A grand juror who has seen all the evidence prosecutors presented related to the murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey is speaking out in a new 20/20 special.
The grand jury member — whose identity is being concealed because of penalties associated with revealing testimony — voted to indict JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, in late 1999 on charges of child abuse resulting in death and being accessories to a crime. The district attorney decided later that year that there was insufficient evidence to pursue the case.
The grand juror, one of 12, told 20/20 that he knew “very little” about the murder beforehand. “I saw there was a little girl dressed up with, in my opinion, a sexual persona, and it disgusted me,” he said. “And I turned off the TV.”
He explained that the grand jury members visited the Ramseys’ home to see the basement crime scene where JonBenét’s body was found on the day after Christmas in 1996. “In the basement where she was found, it was actually kind of an obscure layout,” he said. “You came down the stairwell and you had to go into another room to find a door that was closed. It was a very eerie feeling. It was like, ‘Somebody had been killed here.’”
The juror believes that there was enough evidence to indict John and Patsy, but he doesn’t believe they would have been convicted. “There is no way that I would have been able to say, ‘Beyond a reasonable doubt, this is the person,’” the juror said. “And if you are the district attorney, if you know that going in, it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars to do it.”
When asked if he believes that he knows who killed JonBenét, he replied, “I highly suspect I do.”
John and Patsy have always maintained that they had nothing to do with the murder, and neither did their son, Burke, who was 9 at the time of his sister’s death. In 2008, two years after Patsy died from ovarian cancer, the parents were formally cleared through DNA evidence.
The full interview airs on ABC News’ 20/20 on Friday, December 16, at 10 p.m. ET.
