Netflix’s ‘Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey’ Reveals Heartbreaking Footage of 6-Year-Old Beauty Queen Inside Her Home Before Her Death

Netflix’s new true crime docuseries, “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey,” has brought the tragic 28-year-old murder of the 6-year-old beauty queen back into the headlines, raising the stark question of whether the identity of her killer will ever be uncovered.

The three-part series, which debuted Nov. 25, features candid interviews with JonBenét‘s father, John, as well as lawyers and journalists who worked on the case, all of whom offer up theories on why the little girl’s murderer has never been found and charged.

Perhaps one of the most heartbreaking elements of the documentary is the candid home video footage that captures a carefree and happy JonBenét inside the family’s house in Boulder, CO—which is where her body was discovered Dec. 26, 1996, in the basement of the sprawling property.

Police believe that JonBenét, who was found beaten and strangled, was murdered on Christmas Day sometime in the late hours of the night. An autopsy found the cause of death was strangulation, and her death was ruled a homicide.

However, hours before her body was discovered, the Ramsey family had initially thought their daughter had been kidnapped after discovering a ransom note in their home, which demanded $118,000 for her safe return.

It wasn’t until several hours after that note was spotted that John found his daughter’s body on the lowermost floor of their property, a moment that John recalls in the documentary with painful clarity.

“My friend and I went downstairs, we went to the basement, went into—well, we called it the train room,” he said. “The kids had a train set up, an electric train set up. And immediately I saw one of the windows was open and broken.

“There was a suitcase under the window. The suitcase shouldn’t have been there. It was set there like it was a step because the window was fairly high … you needed a ladder or a stepstool or something to get up through it.”

John explains that he told his friend that the suitcase’s location seemed odd to him, adding that he had come through the window himself after losing his keys the prior year, and remembers having the glass fixed.

“The window was wide open and that looked fishy,” he went on. “The next place we went was another room in the basement. We called it the wine cellar but there was no wine in it; it was an old coal room. And immediately her body was right there in front of me.

“She had tape over her mouth and her hands were tied behind her back. And I immediately pulled the tape off and I tried to untie her hands but the knot was tied really tight, I couldn’t get it undone.

“So I just screamed and I picked her up and carried her upstairs, just to try and get her help.”

The discovery of JonBenét’s body sparked a lengthy nationwide manhunt for her killer—and saw her parents, John and Patsy, as well as her then-9-year-old brother Burke, thrown into the ring of suspects.

However, the old family photos and videos that are shown in the Netflix documentary paint a very different picture: that of a blissfully happy family who enjoyed a wonderfully warm life inside their expansive home.

Today, the former Ramsey residence still stands; however, in place of those happy memories is an eerie reminder of the horrifying crime that was carried out inside it.

Few could forget the images and footage of the property that emerged in the wake of JonBenét’s death: photos and video revealing cheery Christmas decor adorning the front lawn, jarring with the police crime scene tape that blocked off the home from public access.

In the years since JonBenét’s, the home has come on and off the market—and its most recent owners, Tim and Carol Schuller Milner, have made numerous failed attempts to find a buyer.

JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy, had purchased the home for $500,000 in 1991. They moved out after the murder and were suspects in the case for a decade. The home was sold to an investor for $650,000.

The current owners purchased it in 2004 for $1.05 million, then put it on the market in 2008 for $2.68 million. They relisted it in 2009 for $2.29 million, in 2011 for $2.3 million, and in 2014 for $2 million.

In November 2022, it came back on the market for $7.25 million. Then it was reduced to $6.25 million before the homeowners took it off the market.

The house, which is no longer for sale, is currently estimated to be worth $4.2 million.

The five-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom Tudor features a top-floor penthouse with two bathrooms as well as a kitchen with a separate catering kitchen. The home totals 7,240 square feet and was built in 1927.

Despite the home’s beauty and desirable location in the affluent University Hill neighborhood near the University of Colorado Boulder, it seems potential buyers just can’t forget the horrific crime that happened inside.