Family Reacts To Evidence Clearing Ramseys

ATLANTA -- Twelve years after the murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, prosecutors said new DNA tests have cleared the child's family in her murder.

The Boulder County, Colo., DA released a letter Wednesday, saying evidence points to an unexplained third party in connection with the crime. JonBenet's body was discovered in the basement of her home in Boulder, Colo., the day after Christmas 1996.

11Alive's sister station KUSA Denver spoke exclusively to John Ramsey on Wednesday.

"The most important thing to me is we now have very, very solid evidence, and that's always been the hope -- at least in the recent past that will lead us to the killer eventually, as the DNA database grows and is populated," Ramsey said.

The Ramsey family has close ties to Georgia -- in fact both JonBenet and her mother are buried in Marietta, and much of her extended family still lives here.

Patsy Ramsey's sister, Pam Paugh is elated, and not angry. Remember -- it wasn't just John and Patsy Ramsey, but their entire family that lived under a cloud of suspicion for 12 years. Almost immediately after JonBenet's parents were suspected of her murder.

"For whatever reason JonBenet was taken from us," Paugh said. "That killed our family. That devastated us, as it would anyone, and then the world -- through the not-so-scrupulous media wanted to destroy a perfectly good couple, Patsy and John, but they stood on the truth they were patient they have waited for this day and now it has finally come."

A new type of DNA testing, called touch testing , found skin cells on the leggings JonBenet was wearing. While it's ruled out anyone in the Ramsey family, investigators have not found a match in the national CODIS DNA data bank.

"CODIS is a wonderful thing to put in the DNA bank and hopefully find a match, but a lot of factors would come into play though -- has this person ever killed before,. have they killed since, will they kill again and is their DNA ever going to be put into that system," Paugh said.

The latest chapter in this still unsolved case comes too late for JonBenet's mother to hear for herself. Two years ago, Patsy Ramsey died of ovarian cancer.

"The faith that I hold says that she went to her maker with a good heart, that she had done nothing to her daughter except give her life and love her and so she already knew," Paugh said. "Today she's probably jumping up and down and saying this is a good thing when people can finally admit that something went wrong."

All the Ramsey family wants to do now, she said is to make it right.

"Now we need to find our killer," she said.

That new DNA has been added to the federal CODIS DNA bank, but no match was found. All they know at this point is it comes from a male.