The slain child pageant contestant’s father is urging police to test DNA evidence and find his daughter’s killer
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JonBenet Patricia Ramsey winning a beauty pageant at 1996 America’s Royale Little Miss National Beauty contests.
The long-awaited answer to the mystery surrounding JonBenét Ramsey’s 1996 murder could already be in the hands of the police, says her father.
Police in Boulder, Colo., just won’t give the OK to proceed with DNA testing of potentially bombshell evidence—genetic material left on the handmade garrote used to strangle his 6-year-old daughter and other items found at the crime scene, John Ramsey tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview.
“We’re begging the police to engage,” says Ramsey, 80. “There are cutting-edge DNA labs that want to help and who believe they can move the case forward.”
But in Boulder, he says, “The chief of police is in charge. Nobody can come in and help him with solving a crime unless he asks for help.”
Erik S. Lesser
John and Patsy Ramsey attend a press conference following questioning by the Boulder, Colorado police on August 28, 2000.
“We’re not asking them to do anything weird,” says John. “Just do your job. Test the DNA.”
Ramsey opens up to PEOPLE in an exclusive interview ahead of the upcoming Netflix docuseries Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?, streaming Monday, Nov. 25.
The three-part series reexamines one of the most high-profile, sensational murder cases of all time. It unfolded after John found his young beauty pageant queen daughter dead in a rarely-used basement room in an upscale Boulder, Colo., neighborhood on the morning of Dec. 26, 1996.
Related: Read PEOPLE’s Original 1997 Story on the JonBenét Ramsey Murder
John and his late wife, Patsy, also found a chilling hand-written ransom note presumably left behind by the killer inside their home. Yet the dead girl’s parents quickly became suspects in the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, who was sexually assaulted and died from strangulation and a blow to the skull.
Their son, Burke, who was 9 at the time of his sister’s murder, also fell under suspicion.
“We assumed that the police would show some level of discernment and wisdom and say, ‘Yeah, well this is crazy, to think [we] murdered our child,’” says John. “Well, they never did. They made that decision on day one, and tried desperately to prove it.”
Related: JonBenét Ramsey’s Murder to Be Investigated by Cold Case Team in New Probe Into Unsolved Killing
The three-part docuseries goes in-depth into what John Ramsey considers to be missteps made by authorities when investigating JonBenét’s murder within an international media circus that only complicated matters.
John says he would like cutting-edge labs that use genetic genealogy and other advanced DNA technology to crack the cold case by examining seven items from the crime scene that he says have never been tested or were examined with outdated methods.
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John Ramsey
“Of the items sent to labs in the beginning, six or seven of them were returned untested,” he says. “We don’t know why they were not tested, but they were not tested. The garrote used to strangle JonBenét and a number of items just were sent back.”
The evidence also includes the dramatic ransom note and a suitcase found under an open basement window where some believe the killer entered and exited the home.
Related: Who Killed Child Beauty Queen JonBenét Ramsey in Her Colorado Home 27 Years Ago Today?
“But to do the latest stuff, this whole genealogy research, they needed a different format of the sample. And that’s why we’ve been advocating more testing be done by one or two of these very cutting edge labs, to retrieve a sample in the right format, which they can use to do genealogy research and searching, basically.”
Paul Sakuma/AP/Shutterstock The Ramsey’s home in Boulder, Colo.
Neither John, Patricia or Burke were ever charged in connection with the murder. Patsy died in 2006.
Nearly three decades after his daughter’s murder, Ramsey says he is hopeful that the killer will be found.
“If it stays in the hands of the Boulder Police, it will not be solved, period,” he tells PEOPLE. “If they accept help, all the help that’s out there, that’s available and offered, it will be solved. Yes, I believe it will be solved.”
For more about John Ramsey’s fight to see JonBenéts murder solved in his lifetime, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up the new issue of People, on newsstands next week.
