside help.

“We’ve fought for years to get more DNA testing done, and technology has advanced dramatically in the last 25 years,” Ramsey said from his Utah home. “We know for a fact that the police originally sent some number of samples from the crime scene to be analyzed for DNA, and five or six of them were sent back not tested. We don’t know why, whether it was a cost issue or whatever… but they were never tested. And so we’ve been pushing to get that done for a long time, but they just refuse to do it.”

In November, Boulder police said they were still waiting for “proven technology” that could “reliably test” the forensic samples they have. Ramsey believes the technology already exists, citing other recent cold cases being cracked, like the Golden State Killer. He thinks Boulder police are “either ignorant of what’s out there” or they “lost” the DNA evidence.

“The government can’t do it, they don’t have the technology; the FBI told us we need to go to one of those cutting-edge labs to get it tested, and they went to the Boulder police six to eight months ago and said ‘Look, we’ll help you on this,’” Ramsey told The Sun. “But the Boulder Police just blew them off and said we don’t need your help. That’s what they’ve been saying for 26 years… and look where it’s got us.” Ramsey went on to say that he would “bet dollars to donuts” that if the police did what he was asking, there was a “very high likelihood” the case would be solved.

Boulder police considered Ramsey and his wife, the late Patsy Ramsey, primary suspects in their daughter’s murder. However, they were cleared of any wrongdoing in 2008, with the district attorney even sending them an apology letter. In another interview with BuzzFeed News, Ramsey blamed Boulder police for some people still believing he and his wife were responsible.

“I guess what I’ve gotta realize, I’m dealing with fools in the Boulder Police Department,” Ramsey said. “And I say that once your reputation is tarnished, either fairly or unfairly, it’ll never go back to pure white. It’s just a fact. So you just accept that. … And there’s always going to be doubters. Same people that don’t think there was a moon landing or that Elvis is still alive. You know?”

Despite all this, Ramsey continues pushing for the case to be solved. “I just want him identified,” he said of the killer in a PEOPLE interview. “I’ve gone past the stage of ‘just put me in the room with him and we won’t need a trial’ to ‘how do I forgive somebody like this?’ as the Bible says we must do. I wrestled with that for several years. But I want to know why. Why did he do this?”

Ramsey is speaking out just as a new documentary on the case has been released. Suburban Nightmare: JonBenét Ramsey is now available to stream for free on Tubi.