• Only one person has ever been arrested on suspicion of JonBenét Ramsey's murder: John Mark Karr.
• In 2006, the former teacher (under the name "Daxis") said he was with the 6-year-old when she died.
• But DNA evidence cleared him of involvement, and he's been laying low in recent years.

The unsolved murder of JonBenét Ramsey, a 6-year-old Colorado beauty queen, has transfixed the public since 1996.

In the decades since the crime, there have been many theories about who killed JonBenét and even several false confessions. The suspect covered most widely in the media was John Mark Karr, who was arrested and later cleared of involvement in the murder in 2006.

The former teacher claimed to have had a "relationship" with JonBenét and killed her accidentally. Netflix's new docuseries, "Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey," touches on Karr's later debunked confession. Here's what we know about his whereabouts today.

John Mark Karr used the name "Daxis" to send emails to a JonBenét Ramsey documentarian

In 2002, Michael Tracey, a media professor who has produced several documentaries on the JonBenét Ramsey case, was contacted via email by a man using the name "Daxis." He told Tracey he was a "passionate lover of little girls," and suggested he was with Ramsey when she died but that her death had been accidental.

They communicated via email for four years. Tracey eventually shared his communications with then-Boulder DA Mary Lacy, after Daxis appeared to know details about the murder case that hadn't been made public, including the nickname JonBenét used for her grandmother.

Daxis tried to arrange to speak with Patsy Ramsey, JonBenét's mother, to ask for her forgiveness before she died of ovarian cancer in June 2006. Investigators hoped to track Daxis down by setting up a phone tap, but he never called. Finally, authorities were able to trace Daxis to Thailand after Tracey offered to send him the last printed photo of JonBenét.

John Mark Karr, a former substitute teacher who'd fled the US after being arrested on child pornography charges in California in 2001, was revealed to be Daxis and was arrested after picking up Tracey's package. After his capture, he reiterated to reporters that he was with JonBenét when she died and that her death was an accident.

Karr was brought back to Colorado but the case against him was quickly dropped in August 2006 when DNA test results showed that he wasn't the source of DNA found on Ramsey's underwear. His family had also said he was home with them at the time Ramsey was killed.

Where is John Mark Karr now? He's leading a 'covert life'

After the case against Karr was dropped, he was extradited back to California, where he'd originally faced child pornography charges in 2001. Those charges were also dropped in October 2006 after investigators admitted they'd lost computer evidence against Karr.

In 2017, the Monroe Journal spoke to Karr, who said he had traveled abroad, undergone sex reassignment surgery, and was living as a woman under the name Alex Reich. Business Insider was unable to verify this report.

As "Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey" notes, Karr said on his website that he was living "a very covert life outside the US" as of May 2024.

According to statements on that website, which appears to be run by Karr but was not able to be verified by Business Insider, Karr lived in the US from 2017 to 2020 before leaving the US once again in the summer of 2020. He called his brief stint back in America one of his "deepest regrets" and said that to stay safe and private he intended to remain on the move and never return to the US.

In the most recent statement posted to the website on Friday, Karr refuted John Ramsey's claim (initially made in 2006 after Karr's arrest but resurfaced by Ramsey in recent interviews and the Netflix docuseries) that there was evidence Karr had stalked the family's Charlevoix, Michigan, vacation home prior to JonBenét's death. Karr said there would have been no way he knew the Ramseys had a home there.

Joe Berlinger, the filmmaker behind "Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey," told BI that he attempted to contact the one-time suspect for the documentary but that Karr had gone off the grid since being cleared of JonBenét's murder.

As for whether he thinks the former teacher really did kill the 6-year-old, given renewed questions over whether the DNA evidence that cleared him is valuable, Berlinger said he didn't want to speculate and do what was done to the Ramseys. However, he said that when new DNA testing has been completed "everyone needs to be put back on the table as a suspect."

• Six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey's unsolved 1996 murder is the subject of a new Netflix docuseries.
• Director Joe Berlinger explained why he thinks the public and the media got the case all wrong.
• Berlinger told BI that he wants the project to push the Boulder police department to reinvestigate.

The widespread cultural fascination with true crime isn't a mystery to Joe Berlinger, the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning documentarian behind Netflix's new docuseries "Cold Case: Who killed JonBenét Ramsey."

"People like to be armchair detectives and solve crimes," he told Business Insider. "People like to stare into the abyss of evil to make them feel better about their own lives."

People also like a good story. And the unsolved murder of a 6-year-old pageant queen has all the trappings of one.

The daughter of John and Patsy Ramsey, a wealthy couple in Boulder, Colorado, was found dead the day after Christmas in 1996, her skull fractured and a garrote used to strangle her still embedded in her neck. Despite several false confessions over the years, no one was ever charged in her death.

Berlinger was the father of a 2-year-old daughter himself when he first heard about the case. Back then, he "believed in all that media hype" that suggested a member of JonBenét's own family (John, Patsy, or her then 9-year-old brother Burke) had killed her and staged the scene to look like a kidnapping.

Though these theories still persist over 15 years after a previous Boulder DA administration formally cleared the Ramseys of suspicion, Berlinger now says he knows better — and he wants his Netflix series to help push the Boulder PD to reinvestigate the case.

JonBenét Ramsey's unsolved murder has transfixed Americans for almost three decades

The JonBenét case has been covered ad nauseam in made-for-TV movies, podcasts, and documentaries in the almost three decades since her death incited a media frenzy in 1996. (Paramount+ even has an upcoming scripted series about it in the works, starring Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen as Patsy and John.)

But once Berlinger did a deep dive into the case, he knew his documentary would have something different to say.

"People have gotten it so wrong," Berlinger said. "I can't think of another family that's been so brutalized so unfairly by the media."

At the time, coverage of the initial investigation focused heavily on the Ramsey family as prime suspects. The police stated that John and Patsy Ramsey were under "an umbrella of suspicion," and Thomas G. Koby, the Boulder Police Chief at the time, initially told the Boulder community that his team believed it was "a one-time occurrence" and not the work of a serial killer — which many interpreted to mean the police thought the parents did it.

Steve Thomas, another prominent investigator, later wrote (and eventually settled a lawsuit over) a book theorizing that Patsy Ramsey had flown into a rage and killed JonBenét after a bed-wetting incident. Before that, he'd accused Patsy of being the murderer to her face during a 2000 "Larry King Live" interview.

Members of the media also contributed to the widely held view that the Ramseys were guilty. Some, like journalist Charlie Brennan, who participated in the Netflix docuseries, reported on information from investigative sources that painted the family in an unfavorable or suspicious light. Some of those stories ended up being wholly false, like one debunked report that John Ramsey flew a private jet to his daughter's funeral in Atlanta.

Berlinger said he has "a lot of respect" for Brennan agreeing to participate in the docuseries, and noted that other journalists who were more firmly in the "Ramseys Did It" camp opted not to speak to him. So, too, did the case's original investigators. "We had a long talk with Steve Thomas and he ultimately decided it wasn't in his interest," Berlinger told BI.

The docuseries focuses more on debunking than revealing to make the case that the family wasn't involved in JonBenét's death.

It recounts how the initial investigation into the case was faulty — the responding Boulder police officers didn't lock down the scene, potential evidence was compromised, certain items were never DNA tested — something the current Boulder police chief acknowledges.

It also prominently features the perspective of Lou Smit, a famous Colorado police detective called out of retirement to work on the case, who resigned after concluding that an intruder killed JonBenét and the investigation had wrongly focused on the Ramseys.

Berlinger hopes his documentary can help police finally solve the JonBenét case

Berlinger has experience working on stories about wrongful convictions, and even contributing to some of those being overturned (like the West Memphis Three, a trio of teenagers convicted of child murders depicted in his "Paradise Lost" films).

The Ramseys were never technically convicted of anything. (It was revealed in 2013 that a grand jury had voted to indict John and Patsy on counts of child abuse, but the then-DA refused to sign the documents.) But the documentarian is still astounded at how virulently people insist they're guilty.

"When I dare to look at Reddit message boards to see what people are thinking, it just boggles my mind," he told BI.

Berlinger is adamant that the family can still be vindicated, and that the real perpetrator can be identified through DNA analysis.

"A year ago, recommendations were made by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation on what steps to take and they haven't taken those steps as far as we know," Berlinger told BI. "Maybe they're doing it but they're being awfully mum, and they're not very communicative with the Ramsey family either."

Berlinger said the goal of his documentary is to raise questions so that professionals can investigate. For instance, he said that his choice in the documentary to highlight all of the pedophiles who were at one point suspected of killing JonBenét was meant to prompt questions about whether the killer could have been one of them.

"There is a large universe, sadly, of sick people who do this kind of thing," he said. "And it makes the Ramsey story even more implausible."

The docuseries also makes a point to question the validity of the existing DNA evidence and push the Boulder PD to test previously untested items found at the crime scene. With new DNA testing, the doc suggests, there's a chance the perpetrator could finally be identified, either through the existing criminal database or by finding a close family match thanks to the recent boom in commercialized genealogical testing.

This "start from scratch" DNA testing approach would mean that every suspect previously ruled out based on that potentially faulty original DNA evidence would need to be reconsidered. That, more than anything, feels to the director like proof of John Ramsey's innocence: Why would he push for new testing, knowing that it could expose him if he were the culprit?

"John Ramsey, who's 80, is still pounding the table for an answer and wants to move this case forward, and wants, before he dies, to solve the crime. That is not the action of a guilty person," Berlinger said. "John would be the first to tell you that everyone, including the Ramseys, needs to be put back on the table when new DNA testing has been executed."

"There are concrete things that can be done. There's an opportunity to right a wrong here and to solve this crime through DNA technology," he added.

Soon after the release of Berlinger's docuseries in November, the Boulder PD released its annual update about their investigation slightly earlier than usual, citing the "increased attention" as the reason for the early drop.

"The killing of JonBenét was an unspeakable crime and this tragedy has never left our hearts," Boulder police 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. This investigation will always be a priority for the Boulder Police Department."

The statement continued, "The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing — to include DNA testing — is completely false."

In response, Berlinger and the filmmaking team told The Hollywood Reporter that nothing would make them happier than to learn the Boulder PD was pursuing all the recommendations made by the Cold Case review team, and urged the investigators to share their progress with the Ramsey family.

"We wish the BPD great success in finding the killer of JonBenét Ramsey and urge them to collaborate with all outside entities, including private forensic labs, who have offered to assist them in solving this horrific crime," Berlinger and his team's statement reads.

"Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey" is now streaming on Netflix.

• A new Netflix docuseries explores the JonBenét Ramsey murder case.
• Some surviving members of JonBenét's family participated, but her brother Burke didn't.
• Burke Ramsey has had a difficult relationship with the media and was previously cleared as a suspect.

Burke Ramsey was 9 years old when his family was thrust into the spotlight after his younger sister, JonBenét Ramsey, was found dead in their Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996.

The shocking and brutal nature of the killing (the 6-year-old was found with a strangulation device called a garrote embedded in her neck; an autopsy later revealed that her skull had been fractured) incited a media frenzy. The strange details of the still-unsolved murder — like the ransom note left behind that claimed JonBenét had been kidnapped and demanded $118,000 for her return, when her body had been in the home all along — have led true-crime fans to spend the ensuing decades poring over the case and forming their own theories about what really happened.

Many came to believe that someone in the Ramsey family was responsible for JonBenét's death; they weren't formally cleared as suspects until 2008. A new Netflix docuseries, "Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?" explores how the initial investigation was faulty and accuses the original Boulder investigators, along with the media, of unfairly pointing suspicion toward the family.

"I can't think of another family that's been so brutalized so unfairly by the media," director Joe Berlinger told Business Insider in an interview ahead of the docuseries' premiere.

Burke Ramsey became (and remains) a particular target of suspicion among JonBenét theorists, but he didn't participate in the new Netflix docuseries. Here's what we know about Burke's life since his sister's murder and where he is today.

Theories that Burke Ramsey killed his sister JonBenét led to legal action

Burke, along with his parents, moved back to Atlanta, where the family had lived before Boulder, in the aftermath of JonBenét's death. While Patsy and John Ramsey continued to do interviews in an attempt to combat the suspicion against them and encouraged authorities to keep investigating the case, Burke, then still a child, kept out of the spotlight.

In 2008, the Boulder District Attorney's Office officially cleared the Ramsey family (including Burke and Patsy, who'd died two years earlier) of JonBenét's murder after confirming with new testing that male DNA found on the child's underwear didn't match anyone in the family. Then-DA Mary Lacy also apologized in a letter to John Ramsey for the possibility that her office had contributed to "public perception that you might have been involved in this crime."

The decision to clear the Ramsey family publicly has been controversial, and in the event of new DNA testing, as the Ramsey family and the Netflix docuseries are pushing for, all previously cleared suspects should be reconsidered.

According to the Daily Camera, a Boulder newspaper, Burke had been interviewed by investigators at least three times and reportedly appeared before the grand jury that investigated the case in 1999. At the time, the Boulder District Attorney's office said Burke had never been under suspicion. (As the Netflix doc recounts, court documents unsealed in 2013 later revealed that the grand jury had voted to indict John and Patsy Ramsey on two counts each of child abuse resulting in JonBenét's death, though then-DA Alex Hunter chose not to move forward with the indictment because he said the evidence wasn't sufficient to prosecute them.)

In September 2016, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the crime, CBS aired the docuseries "The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey." In it, a group that included former FBI agents, a forensic scientist, and a forensic pathologist reevaluated the evidence and theorized that Burke had killed JonBenét, likely accidentally, by striking her over the head after she took a piece of pineapple from his bowl and that their parents had written the ransom note to cover up how JonBenét died.

Burke's attorneys filed defamation lawsuits against the network, producers, and the series' hosts for $750 million later that year; he'd separately filed another lawsuit against one of the individual investigators from the special in October. Both parties confirmed in January 2019 that the CBS lawsuit had been settled for an undisclosed amount.

Burke, then 29, also gave his first and only public interview to date to Phil McGraw on the "Dr. Phil" show in 2016, days before the CBS special aired. He acknowledged knowing that his family had been suspected of killing JonBenét and once again denied that any of them were involved. He offered his own theory on the murder: that his sister had been killed by an intruder, likely someone who attended JonBenét's beauty pageants.

When asked why he'd finally chosen to speak out, Burke said he wanted to honor his sister's memory.

"I don't want anyone to forget," he told McGraw.

Where is Burke Ramsey now?

Since the 2016 "Dr. Phil" interview, Burke, now 37, has resumed living a private life. Public records show he currently appears to live in Michigan, where the Ramseys moved after leaving Atlanta.

John Ramsey told People in a 2012 interview that Burke was working as a software engineer. Speaking to ET after his interview with Burke, McGraw said Burke had graduated from Purdue University in 2010 and was working in the computer industry. At that time, Burke had a girlfriend, according to McGraw, though it's unclear whether he's currently in a relationship, married, or has kids.

"He's a very private individual, but he has a great career and has a good relationship with his father," McGraw told ET in 2016.

During the portion of the docuseries that recounts theories that Burke killed JonBenét, an on-screen text card explains that Burke declined to participate, "citing his treatments by the media and online websleuths."

Berlinger, the director of the new Netflix docuseries on the case, told TODAY that Burke is "doing fine."

He said that the docuseries team tried to reach Burke through John Ramsey and John Andrew Ramsey, who is John's son and Burke's half-brother. But according to Berlinger, Burke said he didn't want to speak to them and they didn't want to pressure him.

Both John and John Andrew participated extensively in the docuseries. In one interview in it, John Andrew called allegations that his brother had killed their sister "absolutely absurd."

When speaking to BI, Berlinger named Burke as the one person whose perspective he'd have loved to have.

"I think he also has been so brutalized," he said. "The theories against him are so incredulous."