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JonBenet Ramsey
"We hope that the next step is there will be a groundswelling of understanding and support to push the Boulder district attorney to correct the mistakes that were made and solve the case," says retired FBI profiler Jim Clemente.
Producer Tom Forman says the people of Boulder, Colo., could not have been nicer while the CBS special The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey was being filmed this summer, but he was surprised that local law enforcement did not want to aid special investigators in their quest for answers.
In the two-part special, aired Sunday and Monday, a team of former, specialized law enforcement officials re-examine available evidence and conduct interviews in an effort to shine new light on the almost 20-year-old homicide of a six-year-old girl violently murdered inside her family's home around Christmas.
"The people of Boulder could not have been nicer to us as we shot this, but on an official level, there’s no support for attempting to solve the JonBenet Ramsey murder," Forman told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday afternoon. "We hoped for more cooperation, but were not entirely surprised when we didn’t get it."
The CBS special investigation was not the only production in the small town trying to crack the case, but Forman says with the team of people working on The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey, they expected more cooperation.
"I am aware we were a part of the media circus that is coming to town, and that must be overwhelming," Forman says.
That team of investigators comprised retired FBI profiler Jim Clemente, former Scotland Yard criminal behavior expert Laura Richards, forensic linguistics expert James Fitzgerald, famed criminologist Werner Spitz, former Boulder Country District Attorney's Office investigator James Kolar, statement analyst Stan Burke and forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee.
Citing popular series Serial and Making a Murder, both Forman and Clemente told THR they hoped the work done would inspire the public to push local law enforcement to re-examine the case and finally solve it.
"We hope that the next step is there will be a groundswelling of understanding and support to push the Boulder district attorney to correct the mistakes that were made and solve the case," Clemente says. "We hope the same kind of groundswell will force the district attorney to step off the position it’s been on and allow the Boulder police department to take it from an open, but inactive investigation to an active investigation that can be resolved."
At the conclusion of Monday's episode, the team of special investigators all agreed on the theory that JonBenet's brother, Burke, who was nine when she died, killed JonBenet accidentally in a fit of rage. The seasoned investigators also asserted that John and Patsy Ramsey concocted the entire kidnapping scenario to confuse authorities and spare Burke.
"For me it is convincing," Forman says of the conclusion.
Investigators reached out multiple times to both Burke and John Ramsey to be a part of their investigation. Both men passed, Forman says.
"Those are the only two living people who were in that house [when the murder took place]," Forman says. "Who knows what they might know. Who knows what they would have said. They chose not to."
