Burke Ramsey has only publicly spoken out once about sister JonBenét Ramsey‘s murder since her death in 1996.
Burke was 9 when his 6-year-old sister was found dead in the basement of their Colorado house. She had sustained a broken skull, and a garrote was tied around her neck. JonBenét’s official cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma, and her death was ruled a homicide.
After nearly two decades of silence, Burke recalled the aftermath of his sister’s death.
“My dad told me JonBenét is in heaven now, and he started crying, then I started crying. I was kind of like, ‘How is this possible?’” Burke recalled in a 2016 sit-down with Dr. Phil McGraw, which is the only time he discussed the case publicly. “I started crying. I don’t think I said anything. I didn’t believe it at first.”
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Burke recalled thinking that JonBenét was “probably hiding somewhere.” At the time, Burke was asked why he waited almost 20 years before publicly addressing the case, to which he replied, “I want to honor her memory by doing this interview. I don’t want anyone to forget.”
The interview received backlash when some viewers questioned Burke’s tendency to smile while discussing gruesome details about the case.
McGraw defended Burke, telling Entertainment Tonight at the time, “When people are anxious, they do different things. They pull on their hair or fiddle around, or whatever … for him, it’s a nervous smile. I think [some have] gotten past that and listened to the sincerity of his answers and said, ‘OK, he’s just nervous.’”
JonBenét’s brother later stepped away from the public eye. While his father, John Ramsey, and half-brother John Andrew Ramsey have continued to participate in interviews and documentaries to raise awareness, Burke has opted out.
“Burke had a very painful and very lonely upbringing,” a Ramsey family source exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2024 before the release of Netflix’s Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey. “The family tried very hard to shield him, but you can’t shield a kid from the fact that his sister was murdered and everyone thinks that his family did it. Or that he did it.”
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While neither Burke nor his parents (his mother Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 from ovarian cancer) have been officially charged in connection to JonBenét’s death, online sleuths have shared false theories throughout the years. The entire family has denied any involvement and they were publicly exonerated by the Boulder police.
“He was 9 years old. He couldn’t have possibly done something that sophisticated, and he didn’t have the skills or the strength. He wasn’t a coordinated little kid, but even the most coordinated one couldn’t have done that,” the insider continued. “And the garrote was done while JonBenét was still alive. So Burke didn’t do it, no one with any knowledge of the case ever really thought he did it. So imagine that he was under suspicion for so many years, when there was concrete proof that he didn’t do it.”
Keep scrolling to revisit Burke’s one — and only — interview about JonBenét:
His Immediate Reaction
While speaking with McGraw in 2016, Burke explained why he didn’t leave his room the morning JonBenét’s body was found in their Colorado home.
“I guess I kind of like to avoid conflict or, I don’t know, I guess I just felt safer there,” he recalled. “I’m not the worried type. I guess part of me doesn’t want to know what’s going on.”
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The Funeral
“I remember the casket was so small and her eyes were closed,” Burke noted. “I think one of her eyes was a little droopy or something. I thought that was weird.”
Burke said JonBenét’s death caused him “a lot of sadness,” adding, “I don’t think I really fully grasped that after this I won’t see her again … That was traumatizing.”
Defending His Mother
In the years since JonBenét’s murder, the Boulder police looked into many suspects and theories. JonBenét and Burke’s parents were accused of being involved in her death and a grand jury voted to indict the pair in 1999. The indictment was never signed by the Boulder district attorney, however, because there was a lack of evidence. The couple were exonerated in 2008 when DNA testing helped investigators determine that the DNA found on JonBenét’s body was from an unrelated male.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Burke told McGraw in 2016. “Not to say she never got upset. But it was nothing near laying a finger on us — let alone killing her child.”
After being asked about theories such as Patsy allegedly hurting JonBenét because her daughter wet the bed, Burke clarified that his mother never got physical with them.
“Nothing of the sort, not even close,” he said before adding that he was “absolutely not” the person who hit JonBenét with an unknown object the night of her death.
There was also mention of a call Patsy placed to the police. The operator claimed to have heard Patsy John and a “third distinct, different voice” on the line. Others have speculated that it was Burke but he denied it.
Burke said he “would remember” if he was present for the call. He shut down social media speculation, calling it “pure fiction.”
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How the Ongoing Case Changed Him
Despite authorities no longer looking into JonBenét’s family as suspects, online sleuths have continued to speculate that Patsy, John or Burke were responsible for her death. The entire family has denied any involvement or knowledge about JonBenét’s murder.
“I know people think I did it — that my parents did it,” Burke added in the tell-all with McGraw. “Seeing that as a little kid is just kind of a chaotic nightmare … it just made me a very private person.”
He continued: “As to what I’m doing now, it’s the 20th anniversary and apparently still a lot of tension around it, I guess I kind of wanted to make it about remembering her and not just another news story.”
His Own Theory
According to Burke, the person responsible for JonBenét’s murder is “probably some pedophile in the pageant audience.”
“It blows my mind. What more evidence do you need that we didn’t do it?” Burke shared about the “lack” of evidence pointing at him or his parents. “I don’t know what to say to that because I know that’s not what happened. There’s been a few people that said that’s not even physically possible for a 9-year-old to do that.”
Burke ended the conversation by reflecting on his connection to JonBenét. He admitted he has felt as if his sister is watching over him.
“Sometimes I would talk to her,” he shared. “Like there’s some important thing I was doing, [I’d] be like, ‘Hey, thanks for looking out for me.’ Or, ‘I hope you’re looking out for me.’ Or you know, ‘Hope you’re having fun up there because I’m taking some test.’ Or, ‘I wish I was up there right now.’”
Burke noted that he kept “the hope alive” that JonBenét’s murder would be solved in his lifetime, adding, “You gotta never give up.”
