Murder of JonBenet Ramsey

John and Patsy Ramsey on TV

One of the questions raised during the interview was: "Do you believe that someone outside your home killed JonBenet?"

Patsy answered in a tearful voice: "There is a killer on the loose, I don't know who it is, I don't know if it's a he or a she — but if I were a resident of Boulder I would tell my friends to keep their babies close to you."

Rather than explain their point of view, the broadcast only served to bolster the theory that the Ramseys were pretending and would rather talk on television than talk to the police.

The next day, Mayor Leslie Durgan gave a press conference to reject Patsy's claim, stating: "People in Boulder have no need to fear that there is someone wandering the streets of Boulder, as has been portrayed by some people, looking for young children to attack. Boulder is safe, it's always been a safe community and it continues to be a safe community."

The Ramseys were outraged. They simply couldn't understand why someone such as Mayor Durgan would say such things publicly when it was obvious to them that JonBenet's killer was still out there. Sadly, they were yet to realize that Durgan's comments were indicative of the opinions of the police and a large percentage of the general public who believed that John and Patsy were solely responsible for the death of their daughter.

During a 1997 interview, Durgan explained her reasons for making the announcement: "It was done in large part to allay the fears of children in our community and to let people know that the information that I had at that time was that we did not have some crazed person wandering the streets of University Hill."

When asked by the interviewer where she had gotten her information from, she replied, "The police chief."