MICHAEL RUIZ: JonBenét Ramsey's father challenges DA after report says family shouldn't have been cleared
JonBenét Ramsey's father has issued a fiery response to a report that a Colorado prosecutor now handling his daughter's cold case murder would not have ruled the family out as suspects if he'd been in charge when a predecessor did so in 2008, even as the family shared that investigators gave them an optimistic update on the case earlier this year.
"After 30 years, if they still think I am guilty, then please file charges, and we will settle this in court based on facts and evidence," John Ramsey told Fox News Digital Wednesday after Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said in a recent interview with local reporters that he "would not have" publicly ruled out the family as suspects like his predecessor, Mary Lacy, did in 2008.
"They can’t selectively apply the unknown male DNA both ways," Ramsey said. "They have cleared a number of interesting suspects based on their DNA not matching unidentified male No. 1 DNA recovered from JonBenet’s person."
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Dougherty declined a Fox News Digital interview request Wednesday, but his office said he planned to post video from his local interview online amid concerns his remarks were taken out of context under a headline reading, "Boulder County DA says Ramseys shouldn’t have been cleared in JonBenét's murder."
"I’ve never ruled out people in a case that’s unsolved," he told local reporters Tuesday, according to The Boulder Daily Camera newspaper. "Doing right by the victim demands that I remain open-minded and committed to following the evidence wherever it leads."
This is a routine investigatory position, according to retired FBI agent Jason Pack, who has followed the case for decades.
"If new evidence challenges an assumption made years ago, they need to take another look," he told Fox News Digital. "That doesn’t mean accusing somebody all over again. It means being willing to let the evidence change the direction of the investigation."
The 6-year-old died of strangulation and head trauma, according to the Boulder City medical examiner. Her family reported her missing only to find her dead in their basement the day after Christmas in 1996.
Since then, investigators have examined more than 20,000 tips and hundreds of pieces of evidence. They've checked previously recovered DNA against more than 750 "reference samples."
As Fox News Digital has reported previously, early DNA testing results did not show matches for JonBenét's immediate family, but police continued to eye her parents as potential suspects for years.
"Either they believe they have the killer's DNA or not," the family patriarch said. "This problem of selective use of evidence to try and fit things to their opinion rather than use evidence to solve the crime has been the problem from the beginning."
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As recently as last year, police still had some untested DNA collected from the 1996 crime scene, and the elder Ramsey has called on authorities to use modern investigative genetic genealogy methods to try and gin up new leads.
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JonBenét's half-brother, John Andrew Ramsey, said the family did receive hopeful updates from Boulder police earlier this year.
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They learned evidence had been sent to a lab for testing late last year, he told Fox News Digital Wednesday. Authorities have not publicly confirmed the testing or any results, but he indicated he believed it had to do with DNA.
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"We met with them in February 2026, and they had this new message of hope and optimism," he said. "We took that to mean they were close to sending something off for SNP testing."
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Still, he said he's not sure any major updates will come before the 30-year mark in December.
"I think if they were super close, they would not be talking to the press," he said. "Six to 12 months, being super optimistic. Two to five years, no problem."
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Some experts believe they could have been ruled out in the early weeks of the investigation based on DNA evidence. Others say no one is ever ruled out until a case is solved.
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Late Colorado Springs Det. Lou Smit came out of retirement in 1997 at the request of the Boulder County DA's Office to help work the case and had argued that the likeliest suspect would have been an intruder and not a family member.
But he left the case in 1998, citing tension with the Boulder Police Department, which focused on the family as suspects.
"I strongly disagree with anyone saying the Ramseys should not have been cleared," said John Anderson, a friend of Smit's and a former El Paso County sheriff who wrote a book about the case.
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Several potential suspects have emerged in the nearly 30 years since her murder, but the case remains unsolved.