Why is JonBenét Ramsey’s murder still unsolved? The children’s pageant revisits the Queen’s death almost 30 years later

Decades later, the murder of JonBenét Ramsey is the subject of Netflix’s ‘Cold Case’

It’s been almost 30 years JonBenét Ramsey was found murdered in the basement of her family’s home in Colorado.

On the morning of December 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey found a ransom note demanding $118,000 in exchange for the return of her 6-year-old daughter, JonBenét. Hours later – after reporting her missing to the police and having detectives search the house – John Bennett Ramsey found his daughter dead in their basement with a garrote (a kind of handheld ligature) tied around her neck.

An autopsy report revealed that she had been sexually assaulted and her cause of death was strangulation and a blow to the skull.

No one has ever been charged in JonBenét’s death, but her parents spent years under an “umbrella of suspicion” by police and intense media scrutiny, in part because the toddler had little public profile, competing in beauty pageants.

Related: Did JonBenét Ramsey’s parents take a lie detector test? How Boulder police investigated child pageant queen’s death — and why a Netflix doctor claims they didn’t do enough

Whether focusing on John and Patsy, who died in 2006, detracted from solving the case is the subject of Netflix’s Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?. The three-part docu-series premiered on November 25 and analyzes the alleged missteps police took when the toddler was first reported missing. It also highlights other potential suspects investigators have questioned and DNA evidence of them John claims yet to be tested.

“We are asking the police to get involved,” he told PEOPLE in November. “There are pioneering DNA laboratories that want to help and believe they can take the case forward.”

So what happened to JonBenét Ramsey? Here’s everything to know about the toddler’s unsolved murder and why the police have yet to find her killer.

What happened to JonBenét Ramsey?

On 26 December 1996, at At 5:52 a.m., Patsy called the Boulder Police Department to report her daughter missing. She had found a ransom note on the stairs leading to their kitchen, written by an alleged kidnapper, demanding $118,000 by 10 o’clock or JonBenét would die. The amount required was close to the amount John had previously received in bonus.

Two officers were immediately dispatched to the scene. They did not find the toddler during the first search of the Ramsey house and only locked off JonBenét’s room. The police also allowed Patsy and John to invite friends over – a decision that Cold Case said to have contaminated the crime scene.

Related: Who is John Bennett Ramsey’s wife? All about Jan Rousseaux Ramsey and her relationship with JonBenét Ramsey’s father

When no one called at 10 to collect the ransom, former detective Linda Arndt asked John to search the house and see if he noticed anything “unusual.”

Who found JonBenét Ramsey’s body?

IN Cold CaseJohn claimed that when he and a friend searched the basement, they noticed an open and broken window along with a suitcase placed underneath it. He maintained that the item “shouldn’t have been there.”

Soon after, John discovered JonBenét’s body in a room where the children kept their train sets. She was bound and had duct tape over her mouth. John hurriedly untied her and carried her upstairs, where the officers confirmed she was dead.

Related: Where are JonBenét Ramsey’s parents and siblings now? All about the family’s ongoing search for answers to her unsolved murder

Allowing the father of the missing child to search the house on his own — leading him to potentially tamper with potential evidence when he found her body — is another alleged error Cold Case claims the Boulder Police Department made.

Who were the suspects in the murder of JonBenét Ramsey?

The existence of a ransom note seemed to lend credence to the theory that an intruder was responsible for JonBenét’s murder (although some investigators believed the note was fake). Over the years, several names have been considered.

One potential intruder was Michael Helgoth, who owned a pair of boots that appeared to match a print found at the scene. Helgoth was initially looked into by police, but he died by suicide in 1997 and investigators began looking elsewhere.

Ollie Gray, a private investigator hired by John and Patsy, believed that Helgoth’s family may have a recorded confession of the crime.

In 2006, John Mark Karr, who also goes by Alexis Reich, confessed to the murder, saying he was with JonBenét when she died and that “her death was an accident.” But the claim was dismissed when Karr’s family said they had been with him at Christmas 1996. His DNA also did not match that found on JonBenét’s clothing.

Another potential intruder was a man who had worked as Santa ClausBill McReynolds, and recently visited the Ramsey home. The man’s daughter had also been abducted decades before, but he was never formally considered a suspect.

Cold Case also highlights another former suspect, Gary Howard Oliva, who was named as a person of interest 48 hours investigating. He never confessed to the crime, but he spent eight years in prison on child pornography charges and had a photo of JonBenét with him when he was arrested in 2000.

John told PEOPLE in November 2024 that he believes the police must take a closer look a masked intruder who raped a 12-year-old girl in Boulder nine months after JonBenét was killed. The girl’s mother scared the attacker off and he was never found – but John believes he “could easily have been the same person” who murdered his daughter. The girl also went to the same dance studio as JonBenét.

“The police blew it off as, ‘No, it’s not the same,'” John said. “I think the modus operandi was exactly the same. I think the killer was in the house when we got home, waiting, until we went to sleep.”

DNA evidence found on JonBenét’s clothing has not yet matched anyone the police have questioned.

Were JonBenét Ramsey’s parents suspected of her murder?

Early in the investigation, John and Patsy were described as being under “an umbrella of suspicion” by the police. Patsy was accused of allegedly killing her daughter after a bedwetting incident in a 2000 book written by former detective Steve Thomas, and Arndt claimed Good morning America in 1999 that she had a “nonverbal exchange” with John after he found JonBenét that led her to believe he was the killer.

In the wake of their daughter’s murder, the former couple hired lawyers, and later said they felt unfairly targeted by police and the media. In 1999, a the grand jury decided that John and Patsy had “unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly and criminally permitted (allowed) a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation that posed a threat of harm to the child’s life or health,” but the prosecutor declined to continue pursuing a case against JonBenét’s parents, citing a lack of evidence.

In 2008, two years after Patsy died of ovarian cancer, the District Attorney at the time, Mary Lacy, wrote John to tell him that he, Patsy and Burke were all cleared of DNA involvement. However, subsequent District Attorney Stan Garnett later told PEOPLE, “I did not feel that the exemption was warranted based on the state of the evidence and the complexity of the case.”

Burke, who was 9 at the time of JonBenét’s murder, was never considered a suspect by Boulder police. However, a 2016 CBS docuseries theorized that he hit his sister in the head with a flashlight. Burke filed a $750 million lawsuit against CBS to “remedy the permanent damage” to his “reputation resulting from the defendant’s false accusation that he killed his sister.”

NPR reported in 2019 that the defamation suit had been settled.

Why is JonBenét Ramsey’s murder still unsolved?

JonBenét’s murder is still unsolved – but her father thinks it might be.

John told PEOPLE there are “six or seven” pieces of evidence that have yet to be tested for DNA, including the garrote used to strangle the toddler. He wants the Boulder Police Department to send the evidence to labs that use genetic genealogy and other advanced DNA technology, which he believes will lead to answers.

“If it gets in the hands of the Boulder Police, it’s not going to be solved, period,” John argued. “If they accept help, all the help that is out there, that is available and offered, will be solved. Yes, I believe it will be resolved.”

He continued, “We’re not asking them to do anything weird. Just do your job. Test the DNA.”