What evidence was found at the scene of JonBenét Ramsey’s murder?

The key to solving JonBenét Ramsey’s murder may lie in evidence found at the crime scene nearly 30 years ago.

When police searched the six-year-old’s home in Boulder, Colorado, on December 26, 1996, they seized several items, including a ransom note and the murder weapon. Male DNA was found in some pieces of evidence, but it was never matched to a potential murderer. Her father, John Ramsey, claims this is partly because outdated testing methods were used and partly because some items were not tested at all.

“Of the items initially sent to labs, six or seven were returned untested,” he claimed to PEOPLE in November 2024. “We don’t know why they haven’t been tested, but they haven’t been tested. “Previously, JonBenét was strangled with the garrote, and some items have just been returned.”

On November 26, 2024, the Boulder Police Department released a statement on

The Netflix documentaries 2024 Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? also alleges that the crime scene may have been tampered with in the hours after the toddler’s disappearance as the Ramseys invited friends over.

A detective even had John conduct a search himself, during which he discovered JonBenét’s body in the basement. Her autopsy report confirmed that she had been sexually abused and died from strangulation and a blow to the skull.

So what happened to the items that were found at the crime scene? Here’s everything you need to know about the eight pieces of evidence that could potentially lead police to JonBenét Ramsey’s murderer.

A ransom note that Patsy found in the stairwell

In the early hours of December 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey, who died in 2006, is said to have found a handwritten ransom note on a staircase near the kitchen.

“Listen carefully!” read the two-page note. “We are a group of individuals representing a small foreign faction. We respect your company, but not the country in which it operates. At this point, your daughter is in our possession. She is safe and unharmed, and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions carefully.”

The alleged kidnappers demanded $118,000 in exchange for JonBenét’s return. John was instructed to withdraw the ransom in cash and to wait for a call between 8 and 10 a.m. that day. Police later learned that the amount was almost the same as his previous Christmas bonus and that the letter had been written from a notepad found in Ramsey’s home.

Accordingly Cold caseSome FBI agents assumed the note was fake because of its length and the amount of money requested. Fingerprint tests on the pages were conducted in 1997, but noisy The daily camerathe results were inconclusive.

Douglas Monsoor, a senior criminologist with the Lakewood Police Department, told the newspaper: “When identification is made of latent print material, all that is said is that this person had contact with this object at some point.”

A 911 call Patsy made the morning JonBenét disappeared

Although the note also warned against calling police for help, Patsy reported her daughter missing to Boulder police at 5:52 a.m. The operator who answered the call, Kim Archuletta, claimed this in the 2016 CBS docuseries The case of: JonBenét Ramsey that Patsy had unsuccessfully tried to hang up the phone after telling her about the ransom demand.

“It sounded like she said, ‘Okay, we called the police, now what?’ said the emergency operator. “And that bothered me. So I stayed on the phone and tried to understand what was being said. It sounded like there were two voices in the room, maybe three different ones… To me it seemed rehearsed.”

Patsy, John and their son Burke Ramsey, who was nine years old at the time of his sister’s murder, were cleared of any involvement in 2008 by then-Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy.

Unidentified male DNA found on JonBenét’s clothing

In her statement to the Ramsey family in 2008, then-prosecutor Mary Lacy said DNA evidence on JonBenét’s clothing led to her decision to exonerate her. She wrote: “The match of male DNA on two different items of clothing worn by the victim at the time of the murder makes it clear to us that an unknown man handled these items of clothing.”

Accordingly Cold caseDNA was found in her underwear that also matched the DNA under her fingernails. In 2016, 9News reported that the same DNA was found on JonBenét’s long johns – a discovery that led Lacy to believe that police had the killer’s DNA profile.

However, investigators never linked this evidence to a potential suspect. Former Boulder prosecutor Stan Garnett told PEOPLE in 2020 that because of the “compromise” of the crime scene, the evidence was not in a state “where you could really say anything definitively.”

A handmade garrote used to strangle the toddler

When John found his daughter dead in their basement, she had a garrote tied around her neck.

This hand ligature was made from a string and a broken brush handle from Patsy’s art supplies. JonBenét’s father claimed so True Crime News in 2024 that the Garrote also possesses unidentified male DNA, but to his knowledge this has never been tested.

“If they test it and just don’t tell me, that’s great,” John said, “but I have no reason to believe that.”

A piece of duct tape was found on JonBenét’s mouth

JonBenét also had a piece of duct tape on her mouth, which John said Cold case He moved away when he found her before carrying her upstairs. He threw the tape onto the white blanket covering his daughter.

“She had duct tape over her mouth and her hands were tied behind her back,” John said in the series. “And I immediately peeled off the tape and tried to untie her hands, but the knot was very tight, I couldn’t untie it.”

Retired Boulder police Detective Bob Whitson recounted Cold case that “there may have been traces left on the tape if it had not been removed.”

A suitcase under a broken basement window

As John and a friend searched the house, they noticed an open and broken window in the basement. He told the Netflix series that he had broken the same window the previous year after losing his keys, but remembered that the glass had been repaired. They saw a suitcase under the window.

“The suitcase shouldn’t have been there,” John said Cold case. “It was placed there like it was a step because the window was pretty high… you needed a ladder or a step stool or something to get up.”

Found a piece of rope in the guest room

A piece of rope was found in a guest room next to JonBenét’s room that Lou Smit, a detective who came out of retirement to help Boulder police with the murder investigation, claimed did not belong to the Ramseys.

“No one in the Ramsey family can identify it,” he said in a pre-recorded video diary seen in Cold case. “There’s a possibility that the… intruder took this to use as a restraint as well and just left it up there.”

Accordingly, Smit died in 2010 at the age of 75 The New York Times.

An unknown boot print in the basement near where JonBenét was found

The daily camera reported in 2000 that police found a partial footprint marked “Hi Tec” in the Ramsey basement. No one in the family had a similar shoe.

Ollie Gray, a private investigator hired by the Ramseys, told the Colorado newspaper that he gave police a pair of Hi-Tec boots so they could compare them to the prints. Then-Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner recounted The daily camera“When you look at them, you get a pretty good look at them. You really can’t tell.”

Boulder police have not confirmed whether the boots actually matched.

In Cold caseSmit also claimed that “a faint impression of possibly a footprint” was visible on the suitcase found under the basement window.