DNA clears Jon Benet Ramsey's family of murder

[galaxy21]

07-09) 13:11 PDT Boulder, Colo. (AP) --

Prosecutors announced Wednesday that new DNA tests have cleared JonBenet Ramsey's family in the 1996 killing of the 6-year-old beauty queen, finally freeing them from the "umbrella of suspicion" that has lingered for more than a decade.

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy said Wednesday the tests point to an "unexplained third party." She released a copy of a letter she sent to John Ramsey Wednesday that said: "To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry."

Lacy said prosecutors don't consider any member of the Ramsey family to be a suspect.

For years after the slaying, checkout-aisle tabloids and crime shows went after the couple. News reports cast suspicion on JonBenet's older brother, Burke. Boulder police investigating the murder said the parents were under an "umbrella of suspicion."

Lacy has previously expressed doubts that the parents were involved. In 2003, a federal judge handling a defamation lawsuit in Atlanta involving the Ramseys said evidence in the case was more consistent with the theory that an intruder killed JonBenet, not her parents, and Lacy said she agreed.

John Ramsey found his daughter's strangled and bludgeoned body in the basement of the family's home in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996. Patsy Ramsey said she found a ransom note demanded $118,000 for her daughter.

John Ramsey, a software entrepreneur, has said in interviews he believes the case will be solved.

Patsy Ramsey died June 24, 2006 of ovarian cancer at the age of 49 in Atlanta, where the family moved after JonBenet's death.

Less than two months after Patsy Ramsey died, the case appeared to blow wide open with the arrest in Thailand of John Mark Karr, a sometime teacher obsessed with the little girl's slaying. Karr made bizarre, detailed confessions to the killing, but authorities said DNA evidence showed Karr did not commit the crime.

*****


Sucks that the mom died without being vindicated.

[Common Sense Party]

1. Oh, thank goodness. Now I can finally sleep at night.

As soon as they find Natalie Holloway's killer.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. just proves their DNA was not

collected at the crime scene, no?

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

3. How many thousands

of children have been neglected, abused, or killed since this particular case occurred, and why are those relegated to yesterday's news?

[puebloknot]

6. I agree that this case got attention because the family was prominent.

However, they were *targeted* by an out of control press and law enforcement personnel in Boulder, and paid a high price for having their story in the national news.

A high-profile case like this can have an impact, with any luck, on how innocent parents are treated in future cases like this.

It won't direct any attention to the children you mention, with heart, unfortunately.

[puebloknot]

4. What the hell took them so long? All that was involved was ...

... the wellbeing of the entire Ramsey family for years and years, while they lived under the shadow of suggestion that they might have killed their own beloved child.

The wheels of justice move too slowly. That, in itself, is a crime.

[midnight]

7. Very sad indeed. I will have to agree with you about that being

a crime in of itself.

[puebloknot]

9. I realized, after posting that ...

... that there is some new DNA test that just now allowed them to definitively rule out the Ramseys.

Nevertheless, it was a witch hunt, and typical of some small town law enforcement agencies that are concerned much more with fame and attention than finding the real perpetrator.

[Mike Nelson]

5. NON-news, they were never charged

Alert Larry King!

[Oeditpus Rex]

8. They're still guilty of raising a '6-year-old beauty queen'

[puebloknot]

10. I'm offeded by that whole scenario, too, but they didn't deserve ...

... to lose their daughter that way. We can't assume that the perpetrator might not have done this, even if she were just a normally-dressed little school girl.

Dressing a child that way is titillating, for sure, and I would never have done it with my daughter. But in some ways it's like saying a girl/woman was raped because the skirt she was wearing was too short. Perverts are going to do what they do. We don't want to have to wear burkas to protect ourselves and our children in this society.

But if someone put up a campaign to ban child beauty contests and devote the money to education, I'd vote for it!

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. I guess I did imply that, however inadvertantly

I just meant that it takes a parent with some fucked-up priorities to parade their daughter around like that.

I do think, though, that her "queenification" likely increased the odds of something happening to her, if only through her greater visibility. But I wouldn't take that as far as to say her parents were responsible for her death, even indirectly.

[puebloknot]

14. I'm offended by "queenification," too. I remember reading ...

... about Shirley Temple, who as an adult greatly resented having her innocent childhood tampered with over all her appearances and the public adulation involved.

[WinkyDink]

11. This conclusion is so bogus. No-one has been convicted; thus, no-one THERE can be

definitively EXcluded.
Is there some reason a Ramsey or 2 could not possibly have committed this crime with another adult? I mean, other than one's revulsion at the thought?

Not to worry; the "real" killer will be found when Nicole Simpson's is. Mr. Ramsey seems just as eager as O.J. to "solve" this crime.

"A Mother Gone Bad". Andrew G. Hodges.

[frogmarch]

12. Lacy's parting gift to the Ramseys

What hogwash. She couldn't quite deliver John Mark Karr, so this was the only thing left to do.

EDITED to add: Dr. Micahel Baden agrees it's hogwash.