Jailed paedophile claims he killed JonBenet Ramsey

A suspect in the killing of child beauty pageant queen JonBenet Ramsey more than 20 years ago has claimed responsibility for the murder.

Convicted paedophile Gary Oliva, 54, has told an old friend that he killed the six-year-old, who was found dead in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colorado, in December 1996. She had a fractured skull and had been asphyxiated with a garrote.

No one has ever been formally charged with her murder, but Oliva - currently serving a ten-year sentence in a Colorado prison for child pornography offences - has long been a suspect.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Now, the Daily Mail is claiming to have obtained letters sent by Oliva to a former high-school classmate in which the prison inmate writes: “I never loved anyone like I did JonBenet and yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half and I watched her die. It was an accident. Please believe me. She was not like the other kids.”

In a second letter, he added: “JonBenet completely changed me and removed all evil from me. Just one look at her beautiful face, her glowing beautiful skin, and her divine God-body, I realised I was wrong to kill other kids. Yet by accident she died and it was my fault.”

The Denver Post reports that the letters were sent to Michael Vail, a music publicist.

Vail told the Daily Mail he had always suspected that Oliva was involved in JonBenet’s murder and believes the confession is genuine.

But Boulder newspaper the Daily Camera says the information provided by Vail has “elicited a dismissive response” from local police, who say Oliva has made similar claims before that were later disproven.

Police spokesperson Laurie Ogden said: “The Boulder Police Department is aware of Mr Oliva and has investigated his potential involvement in this case, including several previous confessions.

“Information provided to the police department is reviewed along with the many tips and theories we receive. There are no new updates in this investigation and the department will not comment further.”