A former lead investigator in the still-unsolved JonBenet Ramsey murder case has come out with a book explaining his theory that there never was an intruder.
James Kolar claims in his book, "Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet?" that the evidence raised questions about the intruder theory that eventually led to JonBenet's family being cleared.
"I was kind of discouraged they didn't want to pursue things I thought should be looked at," Kolar said. "I was kind of discouraged the work I had done was not being received well," Kolar told the Daily Camera.
The title of Kolar's book correlates with the ransom note found in the Ramsey's home which claimed to be written by a "small foreign faction."
Kolar says he'd been hoping the case would have been solved by now and that his book could have been written from that vantage point. The former detective had access to 60,000 pages of evidence, including crime-scene video and photos, interviews with individuals related to the case and forensic reports.
Among the contradicting evidence Kolar points out in his book are fully intact cobwebs stretching over the window the intruder allegedly entered, more DNA evidence found at the crime scene including DNA on the garrote cord used to strangle the young girl.
In his book, Kolar also writes about a child's toy that was found that may have been responsible for some of the abrasions on JonBenet's body, rather than a stun gun which had been considered a possible source of the injuries to her back, according to The Daily Beast.
"By the time I parted company with the D.A.'s office, I was convinced that there was no significant possibility that an intruder had been involved in the death of JonBenet," Kolar writes in his book.
Read a detailed new report on the book at The Daily Beast.
On Dec. 26, 1996, 6-year-old JonBenet was found bludgeoned and strangled to death in the basement of her family home. A ransom note from an anonymous group of individuals "that represent a foreign faction" asking for $118,000 in exchange for the safe return of JonBenet was found just hours before, but no call ever came from a kidnapper and it was never linked to a murderer. See the full text of the ransom note originally published by Vanity Fair magazine and republished by The Daily Camera, here.
John and Patsy Ramsey, JonBenet's parents were prime suspects for years and repeatedly appeared on news channels defending their innocence and demanding justice for the murder of their young daughter. The entire Ramsey family was cleared of any involvement in the murder of JonBenet back in 2008, thanks to then newly discovered DNA evidence, according to 9News. Patsy Ramsey, JonBenet's mother, died 2 years earlier in 2006 of ovarian cancer, tragically, she was still considered a possible suspect when she died.
Beginning in 2010, investigators reopened the case and launched a fresh round of interviews with witnesses that could provide more insight into the murder, according to ABC News, but nothing fruitful came of those interviews.
The DNA evidence still points to an "unexplained third party" that serves as a vague lead for authorities still pursuing the case, TIME magazine reported.
According to 7News, Boulder police have tested more than 150 DNA samples and investigated nearly the same amount of potential suspects in their ongoing investigation, but none have ever been linked to the crime.
After all these years, Boulder police have received thousands of tips about her murder and still receive several monthly. Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett said in 2010 that he personally gets five or more tips each month, according to Fox31. The ones that have potential are passed along to Boulder police's Major Case Unit. There have been plenty of false leads as well, including most famously Mark Karr -- who bizarrely admitted to being with JonBenet the night of her death, but DNA evidence later cleared him of any wrongdoing in this case, MSNBC reported. Craig Silverman, talk radio legal analyst on 630 KHOW that has covered the unsolved murder since it first broke, spoke to KDVR about the public's interest in the case back in 2010:
It's an enduring, epic mystery. Everybody would like to know who killed little JonBenet.
Silverman went on to say on his Huffington Post blog, "This JonBenet murder mystery has never been lacking for clues. There are too many clues. It is putting all the puzzle pieces together that matters."
It remains one of the most notorious murders in U.S. history and a decade and a half later there is still no justice for JonBenet who would be nearing her 22nd birthday if she were alive today.
For a timeline of the events of the unsolved murder case during its peak years in the 1990s check out the Daily Camera's chronological summary of the major events from Dec. 1996 to 1999.
Look at photos of the JonBenet Ramsey case below and watch police footage from the Ramsey's basement taken hours after JonBenet's body was found, above, via The Daily Beast.
Posted: 07/19/2012 6:18 pm Updated: 07/20/2012 12:20 am