BOULDER, Colo. — Citing new DNA tests, prosecutors on Wednesday cleared JonBenet Ramsey's parents and brother in the 1996 killing of the 6-year-old beauty queen and apologized to the family for casting the cloud of suspicion that hung over them for more than a decade.
Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy said the tests point to an "unexplained third party." She released a copy of a letter she sent to John Ramsey that said: "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."
Lacy said prosecutors don't consider any member of the Ramsey family to be a suspect.
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.
John Ramsey found his daughter's strangled and bludgeoned body in the basement of the family's home in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996. Patsy Ramsey said she found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for her daughter.
John Ramsey, a software entrepreneur, has said in interviews he believes the case will be solved.
Patsy Ramsey 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, an attorney for the Ramsey family.
"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.
Less than two months after Patsy Ramsey died, the case appeared to blow wide open with the arrest in Thailand of John Mark Karr, a sometime teacher obsessed with the little girl's slaying. Karr made bizarre, detailed confessions to the killing, but authorities said DNA evidence showed Karr did not commit the crime.
(This version corrects that previous DA, sted police, said parents were under umbrella of suspicion.)
