First appeared on FOX — John Ramsey, father of 1996 murder victim JonBenet Ramsey, praised the city of Boulder, Colorado, for officially appointing a new police chief on September 6th.
Chief Steven Redfern, who has served as interim chief of the Boulder Police Department since January, will be the fifth Boulder Police chief to handle the JonBenet Ramsey case, nearly 30 years after the 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant was mysteriously murdered in her home on Dec. 26, 1996.
“He's excellent. I like him,” Ramsay, 80, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday about Redfern, calling his new appointment “good news.”
Ramsey said his first goal with the new police chief will be to request an in-person meeting. He explained that Ramsey's family has the right to an in-person meeting with the police department every year, but that hasn't happened yet this year.
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JonBenet Ramsey's father is praising the appointment of the Boulder Police Department's new chief. (Fox News Digital/Handout/Investigation Discovery)
Ramsey described Redfern as a “highly qualified individual” and said he was hired “from the outside” rather than “promoted from within,” which he said is a good thing because he feels the BPD has been unfair to him and his family in the past.
In 1999, a grand jury indicted both John and his wife, Patsy Ramsey, on child abuse charges in JonBenet's death, but then-District Attorney Alex Hunter refused to sign the indictment, citing a lack of evidence to justify criminal charges against the parents.
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JonBenet Ramsey's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, met with a small group of local Colorado media on May 1, 1997 in Boulder, Colorado, after four months of silence. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Ramsey wants BPD to turn over evidence from his daughter's nearly 30-year-old murder to the FBI “at a minimum” so that federal authorities can repeatedly test for possible external DNA, including the man's external DNA that was disclosed in 1997.
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As previously reported by Fox News Digital, public records first obtained by journalist Paula Woodward show that evidence never was tested for DNA traces includes the noose found around JonBenet's neck, a ransom note found in the Ramsey home the morning of the murder, a suitcase found in the basement that authorities believe the killer used to escape through a window, an unidentified flashlight found on the Ramsey home's kitchen counter the morning of the murder, and an unidentified rope found in his brother, Burke Ramsey's, room that day.
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JonBenet Ramsey (right) was murdered in her Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996. She and her brother Burke are shown in this undated photo provided by her family. (Ramsay Family Handout)
“Tests carried out by police in 1997 turned up DNA from an unknown male – primitive tests by today's standards,” Ramsay explained, “but a DNA sample from an unknown male was given to police in January 1997. The police kept it secret because it contradicted their conclusion that we were guilty. How do you explain that? The police tried desperately to explain it.”
He said the reason families want the new tests is because “these cutting-edge [genetic genealogy] Labs need fresh samples to do their work.”
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JonBenet Ramsey was murdered under suspicious circumstances in her Boulder, Colorado home in December 1996. (Ramsay Family Collection/Discovery+)
The city of Boulder said in a press release that Redfern became deputy chief of the Boulder Police Department in 2021 after 25 years of law enforcement service, beginning with serving as a trainee and 911 dispatcher during the Columbine High School shooting. He then spent 20 years with the Aurora Police Department, serving in a variety of roles from constable to chief.
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“I am honored to lead the talented officers and staff of the Boulder Police Department and work proactively in partnership with the community to ensure fairness and effectiveness in policing is aligned with its core mission. We often think about our role to 'protect and serve,' but we also have the opportunity and obligation to prevent harm,” Redfern said in a Sept. 6 statement.
“We will do this through a reevaluation of policies, best practice training, an emphasis on employee wellbeing and, of course, a renewed commitment to community engagement – that's what policing is all about.”
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JonBenet Ramsey would have turned 34 on August 6, 2024. (Ramsay family)
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“Chief Redfern continues to have discussions with the Ramsey family and has no plans to change that,” the Boulder Police Department said in a statement.
Mr Ramsay noted that Redfearn was “the fifth police chief we've had in 30 years. That's crazy.”
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“But the good news is that the last two cases came from outside the system, which is very important,” he said.
