THE dad of beauty pageant queen JonBenét Ramsey avoided coming face to face with the convicted sex offender who has been linked to the death of his daughter, The U.S. Sun can reveal.
Gary Oliva, a longtime suspect in the murder hunt for little JonBenét Ramsey’s killer, was seen at the Gaylord Rockies Hotel in Colorado on Saturday.
Gary Oliva, a longtime suspect in the murder hunt for JonBenet, was seen at a Colorado hotel[/caption]
Oliva reportedly confessed to killing the child in a letter to a former classmate[/caption]
Ramsey spoke to a packed audience at CrimeCon about his continual struggle with Boulder cops to solve the December 1996 death, which has been in the spotlight for almost 30 years.
Oliva, 60, was released from the Arkansas Valley Correction Facility in Ordway, Colorado last January, after serving less than eight years of a 10-year sentence.
He was arrested in June 2016 after he was caught uploading disturbing pictures involving children – cops found 695 child abuse images on his phone.
There were also 335 photos of – or relating to – JonBenét.
In copies of his letters previously revealed by The U.S. Sun, the convicted sex offender, also talked about cannibalistic urges. Oliva is believed to have hand-drawn sketches of JonBenét.
Oliva wrote letters to his ex high-school classmate, Michael Vail, where he appeared to suggest he was responsible for the killing.
Vail has long claimed Oliva told him: “I hurt a little girl” in Boulder.
“It was an accident,” Oliva said in his letter.
“Please believe me. She was not like the other kids.”
DNA evidence has never formally linked him to the crime.
John Ramsey and wife Jane admitted they had been contacted by a third party who informed them Oliva would like to meet them at the CrimeCon convention. CrimeCon was held in Denver between September 5-7.
Ramsey told The U.S. Sun he was informed Oliva wanted to ”apologize.”
Suspects investigated in the JonBenét Ramsey case
Child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey, 6, was found dead in an unfinished wine cellar section in the basement of her family’s Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996.
JonBenét’s parents reported her missing after mom Patsy found a handwritten ransom note on the staircase toward the back of the family’s home.
Hours passed without any sighting or word from JonBenét’s supposed kidnappers as Boulder police combed through the home and the surrounding area.
JonBenét’s body was eventually found by her father, John Ramsey, in the basement. A rope was tied tightly around her neck, and at the end of the rope was a broken paintbrush.
An autopsy determined the 6-year-old had been sexually assaulted and tortured.
In the decades since the unsolved murder, investigators have probed several potential suspects connected to JonBenét’s case.
List of suspects:
- John and Patsy Ramsey: At the start of the investigation, police focused on JonBenét’s parents and her then-9-year-old brother, Burke. Boulder police believed Patsy wrote the ransom note at the scene after she allegedly became enraged that JonBenét wet the bed. Police alleged Patsy viciously injured her daughter in a fit of rage, causing her death and setting up the crime as a kidnapping. The parents were cleared when the DNA evidence found under JonBenét’s fingernails, on her clothing, and her underwear was linked to an unknown male. The DNA did not match John, Patsy, or Burke Ramseys.
- John Mark Karr: In 2002, John Mark Karr, an elementary school teacher living in Thailand at the time, began communicating with an investigative journalist. Karr disclosed details about JonBenét’s murder that were not known to the public. With the help of journalist Michael Tracey, authorities arrested Karr in Bangkok and extradited him to Boulder. However, the case again hit a wall after Karr’s DNA did not match the samples taken from the crime scene. Karr’s estranged wife also provided an alibi, saying Karr was in North Carolina on the day that JonBenét was killed. Despite being cleared, Karr continued to claim he was with JonBenét when she died.
- Gray Oliva: The U.S. Sun extensively reported how convicted pedophile Gary Oliva confessed multiple times to killing JonBenét in letters to a high school friend. Oliva was released from prison in January 2024 after serving less than eight years of a 10-year sentence for child pornography charges. In letters to high school friend Michael Vail, Oliva confessed multiple times to killing JonBenét, claiming it was an accident. Oliva was living in the Boulder area on and off at the time of JonBenét’s murder, police said. DNA evidence hasn’t formally linked Oliva to the killing.
- Michael Helgoth: At the time of the 1996 murder, Michael Helgoth worked at a nearby auto salvage yard. Helgoth owned a pair of Hi-Tec boots that appeared to match a print left at the crime scene. He also owned a stun gun – a weapon investigators believe the murder suspect used on JonBenét. Private investigator Ollie Gray claimed Helgoth’s family owned a taped confession of guilt. Helgoth died by suicide in 1997. However, the DNA evidence found at the scene did not match that of Helgoth.
- John Brewer Eustace: Investigators for JonBenét’s case traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1997 after learning that John Brewer Eustace had broken into a home, kidnapped, and sexually assaulted a 2-year-old toddler. When police searched through Eustace’s belongings, they uncovered a notebook of clippings about JonBenét’s case. However, he was eventually ruled out as a suspect after a “rock solid” alibi confirmed Eustace had been working at a factory on the night JonBenét’s murder occurred.
But the doting father who continues to search for answers to finally end the tortuous 29-year search for answers, wasn’t interested.
“He wanted to meet with me,” Ramsey, 81, said.
“What’s he going to apologize for? I have no interest in meeting him.”
Oliva was one of 38 registered sex offenders living within a two-mile radius of the Ramsey family, whose nightmare began the day after Christmas almost 29 years since their daughter was killed.
No one has ever been charged with her murder.
Oliva, however, has long been linked to the case.
Private investigators began to delve into his murky past and discovered a 1990 charge of sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl.
The following year he tried to strangle his mom to death with a phone cord in Oregon.
Police records obtained by The U.S. Sun in 2024 stated Oliva warned her, “I should have killed you a long time ago.”
“When the sheriff arrives, they will find you dead.”
Oliva spent 17 months in jail for the attempted murder.
This wasn’t the first time a person from Ramsey’s past has haunted him at the popular, yearly True Crime event.
Ramsey also revealed to The U.S. Sun this weekend how, last year in Nashville, a man approached him to apologize for setting fire to his house in Boulder in the months following his daughter’s tragic death.
“He walked up to me and said ‘I am the man who burned your house,” he said. “I just said thanks for your apology.”
Ramsey, joined by attorney Hal Sutton, told the audience in Denver that a petition demanding Colorado lawmakers to take the Homicide Victim’s Families’ Rights Act to a federal level has already received 15,000 signatures.
He is desperate for the authorities to also allow Othram, a cutting-edge genetic genealogy company who have solved hundreds of cold cases, to examine crucial crime scene DNA.
FRESH HOPE?
The Ramsey family are confident Othram could finally give them the closure they are so desperate for.
“It makes no sense why we aren’t using them right now” he said. “Boulder PD know the technology. I don’t know why they won’t proceed.”
JonBenét was reported missing by her mom, Patsy, before John found his daughter in the basement of his home.
Coroners ruled JonBenét died from strangulation.
She also suffered forcible trauma to her skull.
Ramsey has called on US president Donald Trump to intervene in the case in a bid to solve the murder mystery.
“If he got involved in the… Cracker Barrel,” he told Fox News.
“This is a whole lot bigger deal than the Cracker Barrel.
“Help us. So that’s the bottom line.”
Earlier this month, Ramsey said he believes DNA testing could help deliver the truth.
And, he previously told The U.S. Sun in December last year he had fresh hope that the case could be solved once and for all in 2025.
The child’s gravestone[/caption]
