By Romey Norton - November 25, 2024
What parent would ever strangle their child? This heart-breaking, gut-wrenching docuseries by Academy Award-nominated director Joe Berlinger and Netflix, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey, delves into the unsolved case of who killed pretty pageant sweetheart JonBenét.
This case has spurred many theories, book deals, and documentaries, mostly speculating that the parents and/or brother killed JonBenét. With no concrete evidence, this case remains a mystery. The one thing it does show is how powerful the media and theories can be.
The three-part doc explores the steps and missteps authorities made, and the media circus surrounding this murder case. Interestingly, there is an insight into how the police could take new steps to finally bring the killer to justice. Will this decades-long case finally be coming to a close?
On Dec. 26, 1996, when 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was kidnapped, a note was left with a very specific number asking for $118,000. This led the police to think the number was bogus. No kidnapped ever called, and when investigators were searching the large house, they found a lifeless body. It was agreed that JonBenét was strangled to death, after being sexually assaulted. The investigation is deep, as there is so much complexity surrounding the evidence found how it could be traced to the killer, and how the killing took place.
The series includes first-class interviews with people involved in the case, including detectives (some now retired), JonBenét’s father, journalists, filmmakers, and more. The docuseries features multiple images and footage shown from the original case, and footage from interviews, police interviews, the pageants, and many TV shows when the case became popular. We also hear the distressing call Patsy made to the police once she knew her child was missing.
Things blew up and became out of control once the tabloids got involved. The sexualization of children in pageants is vile and there are sections in this docuseries where my jaw dropped with the ideas and visualisations people were having when looking at videos of JonBenét and then blaming the parents for ‘sexualising’ her, which was the ‘reason’ for her kidnap and murder. The father was then accused of sexual abuse due to ‘odd’ photos he had of her in his office. The dots are hard to connect, but people connect them anyway. Doctors/paediatricians ruled out sexual abuse by the father, quickly.
In the third episode, we hear a distressing recording from a man called Daxis describing how he killed JonBenét. It’s quite hard to hear and comprehend. Daxis contacted an investigative journalist to confess what he’d done. He was into erotic asphyxiation and describes the whole ordeal in detail. Patsy was battling ovarian cancer at the time, and this eventually took her life after fighting for many years she agreed to speak to Daxis, but he never called.
Daxis wanted an original photo of JonBenét, and when offered the original he gave a P.O Box in Thailand, where he was followed and arrested. Daxis turned out to be John Mark Karr - a child predator teaching in an elementary school. With a criminal record, multiple complaints, and heading for trial in the US, he fled. He was finding work aboard.
While all this is captivating, why leave a ransom note? There are so many questions left unanswered and unexplained. And while this documentary sheds light, the police won’t release any panel recommendations and won’t confirm if DNA tests are being conducted.
With an open end, as this case is still unsolved, the mystery of who killed JonBenét continues.
While Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey is an interesting documentary series, there is a piece of me that just thinks it’s another way to sensationalize and make money from an unsolved case, as I don’t feel it offered anything we haven’t heard or seen before.
Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey is streaming now on Netflix
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