It’s one among America’s most well-known chilly circumstances, and he thinks it may be solved.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger helms the brand new three-part Netflix documentary, “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey.”
Premiering Monday, Nov. 25, the docuseries explores the well-known tragic case of the 6-year-old magnificence pageant star, who was murdered and sexually assaulted in her own residence in 1996. Twenty-eight years later, the perpetrator nonetheless hasn’t been caught.
“I think a lot of the material that has been done in the past tries to have their cake and eat it, too,” Berlinger instructed The Submit, referring to the slew of earlier documentaries and TV specials about JonBenet Ramsey.
“Or worse, it comes to the wrong conclusion.”
The documentary covers how the native Boulder, Colo., police division mishandled the case, and the way the following media circus forged a cloud of suspicion on the Ramsey household that hangs over them practically 30 years later.
In 2013, newly unsealed court docket papers revealed that JonBenet’s mother and father — mom Patsy, who died of most cancers in 2006, and father John, 80, who’s interviewed on-screen within the docuseries — have been indicted for being complicit in her homicide. The district lawyer on the time, Alex Hunter, refused to signal the indictment papers and declined to prosecute, citing an absence of proof.
“I am firmly convinced that the Ramsey family is innocent. And I am also firmly convinced that this case can be solved, if the Boulder Police Department finally does what it’s supposed to do,” mentioned Berlinger.
Berlinger, who additionally co-directed the “Paradise Lost” documentary, which helped launch the West Memphis Three from jail, identified that DNA expertise has superior at this time. So, he believes it’s not a misplaced trigger to lastly resolve the JonBenet Ramsey case.
“There still seems to be this institutional lack of will to ultimately solve the case, because of what I believe was extreme mishandling at the outset,” he mentioned.
“I don’t think there’s been a good comprehensive documentary series that has really analyzed this case that will also hopefully put a little pressure on the authorities to do the right thing.”
Berlinger famous that it wasn’t laborious to get JonBenet’s father, John, to agree to seem within the documentary.
“John Ramsey agreed to sit down with us, did not ask to be paid, and was not paid — we don’t pay our subjects — and asked for no editorial input. No questions were off limits. To me, that is an 80-year-old guy who…wants to get that case solved. It’s just unthinkable that the family had anything to do with this.”
Berlinger mentioned he believes that many “likely suspects” have been dominated out on the time of the homicide, due to the defective DNA evaluation on the time.
“I think all suspects now have to be put back on the table, including the Ramseys. And they would be the first ones to say, ‘Sure, put this back on the table, but let’s do the DNA testing.’ This is not trial by television. I don’t want to do to people what was done to the Ramseys,” he added.
“We want the proper authorities to reinvestigate this case, and the potential suspects after the DNA is properly retested.”
As for who did it?
Berlinger mentioned, “Sadly, there are a lot of people in the world who are attracted to little girls, and can do horrible things to them. [An intruder] is a much more plausible scenario than the family having been involved, if you look at some of the basic facts in the case.”
