Did JonBenét Ramsey’s Parents Take a Lie Detector Test? How the Boulder Police Investigated the Child Pageant Queen’s Death — and Why a Netflix Doc Is Alleging They Didn’t Do Enough

When 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found dead in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colo., on Dec. 26, 1996, police didn’t have enough evidence to definitively identify and arrest her killer. Almost 30 years later, that’s still the case. 

Netflix’s Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? analyzes the alleged missteps the Boulder Police Department took, like not properly sealing off the crime scene and contributing to a media frenzy that focused heavily on her parents, John Bennett Ramsey and Patsy Ramsey, as suspects. He maintains his innocence, and Patsy did the same until her 2006 death due to ovarian cancer.

The Netflix docuseries, which starts streaming on Nov. 25, highlights the multiple suspects police investigated — including one who confessed to the killing — but DNA evidence has yet to link anyone to JonBenét’s murder.

“Many people think they know the JonBenét Ramsey story and have played armchair detective for three decades, often callously pointing a finger at the very people who suffered such an unthinkable loss,” director Joe Berlinger told Deadline in October 2024. “We reveal the deep flaws in how the case was originally handled, resulting in a sea of conspiracy theories that nearly destroyed the Ramsey family for a second time.” 

John was interviewed in the docuseries and talked about how his distrust of the police impacted their involvement in the investigation — specifically when it came to taking a lie detector test.

Here is everything to know about the investigation and why JonBenét Ramsey’s murder is still unsolved. 

JonBenét was reported missing on Dec. 26, 1996

In the early morning hours of Dec. 26, 1996, JonBenét was reported missing from her home in Boulder, Colo. Patsy told police she found a ransom note on the staircase near their kitchen that demanded $118,000 for their daughter’s safe return. It also said that the author of the note would call John that morning to set up the exchange. 

Despite the note’s instructions not to, Patsy and John called the police at 5:52 a.m. John then made arrangements to pay the ransom and was prepped by police on what to say when the kidnapper called.

The only people known to be inside the home at the time of JonBenét’s disappearance were her parents and her 9-year-old brother, Burke Ramsey.

Where the note came from, its two-page length and the specific amount of money demanded (which police later learned was almost the same amount as John’s previous Christmas bonus) led some investigators to believe that it had been staged. John never received a call from the alleged kidnapper. 

Police were accused of not properly securing the crime scene

Two detectives from the Boulder Police Department arrived at the Ramsey home a few minutes after the initial 911 call, along with a few family friends whom Patsy had called. While doing a preliminary search of the house, officers allegedly only sealed off JonBenét’s bedroom as a crime scene and allowed the family and their friends to roam freely inside the house for several hours, potentially contaminating crucial evidence. 

When John started getting nervous after the ransom call didn’t come in, an officer at the scene told him to search the house again and see if he could find anything “unusual.” He and his friend went down to the basement and discovered JonBenét’s body in a room where the kids kept a train set. She had been sexually assaulted, hit over the head and strangled with a handmade garrote, a type of handheld ligature.

The Ramseys believed it was an intruder

John has maintained throughout the decades-long investigation into JonBenét’s murder that he and his late wife believed an intruder was responsible for their daughter’s death, which autopsy reports confirm was caused by near-simultaneous strangulation and a blow to the skull. 

DNA evidence was also found on JonBenét’s clothes, which belonged to an unknown male. In an exclusive November 2024 interview, John claimed to PEOPLE that some of the evidence — including the garrote — has never been tested.

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

Police said the Ramseys were under “an umbrella of suspicion” 

Fears that the police were focusing on them as the prime suspects in JonBenét’s murder led John and Patsy to hire a lawyer days after their daughter’s death.

“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,’ ” he told PEOPLE. “Well, they never did. They made that decision on day one, and tried desperately to prove it,” John claimed.

The Ramseys were never charged in the case, despite a grand jury deciding in 1999 that John and Patsy had “unlawfully, knowingly, recklessly and feloniously permit[ted] a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation which posed a threat of injury to the child’s life or health.” The Boulder police also confirmed to the media that John and Patsy were under an “umbrella of suspicion,” but the prosecutor decided there was not enough evidence to continue pursuing a case against JonBenét’s parents.

Despite the prosecutor declining to pursue the case any further, one former detective, Steve Thomas, wrote a book in 2000, JonBenét: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, alleging that Patsy accidentally killed her daughter in a fit of rage over a bedwetting incident.

John and Patsy were formally cleared of any involvement in JonBenét’s murder in 2008. 

The Ramseys passed a private polygraph test in 2000

CBS reported in May 2000 that John and Patsy passed a privately conducted polygraph test during which they were asked if they killed JonBenét. Polygraph examiner Ed Gelb told reporters at the time, “Neither John nor Patsy were attempting deception when they gave the answers.”

These results came after a back-and-forth with Boulder police who wanted the tests to be conducted by the FBI rather than the expert the Ramseys had hired. 

John and Patsy’s attorney told The Washington Post in April 2000 that the parents didn’t want the FBI involved in the test because he claimed the organization’s polygraph exam is designed to “intimidate and interrogate” rather than determine the truth. 

The polygraph test may have changed public opinion of the Ramseys but did not change their legal status as polygraph results are not admissable in court.

John Mark Karr confessed to the murder in 2006

The Netflix docuseries also outlines the multiple suspects police questioned throughout the investigation — including one who confessed. 

In 2006, a man named John Mark Karr was arrested in Bangkok after he claimed to have killed the Colorado toddler. He confessed during a four-year-long email correspondence with documentary producer Michael Tracey, but the confession did not hold up. Karr’s DNA didn’t match what was found on JonBenét’s body, and his family claimed that he was with them at the time of the murder. 

Another suspect, Gary Howard Oliva, who spent eight years in prison on child pornography charges, was first named as a person of interest in a 2002 episode of the CBS show 48 Hours Investigates. He never confessed to the crime, but he was in the Boulder area when it happened and had a photo of JonBenét with him when he was arrested in 2000. However, police said his DNA did not match the evidence found on JonBenét.

According to the City of Boulder, detectives have spoken to over 1,000 people in connection to the crime. 

JonBenét’s murder remains unsolved

As of November 2024, no one has been charged in the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Her father told PEOPLE that the Boulder Police Department has allegedly refused to send certain pieces of evidence, like the garotte, for more modern styles of DNA testing.

“We’re not asking them to do anything weird,” John said. “Just do your job. Test the DNA.” 

In December 2023, the City of Boulder released an update on the homicide investigation, announcing that the police department had asked the Colorado Cold Case Review Team for recommendations on whether new forensic testing technologies could produce “new intelligence or leads to solve the case.” 

Because the investigation into JonBenét’s 1996 murder is still ongoing, the specific recommendations made will not be released to the public.