The family of JonBenét Ramsey may have been exonerated of any criminal wrongdoing by the Boulder, Colo. district attorney in 2008, but that didn’t stop a team of CBS investigators from going full-bore into the available forensic evidence.
The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey, a two-part series exploring the brutal murder of six-year-old JonBenét in 1996, ended last night with the suggestion that her brother, Burke Ramsey, was the culprit. After painstaking research for the TV special, a team of forensic specialists came to the dire conclusion after finding all other theories either impossible or highly unlikely.
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JonBenét Ramsey was found brutally murdered in the basement of her house the day after Christmas. JonBenét’s father, John, found JonBenét’s body with duct tape over her mouth and a cord wrapped around her neck. A mysterious ransom note was left in the house, demanding the seemingly random amount of $118,000. There was no sign of forced entry into the Boulder home, and authorities stated that the little girl had been sexually assaulted. At the time of her body’s discovery, only her parents and her then-nine-year-old brother Burke were home.
After the pageant queen’s body was discovered, the Ramsey family was put under intense scrutiny by investigators and the media. No evidence was found to incriminate them, and to this day no charges have been laid.
Enter the team of investigators, who now, in 2016, took into consideration all of the evidence. The team even rebuilt the Ramsey basement (to scale) and reenacted the murder to see if a nine-year-old boy could possibly hit hard enough to kill someone (JonBenét ultimately died from a massive blow to her head).
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The results of the investigation were many, but the ultimate answer, according to them, is that the JonBenét murder wasn’t intentional. The team, led by former FBI agent and profiler Jim Clemente, concluded that Burke accidentally killed JonBenét, and then the kids’ parents tried to cover it up by making it seem like an intrusion, a sexual assault and finally, a murder.
Burke’s recent appearance on Dr. Phil — the first time he’s ever spoken publicly about the murder of his sister — was found to be suspicious by many, considering he hadn’t directly addressed the case in 20 years.
Now 29 years old, Burke says going through the endless media scrutiny and being accused of his sister’s 1996 murder was traumatizing.
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The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey showed clips of Burke’s interviews with police and investigators right after the murder, which appear to highlight some abnormal behaviour (like moving around on a couch, fidgeting and smiling). It’s important to note, this footage doesn’t confirm anything since all people react differently to tragedy.
Burke is also presented as erratic, disconnected and in one bizarre factoid, scatalogical. Some sources even report that he’s autistic (particularly when he smiled during his Dr. Phil interview), but that has not been verified.
Clemente and his team also present evidence that district attorney Alex Hunter was manipulated by the Ramseys’ wealth and status in the community, resulting in no charges against the family, but it is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt in the special.
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Viewers were conflicted about the show’s presentation of facts; some disagreed, others didn’t.
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No charges have been laid against Burke Ramsey as of this writing, and 20 years after the gruesome murder, it’s doubtful authorities will ever really know the entire story.
The lawyer for the Ramsey family, L. Lin Wood, says that he’s planning on filing a lawsuit against CBS. The Atlanta lawyer said he had successfully sued other media outlets over similar accusations against Burke, and branded the program as a broadcast riddled with “lies, misrepresentations, distortions and omissions.”
“I will be filing a lawsuit on behalf of Burke Ramsey,” Wood told Reuters in a telephone interview. “CBS’ false and unprofessional attacks on this young man are disgusting and revolting.”
The network responded to Wood with a terse statement: “CBS stands by the broadcast and will do so in court.”
Wood called CBS “corporate profit mongers” who aired the program during the September “sweeps” for maximum ratings benefit. He said a written disclaimer that CBS aired with its show, saying the opinions “represent just some of a number of possible scenarios,” did not go far enough.
All male DNA found in the murdered girl’s underwear did not match anyone in the family, including Burke.
The DNA profile has been entered into a national crime database but no matches have turned up, Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy said in 2008.
With files from Reuters
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