'Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey' Director: 'I Believe It Can ...

In Cold Case: JonBenét Ramsey (on Netflix Nov. 25), the Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated documentarian Joe Berlinger, 63, looks into the 1996 murder of JonBenét Ramsey. (There's also a forthcoming Paramount+ dramatic miniseries, JonBenét Ramsey, with Melissa McCarthy, 54, and Clive Owen, 60, as JonBenét’s parents John and Patsy Ramsey).

JonBenét, 6, was a beauty pageant winner found strangled in her family's Boulder, Colorado basement Dec. 26, 1996. The case was a tabloid sensation, and Boulder police suspected her mother killed her and her father covered it up. But detective Lou Smit accused the police of ignoring evidence that an intruder did it, and declared the Ramseys innocent. In 2008, new DNA analysis exculpated them, and Boulder D.A. Mary Lacy apologized to the family.

Boulder police won't comment on the investigation, but Chief Steve Redfearn said, “We are committed to following up on every lead and we are continuing to work with DNA experts and our law enforcement partners around the country until this tragic case is solved."

Berlinger told AARP what he’s learned about the case — and why he thinks the case could now be solved.​

You’ve made hit documentaries about Hitler, Ghislaine Maxwell, Bernie Madoff and Ted Bundy, but this one is about people you think are falsely accused, right? 

I specialize in wrongful conviction cases. My films helped get six people out of prison: Evaristo Salas, Curtis Flowers, Marty Tankleff and the West Memphis Three, the subject of Paradise Lost. I can't think of another family that has been so brutalized by police ineptitude and poor media handling as the Ramseys.

What inspired you to make the show decades after her death? 

I came into contact with the work of Lou Smit, an incredible investigator.

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