JonBenet Ramsey Murder: Key Insights from Netflix Cold Case Series

layout to quietly slip in there in the dead of night, among other things.”

The Boulder Police Department would later admit that many officers had tramped around the property that morning, possibly contaminating the crime scene, which was already a mess due to Patsy Ramsey’s frantic 911 call, the ransom note, the cashmere sweater JonBenét was wearing, and the basement window broken sometime before Valentine’s Day 1997.

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Addressing the Handling of Hardcore Confidential InformantSource: U.S. Department of Justice
Like a 20th-anniversary look-back published on Crime once

And JonBenét was a really cute child, as seen in the photo at the top of this story.

Idiotic Forensics 101

The Netflix series goes through the autopsy files and all the previous theories and evidence, most of which has been debunked. And at the six-minute mark of Part 2, John Ramsey makes a statement that’s key to understanding where the story does and does not go. He addresses the theory that the parents did it.

“The original theory, which every detective told us who came to the house, is that a parent had to be the killer because it was a highly sexualized crime of a six-year-old. That in and of itself should have told them a parent hadn’t committed the crime — because no parent would do that.”

But surely some parents would, as is demonstrated time and time again in the news.

Due to the delayed discovery of the body and the original view of the crime scene, the Ramsey parents were treated like prime suspects from the get-go, and the Netflix doc simply restates both the well-worn theories and the preposterous reasoning behind them.

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Gifted, Troubled Son

This series spends a lot of time on JonBenét’s older brother, Burke Ramsey, whom some theorists over the years have suggested could have committed the crime. He was interviewed by a child psychologist four months after his sister’s murder and “had no idea, really, what had happened.”

“I asked him if he had a dream and he seemed to remember that he did, that his sister was killed,” said the psychologist, who’s interviewed on the Netflix doc. “It was kind of vague to him, as it was while he conversation. He was certainly disoriented about what happened.”

Still, Burke, who was present with his parents during this latest media blitz, has taken legal action against CBS over claims made in the documentary The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey. While the Netflix series doesn’t really suggest he did it — remember, no one is fingered as the killer after all the reexamination of evidence, theories and reports that have already been made public — it seems to imply his role remains a mystery, one that he might want left alone.

One of the first photos of Burke Ramsey ever released, soon after the murder of his sister JonBenét.

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New Chief

Those looking for new insight on the case won’t find it in the series, which ends much like the investigation: with nothing resolved. But it does expand on some of the few revelations that have emerged over the intervening years.

Head shot of former Boulder Police Chief Greg Testa.

A forensic linguistics expert consulted by the Netflix producers analyzed the ransom note found in the Ramsey home. The expert confirmed the prevailing belief that the handwriting and language style of the ransom note didn’t match those of Patsy Ramsey. Apparently, the original investigation didn’t have access to cutting-edge cool stuff like that.

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The Netflix project doesn’t provide new insight, but it does bring some of the personalities out of the shadows. Oh, and Crime is still running.

Don’t watch it if you expect solutions. But if you just want to relive an incredible true-crime story, it’s ready for you on Netflix.

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