Joe Berlinger opens up about true crime doc on Netflix
The ethics of true crime documentaries is a murky territory that divides people’s opinions. To some, they’re a cruel replay of a victim or their loved ones’ trauma. To others, they can be an invaluable reexamining of a case that could lead to a better understanding, improved reactions by authorities or, in some cases, even an explanation years on. Joe Berlinger is hoping it’s the latter for his new Netflix series Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey.
On December 26th, 1996, the parents of JonBenét Ramsey woke up to find their child missing with a ransom note. In the town of Boulder, Colorado, Ramsey was a six-year-old beauty queen famed for competing in pageants, while her father, John, was a well-known businessman. The family faced every family’s worst nightmare when they later found JonBenét dead in their basement after being sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. Still, to this day, the case has never been solved.
There are countless theories about what happened. The police initially suspected JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy, claiming that they faked the ransom note and staged the scene their daughter was found in to cover it up. In 2013, previously sealed notes even revealed that, at the time, a grand jury recommended filing charges against the Ramseys for permitting the child to be in a threatening situation, but the district attorney said there was insufficient evidence for this.
The police mostly followed the suggestion that the chilling murder was the work of an intruder as the DNA found on JonBenét’s clothes didn’t match anyone in her family and had never come up with a match. But as the case has never been solved, theories made about the true story range from everything from satanic sex cults to mafia hits.
The JonBenét Ramsey case is considered a cold case as it has never been solved, there is no new evidence, and the police are, to put it simply, completely stumped. With true crime communities often proving helpful in picking these cases back up, director Joe Berlinger is hoping to use that force for good with his new three-part docuseries on the case.
“There is nothing more horrific than an innocent child being murdered,” Berlinger told Netflix, “But combine that with the false narrative that she was murdered by her own parents or her 9-year-old brother, and that’s a horrifying tale.” Berlinger has made it clear that he doesn’t believe these theories, stating, “I know this will disappoint the armchair sleuths and many people on Reddit, but I think there is zero chance that the family had anything to do with this horrendous crime.”
The true crime series largely dives into the errors John Ramsey believes the police made, revisiting the case with an eye on the missteps the law enforcement made and the misinformation spread about the case. Berlinger hopes that by shining a light on this, the police in Colorado will pick the case back up and try again to bring the girl’s killer to justice.