We Asked This Media Expert All of Our Burning Questions About the New JonBenét Ramsey Docuseries on Netflix

You don’t have to be a true crime fanatic to know about JonBenét Ramsey. Ever since the six-year-old pageant queen was murdered in her Boulder home the day after Christmas in 1996, the world has developed an obsessive fascination with her death—and who was behind it.

From podcasts to books to an impending Paramount+ series starring Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen, the unsolved murder has been dissected, dramatized, and disseminated in every medium. But few have made a splash as large as Netflix.

In Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey, a three-episode series that debuted on the streaming site on November 25, local journalists, retired Boulder Police Department detective Bob Whitson, Ramsey family members (including JonBenét’s father, John), and more delve into the details of the dizzying crime and the media circus that ensued.

Michael Tracey, professor emeritus of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, is featured in the docuseries because of his unique relationship with John Mark Karr, who confessed to the murder in a series of emails and phone calls with Tracey. Boulder police later cleared Karr when his DNA didn’t match that found at the scene—but Tracey isn’t so sure of the former suspect’s innocence.

We sat down with the professor to talk about his conversations with Karr, some of the most common online theories about the case, and what he thinks the new Netflix series got right (and wrong).

Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

5280: How did you first get involved with the JonBenét Ramsey case?
Michael Tracey: Before I was hired by CU, I ran a think tank in London called the Broadcasting Research Unit, and I’d written a lot about the problems of tabloid values coming to dominate and, therefore, corrupt journalism. British filmmaker David Mills was on the same page with me in terms of what was emerging in journalism—and it wasn’t good.

[Mills] tried to get some funds together to make a documentary about my work, but the topic was too academic, too boring. It never happened. So I came [to CU], and then JonBenét was killed. So I called [Mills], and I said, “I think we can do that project [about tabloid values corrupting journalism] by telling the story of JonBenét Ramsey.”

That’s how it started. Then, I made a decision that if anyone wanted to talk with me about my views on the case, I would never say no. Whether it was a freshman student or Larry King or Katie Couric, I did them all. I was trying to make a simple point: This was wrong. It was tacky. It was unfair. It flew in the face of [the Ramsey family’s] right to be presumed innocent.

Do you ever find it ironic that despite being a staunch critic of the way the media covered this case, you have to leverage the media to make your point about the decline of journalistic standards?
If you want to enter the public square, you’ve got to do it through some kind of medium. There’s no point in me writing an academic article, which I have. But what Netflix has demonstrated is that this kind of platform is incredibly powerful.

I tried to walk away from the case about three years ago. I said to my family, “I’m done. I’m out.” But I got that one wrong. I’m glad I said yes to Netflix because what this documentary does is what we’ve been trying to do for 25 years: point to the police, point to the lack of evidence, and point to the saturated media coverage that was basically designed to frame the Ramseys.

To your point, this case has been covered extensively. What do you feel this docuseries has added to the conversation that was missing before?
If you recall in the interview, when we were discussing John Mark Karr, I said, “The DNA didn’t match, allegedly.” And I said, “I think there’s a problem with the DNA.” But what I thought was really interesting was that they then cut to [former Denver district attorney] Mitch Morrissey, and he didn’t disagree.

There are technologies now that are way beyond what they were back in ’96, ’97, and that DNA needs to be interrogated. For instance, Charlie Brennan and [Kevin] Vaughn from Channel9 did a story back in 2016 where they talked with a couple of experts—one at [the University of Denver] and one at CU Law School—who argued that it’s possible that the Unknown Male One [DNA] on JonBenét is commingled. Today, you can separate out the male from the female DNA. They also pointed out that there may well be an Unknown Male Two. That hasn’t been given enough attention. And that’s what I was alluding to when I said in the docuseries that there’s a problem with the DNA.

Well if there’s a problem with the DNA, then everybody who has been ruled out on the basis of DNA testing up to this point should be back on the table, including the Ramseys, right?
Absolutely. That’s the logical conclusion.

So how did you first connect with John Mark Karr?
A friend of mine, Mike Sandrock, who’s a reporter for the Boulder Daily Camera, was at the Shakespeare [and Company] Bookstore in Paris, and he bumps into this American guy. This guy asks him, “Where are you from?” and Mike says, “Boulder,” and he says, “Oh, Boulder. JonBenét.”

Mike said, “Yeah, I’ve got a friend who’s kind of involved in the case. Mike Tracey.” And he said, “Oh, you know Mike Tracey?” Mike gave the man, who was then called Daxis, his email address, and Daxis (actually Karr) emailed him and asked if he could pass it on to me. So he did.

Were his emails strange from the beginning or did they evolve over time?
What’s interesting is that he first emailed me on December 25, 2002, not December 26 [the day JonBenét was killed.] Eventually, he confesses to killing her. He goes on and on about it, in great detail.

But the obvious question was: Is this guy just some kind of loon? So I said to him, “Look, why shouldn’t I just think that you’re bullshitting me?” And that’s when he said, “Ask John Ramsey what JonBenét’s nickname was for her grandma, Nedra. He’ll say it was Neddy.”

So, I emailed [JonBenét’s parents] John and Patsy—she was still alive—and they said, “Neddy.” That was not known outside of the close family. How did Karr know that?

Karr told me other things. He told me about how he’d been in Costa Rica as a nanny and how he’d been kicked out because he was getting too friendly with the little girl. That’s true. The father of the little girl emailed me. He told me about his classroom; he [worked at] an international school. He told me about the little girl who he was starting to fantasize about who was five at the time. And he told me what they did. Like, she would lift up her skirt and show her belly button. He would sit at the little children’s table with her and play with her feet. So when he was arrested, that child was interviewed, I assume by a child psychologist, and it was true. Everything he said was true. So why is he lying about JonBenét?

We hear some of the audio from your phone calls with Karr in the docuseries, and they’re morbid. How did you mentally cope with those conversations?
It was very dark. But the most difficult part was listening to what he’s saying in great detail and knowing that, whether he did it or not, that happened to that kid. She was tortured to death. And I had to pretend it was OK.

I remember one Saturday, he had described how he killed her. I went home, I sat in my study, and I just broke down. It was a very dark experience. I think some people thought, “How exciting. It must have been great fun.” It was not great fun. I learned a lesson: Don’t get involved with sociopaths.

The docuseries has gotten some flak for not addressing some facets of the case that have earned a lot of attention from internet sleuths. One being the pineapple found in JonBenét’s stomach, which nobody recalls her eating, and another being her brother Burke’s potential involvement. What did you think about the producer’s choice to leave these out of the series?
Two things: The autopsy report doesn’t say pineapple. It says “pineapple-like substance.” [Editor’s note: The autopsy report says the stomach contains “yellow to light green-tan apparent vegetable or fruit material, which may represent fragments of pineapple.”] But let’s talk about Burke.

Now, could a nine-year-old boy, for whatever reason, be angry with his sister and hit her over the head? Sure. Could a nine-year-old boy then go and get the paintbrush, get the cord, get the duct tape, fashion a garrote, sexually abuse her with a piece of wood from the paintbrush? It’s nonsense. It’s absurd. So that means, if he did hit her, it was John and Patsy who then staged it. I suppose in life anything is possible.

So, do you think John Mark Karr is responsible for JonBenét’s death?
The only rational response to that is, you don’t know until you know. I’ve never said he did it. I said he’s a very serious suspect. When he was emailing me, all those emails were being seen by investigators in the United States, in Thailand, in the U.K., people who are professional investigators. They’re all reading the emails and not one, as far as I know, came back and said, “Come on, this guy is a nutcase.”

Are you finally done with this case?
Do you remember the scene from the Godfather where Michael Corleone says he’s trying to get out but they keep dragging me back in? That’s how I feel.