BOULDER, Colo. — A judge on Tuesday rejected a request by the defense team of a man being retried for a 1994 Boulder murder to use documents from the JonBenét Ramsey investigation as evidence.
JonBenét Ramsey was only 6 years old when she was found in the basement of her family's home in Boulder in 1996. The young beauty pageant contestant had been bludgeoned and strangled.
To date, nobody has been convicted of the crime, but theories have circulated for decades.
In 1994, two years before Ramsey was murdered, Marty Grisham answered a knock on the door at his Boulder home. He was shot four times in the head and chest and died instantly.
Almost 20 years later, in 2012, Michael Clark was arrested in connection with the murder. Later that year, a jury found Clark guilty of first-degree murder after prosecutors argued he shot Grisham.
Clark spent more than a decade behind bars, but his conviction was vacated in April after the Boulder County District Attorney's Office reviewed "new evidence" conducted by an independent lab, which produced different DNA results than what was introduced during his trial in 2012.
According to Clark's attorney, Adam Frank, his client has always maintained his innocence.
Evidence presented during the 2012 trial included Clark being given a key to watch a cat at the apartment roughly a month before the murder; stealing a book of checks from Grisham while at the home and cashing them using forged signatures; and ballistics evidence showing that Clark had the same kind of ammunition used to kill Grisham, despite a murder weapon never being recovered.
A key piece of evidence — a container of Carmex lip balm, which the prosecution argued was proof of Clark's presence at the murder scene in 1994 — was found under the stairwell near Grisham's apartment.
Clark's conviction was the first to be vacated following an investigation into former Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) forensic scientist Yvonne "Missy" Woods, who is accused of mishandling DNA evidence. Woods testified in Clark's trial, and her testimony helped prosecutors place Clark at the scene of the crime.
The Boulder District Attorney's Office said in September it plans to retry Clark's case. A retrial is scheduled for May 2026.
Boulder
Attorney claims similar 'incompetence' in JonBenét Ramsey case impacted client
Adam Frank has filed a number of subpoenas in Clark's defense, including one related to records from the Ramsey case.
In the filing, Clark's defense team requested "all records created during the first 48 hours of the investigation into the death of JonBenét Ramsey that relate to, describe, or would reflect upon any Boulder Police Department Officer’s choices, actions, and/or decisions concerning whether or not to secure the Ramseys’ house, whether or not to search the Ramseys’ house, how comprehensive a search of the Ramseys’ house should be conducted, and what considerations played into the officers’ decisions concerning the securing and searching of the Ramseys’ house."
In addition, the subpoena asked for any records that "analyze, discuss, relate to, or critique" the way Boulder PD handled the first two days of its investigation into Ramsey's death.
Clark's team argued BPD was "woefully incompetent" in the 1990s, and claimed "the exact same types of incompetence that led the Boulder Police Department to fail to solve the murder of JonBenét Ramsey also caused the Boulder Police Department to fail to solve the murder of Marty Grisham, such that prosecuting him now is unjust."
JonBenét Ramsey's father, John Ramsey, also described the police department at that time as "incompetent."
"I hadn't heard of that happening until just, you know, day ago or so," John Ramsey said about the request in Clark's case. "I don't know what transpired at all in that other case, but I will say in our case, the police had no experience, and their leadership was poor, and the main flaw they let happen was refusing help.”
Click here for a timeline of the JonBenét Ramsey case
In court Tuesday, Clark's defense team argued the "exact same oversights" were present in both JonBenét Ramsey's case and the investigation into who killed Grisham. The defense argued that the way Boulder PD handled homicide investigations in the mid-90s led to Clark's wrongful prosecution.
In its subpoena, the defense team detailed alleged mistakes that were made in both cases, which included BPD's failure to initially suspect the victims' families and their failure to secure and search the scenes. John Ramsey said his family was treated as suspects from the start of the investigation, contradicting the defense's argument.
“They decided immediately it was the family," John Ramsey told Denver7. “They just didn't think we acted right that morning."
John Ramsey, however, did agree with the assertion from Clark's team that Boulder police did not adequately secure the scene.
“There's no question. They didn't secure the scene at all," said John Ramsey.
On Tuesday, Judge Nancy Salomone denied Clark's defense team's request, saying such a comparison between the two cases would "open an enormous worm can" that could taint a jury in Clark's retrial.
A spokesperson for Boulder PD said the department cannot provide a comment since the JonBenét Ramsey case is still active and ongoing. However, the department releases an update on the case each December.
Last year, BPD released its update a month early due to increased attention on the case following a Netflix documentary. In the video update, Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said, "While I was not at Boulder police 28 years ago, I have worked in policing for more than 20 years, and I want to assure you that our agency is committed to doing everything we can to bring justice to JonBenét and hold her killer responsible.”
A lot has changed in law enforcement since 1996, the chief said, acknowledging that there are a "number of things" police could have done better when initially investigating what happened to JonBenét.
At the start of this year, John Ramsey told Denver7 he was feeling encouraged after meeting with Redfearn.
Boulder PD is asking anyone with information about JonBenét Ramsey's death to contact detectives by emailing BouldersMostWanted@bouldercolorado.gov or calling the tip line at 303-441-1974.
