In the notorious case of JonBenet Ramsey's death, a grand jury is saying that there was enough evidence when the case occurred in 1999 to indict her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey on charges related to the unsolved murder.
ABC News reported that on Christmas Day in 1996 JonBenet who was then 6-years-old was found dead in the basement of their family home in Boulder, Colorado.
John and Patsy Ramsey insisted that an intruder was to blame for the death of their child, though there was suspicion on them.
After meeting for more than a year, a grand jury said that they found enough evidence to indict John and Patsy Ramsey for charges of child abuse which resulted in JonBenet's death.
"This grand jury, in effect, came up with a compromise finding, 'No, it's not murder,' but, 'Yes, we think they were responsible' for the death based on abuse," ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams said to ABC News.
Fox News reported that if they were indicted it would hae been a Class II felony and punishable by up to 48 years in prison.
Regardless of the findings, District Attorney Alex Hunter would not sign off on the grand jury's decision and said that there was not enough proof. He said at the time, according to ABC News, "I and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time."
"We didn't know who did what," a juror told the Daily Camera about the condition of anonymity. "[B]ut we feel the adults in the house may have done something that they certainly could have prevented, or they could have helped her, and they didn't."
In 2001 Hunter said to NBC News that he had no regrets about the decision he made.
"I have enough people that I respect that have said to me, 'You know, you made a tough call, you made a call the public didn't like. But you were true to the law, you were a good prosecutor, and that's plenty for me.'"
John Ramsey's attorney, Lin Wood agreed with Hunter's decision in a statement to NBC News. She said,
"The DNA tests performed after the time of the Boulder grand jury not only prove the Ramseys to be innocent and the grand jury wrong, they also make D.A. Alex Hunter a hero who wisely avoided the miscarriage of justice."
Patsy Ramsey passed away in 2006 from ovarian cancer and John Ramsey has subsequently remarried. If JonBenet was alive today she would be 23.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
