The new true crime hit on Netflix about a 6-year-old girl who was murdered is bizarre

All amateur detectives pay attention: Netflix has added a new true crime series again; and what a series it is. ‘Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey’ dives into the murder of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey. The investigation is, to say the least, messy, but it is precisely that bizarre process that makes this series mega interesting.

Too quick conclusions

On December 26, 1996, the nightmare began for John and Patsy Ramsey. Their daughter JonBenét is nowhere to be found, and the parents only find a ransom note. The girl has been kidnapped and the perpetrators demand 118 thousand dollars. While an investigation is initiated, John finds the lifeless body of his daughter in the basement of the house. She appears to have been abused and strangled; what started as a missing person case is now a murder. Due to a lack of experience with such cases, the local police quickly points to JonBenét's parents as the perpetrators. From this tunnel vision, they, and the media, seem unable to escape. Mistakes are made in the investigation and evidence is withheld. Justice intervenes and brings in an experienced detective. But even his evidence that the perpetrator must be an intruder is not heard. John and Patsy remain the main suspects in a case that remains unsolved to this day.

The complete story

Unlike other true crime documentaries, ‘Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey’ does not necessarily focus on finding the perpetrator; because yes, he has still not been found. What director Joe Berlinger primarily wants to do is show how the process got stuck and how the Ramseys from day one had no chance to prove their innocence. For this series, Berlinger spoke with various lawyers and journalists who were involved in the case and with John Ramsey himself; who is now 80 years old. He also uses old TV interviews, fragments of the police investigation, and private recordings of detective Lou Smit. In this way, he hopes to provide a more complete story of what happened on that December 26, and afterwards.

Still a breakthrough?

Although Berlinger himself was initially also deep in the Ramsey tunnel, he began to doubt more and more after his own research. Now he is convinced: the family cannot have done it. He hopes to draw attention to the case again with this series, so that it can finally be solved after more than 28 years. And that could very well happen. DNA research is now much further along than it was all those years ago, and many items from the crime scene have never really been thoroughly investigated. If that happens now, perhaps finally an end can come to this cold case.

‘Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey’ is now available on Netflix.

Image: Netflix