The brother of slain Colorado beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey refused to talk to Netflix about his sister’s brutal murder in 1996 after he became a suspect in her murder at the age of nine.
The new Netflix docuseries ‘Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey’ explores the unsolved murder of the six-year-old beauty pageant princess who was brutally beaten and strangled in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colorado on December 26. 1996.
The case is one of the most high-profile mysteries in the US, leading several theorists and sleuths to believe that her parents Patsy and John and older brother Burke may have had something to do with her death.
And although a bereaved John appears in the documentary, Burke is conspicuously absent from the film.
A card at the end of the third and final episode states: “Burke Ramsey has declined our request for an interview, citing his treatment by the media and online web sleuths.”
Speaking to TODAY, film director Joe Berlinger said: ‘We didn’t want to pressure Burke and he didn’t want to talk to us, and he just didn’t want to participate. So we respected that.”
JonBenet, who was crowned Little Miss Colorado, was first reported missing after her family found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for the child’s return.
Her body was later found in the family’s basement and her death was ruled a homicide, but no one was ever prosecuted and the case remains cold.
The brother of slain Colorado beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey refused to talk to Netflix about his sister’s brutal murder in 1996 after he became a suspect in her murder. Image shows JonBenet Ramsey (left) with her mother Patsy (center) and her older brother Burke (right) in 1993
Burke Ramsey is featured in a 2016 interview about Dr. Phil
JonBenet was found murdered in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado on December 26, 1996.
The prosecutor at the time of JonBenet’s death said her parents were “under an umbrella of suspicion” early on, as was their son Burke, who was only nine at the time of her death.
Theorists believed that Burke accidentally killed his sister in a moment of anger, and his parents hid this.
In 1998, a grand jury was convened and Burke was interviewed by police.
Jurors spent months analyzing evidence, but in 1999 the district attorney’s office determined there was not “sufficient evidence” to file charges.
Burke, who was 12 at the time, was ruled out as a suspect that same year.
In 2006, Patsy died of ovarian cancer, and in 2008, tests on newly discovered DNA on the girl’s clothing indicated the involvement of an “unexplained third party” in the murder, and not her parents or brother.
That prompted former prosecutor Mary Lacy to clear the Ramseys of any involvement and call the couple “victims of this crime.”
Burke told KUSA-TV at the time, “We’re certainly grateful that they recognized that we certainly couldn’t be involved based on that.”
The case is one of the most talked-about mysteries in the US and remains a cold case
John and Patsy Ramsey, the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, meet with a small select group of local Colorado media on May 1, 1997 after four months of silence in Boulder, Colorado. The couple was suspected of involvement in the murder of their daughter. , but were later acquitted due to DNA evidence
The site where 6-year-old Jonbenet Ramsey was murdered in Boulder, Colorado, 1996
The Ramsey family pictured together in December 1993
Theorists also believed that Burke had accidentally killed his sister in a moment of anger, and that his parents had hidden this
“But the most important thing is that we now have very, very solid evidence — and that has always been my hope, at least in the recent past — that would ultimately lead us to the killer.”
Ten years later, Burke appeared with Dr. Phil for his first public interview since his sister’s gruesome murder.
He said he chose to speak out to “honor her memory by doing this interview.”
Burke also spoke to the host about the rumors surrounding his and his parents’ involvement in his sister’s murder.
‘It blows my mind. What more proof do you need that we didn’t do it?’” he said.
“You won’t find any evidence because that’s not what happened.”
He also told Dr. Phil how he suspected she was murdered by a pedophile who stalked beauty pageants.
That same year, Burke sued CBS after it aired a two-part documentary in 2016 to mark the 20th anniversary of JonBenet’s death.
In the film, a panel of experts said it believed that Burke had hit JonBenet over the head with a heavy object and believed that John and Patsy then staged the crime scene to make it appear as if an intruder was the perpetrator.
Burke then sued CBS, the company that produced the documentary, and the experts who reexamined the case, seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $500 million in punitive damages.
The case was settled in 2019, but the terms were not disclosed.