JonBenét Ramsey's father reveals stalker fears & mystery behind 'stranger who stayed in beauty queen's room'

JONBENÉT Ramsey's dad believes a stalker was surveilling his family for months before his daughter's murder - claiming a mystery intruder once stayed in her bedroom.

John Ramsey, 79, told The U.S. Sun in an exclusive sit-down interview that he was alerted to the apparent intruder by one of the family's housekeepers months after six-year-old JonBenét was found strangled to death.

John Ramsey spoke with The U.S. Sun for an exclusive interview last monthCredit: John Chapple for The US Sun

The death of JonBenét remains one of America's most infamous unsolved murdersCredit: YouTube/InsideEdition

JonBenet's bedroom is seen inside the Ramsey's Boulder, Colorado, homeCredit: YouTube: Inside Edition

At the time the Ramsey family - who lived in Boulder, Colorado - had a holiday home in Michigan where they'd often vacation together in the summer.

In the summer of 1996, one of the Ramseys' housekeepers had apparently gone into the home to ready it for their arrival when she saw a suitcase and other belongings - appearing to belong to an adult male - neatly laid out in JonBenét's bedroom.

The individual wasn't inside the home at the time, and the housekeeper didn't think anything of the discovery, John said, believing the family had likely let a friend stay at the often-vacant property.

"She told us, 'When I came to clean and freshen up your house there was somebody who was staying in JonBenét's room but he wasn't there,'" claimed John.

Most read in The US Sun

"There's a room on the ground floor, so if you had to leave fast you could get out but to stay in JonBenet’s room would have been the last room I would have picked if I was not supposed to be there."

John said he reported the housekeeper's account to police but doesn't believe investigators ever looked into the claim seriously.

Boulder PD declined to comment when approached by The U.S. Sun, citing an active and ongoing investigation.

'BEING WATCHED'

Further supporting his belief that the family was being watched by his daughter's killer in the weeks and months preceding her death is the infamous ransom note at the center of the case.

Spanning two-and-a-half pages and featuring a series of bizarre turns of phrases, the note was addressed to John and purported to have been written by a "foreign faction" who demanded $118,000 in cash for JonBenét's safe return.

The oddly specific sum was almost identical to a deferred bonus acquired by John at his job as an executive for a computer company.

The letter had been written on a pad of paper that belonged to the Ramseys. The pen used also came from inside the home.

It was discovered by JonBenét's mom Patsy early on the morning of Dec. 26, 1996, at the bottom of a staircase at the rear of the home, moments before she called 911 to report her daughter missing.

The ransom note was addressed to John and signed 'Victory! S.B.T.C'Credit: Getty

John Ramsey last saw his daughter when he carried her up to bed late on Christmas DayCredit: John Chapple for The US Sun

John and Patsy Ramsey were cleared of any wrongdoing in their daughter's death by the DA's office in 2008 - two years after Patsy died from cancerCredit: Getty

For years, suspicions lingered that Patsy had authored the note.

Both John and Patsy voluntarily supplied handwriting samples to police and neither was found to be a match.

John believes that both where the note was left and its contents are further evidence that the attack on JonBenét was targeted - and possibly carried out specifically to hurt him.

"I just know that they had us under surveillance," said John of his daughter's killer.

"The one point that really caught my attention was the ransom note that was left on the back stairway on the second floor.

"We used that stairway 95 percent of the time, even though there was a main stairway - a more normal stairway.

"Why wouldn't they have left it there?

"If you didn't know our patterns, you wouldn't assume that we would come down that spiral staircase. So that was always an issue to be thought about."

The person wasn't there. But he had a suitcase. Everything was really neatly arranged
John Ramsey

John believes his daughter was killed during a kidnapping gone wrong.

Explaining his beliefs, he said: "We spent quite a lot of time with John Douglas, who set up the FBI profiling program.

"And after he really studied the case, he said, 'This is not about JonBenét, this is someone who is angry at you, very angry at you, John, or very jealous of you.'

"I said I can't imagine that I could've made anyone that mad or angry at me, and he told me I might not even know them. They might just not like who I am."

John Douglas and another investigator, Lou Smit, both told the Ramseys they believe the letter was written before JonBenét's death.

"Anyone who had committed this could not have then sat down and written a three-page ransom note out," John Ramsey said of the investigators' opinions.

"Their emotions would be intense and he said this was written before the murder.

"Whether or not it was supposed to end in a murder or sexual assault I don't know, but the note was written before the event."

THE RAMBLING NOTE

John Ramsey last saw his daughter when he carried her up to bed late on Christmas Day, having spent most of the day over at a friend's home.

He and Patsy had woken up early on the morning of December 26 as the family was due to go out of town on a trip.

John had been shaving in the bathroom when he heard Patsy let out a guttural scream from down the hall.

"She was just screaming," John recounted. "She'd found this note on the stairway and then went and checked JonBenét's room and she wasn't there.

"I read the note as quickly as I could, and Patsy was standing by the phone so I told her to call the police."

In a state of shock and wracked with worry, John said that although the letter didn't make much sense to him at the time, he wasn't analyzing it in the moment.

He saw the sum of $118,000 and immediately started making arrangements to get the cash withdrawn.

It was in the days after JonBenét's death that the odd tone and nature of the letter began to dawn on him.

"It was only after I had time to think that I thought, 'this is really bizarre,'" he said.

"What is all this craziness? Why 118k? Why not a million? There was some point to that $118,000 that made sense to the killer.

"I had gotten a deferred compensation bonus in January of that year for $118,230 or something like that. I didn't actually get the money, but it was on every pay stub for the next 12 months.

"And so that to me is the most logical explanation [for the requested sum], particularly if the crime was aimed at hurting me."

KILLER THEORY

Numerous suspects and figures of suspicion have come to the fore in the 26 years since JonBenét's murder.

John - who remains perplexed as to why someone would want to harm him and his daughter - said the killer could've been someone he worked with who had access to the accounting department.

Alternatively, the killer may have broken into - or been invited into - the family's home in the days, weeks, or months preceding the murder and found one of his paystubs with the $118,000 bonus written on it.

"It would have been easy to do," said John, of breaking into his former home. "We'd be out of town a lot in the summer, and it was a big old house that had seven doors and 27 windows or something like that.

"We had a burglar alarm, but we never used it because the sound it made was awful and JonBenét had set it off once by accident."

JonBenét was struck over the head and strangled to death. There were also signs of sexual assaultCredit: Rex Shutterstock

John believes his daughter was killed during a kidnapping gone wrongCredit: John Chapple for The US Sun

The home where the Ramseys lived in Boulder has since been demolishedCredit: Toby Canham

John also believes the killer was familiar with the layout of the sprawling property and was already hiding inside by the time they returned home.

"It was a big house with a confusing layout. How would a killer have known to get around?" he asked.

"I think he'd been in there before, whether through breaking in or from one of the Christmas charity events or parties we'd thrown.

"But this was not a random attack," added John. "This was planned.

"We were targeted, there's no doubt about it.

"I'm not a detective, but that's so obvious to me."

SEEKING JUSTICE

John, who turned 79 in December, is worried that he's running out of time to get answers about who killed JonBenét.

He is once again campaigning to have the case removed from the jurisdiction of Boulder PD so that fresh eyes can look over the case and better resources applied to the investigation before time for him runs out.

He also recently appealed to the Governor of Colorado Jared Polis to instruct BPD to release any DNA evidence they have to a state-of-the-art genealogy lab.

Additionally, John is urging investigators to take a look at an attack on another young girl that happened in Boulder months after his daughter's murder, which he believes could be connected.