The breakthrough new DNA evidence that could find JonBenét Ramsey's killer | 60 Minutes Australia

her big blue eyes even bigger blonde hair and that perfect smile are instantly recognizable it's jonbenet ramsay the six-year-old beauty pageant princess murdered in her own home 25 years on whoever did it remains free for her father john that's unbearably painful but he hasn't given up on the killer being found in fact with advances in dna technology he says there's a strong likelihood this mystery can finally be solved incredibly though john faces a roadblock in his search for the truth the very police who are investigating the crime our next contestant is if jonbenet ramsay was still alive she'd be about to turn 32 instead the little girl who loved to show off in junior beauty pageants only made it to six on boxing day 1996 she was found in the basement of her home beaten and strangled to death john bernay ramsey the japanese murderer but a quarter of a century later the killer remains unknown for john ramsey that's inconceivable and unforgivable we've lost a beautiful child and this is a creature that did this that is out there and could possibly do it to another child not knowing who killed his daughter has consumed john but not broken him has what you've wanted ever changed no no no we've we've wanted an answer it's not going to bring germany back our losses are lost it's permanent um but it needs to be answered and why why did this happen [Music] you'd think justice for jonbenet would be everyone's goal but in this very public and controversial case that may not be so john says it's still possible to find the killer and as you'll see he thinks he knows how to do it but to succeed he says he has to overcome a substantial hurdle the police he accuses detectives of never investigating the murder properly instead jumping to false and hurtful conclusions about the crime they solved it in their minds on the first day that it was the parents and we just got to find the evidence to be able to prove that but we know it was the parents because it's always the parents [Music] [Music] [Applause] back in 1996 this sprawling house in the u.s town of boulder colorado was home for john his wife patsy their son burke and the very happy john bernay this is john bernay she's four american seven and we'd like to welcome to our home wish you a very merry christmas she was she was a spark plug she she was very extroverted you know we said she showed up in life was like ta-da i'm here you know and uh that that just was her personality and i remember one day i came home from work and i guess i had a frown on my face and she said dad i don't like that look so i kind of put on a fake smile and she said that's better and that's just who she was [Music] small and quiet boulder was the perfect place for the ramses to raise their children but what made it attractive was also its biggest disadvantage when the unthinkable occurred crime scene investigators are still combing through the home police haven't named any suspects but curiously they are saying that the public at large is not in any danger that there is not a random killer on the loose the local police had no homicide experience and weren't well equipped to handle the investigation into jonbenet's murder not the detectives were prepared to admit it now this is a police department that mostly deals with traffic tickets and college kids setting couches on fire during spring break the same two detectives that are on the case today were there 25 years ago i hadn't changed one of them got an award for solving a bicycle theft ring it doesn't make any sense john that more experienced detectives officers with greater expertise were not brought in to try and solve this murder absolutely that was just um unacceptable but it's it's big egos and and arrogance and lack of knowledge and you combine those together that's pretty dangerous cocktail it was clear from the beginning that this was a crime like no other the first john and patsy ramsey knew about it was when they woke up early on boxing day and discovered jonbenet wasn't in her bed concern became panic when the couple then found a note saying their daughter had been kidnapped and demanding a hundred and eighteen thousand dollars for her return there's a ransom note here it's a ransom now please oh my god please patsy ramsay's 9-1-1 call certainly got police attention but for the next six hours with no sign of jonbenet confusion seemed to be driving the search the crime scene was contaminated and early clues were either overlooked or discarded the case was a catastrophe there is so much that does not make sense on this case including and probably especially the police behavior no one knows what evidence is gone because it was so massively goofed up is your investigation focusing inside the ramsey family or outside the ramsey family as far as suspects paula woodward was a colorado tv reporter when the story broke she still remembers the chaos of the day as well as the biggest police mistake of all how jonbenet's body was discovered in the ramsay's basement her body was found by her father six hours after police were called when the only detective in the house said hey why don't you look around that was one of the things that was just so unforgivable think what would have happened if the police had found the body the body had stayed where it was instead of the father picking her up and running her upstairs [Music] what was that moment like john well when i first found her was it was just a rush of you know thank god i found her and that it was a relief like a overwhelming relief that i'd found her and then i realized pretty quickly that she wasn't alive and um i just screamed and but i found her [Music] like john paula woodward believes the investigation by local police was doomed because detectives instantly assumed one or both of jonbenet's parents had killed the little girl i did not know my child you know quit screwing around asking me about things that are ridiculous and let's find the person that did this what difference would it have made if experienced detectives homicide detectives had been brought in from day one i don't know i do know that all of this incompetence and ineptitude would not exist if qualified homicide detectives had been on the scene there was just nothing that was followed that was homicide protocol nothing and then they began this deliberate campaign of leaking misinformation to what was a gullible press some media outlets and the police focused on the sensational aspects of the case but added to gullible was insatiable when it was revealed jonbenet was a child beauty queen the media couldn't get enough of the story which was the worst news for john and patsy ramsey four days after the murder the first child beauty pageant picture appeared and i was hooked as well as national international press they just zoomed in i think that that was probably the most the single most important factor in the case and what happened was that fascination turned into the judgment and the judgment was i would never let my child do that do you think that jonbenet's involvement in beauty pageants was a factor here she was an extrovert so it kind of fit her personality in fact we used to joke we said germany needs to lose one of these pageants so she understands you don't always win in life it needs to be a life lesson you know pasty's been accused of dragging jonbenet to these pageants and living vicariously through her that wasn't the case at all john and i loved it she had fun with it and and they had fun together doing it the photos of a perfectly quaffed john bernay as a beauty queen combined with plenty of rumor and gossip seemed to sway most of the public that john and patsy were involved in something sinister no number of denials not to mention a lack of any evidence could convince them otherwise for years the case dragged on sadly in 2006 patsy ramsey died of cancer but then two years later a breakthrough of sorts the boulder district attorney announced dna from an unknown man had been found on clothing jonbenet was wearing when she was murdered when the district attorney apologized she was very sincere about it we appreciated that step but we looked at it as just a step it wasn't a celebration here we hadn't solved the problem but we eliminated one of the obstacles to solving the problem that's how i looked at it the discovery of dna had been made possible through advances in technology it cleared john and patsy once and for all but it didn't reveal the murderer the investigation stalled again ultimately a dna match led to d'angelo now to a break in the case cold for 44 years but then in 2018 the best news so far for john similar dna technology was used to identify and catch america's most wanted serial murderer and rapist the golden state killer i had a crash course at one of the labs for about an hour it's like holy mackerel there's more to this than i thought learning a little bit about dna gave john a great deal of hope he reasoned if the golden state killer could be found so too could jonbenet's murderer and let's use the latest technology stuff we have that's come along in the last 10 years and let's see what we got then so at long last jumbo nice killer could be found absolutely yes cece moore is no cop but her dna detective work has helped crack more than 200 cold cases in the past four years what she does is called dna genealogy and it was first developed to help people track down their long-lost relatives on ancestry websites but these days cc uses it to hunt for criminals so it's like a big puzzle we have to put all the puzzle pieces back together little by little by little so what i'm doing all day long is building the family trees of these individuals that are sharing dna with this unknown suspect when i do believe i have identified that dna contributor it's a very strange feeling to know that i'm probably the only person in the world other than that killer that knows what they did it is a very heavy moment if given the chance cece is confident she could help find whoever murdered jonbenet ramsey 25 years ago the case of jonbenet is one of the most enduring unsolved cases in the world what would it mean to solve this case there are people all over the world that want to see her killer brought to justice who want to know what happened and who want the answers if the dna found on jonbenet is viable how long could it take to catch her killer it might only be a matter of hours before that dna contributor is identified it's a substantial boast to make that all these years later identifying john bernay's killer could happen quickly and easily ncc's colleague dr ellen greytack from paraben nanolabs agrees she says dna technology is now much more intricate and therefore much more accurate the work that we do is really sort of a new way to think about how you can treat forensic dna traditional forensic dna looks at a dna like a fingerprint you can match it to a database or to a suspect who's already been identified and it's great for that if the person you're looking for is in that database or is one of the suspects you've already identified but if they're not it really couldn't tell you anything more and so that's where we come in it's using the dna in a different way to actually try to generate new leads new leads in those cases to help figure out who that person could have been and what is it that's different about the way you analyze dna in a traditional forensic profile they're looking at around 13 to 20 different spots in the dna we're looking around at around a million wow so it's just a big difference in scale and so we're looking at a lot more data which means we can do a lot more with that dna is now the time to retest the dna in the jonbenet case i think now could be the time it's precisely what john ramsey wants to hear he sees this new dna technology as the key to solving his daughter's murder but he says whenever he's asked the boulder police to look into it he's been met with ambivalence take the samples that have never been tested from the crime scene use an outside lab to do the testing the latest technology that's available and let's see what we can do but to do nothing continuously after 25 years this is not acceptable anymore but here's where the story becomes even more frustrating john ramsey has never gotten along with the detectives in charge of the investigation he says they've always suspected him of being involved in the crime and because of that he's now accusing them of not wanting to help he believes police should hand over the dna found on john bernay's clothes so that it can be properly tested by experts like cece moore people write me every single day asking me why i haven't solved it i can't solve it if i don't have access to the dna and have the agency invite me to be part of their team to think that in the archives of the boulder police station is the remaining dna that was found on jonbenet and that you have the ability to today solve this case yet they're not handing it over that's heartbreaking it is heartbreaking if their reasons are anything less than uh transparency than full transparency it is heartbreaking in desperation john ramsey is petitioning the governor of colorado to force the local police to hand over the dna samples they've collected it's not too much to ask after all these years is it john no no it really isn't and and uh the comments that people have left as to why they were signing the petition was really pretty uh heartwarming and overwhelming and they basically said look a child was murdered and we we need to solve it we need to put all our resources available and solve it and and that's not happening and so that's that's our frustration so are you hanging your hopes on this new technology we want to do whatever can be done technically and resource wise to find the killer of our daughter and if if we if we do that and we can't then we'll have to live with it but to not do it is criminal and just negligent and lazy [Music] john welcomes all the help he can get and as you'll see some of it is coming from the most unlikely places releasing the recordings now because we want to find the killer of jonbenet we believe he's still out there it's been a long and exhausting 25 years for john ramsey as if the murder of his daughter wasn't torment enough he's also enjoyed the death from cancer of jonbenet's mom his wife patsy as well he's faced constant scrutiny and often suspicion from the world's media even when he remarried there were headlines his new wife jan couldn't believe all the attention when we ended up after we were married on the front page of the globe magazine and i was shocked but throughout it all jon's fight to find the truth about jonbenet's murder hasn't wavered and while he's been hugely critical of the local boulder investigators there has been one police officer he says is a hero tonight it's one of the most sensational unsolved crimes in u.s history great pleasure to welcome to uh larry king live tonight blue smith retired detective lou smith an outsider from nearby colorado springs worked right up until his death trying to find jonbenet's killer i believe this case can be solved because a detective always believes that the case can be solved it's not a question of solving it it's just a question of when it will be saw lou was kind of a legendary detective retired solved over 200 homicides in his career many of them cold cases lou felt it was a kidnapping gone wrong lou smith died 12 years ago but video and audio recordings he made while he was still investigating the murder have now been aired in a discovery plus documentary called jonbenet what really happened his daughter cindy mara says this is the case her father always wanted to solve that you can see and then it's gone we're releasing the recordings now because we want to find the killer of jonbenet we believe he's still out there when i walked up to the district attorney's office that first date it was just press oh and nice i know smith i'm the investigator that's going to be working the case it was three months after jonbenet's violent death when the boulder district attorney asked lou to join the murder task force almost immediately he bucked the thinking of local detectives by declaring the ramsey family wasn't involved [Music] [Music] after reviewing evidence boulder police had ignored lou was convinced the murderer had broken into the family home and his new theory wasn't something his colleagues wanted to hear i really think that it is an intruder and it's looking more and more like that all the time however every time i bring that up that we have to look at it more closely i'm shot down journalist and author paula woodward who's been covering the case since day one says lou's work was impressive but it made him enemies lou smith took all the reports put them together collated them centralized them and in doing that he said the evidence is not there that the family did it the evidence is pointing to an outsider having broken into the house as soon as he said that he was ridiculed besmirched just savaged by the boulder police department after only 12 months on the team lou left in frustration but continued investigating for the family thousands of tips [Music] during the initial investigation 98 for all the tips from the call whenever you approach it over the years he compiled a long list of suspects from undeveloped leads which he gave to his daughter just before he died in 2010 cindy mara took up where her father left off and began the difficult task of collecting dna samples from every suspect on the list it's now her hope that if john ramsey wins his battle for access to the dna of the unknown male found on jonbenet's clothing it will provide a match with someone on the list of suspects he gave me a name he said you know this is who you need to start with we decided that we would try and do our best to carry that on to not let the case die do you still have hope john that your daughter's killer will be found i have some hope yeah i think dna technology has advanced continues to advance and if it's used may lead to a solution i'm going to keep pushing certainly long as i live that the right things be done but it may not be solved i don't know [Music] john ramsey's request to the colorado governor for access to the dna has so far been met with silence without it johnny's unsure how the murder will ever be solved or how he'll ever be able to honor his little girl it's a thought that breaks his heart when you think about jonbenet today what goes through your mind you know what what do you say to your little girl frankly it's i'm sorry i didn't protect you that's a dad's job and that's my regret and i would tell her that i guess but she knew she was loved no question and we miss her and we'll see her again hello i'm sarah arbo thanks for watching 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minutes segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on ninenow.com.eiu and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 4,546,995

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, jonbenet ramsey, madeleine mccann, missing, mystery, murder, true crime, law and order, dna, science, investigation, john ramsey, unsolved, police

Id: 93UdoApio5s

Length: 25min 33sec (1533 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 24 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/B33Kat]

Just looked like a free infomercial for John Ramseys ego

[u/PiccadillySquares]

Pro tip: they will never give up Burke.

[u/jethroguardian]

What's new?

I don't think anything, but happy if I'm wrong.

[u/RemarkableArticle970]

I watched, yes the genetic genealogist is legit, but two things:

Sure would like to see what they left on the cutting room floor.

The appearance of P. Woodward, who has already demonstrated she will say untruthful things in her books/interviews makes me MORE doubtful that what they showed CeCe Moore saying was in any way hopeful or helpful.

[u/SpikeTheSquirrel]

bunk

[u/[deleted]]

Nope.