You don't need to be a local to know the sad story of her demise and its strange aftermath — from the tragedy of a six-year-old girl found murdered in her own home to a suspicious ransom note to parents who were either hapless or irresponsible or culpable, to a brother who many thought probably did it, to the police dropping the investigative ball in spectacular fashion, to weirdo John Mark Karr, whose false admission threw the whole matter into unnecessary turmoil.
But still, the story gets retold in books and TV specials. And now, almost a decade after Netflix last looked into the case, on November 25 unveiled Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?, a three-part miniseries that attempts to shed new light on the murder and its investigation. (If you prefer your crime more dramatized with questionable casting decisions, keep an eye out for the still-filming docudrama in which Patsy Ramsey is played by — wait for it — Melissa McCarthy.)
Here are ten other options — five books and five other TV shows — that focus on JonBenét Ramsey, or at least the spectacle of her death.
TV Movies
Casting JonBenét
This 2017 Netflix documentary apparently wasn't the final word, considering that the new Cold Case is being released through the same platform. At the time, it was billed as “a sly and stylized exploration of the world’s most sensational child-murder case,” which is sort of like admitting that it was going to really ignore the boundaries of good taste and respect for the dead. In the end, the show was more about the legacy of the crime and the publicity it had gotten in the almost twenty years since, and how that in turn affected American culture.
JonBenét's Mother: Victim or Killer?
Prurient title, right? This November 2016 show is one of the few productions to focus on matriarch and Pageant Mom Patsy Ramsey, a two-hour special that claims to delve into the "real" Patsy. The show dramatized her life as a socialite, a former beauty queen who wanted her daughter to follow in her footsteps, and the suspicion that she was also her daughter's killer — something this show advocated almost as a presumptive.
Dateline NBC: Who Killed JonBenét?
Josh Mankiewicz and the Dateline murder media machine talked with the original investigators on the case, including former Boulder police department detective Jane Harmer on why she agreed with the grand jury recommendation to indict JonBenét Ramsey’s parents, and at the same time agreed with the district attorney’s decision not to pursue charges against them. Just another conundrum in a case filled with things that frankly make little sense.
JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery
The Investigation Discovery channel (often known as ID TV, which too-appropriately also stands for "I'm Depressed TV") joined the throng of networks covering the JonBenét story in 2016 with a three-part special that — you guessed it —claimed to "examine the case from a new angle" and offer "never before seen footage and analysis." This is the one to watch if you want to see JonBenét’s brother’s lost interview and don't want to sit through the insipid Dr. Phil three-part self-serving murder exploitation.
The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey
This Amazon four-hour docuseries, also from 2016, attempted to take viewers back in time to the investigation that started on the day after Christmas 1996. The series reunited the original investigators of the crime and paired them with new experts — including a former New Scotland Yard criminal behavioral analyst and a retired FBI supervisory special agent — as they re-examined the unsolved murder case. Given the criticism leveled against Boulder PD, this special offering new insights from professionals was an interesting idea, at least.
Books
We Have Your Daughter: The Unsolved Murder of JonBenét Ramsey Twenty Years Later
Paula Woodward
9News investigative reporter Paula Woodward covered the JonBenét murder from the beginning, so she was able to offer this "unprecedented insider perspective" (according to the dust jacket copy) in 2016 — the twentieth anniversary of "one of the most heinous, sensationalized, unsolved crimes in American history." Woodward retired after 32 years on the beat back in 2009, but her book is still worth the read for the local angle from a Denver journalist who put in her time, and then some. And today she continues to follow the case, reporting on John Ramsey's efforts to push the BPD for new DNA testing.
The Death of Innocence: JonBenét's Parents Tell Their Story
John and Patsy Ramsey
In early 2001, the Ramseys came out with this hefty tome — over 400 pages — of their own story surrounding their daughter's murder, offering their own theories. It's a strange and self-indulgent book: suspects talking about their own defenses, sort of along the same line as O.J. Simpson's If I Did It, even if culpability for the Ramseys is less certain than for O.J. It might be honest, but it doesn't paint either of the parents in a particularly positive light, especially when Patsy tries to explain how Boulder was so weird that rich people didn't even wear furs. Horrors and pearl-clutching, Patsy! John Ramsey would later attempt a course correction of sorts, talking about his religious faith in a 2012 book he wrote after Patsy's passing from cancer, called The Other Side of Suffering. Today he continues to push the Boulder PD to relaunch the investigation.
St. Martin's Griffin
Steve Thomas and Donald A. Davis
Back in 2000, Boulder detective Steve Thomas teamed up with writer Donald Davis to tell his side of the story, on how the BPD — and specifically Thomas himself — handled the case. Thomas answers questions about the investigation, including why the crime scene was so lazily handled, why the Ramseys were excluded from initial questioning, and why some evidence was seemingly ignored.
HarperTorch
Lawrence Schiller
One of the seminal books on JonBenét's killing was issued back in 1999: Lawrence Schiller's Perfect Murder, Perfect Town. Not only did it attempt a thorough re-creation of every aspect of the complex JonBenét case, but it offered a look at the sometimes inscrutable Ramsey family, as well as Boulder itself in all its affluence, enjoying all the tranquility that money can buy — until it experienced this terrible crime, one that it and its police department could not easily handle.
Graymalkin Media
Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?
Dr. Cyril Wecht and Charles Bosworth Jr.
Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? was released only months after the grand jury was dismissed from the case in October 1999. Pre-eminent forensic pathologist and lawyer Cyril Wecht joined with longtime crime journalist Charles Bosworth to look at the burgeoning case file, including the autopsy and what it suggested, along with what it didn't. They didn't come up with any answers — but then again, nor have any of the other works on this long and growing list of media attempts to tell JonBenét's story.
The newest JonBenét murder examination, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?, debuts on Netflix on November 25.
