JonBenét Ramsey's Dad John Says He 'Would Have Been Happy to Die' to Escape the Pain of Her Murder

John Ramsey, the father of slain 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, is speaking out in a new docuseries about how he felt after being accused by police of killing his daughter — a theory he blames the media for amplifying.

“When we were under attack, so to speak, by the media and the police, it didn’t matter,” John says in the first episode of Netflix’s Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?, which began streaming Monday, Nov. 25. “We had lost our child. I mean, I would have been happy to die, quite frankly, to relieve the pain.”

The docuseries highlights the multiple suspects police investigated — including one who authorities believe falsely confessed — but DNA evidence has yet to link anyone to JonBenét’s Dec. 26, 1996, murder.

Earlier that morning, John’s wife Patsy called police after noticing their daughter was missing. On the call, Patsy, who has since died, frantically revealed that she’d discovered a chilling ransom note asking for $118,000  — the exact amount of a workplace bonus recently received by John —  for JonBenét’s safe return.

After John found JonBenét’s body, it was revealed that she’d been sexually assaulted and strangled in their home. The child beauty pageant queen had duct tape over her mouth and a garrote twisted around her neck.

JonBenét’s death was ruled a homicide and the parents quickly became persons of interest. Their son, Burke, who was 9 at the time of his sister’s murder, also fell under suspicion.

In 1998, a grand jury voted to indict the parents for child abuse resulting in death and accessory to a crime. But the district attorney at the time said there was not enough evidence to bring charges against the couple.

Then, in 2008, a statement by then-District Attorney Mary Lacy publicly apologized to the family for how the office placed suspicion on them. The statement announced that evidence had cleared JonBenet’s parents as well as Burke.

John has long maintained his innocence, and his wife Patsy did the same until her 2006 death due to ovarian cancer. He was interviewed in the docuseries and talked about how his distrust of the police impacted the couple’s involvement in the investigation.

For more about John Ramsey’s fight to see JonBenét’s murder solved in his lifetime, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up the new issue of People, on newsstands next week.

“We assumed that the police would show some level of discernment and wisdom and say, ‘Yeah, well this is crazy, to think [we] murdered our child,’” John recently told PEOPLE. “Well, they never did. They made that decision on day one, and tried desperately to prove it.” 

Today, John says he would like state-of-the-art labs that use genetic genealogy and other advanced DNA technology to crack the cold case by examining seven items from the crime scene that he says have never been tested or were examined with outdated methods.

The evidence also includes the ransom note and a suitcase found under an open basement window where some believe the killer entered and exited the home.

“We’re begging the police to engage,” he told PEOPLE. “There are cutting-edge DNA labs that want to help and who believe they can move the case forward.”