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JonBenet Ramsey’s Half-Brother Says His Father Deserves ‘Long And Sincere Apology’ From Police
JonBenét Ramsey’s family has also endorsed a petition asking Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to allow for independent testing of DNA evidence after John Ramsey slammed the efforts of the Boulder Police in April.
JonBenét Ramsey’s half-brother called out Boulder Police in a Father’s Day message on social media, saying his father John Ramsey deserved a “long and sincere apology” from the department.
"Good Dad + a good dog," John Andrew Ramsey wrote in the Twitter post Sunday, alongside a decades-old photo of his dad and a family dog. "@boulderpolice owe him a long and sincere apology but we will take some hard work and grit to get the job done. Do they have it? Doubt it."
The comments come after John Ramsey was critical of the police department’s investigation into his daughter’s 1996 murder at a CrimeCon 2022 panel in April, calling out the department for their “arrogance,” “ego” and inexperience while working the infamous case.
“We can’t let the murder of a child be left up to local police,” he said at the time, while advocating for child murders to be handled by federal investigators, according to previous reporting by Oxygen.com. “They’re just big enough that they think they know everything, and they don’t.”
JonBenét was discovered dead in the basement of her family’s home on Dec. 26, 1996, shortly after the 6-year-old’s parents had found a ransom note demanding $118,000.
For more than 25 years, the case has remained unsolved despite continued international interest in the murder.
Her family has now voiced support for a petition asking Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to allow an independent agency to conduct DNA testing on evidence gathered in the unsolved case
.
The Change.org petition—which asks Polis to put the “DNA testing decisions in the hands of a new agency that’s free from Boulder’s significant history with the case”—has gathered more than 7,800 signatures in support of the request.
A spokesperson from the Governor’s office told local station KDVR shortly after the petition was filed that the governor’s office planned to “review the petition and look into how the state can assist in using new technology to further investigate this cold case.”
In a post on Change.org on Friday, petition organizers said they were recently told by the governor’s office that there was no “update at this time” about the status of the review.
“Totally unacceptable and obviously they are hoping that this just goes away. We can't let that happen,” they wrote in the update. “We're now over 7,700 signatures but need your help in sharing this petition on your individual social media accounts along with a line or two about your personal outrage over the handling of this case.”
John Ramsey has claimed that some of the evidence from the crime scene has never been tested for DNA, despite the technological advances being made in recent years.
“It’s a cold case, and they don’t call it a cold case, but it is for all intents and purposes a cold case,” he told Fox News. “Why they don’t test the DNA samples that should be tested for DNA, I don’t know. It’s baffling.”
Oxygen.com reached out to Boulder Police after the Father’s Day post calling out investigators, but did not receive an immediate response.
However, police said in a statement last month after the petition was filed that they have “never wavered in its pursuit to bring justice” to JonBenét and her family. Since the 6-year-old was killed, police said they have pursued more than 21,016 tips, letters and emails and traveled to 19 states to conduct interviews with more than 1,000 people.
“Our investigation with federal, state and local partners has never stopped. That includes new ways to use DNA technology,” Police Chief Maris Herold said. “We’ve always used state of the art technology as it has been at the forefront of this investigation. Every time the DNA technology changed, we worked to make sure the evidence could be tested.”
Susan Medina, chief of staff for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement to Oxygen.com they are also assisting the investigation.
"To my knowledge there is no update related to the governor's decision," she said. "That said, the CBI continues to collaborate with the Boulder Police Department and the District Attorney's office to pursue the most advanced testing available as this investigation continues to move forward."
