(NewsNation) — The violent killing of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey has remained unsolved for nearly three decades, but a recent Netflix documentary has reinvigorated the search for who killed the young girl around Christmas time.
Over the years, several suspects and potential theories have made the rounds among law enforcement, crime analysts and a public captivated by the investigation for years.
Ramsey, who competed in beauty pageants, was found dead in the basement of her family’s home in the college town of Boulder the day after Christmas in 1996. Her body was found several hours after her mother called 911 to say her daughter was missing and a ransom note had been left behind.
Her death was ruled a homicide, but nobody was ever prosecuted. Police were widely criticized for mishandling the early investigation into her death amid speculation her family was responsible.
To this day, no one has been prosecuted, but several leading theories continue to swirl.
JonBenét was killed by one or both parents
A prosecutor cleared her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and brother Burke in 2008 based on new DNA evidence from JonBenét’s clothing that pointed to the involvement of an “unexplained third party” in her slaying, but they remain the top suspects.
This is largely due to her parents’ bizarre behavior and an oddly specific ransom note left in the wake of the girl’s murder.
Patsy produced a 2 1/2-page ransom note to police that demanded $118,000 — the same amount as John Ramsey’s Christmas bonus from his company — to be given by the next morning. Police had later determined that the letter had been written on Patsy’s stationary and with her pen inside the home, Rolling Stone reported.
The couple also allowed the ransom’s deadline to pass before alerting authorities, leading police to suspect that they may have written the note themselves, the outlet reported.
Another suspicious incident occurred when an officer showed up at their home to investigate after JonBenét was reported missing and asked John to help search the home. He immediately ran to the basement, where he found the girl’s body for the first time, leading some to believe he knew where the body was.
The young girl was found with a rope around her neck that was tightened by a homemade garrote made from a paintbrush from Patsy’s paint kit. Fibers from a sweater Patsy was wearing that day were found on a strip of duct tape that had been placed over JonBenét’s mouth, while black fibers consistent with a sweater belonging to John were found on her underwear, Vox reported.
Detectives on the scene also said that John was heard making arrangements to fly the family to Atlanta just hours after the murder, Rolling Stone reported.
These details led authorities to believe one or both killed their daughter and covered it up to make it look like a kidnapping.
A grand jury voted to indict Patsy and John for child abuse resulting in death and accessory to a crime in 1998, but prosecutors declined to press charges against the couple due to a lack of evidence. They were formally cleared 10 years later.
While Patsy died from cancer in 2006, two years before her exoneration, John continues to search for his daughter’s killer.
He told NewsNation that modern-day DNA testing could reveal the murderer.
“So the retesting needs to be done. Hopefully, we get a good sample and in the right format that then they could do the genealogy research,” John Ramsey said. “I believe if we do that, there’s a really good chance we can solve it.”
JonBenét’s brother killed her
Another theory that hasn’t quite died down despite an exoneration is that Burke killed his sister in a fit of rage.
After CBS aired a two-part documentary on the killing in 2016, Burke, who was 9 when his sister died, came back into focus, Rolling Stone reported.
In the documentary, criminal experts claimed that a flashlight found at the scene fits the mark on her skull left from a blow.
The flashlight did not have any evidence of being used to hit the girl.
Months after the documentary aired, Burke sued experts featured in the special for $150 million, citing defamation, as well as CBS for $750 million, reported People. Burke and CBS settled the lawsuit in 2019.
An intruder killed JonBenét
Outside of her family, the leading theory is that an intruder came into the house and killed the young girl.
Several possibilities as to who this could have been have emerged over the years.
One is Gary Oliva, a known sex offender who lived in Boulder at the time of the murder and who John believed killed his daughter, Westword reported. Oliva’s high-school friend Michael Vail claimed that not long after the murder, his friend called him on the phone telling him that he “hurt a little girl. I hurt a little girl,” Rolling Stone reported.
When police searched Oliva’s tent, he had photos of JonBenét in his possession and confessed to having a fixation on JonBenét. However, Oliva’s DNA didn’t match the DNA found at the crime scene, so authorities ruled him out as a suspect, People reported.
Michael Helgoth was an electrician in the area and owned a pair of Hi-Tec boots that appeared to match a print left at the crime scene as well as a stun gun, ABC News reported. Helgoth died by suicide in 1997, and his DNA did not match what was collected from the murder scene, which ruled him out.
Bill McReynolds, who dressed up as Santa Claus in the Ramseys’ home for several Christmas parties, was also accused by John Ramsey of his daughter’s death, People reported. There was no evidence linking him to the crime other than he had dressed as Santa at the Ramseys’ home days before JonBenét was killed. He was never charged.
One of the more bizarre outside suspects was John Mark Karr, a teacher who confessed seemingly out of nowhere to the girl’s killing. Karr was arrested in Thailand, where he’d been after fleeing child pornography charges in the U.S., reported Rolling Stone.
Karr emailed a University of Colorado Boulder professor who had been making a documentary on the murder. His emails started confessing violent interactions he allegedly had with the young girl, which led the professor to report Karr. Police arrested him in Bangkok as a possible suspect, but he was cleared after his DNA failed to match the profile of an unknown male found on the girl, the outlet reported.
NewsNation’s Anna Kutz contributed to this story.