Why JonBenét Ramsey’s Dad Is Feeling Optimistic as Daughter’s Murder Remains Unsolved

John Bennett Ramsey is the father of the 6-year-old child beauty pageant queen, who was infamously murdered at her Boulder, Colorado, home. The case continues to captivate and confound the public as it remains largely unsolved.

However, Ramsey reportedly met with law enforcement on Monday to push for a thorough review and new testing of crime scene evidence — and it’s clear he left feeling positive.

“I’m very satisfied and impressed with the leadership now in place [at the Boulder Police Department] and believe they are committed to do all that can be done using the latest technology and available resources to identify the killer. That is all we can ask for,” Ramsey told CNN.

He continued to say that he believed Boulder officials are using “all available tools” to push the investigation forward.

“Certainly DNA is a significant tool which I also believe has a high probability of identifying the killer,” he said.

He said he’s asked Boulder police to do more DNA testing using a newer technology called genetic genealogy, which has been used to solve other high-profile cold cases.

This update comes after John — who found his daughter’s body hours after she’d been reported missing — wondered to True Crime News about why a key piece of evidence that was part of his discovery of his daughter’s body has never been fully examined.

When he found his daughter’s body on Christmas Day in 1996, she had already sustained a broken skull, though her death was ruled the result of asphyxiation. A garrote was tired around her neck.

“To my knowledge it still hasn’t been tested,” John said of the garrote in the September 2024 episode. “If they’re testing it and just not telling me, that’s great, but I have no reason to believe that.”

It’s not just a generic test of the item used to kill his daughter, either, as there is purportedly male DNA that remains unidentified on the garrote.

According to John, there are at least seven items that were sent to a lab in January 1997 for testing and “were returned untested.”

In an interview with CNN’s Jean Casarez set to air Tuesday, Ramsey said he believed genetic genealogy “is the key” to solving this case.

The technology was not available in December 1996, when he 6-year-old body was found in the family’s basement the day after Christmas.

“The technology is there, and we’re going to insist and beg the police to use it. It’d be absurd not to,” he told CNN.

Those untested samples aren’t the only things that remains unknown, either, as JonBenét’s death not only remains unsolved, but police still don’t have any clear leads. There have been seemingly countless persons of interest over the years, including her family, but no clear suspects.

A handwritten ransom note was also found in the home JonBenét shared with her family. Police in Boulder, Colorado initially suspected her mom Patsy of having written the note, and both parents of staging her body in the basement to cover up the murder, or even her brother’s involvement.

In 1999, the district attorney determined there was insufficient evidence to pursue a successful indictment. The next DA shifted their focus to a possible intruder as the murderer due to trace DNA of an unknown male found on the victim’s clothing not matching any family member.

In 2008, the DA sent a letter to the family stating they were cleared by the DNA results of any suspicion in relation to their daughter, but others weren’t so sure that was the right thing to do, and the court of public opinion definitely remains uncertain all these years later.