The father of JonBenét Ramsey, the 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant murdered in 1996, is pleading with Boulder, Colorado, police to proceed with DNA testing in the hopes of solving her case.
John Ramsey said he believes the case is solvable but authorities allegedly won’t test potentially crucial evidence, including DNA from the handmade garrote used to strangle his daughter, he said in a Tuesday interview with People. He criticized law enforcement for allegedly refusing to adopt advanced testing methods to solve the murder, which attracted global media attention in 1996.
“We’re begging the police to engage,” Ramsey told the outlet.
Ramsey, now 80, refuses to give up on solving the crime and finding closure for his family.
“There are cutting-edge DNA labs that want to help and who believe they can move the case forward,” he said.
He expressed concern over the way police have handled the case.
“The chief of police is in charge. Nobody can come in and help him with solving a crime unless he asks for help. We’re not asking them to do anything weird,” Ramsey told the outlet. “Just do your job. Test the DNA.”
Ramsey and his late wife Patsy discovered a hand-written ransom note inside their home, a note which they believe was left by their daughter’s killer. JonBenét was sexually assaulted and died from strangulation and a blow to the skull, and her parents and 9-year-old brother became suspects in the early days of the investigation.
Ramsey believes advancements in genetic genealogy and other cutting-edge DNA technologies could finally solve the case. He is urging authorities to reexamine seven crime scene items, which he claims have either never been tested or were analyzed with outdated methods, the outlet reported.
“Of the items sent to labs in the beginning, six or seven of them were returned untested,” he said. “We don’t know why they were not tested, but they were not tested. The garrote used to strangle JonBenét and a number of items just were sent back.”
“But to do the latest stuff, this whole genealogy research, they needed a different format of the sample,” Ramsey continued. “And that’s why we’ve been advocating more testing be done by one or two of these very cutting edge labs, to retrieve a sample in the right format, which they can use to do genealogy research and searching, basically.”
BOULDER, CO – AUGUST 17: A single red rose lays near the entrance to the residence at 749 15th Street, where JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in December, 1996, August 17, 2006 in Boulder, Colorado. At a news conference earlier in the day, Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy confirmed that John Mark Karr has been taken into custody in Bangkok, Thailand, and will be extradited to the U.S. for questioning in the case. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
Ramsey reiterated his determination to have the evidence tested using modern methods.
“If it stays in the hands of the Boulder Police, it will not be solved, period,” he told the outlet. “If they accept help, all the help that’s out there, that’s available and offered, it will be solved. Yes, I believe it will be solved.” (RELATED: Vogue Model Dynus Saxon Faces Murder Charges After Police Find Dad With Knife Lodged In Chest)
JonBenét’s murder captivated global attention in 1996 and remains one of the most high-profile unsolved cases of all time. Netflix will premiere a three-part series, “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?” on Monday.
This article was originally published at dailycaller.com
