JonBenét Ramsey murder mystery: The seven pieces of evidence that family says could solve notorious crime

The family of JonBenét Ramsey believe there are seven key pieces of evidence which could solve the decades-long mystery of her murder.

The child beauty queen was found brutally killed her family's Boulder, Colorado home on December 26, 1996.

Her stricken parents had initially reported her missing after they discovered a rambling ransom note and their daughter gone.

Her father, John Ramsey, later found the six-year-old girl battered and strangled to death in their basement.

Her killer has eluded police ever since, but her grieving dad, who is now in his eighties, still holds out hope that advanced DNA testing on several items found at the crime scene could hold the key to tracking them down.

'Finding the killer isn't going to change my life at this point,' he told CBS. 'But it will change the lives of my children and grandchildren. This cloud needs to be removed from out family's head.'

John, his late wife Patsy – who died in 2006 at the age of 49 – and their son, Burke, who was nine years old and home at the time of the killing, were largely convicted in the court of public opinion following JonBenét's death, despite the Boulder DA officially clearing them and apologizing in 2008.

Ramsey is confident that DNA left at the scene from an unidentified male will lead to the identification of a suspect. Here DailyMail.com breaks down the evidence which could be used for testing.

Ransom Note 

Patsy's first clue that something was amiss came when she awoke early after Christmas Day was a note left on her stairs.

The message had been scrawled using her personal stationery and demanded $118,000 for the safe return of her daughter. 

'Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction,' the note read.

'We do respect your bussiness [sic] but not the country that it serves. At this time we have your daughter in our posession [sic]. 

'She is safe and unharmed and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter.'

The note, addressed to JonBenét's father, continued on at length and warned him not to contact police.

A handwriting expert later claimed to have spotted similarities between Pasty's cursive and the script found in the note, however it could not be conclusively proven.

Garotte

An autopsy report concluded that JonBenét's cause of death was, 'asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma', meaning she was strangled and hit in the head.

The killer of the Young Miss Colorado left her on a heap of clothes with an eight-inch fracture to her skull and a fragmented paint brush stuck into her neck by garrote. 

The crude device had been constructed by hand and was found at the scene with entwined with pieces of JonBenét's hair entwined.

Male DNA was also found on the object, but Ramsey says this has never been tested.

'I don't know why they didn't test it in the beginning,' her told True Crime News.

'To my knowledge it still hasn't been tested. If they're testing it and just not telling me, that's great, but I have no reason to believe that.'

Blanket

JonBenét's broken body was discovered by her father swaddled in a white blanket in the basement of her home.

The little girl had a piece of duct tape on her mouth which Ramsey removed and threw on top of the blanket before he carried his daughter upstairs.

'She had tape over her mouth, and her hands were tied behind her back,' Ramsey told Cold Case. 'And I immediately pulled the tape off, and I tried to untie her hands, but the knot was tied really tight, I couldn't get it undone.' 

Ramsey believes the blanket could also contain vital DNA evidence and wants it retested. 

Rope

During a sweep of the home after JonBenét's death, a length of rope was discovered by detective Lou Smit in the family's guest bedroom next to the youngster's room.

None of the Ramseys could identify its provenance according to Smit which roused his suspicions.

'Nobody in the Ramsey family can identify it,' he said in a video interview shown on Cold Case.

'It is a possibility that the intruder could've taken that in with him also to use as binding and just left it up there.'

Suitcase

One of the biggest mysteries aside from who killed JonBenét is how the murdered was able to get in and out of the Ramsey home.

Investigators noted that there was a suitcase place underneath the window in the basement, with a scuff mark on the wall that could suggest someone had shimmied in and out through the same window.

Smit conducted his own tests and easily proved it was possible to fit through the window's gap and noted that it was easier with something to stand on.

His theory was that someone used the suitcase to get in or out of the basement. 

DNA under fingernails

Detectives believe that JonBenét tried to fight off her attacker, noting that she had her own DNA under her fingernails as well as that of an unidentified male.

Smit posited that the presence of JonBenét's DNA was as a result of her desperate attempts to claw at the garotte around her neck.

The sample was tested a year after the killing and did not match with any profile on the FBI's databased.

Sources also told the Denver Post that authorities had been unable to match a metal fragment under JonBenét's nails to another object. 

DNA in underwear

Testing done on foreign DNA found in JonBenét's underwear has also resulted in no leads.

The DNA did not match with anyone in her family, however cops continued to float the idea that one or more of the Ramseys could have been responsible - despite never formally charging them.

Ramsey's supported an online petition in 2022 that asked Colorado's governor to intervene in the investigation into her death more than 25 years ago, by putting an outside agency in charge of DNA testing in the case. 

However, Boulder Police have since hit back at the claims they have been sitting on evidence.

'The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing—to include DNA testing — is completely false,' a statement read. 

However,  Police Chief Stephen Redfearn admitted, 'there were things that people have pointed to throughout the years that could have been done better and we acknowledge that is true.'