Newly Unearthed DNA Evidence in JonBenet Ramsey Murder Did Not Match Family Members
The mysterious killing of JonBenét Ramsey remains unsolved nearly 30 years later.
In 1996, the child beauty queen was killed at the age of six in her family's home in Boulder, Colorado.
Some sleuth cites an intruder theory. Various former investigations claim her family covered up an accidental murder, whether her brother (the pineapple theory) or mother (bed-wetting theory) is to blame.
Documentaries believe her mother, Patsy, wrote the exhaustive two-and-a-half-page ransom note demanding $118,000, ominously matching the amount of her father's Christmas bonus.
But newly unearthed documents reveal DNA did not match any of JonBenét's family members.
The murder that shocked America: On Dec. 26, 1996, JonBenet Ramsey, a child beauty queen, was brutally murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado. (Polaris / Discovery+)
A New Book On JonBenet's Murder
Fox News Digital obtained snippets from an upcoming book titled, "Lou and JonBenet: A Legendary Lawman’s Quest to Solve a Child Beauty Queen’s Murder."
The book focuses on former Colorado investigator Lou Smit in which the author, John W. Anderson, accuses Boulder police of ignoring DNA evidence that exonerates the Ramsey family.
"For the past quarter-century, the Boulder police have ignored the DNA evidence that exonerated the Ramseys and could be used to identify her killer," pens. Anderson.
Smit came out of retirement in 1997 at the request of the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office to look into the JonBenet case. Smit had long believed an intruder was the likeliest suspect in the murder. But he quit the force again in 1998 citing frustrations with the Boulder Police Department’s insistence that JonBenet's parents could be suspects.
"At this point in the investigation, ‘the case’ tells me that John and Patsy Ramsey did not kill their daughter. That a very dangerous killer is still out there and no one is actively looking for him," he wrote in a resignation letter 19 months after answering the DA's call.
Smit died in 2010, after which his family shared thousands of his documents with a group that calls itself the JonBenet Ramsey Smit Family Team. The group rediscovered the DNA lab results from weeks after JonBenet's death, with the following conclusion:
"If the minor components from exhibits #7, 14L and 14M were contributed by a single individual, then John Andrew Ramsey, Melinda Ramsey, John B. Ramsey, Patricia Ramsey, Burke Ramsey, Jeff Ramsey, John Fernie, Priscilla White and Mervin Pugh would be excluded as a source of the DNA analyzed on those exhibits."
With that information, Anderson's upcoming book claims Boulder police suppressed evidence by not sharing the findings with county prosecutors until months later.
"Boulder PD Investigations Division has had a culture for the last quarter-century of not thoroughly investigating or not investigating their cases," Anderson told Fox News Digital.
So, the author is all-in on the intruder theory and a proponent of the idea the Boulder police botched the investigation while focusing unjustly on JonBenét's family.
Perhaps he's correct.
Or perhaps the book is just the latest piece of guesswork on a fascinating unsolved mystery that captivated a nation.
John and Patsy Ramsey, the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, meet with a small selected group of the local Colorado media after four months of silence in Boulder, Colorado, on May 1, 1997. Patsy holds up a reward sign for information leading to the arrest of their daughter's murderer. Their 6-year-old was found dead in December 1996. (Helen H. Richardson / The Denver Post)
DNA Evidence Questioned
The newly unearthed DNA documents do not move Dr. Michael Bade, a famed forensic pathologist and former New York City medical examiner. He argues the DNA document contains no "smoking gun."
"It doesn’t prove that it was an outsider, in my opinion," he told Fox News. "And that’s because, assuming that all the DNA was done correctly, there’s a lot of foreign DNA on hands and fingers and under fingernails and just touching things and shaking hands with people."
Dr. Baden noted there are many ways that foreign DNA could have gotten under JonBenét nails or on her clothes.
"The DNA could’ve been on fingernails and on the panties before she was attacked, not related to the perpetrator," Baden said. "The DNA on the hands and panties may have nothing to do with who the perpetrator was."
As years go by, it becomes increasingly less likely we'll learn the identity of JonBenét Ramsey's killer -- be it a family member or an outside intruder.
Still, the theories, documentaries, message board posts, and books will continue to escalate.