JonBenet Ramsey’s dad believes her murder is finally about to be SOLVED… amid DNA breakthrough and secret police interviews

Twenty-nine years after JonBenét Ramsey was found bludgeoned and bound in the basement of her family’s Colorado home, her father is more confident than at any point since her death that her murder could finally be solved.

John Ramsey’s optimism was reignited earlier this month after Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn disclosed that new evidence had been recovered in the long-stalled case.

Six-year-old JonBenét was found murdered in her home on December 26, 1996, hours after her parents reported her missing and discovered a bizarre ransom note claiming to be from a ‘foreign faction’ and demanding $118,000 for her return. 

In a video released on December 12, Redfearn said that solving JonBenét’s murder remains one of the department’s ‘top priorities.’ 

He added that older material has been re-submitted for testing using modern DNA technology, and that investigators have quietly conducted a series of new interviews based on tips the department has received.

For John Ramsey, who has spent the last few years publicly pushing police to re-test evidence and embrace new forensic tools, Redfearn’s latest update felt like a rare spur of momentum after nearly three decades of false starts and dead ends.

‘I am optimistic – more than I’ve been in 29 years,’ Ramsey, 82, told the Daily Mail in an interview from his home. ‘I take encouragement because finally there’s movement and I’m encouraged by Chief Redfearn.

‘This has been a marathon project, and it’s a project that’s got to be finished.’

Ramsey said he does not know what new evidence police may have recovered, what older material has been sent for testing, or who investigators may have interviewed – noting that neither he nor any member of his family has been contacted as part of Boulder police’s renewed push.

However, he said there were several key items collected during the original investigation that were never tested for DNA – or were tested using outdated methods – and believes those materials could hold the answers investigators have long been searching for.

Among those items is a garrote – fashioned from nylon cord and a broken paintbrush – that was found embedded in JonBenét’s neck, and a still-unidentified male DNA profile that was recovered from JonBenét’s clothing and beneath her fingernails. That same male DNA profile was entered into the federal CODIS database in the late 1990s and again years later using newer testing, but it has never produced a match.

Ramsey said there were four or five other seemingly consequential items collected into evidence from the home in December 1996 that were never tested.

They include a Samsonite suitcase found beneath a broken basement window, climbing rope discovered inside a brown paper bag in a guest bedroom, and a backpack that none of the Ramsey family recognized.

‘The most important one was the garrote that was used to strangle my daughter,’ Ramsey said.

‘That had to have DNA evidence on it because it was a very complex knot, I’m told, and the assumption is that this creature couldn’t have tied that wearing gloves – so that was a real piece we want to be either tested or re-tested.’

As for the unidentified male DNA, Ramsey has pushed police to move it beyond the federal CODIS system and into a format suitable for investigative genetic genealogy (IGG), arguing that the decades-old profile can only be useful if it is analyzed using modern techniques designed to identify unknown suspects, not just known offenders.

IGG is a modern investigative tool that has been used in recent years to crack dozens of cold cases and active investigations, from the Golden State Killer to the University of Idaho murders.

Ramsey says he’s been advocating for Boulder police to use Othram Labs, one of the few cutting-edge labs based in the US that can do IGG and that was instrumental in helping unmask Bryan Kohberger as the Idaho culprit.

Should investigators oblige, Ramsey believes there’s at least a 70 percent chance his daughter’s killer could be behind bars within months.

So convinced by the capabilities of IGG, he has even offered to pay out of pocket for the tests himself, but was told by the department that would not be necessary.

Ramsey has been independently investigating his daughter’s death for years with the help of a task force of retired detectives working the case pro bono.

The team was set up in the late 1990s by legendary homicide detective Lou Smit, who was originally brought in by the Boulder District Attorney to assist in the investigation, but he resigned in 1998 because he felt JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were being unjustly pursued by Boulder PD.

Smit died in 2010, but his task force lives on. Ramsey said that Smit – who believed JonBenét’s killer was an opportunistic intruder who likely held a grudge against John – said the case will only be solved by DNA.

In light of the department’s latest investigative push, Ramsey said he hopes Boulder PD are not wasting time revisiting decades-old leads, but instead focusing on DNA evidence, which he believes offers the clearest path to identifying his daughter’s killer.

He added that he has been told by leaders at advanced DNA laboratories that investigative genetic genealogy requires only minuscule amounts of genetic material and does not destroy existing samples – a concern Boulder police have previously cited when explaining their reluctance to pursue further testing.

‘IGG is a very powerful tool – just use it,’ urged Ramsey. ‘If they do it and they come up empty-handed, at least that way I can say thank you, you’ve tried everything you can so far.

‘It’s that simple. But if you’re just following up leads that come in, that’s primitive.

‘Lou Smit’s list [of potential persons of interest] is 700 people long. There’s so many leads – but using DNA makes this case solvable.’

It remains unclear whether Redfearn has or will heed Ramsey’s call.

Earlier this month, Redfearn said the department is now working with external experts from across the country as part of its renewed investigation, but declined to specify which specialists are involved.

In his address, Redfearn also pledged to continue using the ‘most forensically sound and up-to-date methods’ when testing evidence, as and when those methods become available.

‘I’ve also met personally with the Ramsey family to let them know about some of this work,’ added Redfearn. ‘I’ve told them that we share the same goal: to find and bring JonBenét’s murderer to justice.’

For years, the Ramsey family shared fractured relations with the Boulder Police Department.

John and his wife, Patsy Ramsey, were prime suspects in the case for more than a decade.

In September 1998, a grand jury was convened to investigate the murder.

The grand jury voted to indict John and Patsy on charges of child abuse resulting in death and being accessories to a crime, but Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter declined to move forward with an indictment, citing a lack of evidence.

Then, in 2008, then-District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote a letter to John, saying new DNA evidence had cleared him, Patsy, and their son Burke of any wrongdoing.

Lacy formally apologized for the cloud of suspicion the Ramseys lived under for years.

But Lacy’s vindication came too late for Patsy, who died from ovarian cancer in 2006 at the age of 49.

In the past, John Ramsey has been openly critical of Boulder PD, slamming them for their years-long fixation on him and Patsy and otherwise ‘bungling’ what he believes should have been a straightforward investigation.

The biggest mistake he believes they made was refusing help from larger, better-resourced agencies, such as the FBI, in the immediate aftermath of her death.

Pointing to the University of Idaho murders, Ramsey has argued that decisive leadership – and a willingness to bring in federal and state resources early – made the difference in solving that case relatively quickly, something he believes was lacking in Boulder in 1996.

‘When you got inexperienced, poor leadership with monster egos, then it’s just a mess,’ said Ramsey.

But under Redfearn’s leadership, Ramsey said the difference is night and day. He now has full faith in the department to close the file on his daughter’s murder once and for all.

With renewed confidence in investigators, Ramsey said he has also reflected on the role public attention has played in keeping his daughter’s case from being relegated to the filing cabinet of history.

‘I’m grateful that the public cares about my child and what happened,’ said Ramsey. ‘In the US, we have a lot of child murders compared to other industrialized countries, and that’s sad. 

‘Yet we don’t know most of those, or you might hear about them for a day. That’s it. 

‘One of the things that fired me up is that, as a society, we should respond with our full might in cases like this, because children are the most innocent citizens we have.’