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JONBENET Ramsey’s father was sent a bombshell letter from a woman claiming her ex-husband killed the six-year-old.
The decades-long cold case of JonBenet has reentered the spotlight following the release of a new Netflix docuseries, reigniting hope that it could be solved.
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Now JonBenet’s father said he received a letter from a woman claiming her ex-husband killed her.
John Ramsey said he immediately followed up on the tip – but has not received a response yet.
He told the Daily Mail: “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.”
JonBenet was found brutally beaten and sexually assaulted on Christmas Eve in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colorado in 1996.
The pageant queen mother, Patsy, had called 911 that morning to report finding a ransom note and that her daughter was missing.
Cops responded quickly but her body wasn’t found until hours later during a search led by JonBenet’s father John.
Suspicions turned almost instantly onto the family, which soon led to them having a bad relationship with Boulder Police Department.
The coroner who performed JonBenét’s autopsy determined the little girl died from suffocation in conjunction with forcible trauma to her skull.
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JonBenet had an 8.5-inch skull fracture and several markings on her neck and hands.
The Netflix docuseries, that was released last month, looked to address how misinformation about the case was spread vastly by law enforcement and the media.
For decades, John has demanded answers from the Boulder Police Department and pressed them for the use of advanced DNA techniques and genealogical databases.
JonBenet’s mom and John’s wife, Patsy, who died in 2006 aged 49, was largely convicted in the court of public opinion, alongside son Burke, who was nine years old and at home when the killing occurred.
The Boulder DA officially cleared and apologised to Patsy and Burke in 2008.
Now, after decades of having no answer, John said that any hope of new leads are welcome.
He told the Daily 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.
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“That’s why we’re pushing so hard to get an answer.”
Despite there perhaps being a new suspect from the ex-wife’s letter sent to John, the dad said he remains sceptical as he has been let down in the past with finding the killer.
In the docuseries, one name stuck out as the potential killer.
John Mark Karr, who fled the US after being charged with child pornography, knew an eerie number of details about JonBenet, her death, and claimed to have committed the murder.
Karr has never been charged with the young pageant queen’s death because his DNA did not match any DNA found at the Ramsey home.
In the past, The U.S. Sun extensively reported how convicted pedophile Gary Oliva also confessed multiple times to killing JonBenet in letters to a high school friend.
Oliva was released from prison in January after serving less than eight years of a 10-year sentence for child pornography charges.
He was arrested in June 2016 after he was caught uploading images depicting the sexual abuse of children to his personal Gmail account.
When police searched his phone, they found over 695 images depicting child pornography.
He also possessed 335 photos relating to JonBenet, including her autopsy and images of shrines to her.
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Since his arrest, Oliva confessed to killing JonBenet multiple times but has never been charged with her death.
Other false confessions have also occurred since JonBenet was tragically killed, including early on in the case.
One man claimed he had been hired to kill the six-year-old by calling the Ramsey family’s pastor to confess, and later had discussions with John too.
John explained that the man, who gave the name ‘David Cooper’, first called the pastor and “said he was JonBenet’s killer and wanted to turn himself in but wanted to talk to me first”.
He continued: “‘I called him and talked to him for a while … and I was asking him questions.
“I was looking for information that maybe he had that nobody else would have [from] reading the newspapers or watching television.”
He said the mysterious man appeared to mention items from the house that weren’t “in the news that I know of,” so he thought the called could be credible.
John told the cops, who didn’t investigate or reach out to the man, but instead, according to the dad, “were not interested in following up at all: ‘Well, he wants to turn himself in? We’ll be here. Great.'”
Timeline of the JonBenet Ramsey case
JONBENET was found dead by her father in a seldom-used room in the basement of their family home that they often referred to as the “wine cellar.”
- 25 December 1996: The Ramsey family attends a Christmas party at the White family’s home. They leave around 8:30 pm. Around 9:15 pm, the Ramseys return home, and John Ramsey carries JonBenét to bed.
- 26 December 1996:
- 5:52 am: Patsy Ramsey calls 911 to report JonBenét missing and a ransom note found on the staircase.
- Around 6:00 am: Family friends arrive at the Ramsey home. Crime scene investigators and victim advocates also arrive between 6:00 am and 8:00 am.
- 1:05 pm: John Ramsey and Fleet White find JonBenét’s body in the basement.
- February 1997: Helgoth, an initial suspect, dies by suicide. Investigator Ollie Gray, hired by the Ramseys, later suggests Helgoth’s family might possess a taped confession, but no such confession has ever been verified. Helgoth’s DNA is later found not to match crime scene evidence.
- 2006:
- August 16: John Mark Karr confesses to JonBenét’s murder. He claims he drugged, sexually assaulted, and accidentally killed her.
- August 17: Karr is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand.
- Later in 2006: Karr’s confession is discredited. His DNA does not match the crime scene evidence, and his family confirms he was with them during the time of the murder. Charges against him are dropped.
- 2016: Gary Oliva, a registered sex offender, is investigated. He is later arrested, but not charged in connection with the Ramsey case.
When he had another phone call with the self-confessed killer, however, “he said: ‘Well, I want to bring my family with me, and it’s going to cost me $3,000 for airline tickets, and I don’t have any money. Can you send me the money?'”
John was fully prepared to send the man the cash, but it was the family’s attorneys who talked him out of it.
After an investigator for John looked into the man, they discovered he was a truck driver out of Louisiana who was allegedly trying to scam the family – so they didn’t pursue him any further.
With the advancements in DNA testing and the cold case gaining coverage from the docuseries, John said he remained hopeful his daughters tragic death could be solved.
He said: “Bureaucrats, politicians, are impacted by public pressure bigtime, and we sense that that’s happening.”
Boulder Police Department released its annual update one month early into the investigation surrounding JonBenet’s death “due to increased attention” on the case.
BPD Chief Steve Redfearn said in a statement posted on X in November: “The killing of JonBenet was an unspeakable crime and this tragedy has never left our hearts.
“We are committed to following up on every lead and we are continuing to work with DNA experts and our law enforcement partners around the country until this tragic case is solved.
“‘The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing – to include DNA testing – is completely false.”
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