Almost 30 years on from JonBenét Ramsey’s murder, her father still remains hopeful that her killer will be found.
On December 26, 1996, six-year-old JonBenét was found dead in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colorado.
The young girl had been beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted.
DNA and the apparent murder weapon was discovered by police, but they were never able to track down JonBenét’s killer.
But her family are optimistic that the murderer will be found after a renewed interest in the case following the release of Netflix‘s docuseries, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey. The show was released on the platform last month.
One thing that’s happened since the docuseries’ release is that John received a letter from a woman, allegedly naming her ex-husband as the killer. However, she didn’t answer the phone when John called to follow-up.
But one of the biggest breakthroughs is that there’s a new chief of Boulder Police Department, Stephen Redfearn.
It’s thought that John didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with the previous chief, and now he’s slated to meet up with Redfearn in the new year to discuss taking JonBenét’s case to the FBI, says Mirror Online.
It’s also hoped that modern DNA-testing technology will help finally identify the suspect if previous items discovered at the crime scene are retested.
With these things in mind, John thinks there’s ‘good odds’ that his daughter’s murderer will be found.
“We are encouraged that the police will finally use the FBI’s skills and resources to help solve our case,” he told The US Sun.
John went on to say of the DNA: “Suppose they now use cutting-edge DNA labs to develop a DNA profile in the proper format for familial genealogy research.
“In that case, we have pretty good odds of finding the killer’s identity.”
John himself and his late wife Patsy had once been suspects in the case.
The two, alongside their son Burke, went on to be ruled out as suspects after DNA was tested around the time of JonBenét’s death.
While DNA was tested at the time, according to John there’s still some to be looked at further.
A male’s DNA was found on a garrotte, but John claims that this was never run through the police’s database as when it was discovered the investigation stopped.
“I don’t know why they didn’t test it in the beginning,” he said on an episode of True Crime News.
“To my knowledge it still hasn’t been tested. If they’re testing it and just not telling me, that’s great, but I have no reason to believe that,” John added.
