John Ramsey has heard enough about this theory.
Nearly 30 years after his and late wife Patsy Ramsey’s 6-year-old daughter JonBenét Ramsey was murdered, he shut down speculation that their son Burke, who was 9 years old at the time, had anything to do with the 1996 crime.
“No, you know your children,” John explained in a Nov. 22 episode of the Crime Junkie podcast. “We wanted him to be separated from it—from the chaos.”
And when host Ashley Flowers suggested Burke, now 37, has any knowledge of what happened to his sister, John maintained his stance.
“No,” he reiterated. “Burke is a very solid person, despite all. He went to college, graduated, got a good job. Ever since, well thought of by his employers. Very disciplined. Buys used cars. He’s a good adult and he was a good son.”
The 80-year-old emphasized his trust in his son.
“If he knew anything, it would not be something he thought was important,” John continued, saying of a theory that Burke had gotten up from bed the night before his sister’s murder. “That’s fiction. There’s so much fiction out there.”
As he noted of his son allegedly saying he had gotten out of bed and gone downstairs the night before JonBenét was killed, “I didn’t know he came back down if he did.”
He emphasized, “Burke would have said something.”
John also defended his son’s disposition in a 2016 interview he did with Dr. Phil McGraw—where he maintained a smile for most of the conversation. (When discussing the theory that he killed his sister with Dr. Phil in 2016, Burke said, “I don’t know what to say to that, because that’s not what happened.”)
“The things that were interpreted by the internet crowd, ‘Well, he’s smiling,’” John recalled of the infamous interview. “Burke talks with a smile.”
John’s defense of his son comes shortly after he explained why the public’s speculation that he committed his daughter’s murder “doesn’t bother” him.
“Once your reputation is tarnished, rightly or wrongly, it never goes back to pure white,” he explained to People in an interview published Nov. 24. “That's just life.”
Keep reading for more details on the tragic death of JonBenét.