John Ramsey Receives Letter From Woman Claiming Ex-Husband Killed JonBenet After Netflix Doc

Following the release of the new Netflix documentary "Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey," John Ramsey received a letter from an anonymous woman claiming that her ex-husband killed Ramsey's six-year-old daughter in 1996.

The letter read, "My ex-husband's the killer, and I've kept this inside for as long as I can – please, please call me," Ramsey detailed to the Daily Mail on Tuesday. 

Ramsey understands the letter could be another prank, a call for attention, or simply a lie. He has received boxes of those over the past 28 years. But that doesn't mean that one day, the next tip won't lead to the identity of his daughter's killer. Therefore, no tip he receives is dismissed. 

"We reached out to her, but she didn't answer the phone, so I don't know. We've shared [it] with a private investigator," Ramsey explained.

As criminal defense attorney Lexie Rigden reminded sleuths in a conversation with OutKick this week, police discovered unidentified, foreign male DNA on JonBenet's underpants and under her nails at the murder scene. The DNA almost certainly belongs to the killer.

So far, this DNA has ruled out each plausible suspect – including John and his late wife and JonBenet's mother Patsy, who died from ovarian cancer at age 49 in 2006. 

DNA also notably cleared John Mark Karr, who falsely confessed to killing JonBenet in 2006. (Note: Karr was not even in Colorado, where JonBenet was murdered, the night of her killing.)

Will Police Ever Find JonBenet's Killer?

"Whether that was intentional or not, the ransom note has caused a lot of suspicion around the parents, especially the mother, because of the amount of the ransom demand, the time it must have taken to write the letter, the fact it was written on the mother’s stationery, and the fact that handwriting experts at the time say it could have been written by a female. However, the ransom note is not the most important piece of evidence. The DNA is," Rigden explained.

For that reason, John Ramsey said he remains "optimistic" that the new Boulder police can solve the case.

"Solving the cases is not going to change my life at this point – I just turned 81 – but it'll change my children's lives, my grandchildren's lives," he told the Daily Mail. "They need to have this cloud removed, clarified, and an answer. That's why we're pushing so hard to get an answer."

At this point, identifying JonBenet's killer will likely take the work of genetic genealogy –  a new technique that takes the DNA of an unknown suspect left behind at a crime scene and identifies him or her by tracing a family tree through his or her family members, who voluntarily submit their DNA to public genealogy databases.

Notably, genetic genealogy led police to the arrest of Joseph DeAngelo in 2018 for the crimes committed by the "Golden State Killer," the infamous moniker for the unidentified man behind the serial rapes and murders across California in the 1970s and 1980s. DeAngelo admitted he was, in fact, the "Golden State Killer" during trial.

So, there's hope, whether the latest letter leads to JonBenet's killer or not.