- A new Netflix docuseries explores the JonBenét Ramsey murder case.
- Some surviving members of JonBenét’s family participated, but her brother Burke didn’t.
- Burke Ramsey has had a difficult relationship with the media and was previously cleared as a suspect.
Burke Ramsey was 9 years old when his family was thrust into the spotlight after his younger sister, JonBenét Ramsey, was found dead in their Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996.
The shocking and brutal nature of the killing (the 6-year-old was found with a strangulation device called a garrote embedded in her neck; an autopsy later revealed that her skull had been fractured) incited a media frenzy. The strange details of the still-unsolved murder — like the ransom note left behind that claimed JonBenét had been kidnapped and demanded $118,000 for her return, when her body had been in the home all along — have led true-crime fans to spend the ensuing decades poring over the case and forming their own theories about what really happened.
Many came to believe that someone in the Ramsey family was responsible for JonBenét’s death; they weren’t formally cleared as suspects until 2008. A new Netflix docuseries, “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?” explores how the initial investigation was faulty and accuses the original Boulder investigators, along with the media, of unfairly pointing suspicion toward the family.
“I can’t think of another family that’s been so brutalized so unfairly by the media,” director Joe Berlinger told Business Insider in an interview ahead of the docuseries’ premiere.
Burke Ramsey became (and remains) a particular target of suspicion among JonBenét theorists, but he didn’t participate in the new Netflix docuseries. Here’s what we know about Burke’s life since his sister’s murder and where he is today.
Theories that Burke Ramsey killed his sister JonBenét led to legal action
Burke, along with his parents, moved back to Atlanta, where the family had lived before Boulder, in the aftermath of JonBenét’s death. While Patsy and John Ramsey continued to do interviews in an attempt to combat the suspicion against them and encouraged authorities to keep investigating the case, Burke, then still a child, kept out of the spotlight.
In 2008, the Boulder District Attorney’s Office officially cleared the Ramsey family (including Burke and Patsy, who’d died two years earlier) of JonBenét’s murder after confirming with new testing that male DNA found on the child’s underwear didn’t match anyone in the family. Then-DA Mary Lacy also apologized in a letter to John Ramsey for the possibility that her office had contributed to “public perception that you might have been involved in this crime.”
The decision to clear the Ramsey family publicly has been controversial, and in the event of new DNA testing, as the Ramsey family and the Netflix docuseries are pushing for, all previously cleared suspects should be reconsidered.
According to the Daily Camera, a Boulder newspaper, Burke had been interviewed by investigators at least three times and reportedly appeared before the grand jury that investigated the case in 1999. At the time, the Boulder District Attorney’s office said Burke had never been under suspicion. (As the Netflix doc recounts, court documents unsealed in 2013 later revealed that the grand jury had voted to indict John and Patsy Ramsey on two counts each of child abuse resulting in JonBenét’s death, though then-DA Alex Hunter chose not to move forward with the indictment because he said the evidence wasn’t sufficient to prosecute them.)
In September 2016, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the crime, CBS aired the docuseries “The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey.” In it, a group that included former FBI agents, a forensic scientist, and a forensic pathologist reevaluated the evidence and theorized that Burke had killed JonBenét, likely accidentally, by striking her over the head after she took a piece of pineapple from his bowl and that their parents had written the ransom note to cover up how JonBenét died.
Burke’s attorneys filed defamation lawsuits against the network, producers, and the series’ hosts for $750 million later that year; he’d separately filed another lawsuit against one of the individual investigators from the special in October. Both parties confirmed in January 2019 that the CBS lawsuit had been settled for an undisclosed amount.
Burke, then 29, also gave his first and only public interview to date to Phil McGraw on the “Dr. Phil” show in 2016, days before the CBS special aired. He acknowledged knowing that his family had been suspected of killing JonBenét and once again denied that any of them were involved. He offered his own theory on the murder: that his sister had been killed by an intruder, likely someone who attended JonBenét’s beauty pageants.
When asked why he’d finally chosen to speak out, Burke said he wanted to honor his sister’s memory.
“I don’t want anyone to forget,” he told McGraw.
Where is Burke Ramsey now?
Since the 2016 “Dr. Phil” interview, Burke, now 37, has resumed living a private life. Public records show he currently appears to live in Michigan, where the Ramseys moved after leaving Atlanta.
John Ramsey told People in a 2012 interview that Burke was working as a software engineer. Speaking to ET after his interview with Burke, McGraw said Burke had graduated from Purdue University in 2010 and was working in the computer industry. At that time, Burke had a girlfriend, according to McGraw, though it’s unclear whether he’s currently in a relationship, married, or has kids.
“He’s a very private individual, but he has a great career and has a good relationship with his father,” McGraw told ET in 2016.
During the portion of the docuseries that recounts theories that Burke killed JonBenét, an on-screen text card explains that Burke declined to participate, “citing his treatments by the media and online websleuths.”
Berlinger, the director of the new Netflix docuseries on the case, told TODAY that Burke is “doing fine.”
He said that the docuseries team tried to reach Burke through John Ramsey and John Andrew Ramsey, who is John’s son and Burke’s half-brother. But according to Berlinger, Burke said he didn’t want to speak to them and they didn’t want to pressure him.
Both John and John Andrew participated extensively in the docuseries. In one interview in it, John Andrew called allegations that his brother had killed their sister “absolutely absurd.”
When speaking to BI, Berlinger named Burke as the one person whose perspective he’d have loved to have.
“I think he also has been so brutalized,” he said. “The theories against him are so incredulous.”
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