JonBenét Ramsey’s 2 Brothers: What to Know About John Andrew and Burke Ramsey — and What They Really Think Happened to Their Sister

Before the 1996 murder of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, her oldest brother, John Andrew Ramsey, said the Ramseys were a “regular family.”

“It is really important to remember that prior to Christmas Day of 1996, we were just a regular family,” he said in Netflix’s new three-part docuseries Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?. “We weren’t perfect, we were just a regular family with a regular life.”

JonBenét was the youngest of five siblings. Her oldest brother John Andrew, as well as her two sisters, Melinda and Elizabeth (who died in a car accident in 1992), were born to John Ramsey and his first wife, Lucinda Pasch. After their split, John wed second wife Patsy, with whom he welcomed a son, Burke, and JonBenét.

Initially, JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were considered primary suspects in the investigation, but neither were ever charged with a crime. Burke, who was 9 years old at the time of JonBenét’s murder, was later accused of being involved in her death, an allegation he and his family have vehemently denied. John Andrew was out of state with his sister Melinda when the slaying occurred.

While JonBenét’s only surviving sister, Melinda, has stayed out of the public eye, her brothers have opened up about her unsolved murder over the years. Both John Andrew and JonBenét’s father, John, appeared in the Netflix docuseries about the cold case while Burke declined to participate. The series examines the local police’s handling of the case and what the Ramseys believe to be authorities’ missteps.

Here’s everything to know about JonBénet Ramsey’s older brothers, John Andrew and Burke Ramsey, and what they’ve said about her unsolved murder in the decades since.

John Andrew Ramsey

John Andrew Ramsey was born to John Ramsey and his first wife, Lucinda Pasch, in the 1970s. According to Vanity Fair, John Andrew and his older sisters, Elizabeth and Melinda, grew up in Atlanta. He was about 13 years old when his younger sister, JonBenét was born.

In 1996, John Andrew was in Atlanta with his sister Melinda to spend Christmas with their mother. When he found out that JonBenét was missing, he was on a flight to spend the holidays with John, Patsy and his half-siblings in Michigan at the Ramseys’ vacation home.

“I think I was paged or I was handed a note by one of the flight attendants saying that I needed to call home,” John Andrew told ABC News’ 20/20 in 2021, adding that he and Melinda immediately changed their travel plans. “I yelled and screamed and kicked to get on the airplane to Denver … I remember just thinking and processing it all.”

By the time John Andrew and Melinda arrived at the Ramsey family home in Boulder, JonBenét’s body had been found and the property was labeled a crime scene.

“JonBenét was the kid that kept the conversation at the dinner table going,” he told 20/20 of his younger half-sister. “You know, she would go around and ask everybody how their day was and what they did and [she] was just an energetic and fun kid.”

John Andrew, whose oldest sister Elizabeth died in a car accident in 1992, said that losing another sibling was heartbreaking.

“It was a lot of emotions coming back from losing my oldest sister, Beth. You kind of think you’re immune from that happening again,” he said. “When it happens a second time, it’s an unthinkable tragedy.”

John Andrew has been vocal about trying to solve his younger sister’s murder, as well as vindicating his family, who he said suffered greatly from the publicity surrounding the case. He has also been adamant about wanting investigators to use DNA evidence — which previously cleared his father and Patsy of wrongdoing, according to The New York Times — to find JonBenét’s killer. In 2024, he appeared in Netflix’s Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?.

Burke Ramsey

Burke Ramsey was born to John and his second wife, Patsy, in Atlanta. He was 9 years old when JonBenét was killed and has remained largely private ever since, graduating from Purdue University in 2010 with a computer and information technology.

In the two-part CBS docuseries The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey, released in September 2016, investigators theorized that Burke accidentally killed his sister and that their parents covered it up. The series cited, among other things, Burke’s seemingly emotionless demeanor during police questioning, which legal analyst Scott Robinson and the Boulder Police both told PEOPLE was not evidence whatsoever of his guilt.

“You won’t find any evidence because that’s not what happened,” Burke said of the cover-up allegations during a three-part Dr. Phil interview that aired later that month. He later added, “It blows my mind. What more evidence do you need that we didn’t do it?”

Burke’s Dr. Phil interview marked the first time he spoke publicly since the murder. In the interview, he also said he didn’t leave his bedroom when his family was frantically searching for JonBenét, explaining, “I guess I kind of like to avoid conflict or, I don’t know, I guess I just felt safer there.” He added that he isn’t typically “the worried type … I guess part of me [didn’t] want to know what’s going on.”

He also revealed how he first learned that his sister died.

“My dad told me JonBenét is in heaven now, and he started crying, then I started crying,” he recalled. “I don’t think I said anything. I didn’t believe it at first.”

Burke also told Dr. Phil that he knows many people believe he or his parents murdered his sister, but that he vehemently denies the allegations and maintains that an intruder — specifically, a sexual predator who may have seen JonBenét at a pageant — is the killer.

After The Case Of aired, Burke and his family filed a $150 million libel lawsuit against Dr. Werner Spitz, a forensic pathologist quoted in the docuseries, and a $750 million lawsuit against CBS for defamation. CBS said in a statement to PEOPLE that they stood by their programming, and in January 2019, both parties reached an undisclosed settlement, per Reuters.

While Burke declined to participate in Netflix’s 2024 docuseries Cold Case: Who Killed John Benét Ramsey?, his older brother John Andrew came to his defense in the series. “It’s just simply not fair to him [Burke]. You look back at pictures of 9-year-old Burke … it’s just absolutely absurd to think, ‘Oh yeah, he could’ve killed his sister and delivered this level of violence,’ ” John Andrew said.