JonBenét Ramsey’s father has demanded cops retest every piece of evidence from his daughter’s murder investigation for DNA after DailyMail.com’s bombshell interview with a woman claiming her ex is the killer.
John Ramsey, 81, told DailyMail.com this week that the key to solving the slaying of the six-year-old pageant queen lies in genetic genealogy, a method that has helped crack other cold cases including the Golden State Killer and Gilgo Beach murders.
He also wants investigators to comb through all the items of potential evidence handed over by Jacqueline Dilson, who is convinced her former partner Chris Wolf is the culprit – claims he denies.
John met with Boulder PD in January and pleaded with Chief Stephen Redfearn to reexamine some of the main pieces of evidence at the center of the case: namely the makeshift garrotte that was found embedded in JonBenét’s neck and the unidentified male DNA discovered in her underwear and beneath her fingernails.
Should investigators oblige, John believes there’s a 60 to 70 percent chance JonBenét’s killer could be behind bars within months.
So convinced by the capabilities of genetic genealogy, he has even offered to pay out of pocket for the tests himself but was told by the department that wouldn’t be necessary.
‘DNA technology has advanced dramatically since the last round of testing was done in the mid-2000s,’ said John.
‘If it doesn’t work then I’ll praise the police for trying everything they could […] but, to me, it’s just so obvious where the police’s time needs to be spent.’
John said he’s also curious to know how thoroughly ‘compelling’ early suspects in the case were vetted by Boulder PD and by what means they were cleared – if at all.
+20
View gallery
John Ramsey spoke to DailyMail.com about renewed accusations against Chris Wolf, one of the early suspects in the case who has never been charged and denies wrongdoing
+20
View gallery
The murder of JonBenét Ramsey remains the most famous cold case in the US. She was found beaten and strangled to death in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colorado on Dec. 26, 1996
+20
View gallery
Chris Wolf, 65, broke a 20-year silence to speak with Daily Mail about his ex-girlfriend, Jacqueline Dilson, and her claims he murdered JonBenét Ramsey
+20
View gallery
A garrotte found embedded in the young girl’s neck could contain vital DNA, John believes
He made specific reference to Chris Wolf, a former reporter who earlier this month was accused by his ex-girlfriend, Jacqueline Dilson, of murdering JonBenét in a exclusive Daily Mail report.
Dilson alleged that Wolf – so apparently overcome with hatred for John Ramsey and his business ties to arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin – brutally killed the young girl and staged the crime scene as a kidnapping in a deranged, politically motivated hit.
Wolf staunchly denied Dilson’s ‘absurd’ claims, calling the allegations the product of disturbed fantasy.
Over the years, Dilson has supplied the department with numerous items of potential evidence to build her case against Wolf, including clothes and bedsheets that she believed could be tested for DNA and trace fibers.
But in a 2001 deposition, the former lead detective on the Ramsey case, Steve Thomas, admitted he was unsure as to whether any of Dilson’s artifacts were ever tested because he didn’t deem Dilson to be a reliable witness.
John said he plans to ask Boulder PD if any of those items were ever tested, if they’ve been kept, and what status Wolf holds as a potential suspect in this case now.
‘[Dilson] surfaced early on with her allegations, and of course, we paid attention to her. The evidence she has is circumstantial but it is compelling,’ John said.
‘The problem with Boulder Police is that on day one they decided that the parents did it […] and so investigating leads that pointed elsewhere was, in their minds, a waste of time.
‘It was beyond incompetent […] so I don’t think they looked at these suspects very well, if at all, because it was more of a nuisance to them more than anything because they were determined to pin this on us.’
Boulder PD declined to comment on the case, citing an active investigation.
Wolf, now 65, is one of only two people to have ever been detained in connection with JonBenét’s murder.
He told DailyMail.com he last spoke with investigators in the early 2000s.
Wolf voluntarily supplied Boulder PD with DNA, fingerprint, and handwriting samples in 1998 and claims he was told by investigators he was no longer considered a suspect in the case.
Boulder PD has never publicly cleared Wolf but in 2011, in response to renewed allegations made by Dilson, stated that he’d been ‘thoroughly investigated’. He has never been charged in connection with the murder.
JonBenét Ramsey was first reported missing by her parents in the early hours of December 26, 1996, with her frantic mom, Patsy Ramsey, telling a 911 operator the pint-sized pageant queen was missing from her bed, and a strange ransom note had been left on a staircase near her room, demanding $118,000 in cash for her safe return.
The little girl’s body was found later that day, swaddled in a white blanket in a storage room in the Ramseys’ basement. Her wrists had been tied, duct tape covered her mouth, and a garrotte fashioned from paintbrushes was wound around her neck.
The horrifying discovery was made by John.
+20
View gallery
Jacqueline Dilson has renewed allegations against her ex-boyfriend Chris Wolf, accusing him of murdering JonBenét Ramsey, which he denies
+20
View gallery
Dilson (seen, right, with Wolf) first reported Wolf to police in January 1997
+20
View gallery
John and Patsy Ramsey almost immediately became the lead suspects in the case, with authorities saying the couple was under an ‘umbrella of suspicion’
+20
View gallery
The Ramseys believed an intruder broke into their home through a window in the basement, near where JonBenét was found
+20
View gallery
Unidentified male DNA was found on JonBenét’s underwear and under her fingernails
JonBenét’s official cause of death was ruled to be blunt-force trauma and asphyxiation. There were also signs of sexual assault.
Dilson first reported Wolf to Boulder Police just weeks after the murder, in January 1997, citing his bizarre actions on Christmas night and eerie statements he had made about the crime afterward.
She told Daily Mail Wolf left her home in Boulder County for hours on Christmas night and returned long after dark a man ‘possessed’.
The following morning, she woke in the early hours to the sound of Wolf showering and his clothes in a mud-stained heap on the floor.
She told detectives Wolf became aggressive when she questioned his whereabouts that night.
He then later became irate when JonBenét’s death first made the news – ranting that he wanted her father John Ramsey to die and accusing him of sexual abuse, according to police records.
At Dilson’s insistence, Wolf was detained and taken in for police questioning. He denied any involvement but initially refused to provide DNA or handwriting samples.
Wolf was soon released. Boulder PD claimed he was extensively vetted and was no longer being treated as a suspect.
But Dilson is far from convinced of his innocence and hopes her suspicions will finally be taken seriously after sharing her story publicly for the first time in a new self-published book, The Unheard Call.
In it, she portrays Wolf as an anti-capitalist radical who believed John Ramsey was complicit in the killing of innocent women and children because of his business ties to arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
Copiling her case with host of observations, circumstantial evidence, and anecdotal accounts, Dilson sensationally alleges that Wolf murdered JonBenét as an act of retribution for her father’s perceived complicty in stoking third-world conflicts.
For Wolf, Dilson’s accusations remain as ludicrous to him now as they were in 1997, telling the Daily Mail that claims he murdered JonBenét as a political message are ‘completely absurd’.
‘I had absolutely nothing at all to do with the murder of JonBenét Ramsey,’ he defiantly said.
‘I’m not a vigilante, and I would never take that kind of action based on some political beliefs that I had. I’d certainly never harm a child.
‘As far as Jacque – I don’t know exactly if she really believes all of this or not that she’s claiming about me. I think there’s a number of things going on.’
+20
View gallery
At the center of the Ramsey mystery is a bizarre, two-and-a-half page ransom note addressed to John and purported to have been authored by a ‘foreign faction’ known as SBTC
+20
View gallery
John Ramsey is hopeful his daughter’s case will soon be solved. He believes advancements in DNA technology will help snare the killer
+20
View gallery
Six-year-old JonBenét was found dead hours after her parents called 911 to report an abduction
+20
View gallery
The Ramseys’ son, Burke Ramsey, also fell under the media spotlight. He was nine at the time of JonBenét’s death
+20
View gallery
Seen above is a photo of the room where the pageant queen was found dead. A suitcase left near an open window may also contain vital DNA evidence
John Ramsey, meanwhile, said the circumstantial evidence against Wolf has always, in his mind, been compelling.
Part of the reason is that he believes Wolf – based on the accusations made by Dilson – matches up closely to a profile of the killer generated by legendary FBI criminal profiler John Douglas.
‘What he told me was, “My profile of the killer is he’s in his 20s or 30s and was angry or jealous of you, John. And this was done to hurt you. This wasn’t about JonBenét,”’ shared John of Douglas’ beliefs.
‘And so Chris Wolf, based on what Jacque says in terms of his actions and words and hate and anger, he fits the bill on paper.’
John said Wolf was one of a number of suspects that stood out to him based on circumstantial evidence in the early weeks and months of his daughter’s murder investigation.
He and Patsy named Wolf as one of their prime suspects in the case in their controversial book, The Death of Innocence, in 2000.
Also noted among the Ramseys’ persons of interest was their housekeeper and a former employee of John’s at his company Access Graphics.
Wolf sued the Ramseys for defamation but lost his $50 million suit, with a judge ruling there was ample evidence to show an intruder could have murdered JonBenét and the couple was within their rights to discuss him as a suspect because he’d been questioned by police.
John was present in the room with Wolf for several hours during a deposition for the suit.
He described Wolf as a ‘dark character’ who left him feeling uneasy.
‘I didn’t even want to walk out the building until I knew he was long gone,’ claimed John.
‘He was just a dark character, I don’t know how else to put it. He wasn’t the kind of guy you’d want to be hanging around with.’
Responding to Dilson’s latest frontal assault against Wolf, John said he’s ‘unsure’ what to make of her claims this far down the road.
Though John believes Wolf is worth another close look, he doesn’t think Dilson’s case against him is strong enough.
The only thing that will definitively determine who killed his daughter is DNA, he said.
And when that breakthrough comes, he doesn’t believe the culprit will be among the hundreds of persons of interest who have previously landed on Boulder PD’s radar.
‘I could give you three or four other names that when you look at the circumstantial evidence against them, you’ll think: “Holy mackerel! This is a serious suspect,” explained John.
‘But circumstantial evidence is not going to solve this case. And the other thing I’ve observed with these old cold cases that are solved using this family genealogy approach is that these suspects often come from left field – they weren’t a suspect on anyone’s list.
‘So I remind myself that this will likely be the case in our case, that this person, when identified, would be somebody we never looked at – no leads, no tips, no nothing.’
+20
View gallery
The ransom note was written on a pad belonging to Patsy Ramsey. She told police she discovered it on a staircase at the rear of the home
+20
View gallery
The murder of JonBenét Ramsey horrified Boulder and captivated the world
+20
View gallery
John Mark Karr falsely confessed to the crime in 2006. He was ruled out by DNA
The Ramsey family has a fractured history with the Boulder Police Department.
John and Patsy Ramsey were the prime suspects in the case for more than a decade.
In September 1998, a grand jury was convened to investigate the case.
The grand jury voted to indict John and Patsy on charges of child abuse resulting in death and being accessories to a crime, but Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter declined to move forward with an indictment citing a lack of evidence.
Then, in 2008, then-District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote a letter to John, saying new DNA evidence had cleared him, Patsy, and their son Burke of any wrongdoing.
Lacy formally apologized for the cloud of suspicion the Ramseys lived under for years.
But Lacy’s vindication came too late for Patsy, who died from ovarian cancer in 2006 at the age of 49.
In the past, John has been openly critical of Boulder PD, slamming them for their years-long fixation on him and Patsy and otherwise ‘bungling’ what he believes should’ve been a straightforward investigation by refusing help from larger, better-resourced law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI.
But now, John said he is prepared to bury the hatchet.
During his meeting with Boulder PD in January, he said he was left impressed by Chief Redfearn and is encouraged that a resolution to his daughter’s case will eventually be found.
‘We are cautiously hopeful we may finally be on the right track,’ said John.
‘The police now have top-tier leadership in charge, and so I just hope they have the bandwidth to really focus on this.
‘They didn’t make any promises about genealogy testing, but they were interested and responsive to what we had to say – and that’s all we could hope for.’
John said he remains as determined as ever to finally unmask his daughter’s killer.
Despite Lacy’s letter, he acknowledges a cloud still lingers over the Ramsey name – and he’s determined to finally lift the fog for the sake of his children and grandchildren.
‘I will do everything I can to ensure my family doesn’t have to live under this cloud anymore,’ he said.
‘I’m 81 years old, so it’s not going to change much about my life and everything that’s happened to this point, but it will make a difference for my children and their children.’
Asked if he ever allows himself to envision the moment the killer is finally caught, John says he tries not to.
In 2006, when convicted child sex offender John Mark Karr falsely confessed to perpetrating the crime, John said he experienced a rollercoaster of emotions.
Rather than an arrest marking the end of his anguish, it would merely signal the beginning of another painful chapter.
He explained: ‘There’s going to be a trial, there’s going to be a massive media focus, and that’s going to be difficult. And then we’re going to have to sit through the trial and understand what actually was done to my daughter and why.
‘It’s not going to be, ‘Hey, we got the guy. Let’s have a glass of champagne to celebrate.’
‘It’s going to reopen all of those emotional wounds again – and that’s going to be so hard.’
News
‘IT’S TIME FOR CLOSURE’ — Police Re-Test DNA in 6-Year-Old JonBenét Ramsey’s 1996 Case, and the Results Leave the World Stunned
The body of the six-year-old was found by her dad strangled in the basement of their family home in Boulder,…
The Photo That Ha:unted a Century: A Mother’s Embrace, a Boy’s Face, and the Secret Buried Beneath the Kansas Plains
When a plain cardboard package arrived at the Smithsonian archives one quiet winter morning, staff expected little more than routine:…
Sh0cking Anfield Chaos: Liverpool Fan in Wheelchair Hurls Ab:us:e and Gum at Bournemouth Star Antoine Semenyo — Witnesses Say His Reaction Moments Later Said It All
A Liverpool fan who witnessed the racist abuse directed towards Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo has revealed the details of the vile outburst. Nick Collins…
Two-year-old Beckham Reed is fighting for his life in a Georgia hospital after suffering more than 150 yellowjacket stings that left him unresponsive and dependent on life support. The tragedy struck when he drove his electric toy car across a hidden nest, triggering a brutal swarm. Yet, the most alarming detail about Beckham’s condition has only just been revealed…
Beckham Reed was in an electric toy car when he accidentally ran over a nest and was swarmed Beckham Reed.Credit…
Mo Salah’s Tearful Reaction to Jota Tribute Captivates Fans
Liverpool’s match against Bournemouth turned emotional as fans paid tribute to Diogo Jota and his brother Andre. Amid the applause…
📝 TRANSFER CONFIRMED? — Sky Sports signals a massive boost for Liverpool in their chase for Alexander Isak 😱🔑
Liverpool’s pursuit of Newcastle United’s star striker Alexander Isak has reportedly gained significant momentum, according to Sky Sports (Dandozzy, August…
End of content
No more pages to load