DNA Clears Family in Murder of JonBenet Ramsey, DA Says
After more than a decade of whispers and suspicion, DNA tests have reportedly cleared the family of JonBenet Ramsey of involvement in the 6-year-old Colorado beauty queen’s murder in 1996.
“Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy said the tests point to an ‘unexplained third party’ and that prosecutors don’t consider any member of the Ramsey family a suspect,” reports the Associated Press. She also apologized in a letter to the girl’s father, John Ramsey, for any role that her office may have played in contributing to “the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime.”
The unsolved case, in which both parents were said by Boulder police to be under an “umbrella of suspicion,” attracted an enormous amount of media coverage. It was apparently sparked, at least in part, by public fascination with the many published photographs and videos of the young beauty pageant contestant dressed in a manner that many seemed to feel was too mature for a 6-year-old.
Patsy Ramsey, the girl’s mother, died of cancer in 2006. An attorney for John Ramsey—who found his daughter’s body hidden in their home—L. Lin Wood, responded to the news of the family’s vindication by saying that the “joyous news” was lessened because of Patsy Ramsey’s absence.
“There are many people in this country, if not around the world, that also owe John and Patsy Ramsey and Burke Ramsey [their son] an apology,” Wood tells the news agency.
Related coverage:
CNN: “The JonBenet Ramsey Case”
Baltimore Sun: “Mirroring JonBenet story”
