From the ransom note to an unidentified bootprint, these pieces of evidence might hold the key to solving JonBenét Ramsey’s murder
Netflix© ; Mark Fix/ ZUMA
Evidence shown in Netflix’s docuseries ‘Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey’ (2024) ; JonBenet Patricia Ramsey winning a beauty pageant at 1996 America’s Royale Little Miss National Beauty contests.
The key to solving JonBenét Ramsey’s murder could lie in evidence found at the scene nearly 30 years ago.
When police searched the 6-year-old’s home in Boulder, Colo., on Dec. 26, 1996, they collected multiple items, including a ransom note and the murder weapon. Male DNA was found on some of the evidence, but it has never been matched to a potential killer. Her father, John Ramsey, has claimed that’s partly because outdated testing methods were used and partly because some items were never tested at all.
“Of the items sent to labs in the beginning, six or seven of them were returned untested,” he claimed to PEOPLE in November 2024. “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.”
On Nov. 26, 2024, the Boulder Police Department posted a statement on X (formerly Twitter) refuting “the assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing,” including DNA testing.
Related: What Happened to JonBenét Ramsey’s House After Her Murder? All About the Colorado Mansion — and Why It’s Been On and Off the Market for Over 15 Years
The 2024 Netflix docuseries Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? also alleges that the crime scene was possibly tampered with in the hours after the toddler went missing, as the Ramseys invited friends over.
One detective even let John conduct a search on his own, during which he discovered JonBenét’s body in the basement. Her autopsy report confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted and died by strangulation and a blow to the skull.
So what happened to the items that were found at the scene of the crime? Here’s everything to know about the eight pieces of evidence that could potentially lead police to JonBenét Ramsey’s killer.
A ransom note Patsy found on the stairwell
AP Photo/Boulder District Attorney
This is a copy of the first page of the original ransom note found in the home of John and Patsy Ramsey.
In the early morning hours of Dec. 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey, who died in 2006, allegedly found a handwritten ransom note on a staircase near the kitchen.
“Listen carefully!” the two-page note read. “We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We respect your business but not the country that it serves. At this time we have your daughter in our possession. She is safe and unharmed and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter.”
Related: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? All the Possible Suspects Investigated In the Pageant Queen’s Unsolved Case
The alleged kidnappers demanded $118,000 in exchange for JonBenét’s return. John was instructed to pull out the ransom in cash and wait for a call between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. that day. Police later learned the amount was nearly the same as his previous Christmas bonus and that the letter had been written from a notepad found in the Ramsey home.
According to Cold Case, some FBI agents believed the note was staged due to its length and the specific amount of money requested. Fingerprint testing on the pages was conducted in 1997, but according to The Daily Camera, the results were inconclusive.
Douglas Monsoor, a supervising criminologist at the Lakewood Police Department, told the newspaper, “The only thing that occurs when the identification of latent print material (takes place) is to say this person at some point made contact with this object.”
A 911 call Patsy made the morning JonBenét disappeared
Helen H. Richardson/ The Denver Post/Getty
John and Patsy Ramsey
Though the note also warned against calling the police for help, Patsy reported her daughter missing to Boulder Police at 5:52 a.m. The operator who took the call, Kim Archuletta, alleged in CBS’ 2016 docuseries The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey that Patsy tried and failed to hang up the phone after telling her about the ransom note.
“It sounded like she said, ‘Okay, we’ve called the police, now what?’ ” the 911 operator said. “And that disturbed me. So I remained on the phone, trying to hear what was being said. It sounded like there were two voices in the room, maybe three different ones … To me, it seemed rehearsed.”
Related: JonBenét Ramsey’s 2 Brothers: What to Know About John Andrew and Burke Ramsey — and What They Really Think Happened to Their Sister
Patsy, John and their son Burke Ramsey, who was 9 years old at the time of his sister’s murder, were cleared of all involvement in 2008 by then-Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy.
Unidentified male DNA found on JonBenét’s clothes
Chris Rank/Sygma via Getty
The grave of JonBenét Ramsey
In her 2008 statement to the Ramsey family, then-DA Mary Lacy said DNA evidence found on JonBenét’s clothes led to her decision to exonerate them. She wrote: “The match of male DNA on two separate items of clothing worn by the victim at the time of the murder makes it clear to us that an unknown male handled these items.”
According to Cold Case, there was DNA found in her underwear that also matched what was found under her fingernails. In 2016, 9News reported that the same DNA was found on JonBenét’s long johns — a discovery that led Lacy to believe that police had the killer’s DNA profile.
However, investigators have never matched this evidence to a potential suspect. Former Boulder DA Stan Garnett told PEOPLE in 2020 that because the crime scene was “compromised,” the evidence is not in a state “where you could really say anything definitively.”
A handmade garrote used to strangle the toddler
Netflix
An evidence photo showing the homemade garrote that was used to asphyxiate JonBenét Ramsey.
When John found his daughter dead in their basement, she had a garrote tied around her neck.
This handheld ligature was made using a cord and a broken paintbrush handle from Patsy’s art supplies. JonBenét’s father claimed to True Crime News in 2024 that the garrote also has unidentified male DNA, but to his knowledge, it has never been tested.
“If they’re testing it and just not telling me, that’s great,” John said, “but I have no reason to believe that.”
Related: Why Is JonBenét Ramsey’s Murder Still Unsolved? Reexamining the Child Pageant Queen’s Death Almost 30 Years Later
A piece of duct tape found on JonBenét’s mouth
Netflix
An evidence photo of the duct tape found on JonBenét Ramsey’s mouth.
JonBenét also had a piece of duct tape on her mouth, which John told Cold Case he removed when he found her before carrying her upstairs. He threw the tape onto the white blanket that his daughter had been covered up in.
“She had tape over her mouth, and her hands were tied behind her back,” John said in the series. “And I immediately pulled the tape off, and I tried to untie her hands, but the knot was tied really tight, I couldn’t get it undone.”
Retired Boulder Police Detective Bob Whitson told Cold Case that “there may have been some evidence on the duct tape if that wasn’t removed.”
A suitcase placed underneath a broken basement window
Netflix
A suitcase was placed under the basement window where JonBenét Ramsey’s body was found.
When John and a friend searched the house, they noticed an open and broken window in the basement. He told the Netflix series that he broke that same window the previous year after losing his keys, but remembered getting the glass fixed. Underneath the window, they saw a suitcase.
“The suitcase shouldn’t have been there,” John said in Cold Case. “It was set there like it was a step because the window was fairly high … you needed a ladder or a stepstool or something to get up through it.”
A piece of rope found in the guest bedroom
Netflix
Rope found in Ramsey’s guest bedroom following the murder of JonBenét Ramsey.
In a guest bedroom next to JonBenét’s room, a piece of rope was found that Lou Smit, a detective who came out of retirement to help the Boulder police with the murder investigation, alleged did not belong to the Ramseys.
“Nobody in the Ramsey family can identify it,” he said in a previously recorded video diary featured in Cold Case. “It is a possibility that the … intruder could’ve taken that in with him also to use as binding and just left it up there.”
Smit died at age 75 in 2010, according to The New York Times.
An unidentified bootprint in the basement near where JonBenét was found
AP Photo/David Zalubowski
A Boulder Police detective walks to the home of John and Patricia Ramsey in Boulder, Colo., on Friday, Jan. 3, 1997.
The Daily Camera reported in 2000 that police found a partial footprint in the Ramsey basement with the words “Hi Tec” in it. No one in the family owned a similar shoe.
Ollie Gray, a private detective hired by the Ramseys, told the Colorado paper that he gave police a pair of Hi-Tec boots so they could compare them against the prints. Then-Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner told The Daily Camera, “If you look at them, they look pretty close. You really can’t tell.”
Boulder Police have not confirmed if the boots did indeed match.
In Cold Case, Smit also claimed that there was “a faint impression of possibly a footprint” on top of the suitcase found under the basement window.
