What JonBenét Ramsey's Dad Has Been Up To

Even people born long after it happened know about the gruesome murder of JonBenét Ramsey, arguably the most famous American cold case. On Christmas morning in 1996, John and Patsy Ramsey woke up to every parent's worst nightmare: their 6-year-old daughter, JonBenét, was missing. Instead, they found a chilling ransom note demanding $118,000 for her safe return. Hours later, John and a family friend found JonBenét's body in the basement. Immediately, John and Patsy became the primary persons of interest, though authorities never named them as suspects. It wasn't until 2008 that the Ramsey family was officially exonerated based on DNA evidence.

Despite the exoneration, some suspicion surrounding the Ramseys still lingers. Patsy was the subject of a Lifetime documentary called "JonBenét's Mother: Victim or Killer" in 2016. That same year, CBS aired a documentary miniseries called "The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey," which theorized that JonBenét's brother Burke killed her by accident and their parents covered it up. Former FBI agent Jim Clemente, who was involved in the case and appeared in the miniseries, called the Ramseys' exoneration "absurd," telling Cosmopolitan in 2016, "I have never, ever ... seen a case in which a DA has issued a letter exonerating somebody, period."

Patsy died of ovarian cancer in 2006, but John continues to go about his life. So, what has he been up to?

John and Patsy Ramsey eventually moved from Colorado to Charlevoix, Michigan, where John ran for a seat in the statehouse in 2004. According to Michigan's Department of State, Ramsey narrowly lost his election bid, with Kevin Elsenheimer edging him out by just three percentage points.

In 2011, John had married a fashion designer named Jan Rousseaux. The two had met two years prior at the wedding of a mutual friend but didn't develop a relationship until a year later. The couple wed in a private ceremony in Charlevoix.

In early 2021, John appeared in a documentary about his daughter's death, "JonBenét Ramsey: What Really Happened?" and gave interviews around the time of its release. He told USA Today that he couldn't watch the whole documentary because it was simply too painful. "It's just hard to revisit that for me, quite frankly," he said. He also talked about how his family suffered due to their presumption of guilt on behalf of the police. "What the police did to our family is a massive miscarriage of justice, and it needs to be documented, it's history, it's the unfortunate truth," he said. "It shouldn't happen again. It shouldn't happen to another family." John said he hopes the new film will "keep the case alive" and eventually lead to justice.

Almost three decades after the brutal murder and assault of JonBenét Ramsey, a new Netflix documentary helmed by Emmy award-winning director Joe Berlinger aims to shed new light on the case. Berlinger, famous for directing "Paradise Lost," a documentary on the Memphis three that helped lead to their exoneration, is now tackling the case that swept the '90s by storm. Premiering Monday, November 25, 2024, "Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey" takes aim at how the Boulder police department turned the case into a debacle.

"There still seems to be this institutional lack of will to ultimately solve the case, because of what I believe was extreme mishandling at the outset," Berlinger told the New York Post. Berlinger also believes that the Ramsey family was not involved in JonBenét's murder whatsoever. He was also impressed with John Ramsey's willingness to appear on screen openly and honestly. Telling the Post, "John Ramsey agreed to sit down with us ... was not paid and asked for no editorial input. No questions were off limits. To me, that is an 80-year-old guy who ... wants to get that case solved." And it seems that Ramsey's willingness to participate in the docuseries is deeply attached to his desire to solve this case once and for all.

At the onset of the case, both John Ramsey and wife Patsy Ramsey were presented as possible suspects. Even though they were never charged or indicted, the fog of accusation still lingers over the Ramsey family — even spreading to Burke Ramsey, JonBenét's older brother. Over the years, DNA technology has greatly improved, and John Ramsey is still turning over as much evidence as he can. However, what he has mostly found are what he believes to be mistakes made by local authorities during the murder investigation — something Joe Berlinger's documentary will also point out.

The absolute chaos caused by the media at the time — you couldn't turn on a television or walk through a grocery checkout without seeing JonBenét's face plastered everywhere — only muddied the waters even more. This is why, according to People, Ramsey says he's ready to speak out and "put pressure" on police detectives to finally solve the case. Director Berlinger also believes many suspects were ruled out at the time, telling the New York Post, "We want the proper authorities to reinvestigate this case and the potential suspects after the DNA is properly retested." As for John, he thinks he might have good evidence to suggest who the killer could be, indicating JonBenét Ramsey's murder case could finally be solved.

Not able to walk away from the case, John Ramsey has been digging into his own research lately, and it seems he might have found a potential suspect. Nine months after JonBenét's gruesome murder, a masked intruder snuck into the home of another Boulder, Colorado, family and assaulted a 12-year-old girl — who also happened to attend JonBenét's dance studio. "To me, it could easily have been the same person," Ramsey told People. However, when Ramsey took this new information to the authorities, the police disregarded him.

Ramsey even has a theory as to how the culprit committed the crimes, and it is bone-chilling. He believes the perpetrator was already in the home, waiting for the family to go to bed. Telling People, "[The family] came home, set the burglar alarm, and the killer was already in the house. A very similar method, and yet the police blew it off. It was the same investigator as our case." Between this stunning revelation and questionable ways previous DNA evidence has been handled in the JonBenét case, it seems as if pressure might be mounting on Colorado police to finally solve this case. If John Ramsey doesn't beat them to it first.