The JonBenet Ramsey case is receiving renewed attention 28 years after her murder

Advances in DNA technology and a surge of public interest are rekindling hopes for breakthroughs in the long-unsolved murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, a case that has remained a haunting mystery for nearly 28 years.

As new techniques emerge and new attention is drawn to the evidence, many are eager for answers that can finally end this tragic story.

JonBenet, who was found dead in the basement of her Boulder, Colorado, home in 1996, remains frozen in time. Her father, John Ramsey, has endured nearly three decades without justice, answers or his daughter.

“JonBenet is still my 6-year-old blonde-headed daughter who I love dearly,” Ramsey told ABC News. “I ran into one of her little friends on the street who is now, you know, 30 and grown up. And it was, it was a bit of a shock. This little girl was playing with JonBenet at our house all the time. And that was a bit of a shock to think, wow, it could have been JonBenet.”

Watch the full story on the “20/20” episode “Forever Young: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?” features a new interview with John Ramsey and never-before-seen footage from the iconic Barbara Walters interview with parents John and Patsy Ramsey.

Ramsey, now 81 years old, has renewed hope that his daughter’s killer may finally be found. He is convinced that advances in DNA technology, including genetic genealogy that has helped solve several high-profile cold cases, are the key to solving this mystery.

“Let’s do a reverse family tree and see if he had a relative living in Boulder in 1996. The interesting thing about these cold cases,” Ramsey said. “The ultimate first arrest came out of nowhere. They were on nobody’s radar. They’ve committed this horrible crime and nobody said that guy is a suspect. That’s what we’re asking the police to do.”

Over the years, Ramsey has expressed frustration with police for not solving her daughter’s case. He was unhappy that he had been the prime suspect for 12 years and that the department had rejected offers to help find viable evidence. He recently appeared in a new Netflix docuseries, “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?” The series delves into lingering mysteries surrounding the tragic case, exploring evidence, interviews and theories that have emerged over the years.

Ramsey collaborated with director Joe Berlinger, who aimed to illuminate what he described as one of the most victimized families in American history.

“Obviously, he wasn’t legally wrongfully convicted, but he was wrongfully convicted,” Berlinger said. “And his wife Patsy – the family was wrongfully judged in the court of public opinion.”

The popular docu-series ignited a new wave of interest among viewers.

Ramsey is hopeful that recent changes in the Boulder Police Department’s leadership and better communication with his family can lead to a resolution in the case.

The Boulder Police Department has been handling the latest investigation. Last month, the current police chief released a video statement.

“So much of how law enforcement works has changed in the last 30 years,” Stephen Redfearn said. “There are a number of things that people have pointed out over the years that could have been done better, and we recognize that as true. However, it is important to emphasize that while we cannot go back to that terrible day in 1996, so our goal is to find JonBenet Ramsey’s killer.”

The tragic day in 1996 began in the picturesque Boulder neighborhood where the Ramsey family lived. On December 26, John and Patsy Ramsey woke up to find JonBenét, a child beauty queen, missing.

A handwritten ransom note demanding $118,000 — the exact sum of John’s bonus that year — was discovered on the kitchen stairs. Seven hours later, John found his daughter’s lifeless body in a small basement room.

An autopsy revealed that JonBenet was sexually assaulted and strangled, and her skull was fractured. Unknown DNA was found under her fingernails and in her underwear.

The Ramseys quickly became suspects, although no evidence linked them to the crime.

The family has always denied any involvement in JonBenet’s murder. However, it took the Boulder District Attorney’s Office 12 years to exonerate the Ramseys and their son Burke, who was 9 years old when his sister died.

As the weeks passed without any arrests in the case, a media frenzy began to build, fueled by relentless tabloid images of JonBenet participating in beauty pageants.

A number of leads emerged, including a man named John Mark Karr who confessed to the killing in 2006. However, his DNA did not match the evidence and he was not in Boulder at the time of the murder, so he was eliminated as a suspect. The case remained unsolved.

John Ramsey believes a cloud still hangs over his family as he believes there are people in the country who believe he and his late wife, Patsy, who died in 2006, are responsible for the murder on JonBenet.

Investigator Lou Smit, who was originally brought onto the case by Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter, believed early in his investigation that the Ramseys were innocent. He believed that the police should look into the possibility of an intruder.

“I’m not saying parents don’t kill their children … parents do kill their children,” Smit said in his tapes. “But (police) are trying to say that Patsy did it. … Their actions before, during and after (JonBenet’s death) are all consistent with innocent people. … They didn’t.”

As the investigation progressed, Smit became increasingly concerned that authorities had completely ruled out that an intruder could be responsible for JonBenet’s death. As a result, they did not search for evidence to support this possibility.

Smit continued to maintain that an unidentified intruder was responsible for JonBenet’s murder. However, he was running out of time due to his colon cancer diagnosis in 2010.

Before Smit died on August 11 of that year, he diligently compiled a detailed list of persons of interest, hoping that his years of investigative work would finally pay off. Smit passed his files to his surviving children, including a spreadsheet of 887 names of potential suspects to be investigated.

That list is extensive, but Smit’s family is determined to continue their search. Since his death, the team has cleared several people from that list, according to Smit’s granddaughter Jessa Van Der Woerd. However, the process is slow due to the time and cost involved in locating each person, obtaining their DNA and testing it.

“We let the killer go for more than 28 years,” John Ramsey said. “I think it is imperative that we investigate any credible suspect that has been provided.”