for. it felt like after two long years of this little girl not getting justice, that finally it was moving forward and frequently lost behind the sensationalism, the police investigations and the legal maneuvering is the fact that a little girl died a brutal death. i think we were all very, very hopeful. how wrong we were. >> all of the original suspects, including the housekeeper and the so-called santa claus suspect, bill mcreynolds, were cleared by police. now it was up to 12 grand jurors to decide whether or not there was enough evidence to indict anyone else. would they find answers? the police and the da's office couldn't. that's in part two of who killed jonbenet. i'm hill harper. thanks for watching the thing that i

she loved her daddy. she was daddy's girl welcome to how it really happened. >> i'm hill harper. the day after christmas, 1996, jonbenet ramsey became a household name. the story of the six year old beauty queen sparked a media frenzy that had journalists, attorneys, police and the public poring over every detail of one of the most bizarre crimes in recent history. nearly two years later, the investigation was at a standstill. many thought the only way to get answers was through a grand jury. but like everything else about this story, even that was complicated. take a look

it is a shocking story that spanned the globe the murder of a six year old beauty queen found dead in the basement of her boulder home the day after christmas, 1996. >> it was certainly a bizarre case from the beginning, with a child suddenly turning up dead inside the house and no explanation for how it happened. >> it's a story that's drawn everyone from the tabloids to the new york times to this mountainside town. it's a story that intrigues, fascinates, even nauseates. >> the murder of jonbenet started as a kidnaping, and it started on the morning of christmas. the ramseys woke up early that day because they were supposed to go on a family trip. >> we were to leave early that morning. fly to michigan the morning after christmas morning. after. >> the first thing i remember

is waking up, getting dressed, hurriedly, putting a few things together to take on the plane. >> it's about what time? >> it's early morning before daylight. >> you're up mhm. then what happens? >> then i go down the spiral staircase and there on one of the rungs of the stair is the three page ransom note, said mr. ramsey. we have your daughter. and i immediately ran back upstairs and pushed open her door, and she was not in her bed. and i screamed for john. >> what's going on there? ma'am, we have a kidnaping. all right. please explain to me what's going on. okay, there we have it. >> there's a note left, and our daughter is gone. >> the note said their six year old daughter had been kidnaped from her bedroom overnight, but would be returned in exchange for $118,000. >> we thought we were dealing with a kidnaping. >> fearing the worst, the police arrived.

>> absolutely. you don't know whether you're going to see your daughter in an hour, in a day, in a year, in ten years or never. it's a horrible feeling. >> and what are you doing, patsy? you're waiting for a phone call from the kidnaper. is that what? >> you were right. yes hours go by and the kidnaper doesn't call. >> but there's still a lot going on inside that house. >> we had the victim's advocates there. we had uniformed police. we had detectives. people were in the kitchen making sandwiches. i mean, it was there was chaos. >> fingerprinting. there's fingerprint dust everywhere screws, their little zoo. >> like it was a little zoo. >> like. >> so around lunchtime, there was one detective left. her name was linda arndt, and she notices that john ramsey is restless. >> it's my understanding that linda arndt had pulled one of john's friends aside and said, john's pacing, and he needs something to occupy his time. i'm going to suggest that you search the house. would you go with them

we started in the basement and we're just looking in and. >> we have one one room in the basement that there are no windows in the in that room. when i opened the the door and turned the light on and i. >> see her. >> john picked up his daughter's body and carried her up the stairs. >> and that's when the real questions began. >> what transpired there? when they found the body, changed the whole perspective of what we were looking at. we were no longer looking at a straight kidnaping. we were looking at now a homicide. >> she was tortured. >> a garrote was put around her neck twice and pulled tight enough that it left a deep marks in her neck. she was hit

in the head with something. they never were sure what it was, but it was 8.5in long. >> the injury she sustained that the skull injury was more like her being thrown against some larger object, like the edge of a bathtub, the rounded edge of a pedestal sink, something like that. >> this child had a cracked skull. this child had sexual penetration, choked, bruised. this was sick it was like a game of clue. >> everybody involved could have had something to do about this murder. they were either involved in killing her or in covering it up. >> this investigation really got down to to one thing. was someone inside the house responsible for the death of this little girl, or did did

someone break in? >> a lot of the detectives who were working this case felt that the evidence pointed to an inside job. >> although at first the murder looked like a botched kidnaping, the ramseys were suspected. there was, for example, no clear sign of forced entry, no footprints in the snow. >> i don't buy into the stranger theory because of what i saw in that house. i don't think anybody left the house. >> the most obvious point of entry was this window in the basement, and it was open. and police looked at it and they thought that that would be the obvious point of entry. however, there were cobwebs on this window, and police concluded that these cobwebs would have been disturbed. but in fact, they were intact. >> so somebody crawling down in there could not have gotten down in there without disturbing the cobwebs the police were obviously looking at the ramseys at this point, and then so was the rest of the

world, because the media got a hold of these videotapes of jonbenet. >> in all of these beauty contests. and that was a point of fascination. >> they don't seem shook up enough. they don't seem broke up enough. >> just the whole situation seems really odd because of the way that her childhood was. and i don't think it was normal at all. >> i feel they should have questioned the parents right away. why they didn't. i don't know, most of the american public knows your daughter through glamorous shots from pageants. >> yeah, in hindsight, do you wish that she had not participated in that? >> those were beautiful pictures. >> i'm so happy that we have those pictures. it's all that we have now. >> that was that was just one very small part of jonbenet's life. that was a few sunday afternoons. >> you know that the criticism i'm talking about, i know, i know, dressing her up like a little adult. >> was there any inappropriate behavior going on?

>> absolutely no. >> it's been very wrong. >> the ramseys are getting a lot of flak for these beauty pageants. they had put their child into, but their friends were saying, could they have killed their child? absolutely. no way. >> i didn't find any criticism with anything that they did. they just really are warm, wonderful, loving people who have gone through way more than anybody should have ever had to face in their life. >> this case was so polarizing, and so many people were really demanding that there be a grand jury. so when the district attorney finally said, yes, we're going to convene a grand jury, there was a lot of relief. >> for the next 13 months, the grand jury would hear testimony highlighting every detail. >> but the question, what was fact and what was fantasy? >> and it has been one wild year. >> i know that whole live stream was crazy. what? oh,

wait, you mean the rumors about me and the french pole vaulter? who's saying that? is it everybody? >> i have zero idea what you're talking about. >> and you think i'm the one that doesn't follow the news? >> i did like that one new song about coffee. >> espresso. >> oh, i'd love one, actually. >> oh, sweetie, you have been following actual news, right? >> oh, boy. >> new year's eve live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn and streaming live en masse. >> everyone's running to subway for three. all new spicy footlongs. wait, subway did what? that's right. they're bringing the heat with creamy sriracha, jalapenos and all new ghost pepper bread. but hurry, these subs are only here for a limited time. >> your parents have given you some amazing gifts, but what about the inherited ones? celebrate them with ancestry dna. the simple test that shows your deep family roots from your mom's side and your dad's side with some serious detail. trace the journeys and history that shaped who you are

today and see the traits they passed down. your connections to the past are all waiting. see just how gifted you are for only $39. >> lowe's knows that holiday list can stretch further than your budget. with milo's rewards, you get member deals and earn points when you shop so you can get more and give more to join. milo's rewards for free today, lowe's knows how to help you holiday. >> if you're living with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis or active psoriatic arthritis, symptoms can sometimes hold you back. but now there's skyrizi so you can be all in with clear skin. things are getting clearer. yeah, i feel free to bare my skin. >> yeah, that's for me. nothing is everything. >> with skyrizi you can show up with 90% clear skin. and if you have psoriatic arthritis, skyrizi can help you move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling and fatigue. skyrizi is just four doses a year after two starter doses.

>> don't use if allergic serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight them may occur before treatment. get checked for infections and tb. tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines. >> thanks to skyrizi, there's nothing like clear skin and better movement, and that means everything is everything. now's the time. ask your doctor about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save tell me what you can from the beginning. >> he's here. who is? >> olympia hello? >> nosferatu. >> we did our only duty for this wednesday special engagements in dolby and imax. >> i brought in ensure max protein with 30g of protein. those who tried me felt more

energy in just two weeks. here, i'll take that. >> ensure max protein 30g ne gr a protein blend to feed muscles up to seven hours. >> it's the most wonderful time with verizon trading any phone, any condition. >> it's your last chance to get iphone 16 pro with apple intelligence. get four on us only on verizon. >> this is an incredible story. >> the stakes were extremely high. >> i believe you are the son of god. >> his election is an earthquake. >> he transcends the church. >> i've chosen to stay and fight. >> he said, i'm not getting into this to lose. >> the sky was the limit. >> the grand jury investigating the murder of jonbenet ramsey was chosen in may of last year, but the panel didn't meet for

the first time until september 15th, 1998. >> the grand jury has been deciding if there is probable cause to believe someone has committed a crime. >> the grand jury hearings in this ramsey case were, of course, behind closed doors. but we have a pretty good idea of the evidence that they heard in their i guess, the thing that really jumps out at me is the is the ransom note. >> and how incongruous, how just extraordinarily odd that thing is in the context of what a real, real kidnaping should look like. >> speaking to anyone about your situation such as police, fbi, et cetera will result in your daughter being beheaded. >> there were multiple references in there saying that. look, if you call anybody, we're going to kill your daughter. >> if we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. if you alert bank authorities, she dies. >> warning after warning that if he contacts anyone, the daughter is going to be killed.

yet patsy ramsey calls 911, but she doesn't tell the police that the note says they're going to kill jonbenet. if i call the police. >> i read it very fast. i was out of my mind. it said, don't call the police. and i told patsy, call the police immediately. >> i can't believe that a family whose child has just been kidnaped would not take pains to carefully read that note, to make sure that they do nothing that results in harm befalling their daughter. >> there were some details in that note, and about the note that raised further suspicions. you will withdraw $118,000 from your account. >> $118,000, which later we find out is the exact bonus that john ramsey got that year from his company, access graphics. so only a few people would have that information.

>> it wasn't just the amount of ransom that was kind of suspicious. it was the fact that this note was written on a page torn from patsy ramsey's own notepad. >> when you tear something, no two things are going to tear alike. even if you take two sheets of paper and tear them together, they're going to have separate and distinct tear patterns associated with them. put them back together in the puzzle fits. >> an alleged ransom note was written on a pad of paper from inside the house, and some investigators thought the handwriting looked like patsy's. >> did you agree that whoever authored the ransom note probably killed the child? >> i would agree. >> i totally agree that whoever whoever wrote this ransom note killed our daughter. yes, i concur wholeheartedly. >> from what we understand that the handwriting people were able to eliminate john as being the writer of that note, and we're not totally able to eliminate patsy. they weren't. they didn't say that she wrote it. let me make it very clear. but they said they couldn't say that she didn't write it. >> patsy's natural handwriting did not look much like the

ransom note. and we learned that experts said that it is very hard to disguise your handwriting. it's possible, but it's really hard to do. >> but there was there was another piece of evidence that the grand jury heard that that related right back to patsy. >> the rope used to choke jonbenet was tightened with a paintbrush from her mother's hobby kit. >> if you believe patsy ramsey did this to her daughter, jonbenet, you have to believe that patsy took a cord, put it around her neck, then broke a paintbrush into three pieces, took one of those pieces and secured it to the cord, making what's commonly known as a garrote, and then pulled that cord very hard and strangled her i'm not absolutely convinced that it was a sadistic psychopath that did this, not mr. and mrs. ramsey.

>> the grand jury heard all of the really horrible details of the autopsy, and one detail in there really stood out. >> jonbenet had pineapple that had been recently ingested or eaten before she died. >> the interesting thing about the pineapple, there wasn't any pineapple served at the christmas party where they'd been the night before. and then the ramseys claimed jonbenet was asleep when they got home, and they put her right to bed and she never woke up. >> and yet it's my understanding there was pineapple on the kitchen table in a bowl. so that piece of evidence, for instance, may be important if you think somebody lied to the police about what was given to them or what happened with jonbenet. >> police found another potential inconsistency in the ramsey story related to that 911 call. >> what's going on there, ma'am? we have a kidnaping. >> the ramseys had always claimed that their son, burke, had been asleep at the time of the 911 call, but then police discovered a clue that showed that the son, burke, might have been awake. take a deep breath. >> hurry, hurry, hurry. kathy.

kathy. kathy kathy there were a few seconds at the end of the 911 call, where patsy thought she had hung up but the police had it in hand, and they thought they heard the sound of another voice. >> we do know, based on an evaluation of the 911 tape, that burke's voice is on there saying, what did you say? or what did he say? or something of that nature? this is after, of course, a ramsey's denied that that burke was even awake. he was asleep. >> police also say digital enhancement indicates that burke was awake and asking questions when you called 911. >> well, some police claim they think they hear that, uh, we would challenge the police to release that tape, make it all public. let's make it public. we'd like to hear that tape. we've never heard it. that is not our recollection of what happened that morning. >> if that was burke's voice on the 911 call, meaning he was

awake, why wouldn't the ramseys just admit that? and that led to speculation about burke's involvement. remember, he was only nine years old at the time. >> i have heard some votes for the younger child, the little boy who was in the house, too, as possible an accident, i just don't i mean, if we're going to throw out who's in the house, i remember that becoming talk show fodder that maybe this little boy had either accidentally or on purpose, hit jonbenet over the head. >> and then this was a cleanup job, essentially by the family so that their little boy wouldn't be in trouble with the law. >> we know that one of the last people to testify before the grand jury was jonbenet's older brother, burke ramsey. >> has anybody been cleared? cleared? >> well, burke has been. >> burke is. there's no doubt burke did not do it right. that's definitive. >> until way back at the beginning of this case, when tabloids said otherwise. they got sued, and i believe they settled paying large amounts of money. burke ramsey has nothing to do with this case. >> people wanted to know if the

ramseys were lying or they were covering something up. or were they the victims of some psychopathic killer. and the truth was, nobody knew. >> none of it makes sense. it just simply doesn't. >> these cases have too many questions, but few answers. >> it was up to the grand jury to decide. certainly no easy task. and then finally, finally, we got our answer. >> there's apparently been a major development in the grand jury investigation of the murder of jonbenet ramsey. >> how is it exactly that you think that i killed my daughter? i just cannot understand that. i want to hear it from start to finish. >> this holiday season. find the perfect gift at cnn. underscored from the latest fashion to expert approved tech to the best beauty finds. discover it all at underscore. com.

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these last 20 years are just the beginning. >> you only come across an artist like luther vandross once in a lifetime. >> luther. never too much. new year's day at eight on cnn. >> closed captioning brought to you by book.com. >> if you or a loved one have mesothelioma, we'll send you a free book to answer questions you may have. call now and we'll come to you. >> 808 two one 4000. >> there's apparently been a major development in the grand jury investigation of the murder of jonbenet ramsey. >> d.a. alex hunter, we see now, walking down, surrounded by cameras and microphones on his way to the podium to hold a news conference. >> when alex hunter announced what he was going to do about the grand jury's decision, it was a beautiful, spectacular

colorado day. blue skies and hordes and hordes of media. and he got up to the podium and he thanked the grand jury. >> the grand jurors have done their work extraordinarily well. >> but at this time, he was not going to indict either john or patsy ramsey. >> i and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time. this is not a happy day. yesterday was not a happy day. there is no satisfaction here in boulder. >> there was no smoking gun in this case. you know, we didn't have a gun with patsy's fingerprints on it. or we didn't have a knife with john's fingerprints on it. we didn't have anything like that. >> i think there was a collective feeling of, oh, no, this this thing is never going to be solved if the d.a.

doesn't think there's enough evidence there to go after someone and get a conviction in this case, this case is lost. we're never going to know who murdered this little girl. >> it's been a mess from the day one. >> so it looks like it's going to stay a mess. >> it's probably just. just going to wither away. this leaves a very bad taste in everybody's mouth in this town right now. >> within six months, the ramseys came out with a book telling their story. >> it's a great pleasure to welcome the ramseys to this edition of larry king live. it is a live appearance. their book is the death of innocence just published. they are the coauthors. >> and this other guy, steve thomas, who had been a detective on the case, came out with his book. and his book was all about how the ramseys were guilty. >> steve thomas resigned from the boulder police department claiming, quote, we have failed a little girl named jonbenet. now, thomas has written a book on the case, jonbenet inside the ramsey murder investigation. >> then a couple of months later, in may of 2000, the

ramseys go head to head with this steve thomas on larry king. >> patsy, you could have been arrested in this case. >> i wish i had been, and then we would have had a free and fair trial, and you would have met your waterloo. mr. thomas, are you saying you would have let her answer? let her answer the question, john. >> question, steve, why won't you let your wife answer the question? because you have assaulted her. you've called her a murderer. >> how is it exactly that you think that i killed my daughter? i just cannot understand that. i want to hear it from start to finish. >> patsy. >> tell me. i wasn't there. >> you were at home that night, and apparently you say you can't. you can't say for certainty you were in the house, right? yes. >> am i am i assuming? answer my question, please. >> certainly. he wasn't there, so he can't know for sure. he has to have a theory. all right. murder. >> yeah. and what is your. and you've heard the theory. i have not heard the theory. offered a hypothesis. please answer my question. i think there was a toileting issue that night that has been dismissed and underplayed. explain a bedwetting or a

toileting issue that caused patsy to get mad at her daughter. >> absolutely. steve thomas, you are so, so. >> in other words, she killed her daughter in a rage over the bed wetting. and then garroted her. >> it was like great television, i guess, but but there's a dead kid here in this story. i mean, it's a terrible tragedy. and we got this circus going on. >> the address of what was the ramsey home in boulder has been changed. the family has moved to atlanta. >> but one thing has not changed in five years. >> jonbenet's killer remains at large for many years. >> in the 2000, the case just wasn't going anywhere. there were just dead ends. then in 2006, the case suddenly became headline news all over again the latest tragic turn in the most sensational child murder mystery of our time.

>> jonbenet ramsey's mother, patsy ramsey, laid to rest yesterday after losing her 13 year battle with cancer. >> she started with ovarian cancer. she became free of that. it resurfaced as abdominal cancer and spread to her brain, and she ultimately died of brain cancer. >> i think if you're one of those people that believe patsy ramsey was somehow involved with either the murder or the cover up of her daughter, that when she died, that secret died with her i do remember when she died that one of the district attorneys who was with a group of police officers said, well, we're kind of feeling that it goes full circle. >> she got what she deserved. i said, you know, that's a really horrible thing to say. you don't know if she killed her daughter and then within weeks of patsy's death, there was a huge break in the case

breaking news tonight, after a decade long investigation, an arrest in the jonbenet ramsey murder case. >> they say things take time and effort, but it's worth the wait. >> i can tell some stories. i'm so excited. >> i twitter brought the world together and the world was not ready to see itself. >> you read the comments? yeah. i might recommend that you don't. yeah, that's how i get mine. >> we never backed away. >> he never stepped down oh, that's how i get by. >> i feel at home here. lord, that's how i get by. >> transform your website into an immersive 3-d experience with infinite reality. you can tap the power of the spatial and social web, unlock valuable data, and take your brand to the next level. it's time for better shopping bolder entertainment, and bigger sports it's time to up your

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>> fear is the last thing we should be spreading. >> the sisterhood above all doom prophecy streaming exclusively on max. >> welcome back to how it really happened. it's no secret that most police investigators believe patsy ramsey was involved in her daughter's death. so when she died in august of 2006, they likely assumed the case would die with her. but just seven weeks after patsy's death, a new suspect emerged, seemingly out of the blue, and the focus of the police investigation shifted back to the intruder theory breaking news tonight. >> after a decade long investigation, an arrest in the jonbenet ramsey murder case john mark karr, 41 years old, was arrested for the murder of jonbenet ramsey yesterday morning at approximately 6 a.m. in bangkok, thailand. >> it's a day we've been waiting for for ten years, and i hope this is a first major

step in really drawing this to a conclusion. >> a stunning confession from the man arrested in thailand for the murder of jonbenet ramsey. >> i was with jonbenet when she died. >> her death was an accident. >> so here was this guy. he was a teacher. he was in thailand. and he surfaces out of the blue and confesses to the murder of jonbenet ramsey. >> when we saw that picture, that first picture of john mark karr, my initial reaction was, well, that's not what i expected. he was a slight man, a petite man, sort of delicate features. not what you would think about when you're thinking of worried about the boogeyman breaking into your house. and this intruder theory. he wasn't the intruder that i had in my mind. >> mainly, what we know about this guy is that we don't know much. his name didn't come up in the beginning of all these investigations. he's a bit of a blank page to everybody out there, even those of us who have covered this case very, very closely.

>> karr was a guy who had been obsessed with the jonbenet case for many years, so much so that i think some of his relatives thought he was writing a book about it. >> i love. die accidentally so the boulder district attorney has this guy arrested in thailand, john mark karr flies him back to the u.s. >> for questioning with immigration and customs enforcement agents at his side, murder suspect john mark karr made the 15 hour journey from bangkok to los angeles on sunday aboard a thai airways jet. >> he's going to be fingerprinted and photographed. >> we will make his mug shot available. >> so the district attorney is very optimistic that they've finally found jonbenet's killer. but there were others connected to the case who were more skeptical. there was still a huge faction of the american

public that believed the family was somehow involved. this felt like it tied it up with a bow a little bit too neatly for people. i think. >> bob grant, what do you make of all of this? >> larry? it's another bizarre turn and a bizarre case. i'm withholding judgment until i see the results of the dna tests. i think that tells the story. i always knew that whatever this guy had to say wasn't going to hold water unless he was the source of that dna in the panties. >> there was a tiny amount of unidentified dna on the waistband of john ramsey's longjohns. >> physical evidence is what's going to rule the day. physical evidence is what's going to close this case. >> if the dna on jonbenet's waistband was a match with john mark karr, well, then police had their killer. >> andy anderson. take a seat. look at this. you're wet, disheveled. there's debris hitting you. >> why do you have that on your

phone? >> i watch it all the time. hey, listen, we need to be ready for new year's eve. there could be an ice storm or a hurricane and obviously, confetti maybe you are ready. >> new year's eve, live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn and streaming live on max emergency crystals pop and fizz when you throw them back. >> and who doesn't love a good throwback now, with vitamin d for the dark days of winter. >> believe me, when it comes to investing, you'll love carl's way. take a left here, please. >> but there's a carl's way is the best way. >> is it at schwab? >> how i choose to invest is up to me. >> exactly. >> i can invest and trade on my own. >> yes, and i let them manage some investments for me too. >> let's move on, shall we? >> no can do. i'll get out here where are you going?

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against john mark carr's dna. waiting for the big connection, and found that they didn't match. so after all of the drama and all of the effort that went into arresting this guy, they then concluded he didn't do it. >> court documents show investigators were unable to place carr in boulder at the time of the murder. his family claiming he was with them in georgia and most importantly, carr's dna just tested at denver's crime lab was not matched to the dna found on jonbenet. >> i think he may have welcomed a lot of the attention. i don't know why someone would confess to a crime they didn't commit unless they just basically wanted to be famous or infamous. i can't speak to his motives, but he was still confessing after the da's office had pretty much satisfied itself that he wasn't the guy he wanted his. >> as andy warhol said, 15

minutes of fame. >> this is a terrible way to go about getting it turned out that he was just a nutcase who needed a ride back from thailand and got one at the expense of the state with that, carr becomes simply a man obsessed with the murder of jonbenet ramsey, who fabricated a story and tried to transplant himself into it. >> as for the case, it remains unsolved. john mark karr. walks. free. >> what was the colorado district attorney thinking? >> she said he was a credible suspect, and i don't think he was ever a credible suspect. you know, there should have been some effort to determine whether he was even in colorado when this happened. >> mr. carr, it was a tremendous embarrassment for the boulder da's office. >> tremendous. and the person at the time who was in charge was mary lacy. it was a huge, huge gaffe on her part. now, to her credit, i will say this.

she held, i think, the mother of all news conferences and stayed and answered, you know, every question. once you know, she realized she was wrong. >> i want to make it absolutely clear up front. the decisions were mine. the responsibility is mine, and i should be held accountable for all decisions in this case. last night, as i was preparing to leave, i received a telephone call from a gentleman in longmont. he said you should be tarred and feathered and run out of town. and it's not just one. there were a lot of calls like that after the john mark karr fiasco, the story went quiet for a few years. >> in 2008, the case was back in the news when new technology was used to retest the clothes that jonbenet ramsey was wearing the night she was murdered tonight, newly discovered dna evidence emerges by use of a new and highly sensitive dna procedure called.

>> touch dna. will it finally crack the murder case of six year old colorado beauty queen jonbenet ramsey the dna profile that we obtained is attributed to an unknown male. >> newly discovered dna evidence does not match any ramsey family member. >> that same district attorney who arrested john mark karr also gave a lot more weight than her critics did to new dna testing. and based on that, she formally exonerated the entire ramsey family. >> the boulder d.a. has released a letter officially clearing the ramsey family of any involvement in the december 1996 death of the six year old. >> the dna from the male does not match anyone in law enforcement. dna databases. >> this new scientific evidence convinces us that it is appropriate, given the circumstances of this case, to state that we do not consider

your immediate family, including you, your wife, patsy, and your son burke, to be under any suspicion in the commission of this crime. >> i look at it as a congratulatory letter to the ramseys. congratulations. you're off the hook. so good day for john ramsey. good day for patsy. that they have a prosecutor now on record as saying that the prosecutor believes that there's physical evidence that someone else did it and that the parents weren't involved. >> what mary lacy did next was she actually apologized to the ramsey family for them ever being considered suspects. 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'm deeply sorry. no innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion. >> there were a lot of people who questioned whether this much dna was enough to clear these people, much less apologize to them i was unimpressed with the decision

to write the letter, and i was unimpressed with the letter. >> and from what i know about touch, dna, it simply is not reliable enough to support the kind of decision that was made by district attorney lacy. >> those who did not like it that she had written that letter said, hey, if it is proven to be the ramseys, you've written a letter of apology. how are we going to take this to court? i think the case had many more serious problems than that. letter. >> so that was it. after a dozen years of being under the microscope, then the entire ramsey family was in the clear. but that was about to change in a big way. >> bombshell tonight, in the last hours, we get proof. a colorado grand jury votes to indict jonbenet's parents,

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in 2013, this local news reporter gets a tip and he finds out that the grand jury decision 14 years earlier was not what it seemed. so a reporter on the case, charlie brennan, said, i want to see the records. i want to see what the grand jury did in secret, because he had been hearing from grand jurors who said they did decide to indict in the case so that reporter charlie brennan, he wanted to get ahold of the grand jury's decision. >> but to do that, he had to sue the da's office. >> and i don't think most of us could believe it. he won. and they unsealed those grand jury records in 2013, and we got to see the indictment for ourselves. it was quite illuminating. >> this morning we have new details. >> in the case of jonbenet ramsey, a local paper, the boulder daily camera, reports that a grand jury voted to indict john and patsy ramsey for abuse that led to

jonbenet's death. >> but the district attorney declined to prosecute. >> so what that means is the grand jury decides to indict the ramseys, but the da discards their decision and decides not to proceed. >> the grand jury said. both of the girls parents, john and patsy, did unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly and feloniously permit a child to be placed in a situation which posed a threat of injury, which resulted in the death of jonbenet ramsey. >> this was explosive because it totally contradicted what alex hunter, the da at the time, had actually told people back in 1999. >> i and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time. >> alex hunter essentially decided to veto the grand jury's decision. now,

prosecutors do have that option. but the issue here is a lot of people felt he hadn't been entirely up front. >> the public was misled. we were told that the grand jury met for all these months, and there was no indictment. but in fact, the grand jury had wanted to file charges in this case. that was something that was kept away from the public for more than a decade. >> yeah, it'd be fascinating to know what they found out, because the grand jury interviewed so many people. >> the judge took a look at it and decided only to release four pages of some 18 pages because they were the ones with the basic charges on them and the ones that were signed by the grand jury foreman. >> so what was in those 14 pages that wasn't released when all this other information was released about the grand jury meeting, wonder if we'll ever see that. it would be fascinating. >> what else don't we know? i mean, where is the rest of these pages that went with this? where the grand jury explained, you know what the

reasoning was behind these charges? what the specific acts that were committed that led to these charges. and we don't have those to this day i'm not particularly happy that the entire thing was not disclosed. >> we're not going to get a judge to order the rest of those pages released. at least not before i retire. again. >> it's a mystery at this point. >> do you truly think the perpetrator will be found? >> yes, there was one other person in the house that night besides patsy and john and jonbenet, and that is jonbenet's older brother, burke, who was then nine years old. he was officially cleared in 2008, and he has never gone public, which has led to a lot of speculation about what he saw and what he knew that night. >> even if burke were to have some miraculous memory that

could lead to the arrest of a suspect, that information would be so dated and so questionable that most criminal defense attorneys would have a heyday with it at trial. it's very problematic to be using information that would be so stale from an individual who did not remember it before. the colder the case gets, the colder the trail gets. >> burke finally broke his silence just before the 20th anniversary of his sister's death. he decided that he would do a sit down on the doctor phil's tv show. >> did you hit your sister over the head with a baseball bat or a flashlight? >> absolutely not. >> if someone in your house did, do you think you would have heard it probably yeah. you know, everybody's got a theory. there's the burke group, the john group, the patsy group, the intruder group. and they all feel very passionately that they're right and everybody else is wrong.

>> this isn't rocket science. >> do you think she was a disciplining the child? it got out of hand. >> my guess is, yeah, there was some sort of explosive encounter between mother and daughter that resulted in this child dead. to those of you who may want to ask, let me address very directly. i did not kill my daughter jonbenet. uh, there have also been innuendos that she has, has been or was sexually molested. they are totally false. >> i'm appalled that anyone would think that john or i would be involved in such a hideous, heinous crime. >> but let me assure you that i did not kill jonbenet. >> i think from the very start there was a sense that this case might just become a cold

case, and it has become, you know, the mother of all cold cases. at this point, the prospect that we're ever going to see a, you know, a legal resolution of this case, i think is very, very dim at this point had you asked me then, will this be a story in 20 years? >> i would have laughed and said, absolutely not. there will be an arrest in this case and probably quickly. no one could have foreseen what happened over the next 20 years. i wouldn't be surprised if we never know what actually happened in that basement, and it will always stay a whodunit. >> this is a little girl who should be in her mid 20s right now and we're all dancing around about jonbenet and trying to figure out what happened. and what happened is she's dead and nobody knows who did it. and nobody solved the case.

>> hln did reach out to the boulder county da's office with a freedom of information request for the rest of the grand jury findings, but a representative denied our request, saying they'd be in contempt of court if they released the additional pages today. the murder of jonbenet ramsey is officially considered a cold case. the boulder pd has detectives assigned to it, and they do follow leads when they get them. but so far they've only been dead ends. let's hope that someday there will be justice for jonbenet ramsey. i'm hill harper, thanks for watching.