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Ordinarily, I love true crime documentaries, but this one was disrespectful to the nature of the death of a little girl.

warning: discusses events regarding the murder of a child

“A Tragic Little Beauty.” 

That’s the nickname countless newspapers nationwide gave six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey after the murder of the beauty pageant queen—an offense that continues to go unsolved. 

A newly released Netflix documentary, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey, covers the story for those who weren’t born before the events took place—since every American became entranced with the young girl’s fleeting life in the late 90s. Being a simple woman with a burning passion for true crime gave me all the more reason to make this case my entire personality.

On the early morning of Dec. 26, 1996, Colorado’s Boulder Police Department responded to Patsy Ramsey’s frantic 911 call regarding her daughter. A ransom note and an empty bed validated their idea that they were dealing with a kidnapping case. It wasn’t until later that day, when JonBenét’s body, brutalized and sexually assaulted, was found that the investigation was seen in a different light. 

Once again, the new documentary has captured the attention of millions of Americans, including myself. But, the further I got into the three-episode production, the more I had to pause and verify the things I knew were false; it was informative but disgustingly biased.

Based on the detailed, individual research I’ve done to refute many of its primary points, the show was difficult to watch. This included everything from her father, John Ramsey’s, interviews for the program, to the entire series being centered around the theory there was an intruder.

To begin, one of the first aspects of the case that was scrutinized was the ransom note. The documentary put quality effort into disclosing the baseline details of the letter. They specified the unusual jargon—words like “attaché,” the criminals’ description of themselves as “a foreign faction,” and the abnormally specific monetary request of $118,000, which coincidentally was the exact amount of John’s work bonus that year. Not to mention the fact that it is the longest ransom note in the FBI’s criminal history. Upon further examination, the paper of the letter matched that of a notepad found within the Ramsey home that also included a page of what seemed to be a draft of the same letter. The one thing that they did not thoroughly explore was the handwriting. It was mentioned briefly that all family members and close neighbors provided handwriting samples for comparison. Although every sample wasn’t labeled as an exact match, and many were dismayed entirely, it was Patsy’s handwriting alone that couldn’t be excluded. In fact, multiple linguistic experts and seasoned handwriting analysts agreed in finding over 200 similarities between Patsy’s sample and the contents of the note.

On this basis, many unanswered questions arose: What kind of intruder would sit to write a three-page note, in extensive detail, about the kidnapping of someone’s daughter if JonBenét’s body was later to be found still inside the house? And, if Patsy did write this staged ransom letter, why?

I give credit to the creators of the documentary because they dove deeply into the public reaction to this incident and the profound effect it had on the family—majorly because they were treated as the prime suspects throughout the investigation. But I still couldn’t look past the things the show’s creators blatantly got wrong. 

A big perspective that was shown in the series was the belief, originating from renowned homicide detective Lou Smit, that an intruder in the home was to blame. One of the main reasons why he held so much respect in this case wasn’t just because of his remarkable qualifications, but because no other agents in Boulder had any experience with a kidnapping or murder examination. So, when Smit introduced this idea of someone outside the home being responsible for this crime, many people wanted to hear his reasoning; this documentary made the claims believable, even though most of Smit’s theories were debunked years ago.

First was his idea that an intruder came in through the shattered basement window—the only plausible place of entry. A human could’ve fit through the window, barely, and there was an oddly placed suitcase just below it that resembled a place to step. However, the crime scene photos show that there were in-tact spider webs surrounding the opening that would’ve had to have been disturbed if a person attempted to fit through. Any reasoning against this claim was refuted by the arachnologists (spider biologists) who were called to the scene. Upon investigating, they verified that the specific spider that made those webs went into winter hibernation months ago, and there was no possibility for them to have been remade that quickly.

Also, another point that wasn’t even touched on in the documentary was that JonBenét’s autopsy showed she had undigested pineapple in her stomach, evidence that doesn’t even fit within the Ramsey’s timeline. That night they had just gotten back from a Christmas party, John testified that, beforehand, no pineapple was served to JonBenét, the hosts of the party confirmed that none was served there, and John has stated multiple times that she went straight to bed after returning home. However, her brother, Burke, who was nine at the time, did reveal in a 2016 interview that he got out of bed to play with his new presents after everyone else was asleep. Patsy also testified that pineapple was one of Burke’s favorite snacks. 

Any claim that an intruder gave JonBenét the pineapple shortly before killing her can be obviously discredited on the attestation of a neighbor who saw the kitchen light on shortly before her window of death because an intruder would not have made themselves known in that way.

Still, Smit’s theories were, unfortunately, believed, and a substantial part of the documentary was aligned with these long-refuted claims. 

Perhaps the biggest misinformation the program spewed was on the forensic side of the investigation. 

It was said numerous times that the entire family was cleared based on unidentified male DNA that was found on JonBenét’s clothing, but upon further research of my own, nobody was ever exonerated, and the DNA came back inconclusive. Mary Lacy, the case’s District Attorney (DA) from 2001 to 2009, was the one who publicized the letter pardoning the Ramseys on this specific forensic evidence, that, if proved true, would be impossible to look past. But, first off, Lacy was a close friend of the family, which should have been the first immediate red flag. Further investigation into the evidence proved that the DNA findings were not as straightforward as Lacy was making them out to be. Because of the minuscule amount of DNA found, no testing could ever provide any matches, and it was labeled as “touch DNA” which could have many innocent explanations. In a later interview, she revealed that her reason for so blatantly exonerating the Ramseys was that this evidence was the only proof the investigation needed to tie the family to the crime, and she wanted to protect them from that. 

Similarly, there was other forensic evidence found that specified the exact nature of the murder based on JonBenét’s injuries that were never fully disclosed in the documentary: the creators said the cause of death was never revealed—whether it was blunt force trauma to the skull or strangulation via the garrote found around her neck because they couldn’t tell which was inflicted first—but the medical examiner stated there was an apparent chain of events. Furthermore, there was proof by looking at her wrist restraints that there was no struggle and the scene was arranged post-mortem. 

Although I could talk all day about how poorly the young girl’s case was handled from the moment Patsy called the police, I won’t go into every single detail in order to spare the keyboard on my computer. There is an endless number of details going into what exactly happened that Christmas, and I know they all lead to the person responsible, but the Boulder Police Department has yet to convict anybody.

I was so excited to finally watch an in-depth chronicle of these events, but every minute became more and more biased towards proving the Ramseys’ innocence, which, given the evidence, seems almost impossible. That is a fact that I cannot look past. No matter how many documentaries, memoirs, or podcast interviews John appears in, everybody seems to be getting further and further away from the truth of his daughter’s murder.