>> she had so gracefully and so successfully embraced her roots, her culture and her heritage. >> and in that way, she still continues to inspire new generations you know, you hope for something. >> you wish for things to happen. you know, when, when you're not doing as well. and when it comes around, it's like, oh, you know, you want to slow down, but you have to stop and think where you came from. and you appreciate it even more yolanda saldivar declined our request for an interview. >> she is still in prison and up for parole in 2025. selena was buried in her hometown of corpus christi, texas, two years after her death. a movie starring jennifer lopez was released, telling the true story of selena's incredible life. it solidified her legacy and inspired future generations. selena once said that when she died, she wanted to be remembered not only as an

entertainer, but as a role model and someone who cared. and she is. thanks for watching. good night my name is jonbenet ramsey and i'm five and a half. >> five and a half. >> okay. pick one. >> two left. okay. what is your favorite animal at the zoo? >> the monkeys. because they laugh and stuff and hang around. >> welcome to how it really happened. i'm hill harper. people have heard the name jonbenet ramsey for so long now, it's almost like we forget there was actually a little girl who lost her life. a smart, adorable six year old

who was brutally murdered. over the years, police interviewed nearly 600 people, took a serious look at more than 100 suspects, and built up an investigative file of more than 60,000 pages. and yet, despite all that police work, someone got away with murder. we sat down with the people who lived and breathed that story back in the day to find out how it really happened i found boulder to be a gorgeous place on the front range of the rockies. >> i think it would be a great place to live. >> the ramsey family was so involved in this community. they'd been there by now, 5 or 6 years. patsy ramsey was kind of a socialite. john ramsey was a ceo of a big company. >> they were avid church goers. they helped others. they were good people. >> jonbenet and the cute older brother, burke and her mom and

her whole family seemed so loving. neighbors could only say good things about this family. this family was the least likely family to have something horrific happen to. and then boulder, of course, itself is a town that's idyllic. it's peaceful. >> boulder at that time, you know, the idea was that something like this couldn't happen here. it's just unimaginable that there would be that kind of crime and that kind of neighborhood. >> the ramsey's on christmas day had a normal christmas day at home jonbenet got up on what many children consider to be the greatest day of the year. >> saw her presence, had a wonderful day at home with her family. >> jonbenet was playing with her toys. burke, the nine year old son, went down the block, played with one of the kids down the block. about 430 5:00,

burke came home. they got cleaned up. >> the family went to a christmas party at a friend's home. >> the white house. they had dinner over there. the kids played and everything. >> they arrived back home around 930 in the evening. >> jonbenet was said to have been so tired she actually fell asleep and had to be carried to bed. >> she was carried into the house by her father, according to her parents, they took her up to her room. >> that would have been the last time that john and patsy say that they saw her 5:30 a.m. >> jonbenet's mother, patsy, goes downstairs and finds an apparent ransom note. three pages long. >> patsy saw the ransom note on the steps near the kitchen and like anyone freaked out. >> police! what's going on there, ma'am, we have a kid

here. >> out there. all right. please explain to me what's going on. okay. there we have it. there's a note left in our daughter is gone. does it say who took her what does it say? who took her? i don't know, it's there's a there's a ransom note here. it's a ransom note. oh my god. please. okay. please. >> somebody suddenly frantic phone calls that jonbenet was missing after patsy called 911. >> she then called her good friends, fleet and priscilla white. they came right over because they had seen the family just the night before. hours before, at their christmas party. >> it was approximately 6:00 in the morning when i received a page that we had a six year old girl who had been kidnaped with a ransom note my recollection of patsy when we got to the house was that she was on the couch in the living room, kind of in a fetal position, all balled up and everything, and

john was more like somebody in charge. mr. ramsey was very calm, cool and collected. >> and they showed the police this ransom note, which is one of the most bizarre ransom notes anybody has ever seen. >> there were a number of things unusual about the note. number one, the length of the note was very long. three pages. >> i've seen and worked a number of kidnapings for the fbi, and most of the notes are very short. they're very terse, very succinct, and they give very specific instructions, almost like bullet points. so my first impression was that this guy, this guy wrote the magna carta. >> listen carefully. we are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. at this time. we have your daughter in our possession. you must follow our instructions to the letter. you will withdraw $118,000 from

your account. >> i have never seen a ransom kidnaping that asks for such a specific amount of money. $118,000. >> speaking to anyone about your situation, such as police, fbi, et cetera will result in your daughter being beheaded. >> it was very much directed at john. it was addressed, mr. ramsey. it was all directed at him. no reference to patsy in there that i recall at all. >> don't try to grow a brain, john. >> use that good southern common sense of yours. >> the note had said that they were going to call between 8 and 10 in the morning so police were searching around the house. >> they were trying to figure out how someone might have gotten in or gotten out there were no signs of a struggle in the house. >> there was no signs of forced entry and that's when mr. ramsey went upstairs to wake up his son, burke.

>> you know, he's nine years old, and the father's going to tell him that his sister is missing. >> he was awakened and driven over to the whites house and left for the day. >> there was so much chaos and turmoil in the house. they wanted to get him away from it. >> at this point we realized, okay, we haven't had a call from the kidnaper because the kidnaping note said, i'm going to call you between 8 and 10 and no call has come in. >> the house was filling up, the family's minister was there. >> their friends, the whites, and also another couple, the furnace. >> and they were all out in the living room. and that's where the discussions were taking place with detective. aren't by midday, most of the police officers had returned to headquarters so they could try to figure out what they were dealing with so by about 1:00, the only detective that was still there was detective linda, aunt. >> and it was clear that

everybody was just getting antsy. >> you know, they were, like, frazzled. >> what are we going to do? >> so she suggests to mr. ramsey and his friend fleet white that they go. >> and they searched the house again, just one last time. >> when i opened the door, when i turned the light on and i see her. >> 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.

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>> you only come across an artist like luther vandross. once in a lifetime. >> he was a boss from the beginning. luther said, i have a sound in my head. i got to get it out. you are my shining star. >> my god. >> it was the most exciting time in the world. >> his life had extremely joyful moments and some really difficult moments. >> if we were to be able to talk to luther as fans, we would be able to say we just love you, luther. >> never too much. new year's day at eight on cnn so it was about eight hours after patsy ramsey had called 911 that john ramsey and his friend fleet white searched the house one last time. >> we waited until after the time that the call was supposed to have been made to us. >> and one of the detectives asked me and my friend who was there to go through every inch of the house, see if there's

anything that was unusual or abnormal that looked out of place so we started in the basement and we're just looking john says he then moved to the storage closet, where i opened the door and turned the light on. she was in her the body of jonbenet ramsey, strangled and beaten, is found in the basement of her parents, boulder, colorado, home. >> i picked her up and i just screamed. the kind of scream you scream in a dream when you you. you're trying to speak, but you can't. it's just a scream. >> rigor mortis had already set in, and he was in. i guess you would call it such shock when i brought jonbenet up, linda knelt over her and. >> and i guess felt her pulse

and looked at me and said, she's dead. at that point, kind of pandemonium broke out in the house. >> i remember seeing mrs. ramsey crying profusely. it was a mother's wail. rocking back and forth and holding jonbenet. nobody could say anything. what do you say when that happens? there's nothing you can say to make it any better. >> this little girl was tortured very few people realize that she had a garrote around her throat and a nylon cord that was tied around her throat very tightly, leaving a lot of rope burns. >> the ligature strangulation around the neck. now, that is serious. that is a very violent death. >> and i remember my first thought was, i want to catch the person that did this. >> so imagine this scenario. the family and a couple of friends are sitting around and they're waiting for a kidnaper

to get in contact. and then the father finds the body. >> a lot of things didn't make sense. if, in fact, she was killed while they were, quote, attempting to kidnap her, why would they leave a ransom note with her body still in the house? >> the only thing i could think of was, this is now a murder case. it's not a kidnaping. my god, what? what a mess. this crime scene has been made of by all these people walking around, touching this, touching that, you know, who knows who was upstairs? who knows who was downstairs. >> in the eyes of a lot of people, this home has been completely contaminated. >> as far as a crime scene, i think the cops probably went, oh, no, in this split second, the police now are no longer looking for her kidnaper. >> now they're looking for the killer of jonbenet but instead

of interrogating the ramseys, right then they actually asked everyone to leave the house so they could secure the crime scene. >> they should have been told. come with us. let's go to police headquarters. let's sort this out instead. they went to a friend's house. >> then it was interesting over the next few days to see the ramseys lawyer up. john got his own lawyer. patsy got her own lawyer. they each got press people and pr people to help them craft statements. >> and these high powered lawyers tell them, don't talk to the police. >> what is the status in regards to a formal sit down interview? >> we are working obviously through their attorneys now, which they have both secured. >> i think if you ask anybody on the street, one of the first things they'll say is, gee, if this were my kid, i'd be i'd let them interview me 100 times. whatever it would take. >> that's kind of the feeling that we had is, why are they doing this? why? why aren't they cooperating

one might say, wait a minute. >> the parents would be suspects, or at least early on would be looked at as suspects. >> why would they be allowed to leave the state if they hadn't been formally interviewed? >> there was no legal reason for us to detain the ramseys. >> they were not under arrest. >> they were not being held. >> no one had been formally identified as a suspect, and we had no legal grounds on which to detain them from going to their daughter's funeral. >> a grief stricken family said goodbye to six year old jonbenet ramsey tuesday. services were held in the very church where jonbenet was baptized more than five years ago, before her family moved. >> i can tell you that the heart of god is broken by the tragic death of jonbenet ramsey. >> the questions persist. >> why a ransom note if the

child was killed? >> why was her body in the basement? >> and above all, why this little girl and then the very next day, after burying their daughter, the ramseys decide to talk. >> but not with the police. they speak with cnn in atlanta. >> okay, let me start out. first of all, why did you decide you wanted to talk? >> they had not yet really given any kind of substantive interviews with the police and they're on national television talking about this case. >> an fbi spokesman was quoted as saying, at this point, they don't regard it necessarily as a kidney. >> that sounds like kidnaping to me. >> you've got to wonder what happened. was this a true attempt to i don't know, it was. >> it makes no sense to me.

>> i don't you believe that someone outside your home there is a killer on the loose? >> i don't know who it is. i don't know if it's a he or a she but if i were a resident of boulder, i would tell my friends to keep keep your babies close to you there's someone out there it was a somewhat histrionic interview by patsy ramsey in particular, who didn't look like she was in any kind of condition to be on on television. >> when you return to boulder, you will sit down with the boulder police. absolutely, absolutely. >> we want them to know everything possible everything that could help them they want

whatever anyone wants. >> we will cooperate. >> did it surprise anybody with the police department that this interview was conducted on cnn, given the fact that they hadn't been formally interviewed by the police department, i think it would be very safe to say police were very surprised at the interview. >> they did not know it was going to happen. they were as taken aback as anybody else. >> what's interesting is, you know, the ramseys go on television to say that they fully cooperated with the police. they've given statements from the police, and that was total bs >> there was a pendulum swinging where you thought initially, okay, this family had nothing to do with it. but then the weird cnn interview where patsy ramsey looked drugged up, john ramsey looked irritated with her and very, very icy and stony. and then you got sort of the personalities of these two people. is this who's involved? maybe they did have something to do with it. >> so when the ramseys got back to boulder after their daughter's funeral, the media was all there waiting for them. but so were the police. >> and this police officer just

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>> jonathan mann five. around this time, the media gets ahold of this video and it showed little jonbenet ramsey dressed up like a grown up woman in a beauty pageant. she has makeup on and lipstick and big hair, and it was just bizarre to see something like that. >> why did she do the pageants? >> she loved it. >> she liked it herself. >> she would see. >> she was an entertainer. >> she loved to entertain. >> and you encouraged it? >> absolutely. >> we were staged, mother honestly? >> probably. >> yeah. >> what's wrong with that? she was in those child beauty pageants which turned everybody against her and her family. i think that's the biggest crime of all at that time. >> not a lot of people knew about child beauty pageants, but patsy ramsey was a former beauty queen. she'd been miss west virginia. so this was a world that she knew pretty well. >> she introduced her to it to see if she liked it, and she waited till she was like 4 or 5

to give her a choice. >> do you think you want to go up there and do that? and and the child's kind of just a natural performer and said, yes. >> congratulations. >> it started with those videos of john monday and her outfits juxtaposing that with the horrendous killing. >> it just lends itself to sensationalism. >> this started out as a simple but tragic murder of a child beauty queen. but then questions arose. curiosity arose, and suddenly the media descended on boulder. >> it became a media frenzy reporters, producers, photographers and the tabloids were there. >> we are told now that as many as 300 media representatives may be here right now. following this story. >> so suddenly there was a national press here and a pretty aggressive press, i think. much more than than

boulder was used to. >> i want to say nothing negative about a family going through hell, but why the hell aren't they talking to the police? >> i just don't understand. >> this is a bizarre case of a mother and a father who get their own attorney, who get their own spokespeople, who don't immediately begin to cooperate and talk with the police to try to find the killer. >> they wait. >> why don't the police just take them downtown and talk to them? >> is that just not possible? >> it doesn't work that way in a democracy. ma'am, you are entitled to constitutional protections. you can't be dragged down and forced to participate in a formal police interview. >> even though the ramseys weren't talking, the police were actually making some headway with that ransom note. >> i asked mr. ramsey for a sample of his and mrs. ramsey's handwriting, and he gave me two note pads. >> these pads were pads that were kept by the telephone, and each john and patsy had their own pads.

>> when the experts compared the tear patterns from the ransom note to patsy's note pad, they made a remarkable discovery. >> within about 15 minutes, he came back in and he just burst into the room. it was a conference room, and you can't believe what i've got. you can't believe this. you've got to look at this piece of paper. >> it turned out that the kidnaper had written the ransom note on patsy's notepad. >> and this police officer who was in that meeting said, everybody looked at each other and said, oh, my gosh, what's going on here? these people may have done something to their daughter and we need to look at this completely differently. >> that's the first tidbit of information that we had that made it look like the ramseys were possible suspects. they may have been involved with this. >> so after weeks of searching for clues, the police come up with another clue. they find

that the garrote made of a broken paintbrush, that paintbrush, actually belonged to patsy ramsey. i think at the time, people thought it was interesting that a there was a paintbrush involved in it. that was patsy ramsey's that was kept in the basement. also, the ransom note was written off a pad that was found in the home. who writes a ransom note inside the home and leaves it there. >> it's either the father or the mother. >> i mean, this is what everybody in america pretty much thinks. the question is, which one were they together on the deal? >> everybody thought that the ramseys had some involvement in it. >> we know that the next morning, the ramseys were getting ready to leave to go to charlevoix, michigan, to enjoy the rest of the holiday. >> there's just no way that this was an intentional act. >> the only logical explanation for this offense is that it's an accident, followed by a cover up. >> it is the only logical explanation. >> the only thing that the

child obviously was very well taken care of. >> she had the best of everything. >> and the only sort of thing is whether or not did you lose your. you know, could someone lose his temper? you know, i mean, that was the only thing that was, you know, the key point. people say, well, you know, 80% of the time, 60% of time is a parents. in every case, i will bet in where a parent has murdered or harmed a child. there's been a previous history of that. >> the problem with the accident theory. what kind of accident would cause a parent to kill their child? >> the most common trigger in older children who are killed is a toileting accident that leads to an explosion of rage and either a severe injury or occasionally a murder. >> so even bedwetting could could lead to this kind of a criminal act. >> i've seen dozens of cases where bedwetting led to this kind of an act. >> now, she had a bedwetting problem, a serious bedwetting problem that was ongoing for years. even at this particular age. age five and six.

>> that was one of the theories that was out there that jonbenet had wet the bed and that mrs. ramsey went into a fit of rage over that. >> but the ramseys friends, they were having none of this idea that john and patsy murdered their own child. i mean, to them, it seemed completely preposterous. >> it is just ludicrous. >> there is just there's no way. >> when you heard of this murder the first time, you heard of it. >> where were you and what did you think? >> i was at work, and a mutual friend called from denver, and i, you know, went numb. >> couldn't imagine it. and i guess what really got me was when i started realizing that they were suspecting them. i mean, that just blew my mind. >> it couldn't happen because they're such wonderful people. >> i think people want to believe the best in people until they're given a reason to believe the worst in people. and the sensationalist media gave people a reason to believe

the worst about the ramseys wasn't evidence based. it was based on media coverage. >> then the case takes this shocking u-turn. a new detective comes in, an outsider goes back through all the evidence and tells the police, you know what? you're wrong. >> perhaps at first, i leaned towards the parents doing it only because of what i had read and what i had seen on television. >> but as i got into the case, i started seeing red flags, which started pointing the other way and it has been one wild year. >> i know that home you 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 i

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>> 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 welcome back to how it really happened. >> as detectives dug deeper into the jonbenet ramsey case, some of them believed all signs were pointing to patsy ramsey. their colleagues at the boulder da's office were split. some bought into the police theory, but others weren't so sure. three months into the investigation, it was in disarray. the da, alex hunter, needed an objective take on the case. what he didn't expect was for that take to turn the investigation upside down. >> when the autopsy report was released and we found out how this little girl died, all of a sudden, it seemed really surprising for many people that the parents could have been involved at all. >> the autopsy does not read like an accident. it reads like a violent attack. >> oh, it's a horrible death.

>> jonbenet ramsey, six years old, had been strangled, had her mouth duct taped, her hands bound. her skull fractured. >> if you believe patsy ramsey did this to her daughter, you have to believe she did all these things. and that then she had the whereabouts to sit down and write this ransom note. >> and there was one more horrifying detail in the autopsy report. >> it's quite evident that there has been an assault. >> that is interpretable as being sexual. there are other questions that relate to that. of course. >> when the news came out that jonbenet ramsey had been sexually assaulted, rumors just started flying that maybe the father was involved. >> we got enough information that 80% of the people think that the murderer in this case was the father. >> so, you know, the suggestion has always been, i'm sorry,

john, but that you had somehow been involved with your child sexually. but the doctor who saw her regularly said no, it was almost like a fiction of the media. well, we were accused of of which is bizarre. we were accused of taking her to the doctor too many times. she'd been to see the doctor 30 times in two years. the same doctor she had, you know, we had a good health insurance program. he listed all the. she had asthma. you know, the doctor was five minutes away. >> most of the experts agree that there was a sexual assault that night, but that there was no prior sexual abuse four people testified that there was no prior sexual abuse speculation is continuing to fly around. >> who did this? like was it jonbenet's mother, patsy? was it her dad? john? well, the da at this time has has an idea of someone who can help him figure this out. and his name is detective lou smith.

>> lou, in my mind, was an excellent investigator a plotter, a fellow who who went inch by inch over crime scenes and over investigations and didn't leave any stones unturned. >> what's your attitude approaching this case? >> a great optimism, i'd say. and, uh, i'm ready to. i'm really anxious to go to work and see what they got. >> and despite all these clues out there that seem to point to the ramseys, this detective, he had a completely different idea. >> perhaps at first i leaned towards the parents doing it only because of what i had read and what i had seen on television. but as i got into the case, i started seeing red flags, which started pointing the other way. >> lou smith was a well respected veteran police detective, had worked successfully on many cases, and there was really this feeling that this guy could really crack the case. lou smith found

evidence in the crime scene that he thought directly pointed away from the ramseys, and to an intruder. >> i believe that. >> uh, sometime during, uh, december 25th, 1996, this was night, christmas night. someone got into the house of john and patsy ramsey. i believe there is some evidence to suggest strongly that he may have come in through a basement window. there was a scuff mark on the wall. there was leaves and debris on the floor directly below that open window. there was also foliage under the grate that covers this window well, which would indicate that someone may have opened and shut the grate. >> also, there was the suitcase that was placed below the window. >> according to john ramsey, that suitcase was not underneath that window prior to that night. john ramsey said that that's not where suitcases are normally kept. there is evidence on top of

that suitcase a very small, tiny, pea sized piece of glass which could have come off the shoe of the intruder. there is also what appears to be a disturbance on the top of that suitcase, as if someone may have stood on it at some particular point. >> we use the suitcase to get out. >> yes, it would make it much easier to get out of that basement. >> he actually at one point demonstrated how you could get through that window, and he fit through with with no problem. >> and i'll show you how easily it can be done i believe that the killer did take jonbenet from her bed and brought her down to the deepest, farthest, dirtiest

corner of that basement and did fashion a garrote there that was used to strangle her. and then he also brutally hit her on the head with a blunt object. >> according to lou smith, the intruder had left some evidence behind a footprint and a palm print near jonbenet's body, and these were clues that could lead to her killer. >> in the wine cellar, two footprints next to jonbenet's body. >> one still hasn't been identified. nearby, a partial palm print. >> there is evidence that there could have been an intruder. you got a weird shoe print in the basement. you got a broken window. you've got some debris. you've got a suitcase next to the window. >> the question then becomes, how could an intruder coax jonbenet ramsey down into the basement? >> lou smith also found tracks and marks on the little girl's back and neck that he thought pointed to a stun gun being used in the case that perhaps

she'd been taken from her bed and kept quiet because she'd been stunned. >> i think that the stun gun is one of the best clues left behind by the killer. as far as a clue, but it also may explain why jonbenet did not cry out when she was first abducted. i am convinced that a stun gun was used lou detailed ten, 11, 12, 13 points that led him to believe that an intruder had committed this homicide and not an inside job by any one of the three family members. >> so then at this point, the question becomes, who was this intruder? >> santa claus was a darn good suspect. >> you only come across an artist like luther vandross. once in a lifetime. >> he was a boss from the beginning. >> luther said, i have a sound in my head. i got to get it

out. you are my shining star. >> my. >> it was the most exciting time in the world. >> his life had extremely joyful moments and some really difficult moments. >> if we were to be able to talk to luther as fans, we'd be able to say. >> we just love you. >> luther. never too much. new year's day at eight on cnn living with your albuterol. >> asthma rescue inhaler. it's a bit of a dinosaur. albuterol only treats your symptoms, not inflammation. >> a cause of asthma attacks. >> treating symptoms and inflammation with rescue is supported by asthma experts. >> finally, there's a modern way to treat symptoms and asthma attacks. >> air, supra is the first and only dual action asthma rescue inhaler fda approved to treat symptoms and help prevent asthma attacks. >> air supra should not be used as a maintenance treatment for asthma. get medical help right away if your breathing doesn't improve or worsens, or for serious allergic reactions like rash, mouth or tongue swelling,

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lord, that's how i get by. >> we know one fact for certain. and that's an intruder was in our house and killed our daughter. >> that we know for a fact. >> so things were really looking up for the ramseys. the evidence seemed to be pointing to an intruder, not them. >> well, are we able to say at this point that john ramsey, the father, has been ruled out as the writer of that note? >> yes, he has been ruled out, and he is the only one ruled out. >> was your handwriting cleared? both of you? >> johns definitively was cleared. and i scored a 4.5 out of five. >> five is definitely no match. and it just patsy's handwriting. >> tabloids were printing that it was. >> yes, they love that. that's absurd. we've looked at at leads. whose handwriting scored much, much higher than patsy's on a on a comparison scale.

>> so if john and patsy didn't write the note, well, then who did? >> you know, the police really did go through dozens and dozens and dozens of potential suspects. >> and one of the first suspects was the ramsey's housekeeper. >> the housekeeper, linda hoffman. pugh and her husband, mervyn, were suspects from the beginning. in fact, number one, they were needing money. she had asked patsy to borrow $2,000 shortly before christmas. number two, they had a familiarity with the house and with the people inside the house. they knew jonbenet. it would have been possible for them to go to the house, take jonbenet without having a disturbance. >> when police visited the pews, they discovered the same brand of duct tape that had been used to cover jonbenet's mouth. >> years later, the ramseys continued to name her as a

suspect, but she always denied it. >> i think about jonbenet every day of my life and have ever since the day she died. >> i have never turned my porch light off my porch lights. >> been on every night since jonbenet died then there was the santa claus suspect, who was a guy well known around town. >> his name was bill mcreynolds. >> he was santa claus to the boulder community for their parades and for certain events. >> santa claus was a darn good suspect. >> mcreynolds actually played santa claus at the ramseys christmas party just two days before jonbenet's murder. >> and he and jonbenet actually struck up a friendship. >> all children are special to santa. she just happened to be extra special to me. she was very thoughtful, a very caring little girl. and she actually gave santa a present. and you can imagine how rare that is. >> police learned the so-called santa claus suspect may have

told jonbenet that a secret santa clause was going to make a special visit to her because. >> jump in there and see. >> the day before made a comment to her friends. say santa claus is going to visit her. that tonight we later found out that he had had his own brush with kidnaping. >> it turns out mcreynolds own daughter had also been kidnaped 22 years earlier. and it also happened on christmas day. >> his wife had written a play about a little girl who was killed. there were just very bizarre tentacles to this story that reached in places that none of us could have suspected. >> there's this perception. it's the wrong perception that the detectives really didn't look elsewhere. >> but the one interview that

police were really hoping for japanese own parents that was still on hold. >> what is the status in regards to a formal sit down interview? >> we are working obviously through their attorneys now. >> so four months after the murder, the ramseys finally sit down with police it's the interview. >> boulder police have been trying to get since christmas. john and patsy ramsey sat down for formal interviews four months since their daughter jonbenet was murdered. >> the interviews happened, now, we're told, because the ramseys have told their attorneys. this is it. we did not kill our daughter. we are innocent and we want this closure. >> jonbenet, she is the child of patsy and john ramsey from boulder, colorado. >> so one of the things that we found out was that the ramseys actually had two different stories about what happened that night and it has been one wild year. >> i know that whole mudang 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 on max. >> hi, i'm greg, i live in bloomington, illinois. i'm not an actor. >> i'm just a regular person after working 25 years in the automotive industry, i retired eight years ago. i just didn't feel like i was on my game. i started taking prevagen and i want people to know that prevagen has worked for me. give it a try. i want it to help you just like it has helped me. i've been taking prevagen for eight years now and it's still helping me tremendously. >> prevagen at stores everywhere without a prescription

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side and the boulder police department, but the ramsay said enough and today talked with boulder police. >> when police sat down with the ramsay's, they had a specific goal in mind. they wanted to find out the timeline from the ramsay's. they wanted the timeline of the night their daughter died. >> and so there were some very, very specific things that they needed to get in terms of locking in the story, locking in the timeline and the autopsy held an important clue. >> this child had undigested pineapple in her belly, which means she ate it within two hours of death. >> the evidence seemed to suggest that jonbenet ramsey ate a piece of pineapple after returning home from the whites christmas party, but john ramsey said that she fell asleep in the car on the way home from the party, and that he carried her into bed. her parents said that she had been asleep, came home and they put her right to bed, and she never woke up. so if there was no pineapple served at the whites christmas party that night, how

did it get into her stomach? >> in my career, i never have a kidnaper or sex predator brings on pineapple with the victim and say kids, eat some pineapple before we kidnap you or before i sexually assault you. >> i'd like the answer for the pineapple and the child's gut. i'd like that to be explained. i'd like to understand the fact that the ramsey said that everyone was asleep, that we have. >> and the child was not fed pineapple. >> how we end up with pineapple in the child's gut and fingerprints on the spoon and on the bowl that were patsy ramsey's. >> so with so many unanswered questions, the district attorney was really feeling the heat to convene a grand jury in the summer of 98. >> and we're talking nearly two years after the crime. nothing had come of the investigation. there was pressure from a lot of

quarters, including the governor, to impanel a grand jury. >> finally, after months and months of delays, the district attorney, alex hunter, finally does what everybody was waiting 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 the 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.