Photo courtesy of Boulder Police Department
The Colorado Cold Case Review Team has spent the last year reviewing the JonBenet Ramsey homicide investigation to generate investigative recommendations, which the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder District Attorney are getting ready to act on, according to a case update published almost 27 years to the day of Ramsey’s murder, and more than a year since the last statement from the Boulder Police Department (BPD).
However, the case update—published by BPD on Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023—does not elaborate on what the specific recommendations are.
“To preserve the integrity of the investigation, the specific recommendations will not be made public at this time,” reads the statement.
What the update does make public is what the Colorado Cold Case Review Team has been working on in the past 12 months. The Review Team comprises professional, investigative, analytical and forensic experts from across Colorado, including the FBI, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Boulder County District Attorney’s Office, and numerous other entities —including public and private forensic laboratories—with expertise in cold case homicide investigations.
In 2023, the team digitized all evidence to create a comprehensive and searchable database containing thousands of information files, bringing together more than 21,000 tips, over 1,000 interviews, and samples from more than 200 different individuals, including handwriting, DNA, fingerprints, and shoeprints. The case file consists of nearly 2,500 pieces of evidence and roughly 40,000 reports, with more than 1 million pages documenting the investigation.
Essentially, a fresh inventory of all collected evidence was made available for review, which then led the team to make additional investigative recommendations, as well as determine if updated technologies and/or forensic testing might produce new intelligence or leads to solve the case.
Now, BPD and the Boulder District Attorney are in the process of reviewing and prioritizing the team’s recommendations. No timeline has been provided as to when the review process will end, nor when the next steps will be activated.
In the most recent statement, BPD says DNA testing continues to be an investigative focal point.
“The Boulder Police Department is working with leading DNA experts from across the county to ensure the latest forensic techniques are used to analyze remaining DNA samples,” reads the statement. “The evidence has been preserved and will continue to be ready for testing when there is proven and validated technology that can accurately test forensic samples consistent with the evidence available in this case. Detectives are actively taking steps to prepare the evidence for testing when possible.”
In 2022, JonBenet’s father John Ramsey publicly criticized the BPD’s handling of his daughter’s murder, specifically DNA analysis. During a Q&A session at CrimeCon 2022, John was asked “what is something you have done to help find JonBenet’s killer?” He responded that he has offered to pay for the testing of DNA evidence, but has been turned down.
Shortly thereafter, John threw his support behind a petition that asks the governor of Colorado to take the case out of the hands of BPD. The petition specifically asks why the DNA has not been tested using new technology—which has advanced significantly since the 1996 murder—including forensic genetic genealogy.
The BPD has maintained throughout that they are working with the evidentiary DNA regularly to the hopes of generating a new lead.
“As the [Colorado Police] Department continues to use new technology to enhance the investigation, it is actively reviewing genetic DNA testing processes to see if those can be applied to this case moving forward,” the City of Boulder said in a statement issued on Dec. 26, 2021, the 25th anniversary of JonBenet’s murder.
JonBenet was 6 years old when she was reported missing on Dec. 26, 1996, after her family found a ransom note inside their home. That same day, her body was found in a basement room of the house, and an autopsy the next day revealed the cause of death to be strangulation. The case became a media sensation overnight due to a number of factors, including JonBenet’s participation in youth beauty pageants, her family’s wealth and suspicion, and the fact that her body was found inside the home. In subsequent years, the police cleared the child’s parents and brother of wrongdoing through DNA testing.