A grand juror on the JonBenet Ramsey case has broken strict secrecy laws to say he knows who killed the six-year-old beauty queen and reveal how he and fellow jurors were silenced.
Risking prosecution which could lead to imprisonment, the male juror has told US TV show 20/20 the shockingdecision the grand jury came to almost two decades ago, news.com.au reported.
The Colorado Grand Jury convened in 1999, less than two years after JonBenet Ramsey was murdered and her body found in the basement of her multi-millionaire parents' home in Boulder, Colorado.
The 1996 murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, seen here with her mother Patsy, made international headlines and captivated the nation. Photo / AP
Asked to deliberate on whether JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey should have been indicted over the murder, the juror tells the program the panel of eight women and four men voted yes.
"They were told to indict only if they found probable cause, in other words if they found it was more likely than not that the Ramseys killed their own daughter," 20/20's Amy Robach says.
"Was there enough evidence to indict John and Patsy Ramsey for a crime?" Robach asks the juror, who responds: "Based upon the evidence that was presented I believe that was correct."
But asked if the case had gone to trial, did he believe that the Ramseys would be convicted, the juror answered "no".
This male juror told TV's 20/20 that the grand jury voted to indict John and Patsy Ramsey. Photo / Supplied
"Based on the evidence you were presented do you feel you know who killed JonBenet Ramsey?" Robach asks.
The revelation comes in a week in which the Colorado Bureau of Investigation announced it would be conducting sophisticated DNA testing on the underwear and long johns JonBenet's body was clothed in death.
DNA analysis at the time exonerated the Ramsey family, but new evidence has come to light.
And although the grand jury voted to indict JonBenet's parents 17 years ago, the Colorado prosecutor at the time disagreed and did not to follow through with the jury's recommendation.
On 20/20 the juror also describes the eerie trip the grand jury made to the crime scene where JonBenet's body was found, and how he was disgusted by her sexualised beauty pageant image.
Robach: "Before you were a grand juror, what did you know about the JonBenet Ramsey case?"
Juror: "Very little. I saw that there was this little girl dressed up in what was my opinion a sexual persona. It disgusted me, I turned off the TV."
Over the course of a year, the grand jurors grappled with testimony from dozens of witnesses.
The jury took a field trip to the Ramsey home on 15th Street, Boulder, Colorado and descended the basement stairs to see the cellar where the little girl's body had been found.
"The basement in which she was found, it was a very eerie feeling. Like someone had been killed here," the juror said.
The 20/20 programme disguised the juror's voice and put his face in shadow to help protect his identity because Grand Jury proceedings in Colorado and elsewhere are secret.
The interview with the juror was due to be aired on Friday night in the US, just over a week before the twentieth anniversary of JonBenet Ramsey's death on Christmas night 1996.
The 20/20 interview includes revelations by a handwriting expert that she is sure the ransom note found at the scene was written by JonBenet's mother Patsy.
Patsy Ramsey, herself a former beauty queen, was John Bennet Ramsey's second wife. She died from ovarian cancer in 2006.
On the night JonBenet was murdered and her body placed in the cellar, her parents initially said she had been kidnapped.
They found a strange ransom note which claimed JonBenet has been kidnapped by "a small foreign faction" and demanded an odd ransom sum of $118,000.
The fact that the amount was similar to the sum of John Ramsey's annual work bonus, and the language and apparently deliberate spelling mistakes in the long and rambling note made investigators believe it was bogus.
Cina Wong, the handwriting expert who examined the ransom note, found more than 200 similarities between the ransom note writer's handwriting and Patsy's handwriting.
This week Ms Wong said she still maintains that JonBenet's mother wrote it.
"You will see that just with the As the ransom note writer has four different variations of the letter A, and then Patsy Ramsey uses the same variation of the four different types of As," Wong tells 20/20.
The lead up to the anniversary of JonBenet's murder has been filled with speculation about the potential involvement of JonBenet's then nine-year-old brother Burke Ramsey.
Burke, now a computer software developer, raised eyebrows with his interview on the Dr Phil show, during which he smiled throughout.
Viewers were puzzled by Burke Ramsey's demeanour in an interview on DrPhil about his sister's murder. Photo / Supplied
Revelations were also aired about his childhood jealousy of a sister who received all the attention.
Burke Ramsey reportedly placed his own faeces in JonBenet's bed and on one occasion hit her with a golf stick.
Dr Phil plays Burke a video of an interview between a psychologist and the nine-year-old Burke following the murder in which Burke is asked to draw, but won't draw his sister.
It is the first time Burke has seen the footage.
Asked by Dr Phil, "Did you consciously not draw JonBenet?", Burke answers, "I can't remember what was going through my head, but she was gone so I didn't draw her".
The DNA review of JonBenet's clothing by Colorado investigators will examine unidentified male DNA found on separate items.
