JonBenét Ramsey’s father has sharply pushed back against comments from the Colorado prosecutor now overseeing his daughter’s long-unsolved murder case. The prosecutor said he would not have excluded the Ramsey family as suspects in 2008, when a previous district attorney publicly cleared them. The family also revealed that investigators delivered an encouraging update earlier this year.
“If they still believe I’m guilty after 30 years, then file charges and let’s settle this in court using facts and evidence,” John Ramsey told News Outlet Wednesday. He was responding to recent remarks by Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, who told local reporters that he “would not have” publicly ruled out the family, as former DA Mary Lacy did in 2008.
“They can’t use the unknown male DNA selectively,” Ramsey said. “Several people of interest have been cleared because their DNA did not match unidentified male No. 1, which was recovered from JonBenét’s body.”
John Ramsey speaks with News Outlet in Las Vegas in April 2022. He is the father of JonBenét Ramsey, the Colorado 6-year-old whose murder on Dec. 26, 1996, remains unsolved nearly 30 years later. (Michael Ruiz/News Outlet)
Dougherty declined News Outlet’s request for an interview Wednesday. His office said he intended to release video of his local interview after concerns that his comments had been taken out of context in a headline stating, “Boulder County DA says Ramseys shouldn’t have been cleared in JonBenet’s murder.”
“I’ve never ruled out people in a case that’s unsolved,” Dougherty told local reporters Tuesday, according to the Boulder Daily Camera. “Doing right by the victim requires me to remain open-minded and follow the evidence wherever it leads.”
JonBenét Ramsey pictured in an undated portrait. The Colorado 6-year-old was found dead in her home Dec. 26, 1996, in one of America’s most high-profile unsolved cases. (Splash News)
Retired FBI agent Jason Pack, who has followed the investigation for decades, described Dougherty’s position as a standard part of an ongoing inquiry.
“If new evidence calls an old assumption into question, investigators have to revisit it,” Pack told News Outlet. “That is not the same as accusing someone again. It means allowing the evidence to redirect the investigation if necessary.”
According to the Boulder City medical examiner, JonBenét died from strangulation and blunt-force head trauma. Her family reported her missing, then discovered her body in the basement of their home the following day, Dec. 26, 1996. Investigators have since reviewed more than 20,000 tips and hundreds of evidence items, comparing previously collected DNA with more than 750 “reference samples.”
Either they believe they have the killer’s DNA — or not.
As News Outlet has previously reported, early DNA testing did not connect JonBenét’s immediate family to the genetic material found in the case. Even so, police continued to scrutinize her parents for years.
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“Either they believe they have the killer’s DNA or they don’t,” John Ramsey said. “From the beginning, the problem has been selectively interpreting evidence to support an opinion instead of following the evidence to solve the crime.”
The home in Boulder, Colorado, where JonBenét Ramsey was murdered in December 1996 is pictured Aug. 17, 2006. Investigators have said renewed DNA testing has raised hopes of solving the decades-old cold case. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
Police still possessed some untested DNA from the 1996 crime scene as recently as last year. John Ramsey has urged authorities to pursue modern investigative genetic genealogy techniques in hopes of developing new leads.
JonBenét’s half-brother, John Andrew Ramsey, said the family received an encouraging update from Boulder police earlier this year.
Investigators told the family that evidence had been sent to a laboratory for testing late last year, he said Wednesday. Authorities have not publicly confirmed the testing or disclosed any results, but Ramsey said he believed the work involved DNA.
“We met with them in February 2026, and they gave us this new message of hope and optimism,” he told News Outlet. “We understood that to mean they were nearing the point of sending something for SNP testing.”
Even so, he said he was uncertain whether the investigation would produce a significant development before the 30th anniversary of JonBenét’s death in December.
“If they were extremely close, I don’t think they would be speaking with the press,” he said. “Six to 12 months is the optimistic scenario. Two to five years would not surprise me.”
Some specialists have argued that DNA evidence could have excluded the family during the first weeks of the investigation. Others maintain that no suspect can be definitively ruled out until a case is solved.
Colorado Springs Detective Lou Smit came out of retirement in 1997 at the request of the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office to assist with the investigation. He believed an intruder was more likely responsible than a family member. Smit left the case the following year, citing friction with the Boulder Police Department, which had focused on the Ramsey family.
“I strongly disagree with anyone who says the Ramseys should not have been cleared,” said John Anderson, a friend of Smit’s and a former El Paso County sheriff who authored a book about the case.
Numerous potential suspects have surfaced during the nearly three decades since JonBenét’s death, but her murder remains unsolved.
