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DNA Clears Ramsey Family of Murder

By CATHERINE TSAI,
AP
Posted: 2008-07-10 07:31:21
Filed Under: Crime News, Nation News
Boulder, Colo. (July 10) - Prosecutors cleared JonBenet Ramsey's parents and brother Wednesday in the 1996 killing of the 6-year-old beauty queen, saying they were "deeply sorry" for putting the family under a cloud of suspicion that hung heavy for more than a decade.


New DNA tests, which focus on skin cells left behind from a mere touch, point to a mysterious outsider. They came too late to clear the name of JonBenet's mother, Patsy, who died of cancer in 2006.

"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," Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote in a letter to the little girl's father, John Ramsey. "No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion."

Lacy said new "touch DNA" tests on skin cells that were left behind on JonBenet's long underwear point to an "unexplained third party" and not a member of the family.

John Ramsey, a software entrepreneur who now lives in Michigan, said Wednesday he is hopeful the killer will be found based on the DNA evidence.

"I think the people that are in charge of the investigation are focused on that, and that gives me a lot of comfort," he told KUSA-TV in Denver. He added: "Certainly we are grateful that they acknowledged that we, based on that, certainly could not have been involved."

For years after the slaying, tabloids and crime shows went after the couple, and Lacy's predecessor as district attorney, Alex Hunter, said in 1997 that the parents were under an "umbrella of suspicion." News reports also cast suspicion on JonBenet's older brother, Burke, who was 9 when his sister was killed.

The suspicions outlived Patsy, who died at age 49 in Atlanta, where the family moved after JonBenet's death.

"My first thought was obviously I wish Patsy Ramsey was here with us to be able to at least share vindication of her family," said L. Lin Wood, an attorney for the Ramsey family. "There are many people in this country, if not around the world, that also owe John and Patsy Ramsey and Burke Ramsey an apology."

Early in the investigation, police found male DNA in a drop of blood on JonBenet's underwear and determined it was not from anyone in her family. But Lacy said investigators were unable to say who it came from and whether that person was the killer.

Then, late last year, prosecutors turned over long underwear JonBenet was wearing to the Bode Technology Group near Washington, which looked for "touch DNA," or cells left behind where someone has touched something.

The lab has only been using this technology for about three years.

The laboratory found previously undiscovered genetic material on the sides of the girl's long underwear, where an attacker would have grasped the clothing to pull it down, authorities said. The DNA matched the genetic material found earlier.

Lacy said the presence of the same male DNA in three places on the girl's clothing convinced investigators it belonged to JonBenet's killer and had not been left accidentally by an innocent party.

"It is therefore the position of the Boulder District Attorney's Office that this profile belongs to the perpetrator of the homicide," she said in a statement. In her letter to the Ramseys, she said the DNA evidence "has vindicated your family."

She said investigators hope someday to find a DNA match in the ever-expanding national DNA databank.

Through a spokeswoman, Lacy declined to comment any further.

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 demanding $118,000 for her daughter.

Lacy had 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, and Lacy said she agreed.

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 he did not commit the crime.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-07-09 15:17:57
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Recent Comments

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2888 comments

ibrenchn 09:49:27 PM Jul 14 2008

ITS ABOUT TIME ........DNA HAS BEEN AROUND HOW LONG????? TOO BAD MRS RAMSEY DIED BEFORE THEY DECLAIRED THIS AND FER FKN SAKES I BLEVE THE AUTHORITIES NEED TO REDEEM THEMSELVES.......R.I.P JONBENET

eleuschn 02:35:41 AM Jul 12 2008

Bravo, Jargonuse! I really hope some of these morons can comprehend what you're saying...it's sad but true that people like the idiots on this board are like sheep and will believe a tabloid before the truth..

jargonuse 02:12:06 AM Jul 12 2008

8) was something about the $118,000 in the ransom note and that it was equal to his work bonus. The bonus was from the prior year and was paid in February 1996 - 10 months before the murder. Why would a parent writing a staged ransom note think back to a bonus payment from 10 months prior and use that amount in the note? It makes no sense and would tend to incriminate themselves in the investigation. Their is more meaning to that ransom number. Of course if you look hard and long enough, you can find that bonus payment amount, or a check written at work , or something else that matches closely to that number in the ransom. The bonus was not exactly $118,000 - but close enough. Look at how they tried to match some meaning to the acronym in the note. Eventually you can find something that is close enough. Reminds me of the similarities between the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations (both were succeeded by Johnson as the next president, etc. etc.)

jargonuse 02:02:46 AM Jul 12 2008

7. If the evildoers motive was to KILL JonBenet, why go to the time and trouble of writing and leaving a ransom note? If their motive was to KIDNAP her, why leave her body there? Wouldn't you take her body with you in an attempt to hopefully still get some money out of the family? Other than the fact that you copied all of your thoughts on this from a website - the answer will not be known to anyone but the killer. Theories are that the intent was to do a kidnapping, but the plan went awry for some reason. After that, it is all speculation of what went wrong.

jargonuse 02:00:17 AM Jul 12 2008

6. The fake ransom note was written on paper from inside the house. So the killer/kidnapper broke in to the house, looked around for pen and paper and then spent several minutes writing the note while inside the house? No way. (R) Yes - you finally got it right. No one was home when the note was written. The killer was lying in wait. No way to prove that, but it is a plausible explanation. Certainly much more plausible than believing the family could have murdered their daughter then calmly writing it as part of an elaborate and unplanned staging of a kidnap/murder. Are you completely insane to think that could have happened? Sorry - you are entitled to an opinion. It just doesn't make sense to virtually anyone keeping an open mind.

jargonuse 01:59:05 AM Jul 12 2008

(cont'd) Instead, she went down to make coffee at 5:30 am and found the ramsom note. She later threw on clothes that were available after changing out of her pajamas when police started arriving. 5. That fake ransom note. EVERYONE acknowledges that it was a phony. No professional kidnapper writes for three pages. (R) First thing - there is no such thing as a professional kidnapper - and EVERYONE has not acknowledged that it was a fake - just those who want that to be the conclusion. This is too lengthy to even debate the intracacies of that note. The lines in the note were taken from various movies - including the movie Ransom which had just been released in Boulder. The Ramsey's had not seen the movie. There is much more to this - but suffice it to say - you are just plain wrong on this point.

jargonuse 01:47:01 AM Jul 12 2008

.3. They refused to talk to the cops for four months afterwards. Again, you would think they would want to help find who killed their daughter - ANOTHER falsehood. They were interrogated for several days following the murder. They provided the terms of all future interviews they would conduct to the police when they were made the prime suspects. The police refused to interview them under those terms. There was nothing left to provide to police. 4. Patsy Ramsey was wearing the same designer clothes on Christmas day as she did to a Christmas Eve party the night before. Ms. former beauty queen, concerened about her appearance is going to wake up, do her hair and makeup and put on the same clothes from the night before? No way. She was up all night arranging the crime scene (R) First of all you have the days wrong. She had the same clothes on the morning after Christmas that she wore the evening before to a friend's Christmas Day gathering. She did not wake up and do her hair -

jargonuse 01:37:14 AM Jul 12 2008

Other stupid comments from JoeTigers 1. No one in the house heard anything? No scream. Nothing. Strange. Why is that so strange? They did the tests in the house and proved noises in the basement could be heard outside but not on the 3rd floor where the Ramsey's slept. 2. They move to Atlanta mere hours after the murder was committed. That;s completely false. They went to Atlanta to bury their daughter and returned to Boulder for after the funeral. Get your facts straight !!! Don't they want to stick around and aid in the investigation? I guess not. They were heavily interrogated in the case and provided DNA samples.

jargonuse 01:15:30 AM Jul 12 2008

Cont'd "Poor hygiene can cause chronic inflammation," Dr. Joan Slook, a pediatrician with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told the Daily Camera. "Some little girls can have asymptomatic bladder infections that can cause irritation in the vagina." That is exactly what she was being treated for. The police never got that information from the doctor. Police could not have obtained those things on their own, because they don't have subpoena power," said a source. "All that was completely voluntary on the part of the family."

jargonuse 01:10:35 AM Jul 12 2008

For the moron - Y2n that posted his evidence after I challenged him to provide it. As to the evidence of prior sexual abuse. There is nothing in the autopsy report indicating prior sexual abuse. And then there's Cyril Wecht, the biggest phony pathologist of all time:While a coroner's report found JonBenet had been sexually assaulted before she was killed, experts have differed widely as to whether the evidence supports previous or chronic abuse. The coroner's report found "chronic inflammation and epithelial erosion" in the girl's vagina, leading Dr. Cyril Wecht, coroner of Allegheny County, Pa., to conclude that there was abuse at least two days before her death. But others say anyone who hasn't examined the actual tissue couldn't reach a reliable conclusion. "Poor hygiene can cause chronic inflammation," Dr. Joan Slook, a pediatrician with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told the Daily Camera. "Some little girls can have asymptomatic bladder infections that can cause

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