JonBenet Ramsey's father has high hopes for fifth Colorado chief to take on 30-year murder case

FIRST ON FOX — John Ramsey, father of 1996 murder victim JonBenet Ramsey, praised the City of Boulder in Colorado for officially naming a new police chief Sept. 6.

Chief Stephen Redfearn, who served as the interim chief for the Boulder Police Department starting in January, is the fifth police chief at BPD to take on the JonBenet Ramsey case nearly 30 years after the 6-year-old beauty pageant participant was mysteriously murdered in her home Dec. 26, 1996.

"He's good. I like him," Ramsey, 80, told Fox News Digital of Redfearn Tuesday, calling his new appointment "good news."

Ramsey said his first goal with the new police chief is to request an in-person meeting. The Ramsey family is entitled to an annual face-to-face meeting with the police department, which has not happened so far this year, he explained.

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JonBenet Ramsey's father is praising the appointment of a new Boulder Police Department chief. (Fox News Digital/handouts/ Investigation Discovery)

He described Redfearn as "a competent fellow" who was hired "from outside the system" rather than "promoted from within," which is a positive, he said, because Ramsey feels BPD has historically been unfair to him and his family. 

In 1999, a grand jury indicted both John and his wife, Patsy Ramsey, for child abuse resulting in JonBenet's death, but Alex Hunter, the district attorney at the time, refused to sign the indictment, citing a lack of evidence that would warrant criminal charges against the parents.

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John and Patsy Ramsey, the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, meet with a small group of the local Colorado media after four months of silence in Boulder, Colo., May 1, 1997.  (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

Ramsey would like BPD to turn over evidence in his daughter's nearly 30-year-old murder case to the FBI, "at a minimum," so that federal officials can test and retest evidence for possible external DNA, including external male DNA that federal officials disclosed in 1997.

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Evidence that has never been tested for traces of DNA includes the garrote found around JonBenet's neck, a ransom note found in the Ramsey house on the morning of the murder, a suitcase found in the basement that authorities believe the killer used to escape out a window, an unknown flashlight found on the Ramsey family's kitchen counter the morning of the murder and unknown rope found in her brother Burke Ramsey's room that day, according to public records initially obtained by journalist Paula Woodward, as Fox News Digital previously reported.

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JonBenet Ramsey, right, was murdered in her family's Boulder, Colo., home Dec. 26, 1996. This undated photo provided by the family shows her with her brother Burke. (Ramsey family handout)

"We have an unidentified male DNA result from the testing they did in 1997, which … by today's standards, it was primitive," Ramsey explained. "But we have an unidentified male DNA sample, which was reported to the police in January 1997. They kept that a secret because it conflicted with their conclusion that we were guilty. How do we explain that away? Which they tried desperately to do."

He added that the reason his family wants new testing is because "these cutting-edge [genetic genealogy] labs need fresh samples to do the work they do."

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JonBenet Ramsey was mysteriously murdered in her family's Boulder, Colo., home in December 1996. (Ramsey family collection/Discovery+)

The City of Boulder issued a press release saying Redfearn joined BPD as a deputy chief in 2021 after a 25-year career in police service, which began when he was a cadet and 911 dispatcher during the Columbine High School mass shooting. He then joined the Aurora Police Department for 20 years, where he worked in a number of positions from patrol officer to division chief. 

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"I am honored to be able to lead the talented officers and employees of the Boulder Police Department as we work collaboratively and proactively with our community to make policing equitable and effective in its core mission. We often think about our role ‘to protect and serve,’ but we also have an opportunity and an obligation to prevent harm," Redfearn said in a Sept. 6 statement. 

"We’ll do this through a re-evaluation of our policies, best-practices training, a focus on employee well-being, and, absolutely, a renewed commitment to engaging with community. That is what policing is about."

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JonBenet Ramsey would have turned 34 Aug. 6, 2024. (Ramsey family)

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The Boulder Police Department said "Chief Redfearn has continued to have conversations with the Ramsey family, and there are no plans to change that."

Ramsey noted that Redfearn is "the fifth police chief we've been faced with in 30 years, which is crazy."

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"But the good news is that the last two have come from outside the system, which is very important," he said.