If you’re not aware of the minutiae of the JonBenét Ramsey investigation—the sketchy ransom note, the fallacious DNA, the false confession, the brother theory, etc.—I don’t have time to catch you up. It’s been 30 years. No morsel of her murder has been left unlitigated, be that via true crime documentary, podcast, magazine, Epstein conspiracy TikTok, Barbara Walters, or what have you. And now! There’s going to be a Netflix limited series, because even after Netflix’s 2024 documentary Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey, there is still money to be made from the JonBenét IP, 30 years post Christmas Day 1996.
The new series, The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey, will star Melissa McCarthy as JonBenét’s mother, Patsy Ramsey, who discovered the alleged ransom note, and Clive Owen as the father, John Ramsey, who discovered JonBenét’s body in a utility closet in the basement during a police search, igniting a whirlwind of theories. In an interview with Variety published Monday, McCarthy was asked whether she has a theory about who killed JonBenét.
“Yes. Just my personal feeling. My heart says no one in the family could have done that. I don’t have the ability, or probably the right, to say that, but that’s what my gut says. Which I probably am not supposed to say.”
She explained that for the sake of the performance, “I had to pick. I had to have that for myself, if nothing else.” So it seems like McCarthy believes in the intruder theory—the theory that an unknown intruder broke into the Ramsey home on Christmas night, murdered six-year-old JonBenét, and penned a two-page ransom note requesting $118,000, the amount of John’s annual bonus.
First look at ‘The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey’ starring Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen as Patsy and John Ramsey.
The limited series will premiere December 10 on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/9quKr67cNM
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) September 15, 2026
McCarthy originally turned down the role, thinking it wasn’t her “business,” but returned to the project because she “was really floored by the lack of humanity that had been shown to that family.”
“In 1996, I was 26, and I have a very vivid memory of standing in a grocery store and looking at a tabloid and thinking, ‘How could you dress a little girl like that?’ Because that’s what we were being told,” she said.
McCarthy reiterated that the show isn’t trying to reach a conclusion about the cold case, but rather offer a character study of the Ramseys and how the investigation unfolded into nationwide gossip. After agreeing to the role, people in McCarthy’s life came forward to tell her their own theories: “Very smart people, very open-minded people. I was like, ‘What is that based on?'” she recalled.
“This is not a whodunit. It’s not like, ‘Ooh, there’s a big reveal!’” she said. “This is a character study of everyone who was caught in the undertow, and a look at all of us — as a civilization, really. Seeing that happen to a child I think breaks everybody.” While I fear the gossip cycle will inevitably continue with another relitigation of the case, McCarthy’s comments also give me slight hope that the show will offer something new:
“We do show all these different theories,” she added. “They were all real working theories. Showing the chaos of it is something that we’ve not seen. It’s a new telling of it, because you’re like, ‘My God, is this really what was happening?’”
Do I already know everything there is to know about the case? Yes. Will I watch the show? Probably also yes—if not just to see McCarthy acting in a rare dramatic role.
