BOULDER, Colo. — Had Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty been in charge, he would not have cleared the Ramsey family as suspects, as then-DA Mary Lacy did in 2008, he said Tuesday, just ahead of the 30th anniversary of JonBenet’s killing.
Dougherty and Boulder police Chief Steve Redfearn sat with reporters Tuesday morning, ahead of a significant benchmark in the long history of the notorious crime.
John Ramsey looks on as his wife, Patsy, holds an advertisement promising a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer of their 6-year-old daughter, JonBenet, during an interview May 1, 1997, in Boulder. (Camera file photo)
JonBenet was found dead the morning of Dec. 26, 1996, after her mother, Patsy Ramsey, called police and said she found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for her daughter’s safe return home. The 6-year-old pageant winner’s body was found hours later in the home’s basement.
The Boulder County coroner at the time later determined she had suffered a fractured skull, had been asphyxiated with a garrote and was sexually assaulted.
“I’ve never ruled out people in a case that’s unsolved,” Dougherty said Tuesday. “Doing right by the victim demands that I remain open-minded and committed to following the evidence wherever it leads. … I would not have done it.”
Lacy’s public exoneration of the family likely didn’t harm the investigation in the long run, Dougherty said. Just because a former DA said something once doesn’t mean it’s legally binding, he added.
A voicemail and an email requesting comment from Lacy using contact information associated with her were not immediately returned.
John Andrew Ramsey, JonBenet’s half-brother, said he doesn’t care that his family isn’t officially off the list of suspects. What he cares about is the fact that Redfearn and Dougherty have expressed hopefulness — something they wouldn’t do if they didn’t have anything coming down the pipeline, he said.
“Fine. Who Cares. Whatever, knowing who he is. He’s a lawyer,” Ramsey said, acknowledging that Lacy didn’t go by-the-book when she cleared his family’s names in the middle of a homicide investigation.
When Ramsey spoke to the DA and Redfearn in February, it was the first time the tone sounded positive, he said. It was the first time they expressed optimism, he said.
“I don’t think Steve Redfearn and Michael Dougherty are dumb enough to blurt that out without having something to back it up,” Ramsey said on a Tuesday phone call with the Daily Camera.
Investigators tested evidence at the end of 2025 in Jefferson County, Ramsey said had learned from investigators. Before that testing, Dougherty and Redfearn didn’t show optimism. After that testing, they did, he said.
Boulder police spokesperson Dionne Waugh could not confirm whether that testing took place because the investigation is ongoing, she said.
Dougherty and Redfearn spoke to reporters while looking ahead to Dec. 26, which will mark 30 years since JonBenet was found dead in her family’s Boulder home in the 700 block of 15th Street.
In past years, Boulder police have released an online update near the anniversary of the 6-year-old’s killing, but because this year marks a significant milestone for the unsolved case, Redfearn and the DA wanted to lend more significance to their annual update, Waugh said ahead of the news conference.
Neither the DA nor Redfearn shared new information, suspects, leads or investigative results on Tuesday.
“We’d love nothing more than to make progress and slap handcuffs on somebody,” Redfearn said.
Though nothing new was shared, Redfearn expressed his hope that forensic testing technology would continue improving and allow investigators to test evidence that could shed new light on what happened the night JonBenet was killed. He said he expects to make progress in well under a decade, as technological improvement continues at a steady pace.
That’s why investigators are in touch with forensic testing labs and other prosecuting offices across the country, Dougherty said. When the technology is ready to test certain evidence — some of which might only offer one chance to get a meaningful result before it’s tainted — investigators will know, he said.
But even a successful test might not lead to answers. It could lead to even more questions, Redfearn said. That’s good, though, because it means new avenues became available to investigators, he said.
The fact is that 30 years impacts how easy it is to solve a case, Redfearn and Dougherty explained. Evidence has aged, and so have the people who might know anything, Redfearn said. JonBenet’s killer might already be dead, and so might others who could tell the police something they don’t already know.
If JonBenet were killed today, the case would be much easier to solve, Dougherty said.
Nevertheless, he and Redfearn hope that investigators will eventually bring JonBenet’s killer to justice.
Detectives have interviewed people in at least 17 states and conducted thousands of interviews throughout the life of this case, Redfearn said. That includes looking at the hundreds of thousands of tips that have come in over the years, Redfearn said.
“I still get emails almost daily,” Redfearn said. “Some people email me so consistently on this case that if they miss a day, I wonder if they’re OK.”
Officers are regularly working on JonBenet’s case and keep things close to the chest to make sure the investigation goes as it should, he said.
That approach follows in the footsteps of the case’s first investigators who missed the mark in some instances, though. Officials in years past have criticized the Boulder Police Department’s handling of the initial investigation, with former Chief Mark Beckner saying in a 2015 Reddit thread that the scene wasn’t properly locked down and JonBenet’s parents weren’t isolated from one another before being interviewed.
“There are things that I read and heard about that I was like, ‘Wow, that is not how that was supposed to happen,’” Redfearn said Tuesday, without clarifying which things were handled improperly. “Part of it is that 30 years later, hindsight is 20/20.”
For now and until investigators can name a suspect or make an arrest, the probe will continue as it has thus far: consistently and methodically, Redfearn said. That means continuing to speak with JonBenet’s family regularly, as Redfearn says he does, or waiting until DNA testing can be done with a high chance that the results will help.
In 30 years, investigators have not definitively named who they think killed JonBenet in 1996. Dougherty remembered reading the Daily Camera in 2006 and seeing that a man admitted to killing JonBenet, before investigators determined that wasn’t possible. That suspect, John Mark Karr, was arrested in Thailand and brought back to Boulder before being cleared.
The end goal, through all of the mistakes, changes, tips, leads, arrests, interviews and years that have passed, is to bring justice in JonBenet’s case, and some semblance of relief to her family, Dougherty said.
“If it was just going to remain unsolved for the rest of our lives, we would tell you that,” Dougherty said. “We will not stop. … As long as there’s progress to be made, we’ll keep working it. I’ll promise you that.”
