On December 26, 1996, 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was found dead in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado (USA). It makes me shudder to know it was her father, John, who found her strangled and beaten body (no father should ever have to experience that)…and then to have to live for the next 12 years under a cloud of suspicion! Sadly, his wife Patsy, (who died of ovarian cancer in June 2006), along with their older son, Burke, had also been under suspicion…until recently that is.

Patsy never got to see the formal letter of apology that Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy sent to John, saying, “No one in the Ramsey family is considered a suspect anymore! To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry.”

New ‘touch DNA’ technology has cleared all members of JonBenet Ramsey’s family of her brutal homicide. Instead, an ‘unknown male’, is now believed to be the killer. Unexplained third-party DNA, recently scraped from JonBenet’s long johns (clothing the authorities now believe were pulled up over the girl’s underwear…either replaced or removed by her killer) is the evidence—it matches DNA material previously found in JonBenet’s panties and under her nails.

Imagine living for years and years under a cloud of suspicion (although never being officially named as a suspect)…and trying to grieve for your beloved at the same time! …All along you knew you were innocent, but everyone who knew about the case looked at you sideways. And all you wanted to do was grieve in privacy for your loved one…and hope the real killer would be caught…that the police hadn’t stopped looking.

I just can’t imagine the hell that poor family had to endure!—Plus the frustration, anger and confusion! And how about the innocent people who still draw suspicion in Cindy’s case because her death remains a mystery!

Now, I have to wonder…what DNA evidence is left in Cindy’s police file (on the cigarette butts, on the licked envelopes, the hair found on her hand after an attack…)! Or has it all been destroyed? …After all, at the inquest police stated they believed Cindy had tied her own hands and feet behind her back and committed suicide (although there was no evidence to prove that). Indeed, in 2005 I learned Cindy’s police file had been placed under Closed Section as ‘suicide’.

But wouldn’t you like to find out the truth?

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James