Exclusive – JonBenét Ramsey's father, John Ramsey, says the loss of his two daughters over a four-year period in the 1990s was “challenging” and ultimately… And his faith was strong.
Ramsey made these comments about faith while thinking about a 6-year-old John Bennett was killed 28 years ago, When he found her dead in the basement of their home in Boulder, Colorado, the day after Christmas 1996.
“I don't know anything worse for anyone than losing a child. I've been through a lot of things: divorce, I lost my job, I lost my life savings,” Ramsey said. Fox News Digital. “But losing a child was often much more painful and a much greater loss of what life meant to the parents.”
He experienced this loss twice — once in 1992, when his eldest daughter, Beth, was killed in a car accident, and again in 1996, when JonBenet was murdered.
JonBenet Ramsay, left, and her father John, right. (Netflix)
“When I lost my daughter Beth four years before I lost JonBenet, it brought me to my knees,” Ramsey recalls. “I was so devastated. … I was completely unprepared for it.” “It also challenged my faith. How could a loving God allow this to happen to an innocent child? But then, over the next few years, a lot of soul-searching, thinking, and talking with friends helped me process this part of my life. The loss, which was… “Maybe losing my faith, too.”
After Beth's death, Ramsey began to think about whether there was “more to life than what we see and experience here on Earth.” He described finding his faith as a process that took several years.
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John and Patsy Ramsey, parents of JonBenet Ramsey, meet with local Colorado media after four months of silence in Boulder, Colorado, May 1, 1997. (Helen Richardson/The Denver Post)
“And when I lost JonBenet, it was rock solid,” he said of his faith. “Faith is something you have in your heart. I think I'm a naturally left-brained person. I was an engineer and I learned that way. You're always looking for evidence and facts. So it's not abnormal to fall back into, 'Wait a minute, I'm not sure I believe.'” …But if faith reaches your heart, and you wrestle with the whys and what-ifs…that is very solid.
Ramsey said he believes his two daughters are in heaven, although he personally cannot imagine what that looks like.
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The JonBenet Ramsey murder case has remained unsolved for more than two decades. (Ramsey family newsletter)
For years after her death, his family did not celebrate Christmas, but they decided that putting an end to the holiday celebrations was not fair to her older brother, Burke, who was 9 years old at the time of her death.
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“It was very difficult. We didn't have a Christmas tree. We didn't decorate the house, and we just made it work. We just said, 'Well, that's not fair to our youngest son, Burke,' who at the time was a toddler.” 9 years, so, we tried to do things that would get his life back to normal as best we could, and celebrating Christmas was one of those things that – after that, I think maybe three years – we just said, “Okay,” this is why we need to do With that from “Yes, Burke, and lighten up on this celebration again.”
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JonBenet's murder has not been solved Although the police initially had a list of suspects they considered, including the Ramses themselves. The Ramsey family was cleared of any wrongdoing in 2008.
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Police also arrested a suspect named John Mark Carr in Thailand in 2006 after he confessed to killing JonBenet, but prosecutors dropped the charges against Carr because his DNA did not match hers. Found at the crime scene.
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Ramsey wants police to retest certain evidence for traces of DNA, including exogenous male DNA uncovered by federal officials in 1997, and test other items for the first time using modern genetic genealogy testing laboratories, which have made significant progress over the past decade. Several decades-old cold cases have been solved in recent years thanks to DNA testing.
John Ramsey is still searching for answers 28 years after his daughter was murdered. (Netflix)
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There are more than 20 important pieces of evidence in the JonBenet murder case that have never been tested.
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While it is unclear whether officials will be able to find or identify any suspects in the case by partnering with an independent lab that has access to private databases, Ramsey hopes this is the next step for him in his quest for justice. To his daughter. Whether it produces results or not.
He previously told Fox News Digital that he planned to meet Boulder Police Department in January to discuss the possibilities of DNA testing.
