A former police chief involved in investigating the death of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey, has said the murder case was mishandled.
During an ‘Ask me anything’ session on website Reddit, Mark Beckner admitted to having regrets about how the infamous case, which has never been solved, was handled by police.
“It was the Christmas holiday and we were short staffed, we faced a situation as I said earlier that no one in the country had ever seen before or since, and there was confusion at the scene as people were arriving before we had enough personnel on the scene,” he said.
Former police chief Mark Beckner.
On December 26, 1996, JonBenét’s mother Patsy Ramsey phoned police to report her six-year-old daughter as missing, telling them she and her husband John had found a ransom note asking for $180,000.
JonBenét was later found dead in the basement of her parent’s Colorado home. She was found with duct tape over her mouth and showed signs of an apparent sexual assault.
Mr Beckner said in hindsight, police should have interviewed JonBenét’s parents on the day she was found.
“I wish we would have done a better job of securing and controlling the crime scene on day one,” he said. “We also should have separated John and Patsy and gotten full statements from them that day.”
Both parents maintained they had nothing to do with their daughter’s disappearance throughout the investigation.
It wasn’t until 2008, two years after Patsy Ramsey’s death after a battle with ovarian cancer, that a district attorney cleared them of all involvement with the case.
Mr Beckner’s comments have now been deleted from Reddit. He has since clarified his comments to Daily Camera News saying he didn’t realise his remarks would be made public.
“I talked to the organizer, and my impression was that this was a members-only type group that talked about unsolved mysteries all around the world,” he said.
He did say however, that with this particular case, DNA evidence is the key.
“I’m not involved anymore, but that has got to be the focus of the investigation. In my opinion, at this point, that’s your suspect.”
