NBC Sets JonBenet Ramsey ‘Dateline’ Special

The murder of JonBenet Ramsey continues to draw the attention of TV networks.

NBC’s Dateline is the latest to jump on the true crime bandwagon months ahead of the 20th anniversary of the six-year-old beauty queen’s mysterious murder.

Dateline NBC: Who Killed JonBenet? will include exclusive interviews with two former detectives involved in the investigation, former Boulder PD’s Jane Harmer and former Denver PD’s Tom Haney. In the two-hour special, Harmer will discuss why she agreed with the grand jury’s recommendation to indict Ramsey’s parents, and why she also sided with the district attorney in his decision not to pursue charges.

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Haney was brought in by the Boulder district attorney’s office to interview Patsy Ramsey. In addition to tapes of the police interview with Burke Ramsey, JonBenet’s brother, the special includes interviews with Pam Barday, a Ramsey family friend; Kimberly Archuleta, the 9-1-1 dispatcher who took Patsy Ramsey’s call; Fred Patterson, a former Boulder PD detective; Ron Walker, a former agent in the FBI’s Denver office; and Bob Whitson, a retired detective sergeant at Boulder PD who was at the Ramsey house on the day the murder investigation began and became an advocate of the intruder theory.

“The behavior at the scene does not match up [with the Ramseys],” Whitson tells Dateline in the special. “It matches up a sexually sadistic person and a psychopath.”

Ramsey was found murdered in her family basement Dec. 26, 1996. Although questions mounted about her parents’ involvement, as well as her older brother’s, there were also theories that it was an intruder who broke in and strangled her to death. With the true crime trend still hot and the 20th anniversary of the headline-grabbing case fast approaching, Dateline is one of six TV specials focusing on the unsolved killing.

A+E aired a two-hour special on Labor Day, Investigation Discovery has a three-night event slated to kick off Sept. 12. That same day, Dr. Phil has an exclusive interview with Burke Ramsey that will air over three episodes. CBS also has the six-hour limited docuseries The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey. Lifetime also has a new JonBenet Ramsey TV movie in the works. 

Dateline airs Friday at 9 p.m. on NBC.