New DNA Evidence Clears Ramsey Family in JonBenet Death

[Dos Equis]

I am not convinced.  What is the "DNA"?  Hair?  Semen?  This case will probably never be solved.  The likely most knowledge person (Patsy) is gone.   

New DNA Evidence Clears Ramsey Family in JonBenet Death
Wednesday, July 09, 2008

AP

Officials cleared the immediate family of JonBenet Ramsey in her death Wednesday thanks to new DNA evidence that links the murder to a still unknown man.

District Attorney Mary T. Lacy in Boulder, Colo., gave the girl's father, John Ramsey, a letter Wednesday that stated that "significant new evidence convinces us that it is appropriate, given the circumstances of this case, to state that we do not consider your immediate family, including you, your wife, Patsy, and your son, Burke, to be under any suspicion in the commission of this crime."

Click here to read the letter.

DNA in JonBenet Case Left Behind in Skin Cells

JonBenet, a 6-year-old beauty contestant, was found dead in her family's Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996. She had been reported missing early in the morning and was found by her father in the family's basement. She'd been strangled and bludgeoned and had signs of sexual molestation.

Patsy Ramsey said she found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for her daughter.

JonBenet Ramsey In the letter, obtained by FOXNews.com, Lacy said that a "touch DNA" test by Bode Technology Group outside of Washington, D.C., found new evidence on long johns and underwear worn by JonBenet. Touch DNA testing scrapes clothing for signs of genetic material.

"The match of male DNA on two separate items of clothing worn by the victim at the time of the murder makes it clear to us that an unknown male handled these items," Lacy wrote. "Despite substantial efforts over the years to identify the source of this DNA, there is no innocent explanation for its incriminating presence at three sites on these two different items of clothing that JonBenet was wearing at the time of her murder."

The letter also included an apology.

"To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry," the letter said. "No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion, especially when public officials have not had sufficient evidence to initiate a trial in a court of law."

The apology came too late for Patsy Ramsey, who died June 24, 2006, of ovarian cancer at the age of 49 in Atlanta, where the family moved after JonBenet's death.

"My first thought was obviously I wish Patsy Ramsey was here with us to be able to at least share vindication of her family," said L. Lin Wood, a Ramsey family attorney.

"There are many people in this country, if not around the world, that also owe John and Patsy Ramsey and Burke Ramsey [their son] an apology," he said.

Investigators have been stymied by the case, which became an overnight media sensation, thanks in part to photographs of the young victim in makeup and tiaras at beauty pageants.

For years after the slaying, checkout-aisle tabloids and crime shows went after the couple. News reports also cast suspicion on JonBenet's older brother, Burke. Lacy's predecessor as district attorney, Alex Hunter, said in 1997 that the parents were under an "umbrella of suspicion."

Lacy has previously expressed doubts that the parents were involved. In 2003, a federal judge handling a defamation lawsuit in Atlanta involving the Ramseys said evidence in the case was more consistent with the theory that an intruder killed JonBenet, not her parents, and Lacy said she agreed.

In 2006, investigators arrested a suspect, John Mark Karr, in Thailand after he made what turned out to be a false confession to JonBenet's murder. Charges were dropped when officials couldn't corroborate the former teacher's claims.

Lacy pledged in the letter to continue the investigation. "Solving this crime remains our goal," she wrote.

"We intend in the future to treat you as the victims of this crime with the sympathy due you because of the horrific loss you suffered," Lacy said. "Otherwise, we will continue to refrain from publicly discussing the evidence in this case."

John Ramsey, a software entrepreneur, has said in interviews he believes the case will be solved.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,379041,00.html

[240 is Back]

Why would you even have a pic like that saved on your hard drive?

First image that comes up when you google 'mooning'
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=mooning&gbv=2

[240 is Back]

why were all the responses removed?

I mentioned this thread had nothing to do with politics, and my post was then removed?

[Hugo Chavez]

why were all the responses removed?

I mentioned this thread had nothing to do with politics, and my post was then removed?

it's a close call.  my personal instinct would have been to put it in general.  But one of the topics ok here is local government.  There's a big issue around the failures of the DA and tax payer paid individuals who worked the case and blew it.  There's also a national interest this that relates to things like capital punishment and other criminal concerns that are very political.  Like I said, it's borderline.  Someone could make the case either way.  I don't get hellbent over having every political thread moved here.  You yourself have posted politically in gossip quite a bit.  BB posted it, I'm not going to get into a move war with him.

[Dos Equis]

it's a close call.  my personal instinct would have been to put it in general.  But one of the topics ok here is local government.  There's a big issue around the failures of the DA and tax payer paid individuals who worked the case and blew it.  There's also a national interest this that relates to things like capital punishment and other criminal concerns that are very political.  Like I said, it's borderline.  Someone could make the case either way.  I don't get hellbent over having every political thread moved here.  You yourself have posted politically in gossip quite a bit.  BB posted it, I'm not going to get into a move war with him.

Not a big deal to me, but there are a number of political issues involved in this case.  We post law enforcement topics/issues here all the time.  Definitely a First Amendment issue, because Ramsey was suing people all over the country for defamation.

Rather than cry about a topic being here, if someone (not you) isn't interested they simply shouldn't read it.  I ignore topics that don't interest me all the time. 

[Dos Equis]

 

Case shows importance of DNA tests, Ramsey says
     
BOULDER, Colorado (CNN) -- The father of murder victim JonBenet Ramsey hopes that something worthwhile can result from his family's tragedy: More emphasis on collecting DNA from every felon in the United States.

On Wednesday, authorities announced that recently developed "touch DNA" technology had cleared all members of JonBenet Ramsey's family of her slaying. The family had lived under a cloud of suspicion for nearly 12 years.

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy formally apologized in a letter to John Ramsey.

In an interview with CNN affiliate KUSA, John Ramsey said what is needed is "a law that requires police agencies to DNA print individuals arrested for felony and put it in the national database."

"We have a great national database that's been set up; it's been in place for a number of years with very little population in it. There's a huge backlog of DNA samples from crimes scenes and some states submit samples, some states don't."

John Ramsey had a message for lawmakers.

"For those that will have the authority and the power to pass this DNA legislation I think is so important. . . It just hasn't gotten on the radar in a lot of state legislatures, and it needs to be there.

"If we could achieve that then at least I would feel like we've contributed something to better society," Ramsey said.

As it stands now, it could still take years for authorities to arrest the real killer in the JonBenet case because of a backlog in the FBI's DNA database, the Ramsey family attorney said Thursday.

Atlanta attorney Lin Wood said there is a backlog of over "tens of thousands" of DNA evidence-related crime cases that have yet to be put into the DNA database.

Wood pointed to the Colorado murder case of 23-year-old Savannah Chase that recently got a DNA match 10 years after the crime as an example of how long a family sometimes has to wait.

"We know DNA evidence identifies killers. We know DNA exonerates innocent individuals, but unfortunately sometimes it takes years before you get that hit," Wood told CNN's "American Morning."  Watch what else Wood had to say »

Prosecutor Lacy apologized Wednesday for the suspicions that had surrounded the Ramsey family since the 1996 discovery of 6-year-old JonBenet's body.  Follow the timeline »

Late last year, Lacy ordered a test using new methodology known as "touch" testing on genetic material found on a pair of long johns that had been pulled up over the girl's underwear. That material matched DNA that was found on the girl's underwear and under her fingernails in a test conducted in 1998. The DNA belongs to an unidentified man, Lacy said.

This second match was "powerful evidence" that allows investigators to believe that the Ramsey family were victims in the crime and not suspects, Lacy said Wednesday.

John Ramsey found his daughter's body in the basement of the family's Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996. The girl had been strangled and beaten.

Early on in the case, Boulder police said that the young girl's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and their son, Burke, were under "an umbrella of suspicion" in JonBenet's death, although they were never officially named as suspects.

Wood praised Lacy's work Thursday and said he hoped a DNA match could be found soon.

"I am very hopeful it will happen and I'd like to believe that it will not be in the too distant future," Wood said.

John Ramsey also told CNN affiliate KUSA that his wife, who died in 2006 after a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer, would also be "thankful for the continuing efforts to find the killer."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/10/ramsey.dna/index.html

[Dos Equis]

Good discussion.  "Cleared."   

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0807/09/ng.01.html