JonBenet Ramsey: Reporter Files Lawsuit Seeking Release Of Parent’s Indictment

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a press advocacy group and Charlie Brennan, a Daily Camera reporter are suing Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett, seeking the release of an indictment that was secretly voted on by the JonBenet Ramsey grand jury in 1999 but never prosecuted. They are citing the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act in an effort to compel Garnett to release the indictment.

"The plaintiffs believe... that the indictment is a criminal justice record that reflects official action by the grand jury, and accordingly that it is subject to mandatory disclosure upon request," attorney Thomas B. Kelley writes in the complaint. "Alternatively, they argue the indictment should be disclosed to the public because such disclosure would serve the public interest in government transparency and not be contrary to the public interest nor cause undue adverse effect upon the privacy of the individual."

The existence of the indictment was revealed in January, when The Daily Camera first reported that the grand jury voted to indict JonBenet's parents John and Patsy Ramsey in 1999 on charges of child abuse resulting in death, but the prosecutor at the time, then-District Attorney Alex Hunter, refused to sign the indictment. Hunter told media back in 1999 that he did not believe his office had enough evidence to file any charges, though the Ramsey family remained prime suspects for years before finally being absolved in 2008.

However, he never mentioned that the grand jury indicted them on the charge of "Knowing and reckless" child abuse resulting in death, a Class 2 felony charge that could have resulted in up to 48 years in prison for the Ramsey parents.

JonBenet Ramsey was found bludgeoned and strangled to death in the basement of her family home on Dec. 26, 1996. She was only 6 years old. This case remains one of the most notorious murders in U.S. history and a decade and a half later there is still no justice for the then-toddler.

A ransom note from an anonymous group of individuals "that represent a foreign faction" asking for $118,000 in exchange for the safe return of JonBenet was found just hours before discovering her body, but no call ever came from a kidnapper and it was never linked to a murderer. The entire Ramsey family was cleared of any involvement in the murder of JonBenet back in 2008, thanks to then newly discovered DNA evidence. However, Patsy Ramsey, JonBenet's mother, had died two years earlier in 2006 of ovarian cancer and was still considered a suspect at the moment of her passing.