Expand the JonBenét DNA search: John Ramsey

( NewsNation ) —  This Christmas will mark 28 years since then-6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found strangled to death in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado. Her father, John Ramsey, says it’s time to put today’s technology to full use in the hunt for his daughter’s killer.

“Technology’s advanced so far. For this to be really evaluated correctly, it needs to go to an outside lab,” Ramsey told NewsNation’s “Banfield” on Friday.

Boulder police found DNA evidence on JonBenét’s body, and years later found DNA from the same male on her tights. Ramsey says he’s learned that, at the time, several items were sent to a DNA lab and some of them were not tested but returned to the police.

He says, today, labs can do so much more — but only if they are allowed to do new tests.

“The technology is there. They’re willing to do it. They have to be asked by the police to do it.”

But so far, he says, that hasn’t happened. Ramsey says the new Boulder police chief, the sixth since his daughter’s death, told him, “There are things going on that I can’t tell you about.”

The other major move police could make, Ramsey said, is to expand the DNA database search. He said police have only access to the FBI’s CODIS database.

“That’s a database of felons … people that have done bad things. It’s not that big of a database. The public database is hundreds of millions of samples. That’s the database they need to go to,” he said.

“Work back and find the relative of a near-match that was living in Boulder, Colorado, in 1997. That, we believe, is our best hope of finding the killer.”

JonBenét was killed Christmas night of 1996. The case has produced at least four documentaries and dramatizations, and another one is in the works. “JonBenét Ramsey,” a mini-series that will run on Paramount+, is still in production. It will star Clive Owen as John Ramsey and Melissa McCarthy as JonBenét’s mother Patsy.

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