The father of the 6-year-old girl who was brutally murdered 27 years ago on Dec. 26 has finally come to terms with celebrating Christmas after so many years of not doing so, Fox News has reported.
John Ramsey was reflecting on the 1996 murder of his daughter, JonBenet, who was found dead in the basement of the family's Boulder home after having been bludgeoned in the head and strangled to death.
The case remains an active, open investigation, and there are currently no suspects.
"We didn't celebrate Christmas for several years, and we thought, Well, this isn't fair to [our son] Burke.'… We really tried to give him a normal childhood," John Ramsey, now 80, told Fox News. "Now, we have grandchildren, and we have to enjoy those in our life. We will be with my daughter and her children and [my son's] children this Christmas. It'll be a joyful Christmas. You've got to remember what Christmas is all about, and that helps solidify our view of life and what life's all about."
Ramsey said that the murder of his daughter "impacts us, not just on Dec. 26. It's with us — I've told people, the death of a child … you don't get over. You don't move on. You're a changed person. And I'm sure that's the same for my other children. It's a horrible thing for them to have to live with, but you move on, and you've got to move on and create new memories."
JonBenet's mother — the late Patsy Ramsey, who died of cancer in 2006 — reported her daughter missing to police on Dec. 26, 1996, after finding a ransom note demanding $118,000 in exchange for JonBenet. John Ramsey found her body in their basement later that same day.
Ramsey said seeing photos of JonBenet and his oldest daughter, Beth, who died in a car accident in 1992, "brightens" his day.
"I don't understand heaven and can't possibly comprehend it, but I believe she's there. And that's comforting," he told Fox News.
Ramsey has been critical of the Boulder Police Department's handling of the case over nearly three decades, but is hopeful that recent changes within the department will bring new answers to light.
He has recently been trying to make child murder a federal crime so the FBI and other federal authorities can immediately get involved in cases involving children under 12 years old.
"I'd like to see the murder of a child 12 years and under be a federal crime and … bring the full resources of our country to bear when a child is murdered. It's insane to leave it up to the local police department to decide what should be done. Some of them make the right decisions. They bring in help," he said. "We have 18,000 police jurisdictions in this country, approximately, and for that authority to be vested in each of those chief of police officers is risky."