In a new interview with People magazine which appears on newsstands on Friday, JonBenet Ramsey's father John reacts to The Daily Camera's exclusive report that a grand jury voted to indict him and his wife Patsy for child abuse resulting in the death of of their daughter JonBenet.
"It's just more drama," the 69-year-old Ramsey says in the upcoming issue of People, The Denver Post reports. It remains unclear if Ramsey already knew about the vote to indict, but he reportedly does go on to say to the magazine that their attorney's had he and Patsy "totally prepared to go to jail" and that they had bail money set up for that possibility.
A grand jury voted to indict JonBenet Ramsey's parents in 1999 on charges of child abuse resulting in death but the prosecutor never signed the indictment, according to the new report by The Daily Camera.
Then-Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter told media back then that he did not believe his office had enough evidence to file any charges, though the Ramsey family remained prime suspects for years before being absolved in 2008.
Child abuse resulting in death charged with "knowingly and recklessly" is a Class II felony that could have resulted in up to 48 years in prison.
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.
Although there has not been any new evidence uncovered in the homicide case for some time, two new books that came out in 2012 shed new light on the young girl, her family and ask some troubling new questions.
The first book, published in March and written by JonBenet's father John Ramsey, titled "The Other Side of Suffering," chronicles John Ramsey's religious faith throughout his tumultuous life, including the death of his eldest daughter in a car accident, the international media attention to JonBenet Ramsey's still-unsolved murder and the loss of his wife Patsy to ovarian cancer in 2006.
During an ABC News interview with John Ramsey at the time of the book's release, Ramsey says that he now regrets putting his daughter in child beauty pageants. From the ABC News interview:
Patsy had [JonBenet] sitting atop a friend's convertible in the Christmas parade waving at the people lining the streets," Ramsey recalled. "Patsy's mother later told me that a strange man approached the car during the parade and it made her uncomfortable. I think about these things now and it makes me cringe. We were so naive. I now believe with all my heart that it's not a good idea to put your child on public display.
Published in June, the second book is by James Kolar, a former lead investigator in the JonBenet case, titled "Foreign Faction: Who Really Kidnapped JonBenet?" The book raises some new questions about the intruder theory -- the same theory that eventually led to JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, being cleared as suspects.
Kolar's theory is simple: there could not have been an intruder on the night of JonBenet's murder because of evidence that was overlooked or dismissed during the investigation. 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, according to The Daily Beast's exhaustive analysis of the book.
Among the contradicting evidence Kolar points to: fully intact cobwebs stretching over the window the intruder allegedly entered, DNA evidence found on the garrote cord used to strangle JonBenet and a child's toy that may have been responsible for some of the abrasions on JonBenet's body, rather than a stun gun which has been considered the source of some injuries.
John and Patsy Ramsey were prime suspects for years and repeatedly appeared on news channels defending their innocence and demanding justice for the murder of their young daughter. However, 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 John 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.
For a thorough timeline of the case's major moments, visit The Daily Camera's interactive timeline of events from 1996 through 2012.
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.
If she were alive today, JonBenet would be nearing her 23rd birthday on August 6.
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