A ONE-time suspect in the murder of JonBenét Ramsey has been sighted for the first time in years in images exclusively obtained by The U.S. Sun.
Robert “Chris” Wolf, 64, was a local reporter in Boulder, Colorado, when six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was slain in her family home on Christmas night in 1996.
To this day, he remains one of only two people to have spent time behind bars in connection with the child pageant queen’s murder after he was detained in January 1997 for driving on a suspended license.
Wolfe was briefly remanded in custody after refusing to submit a handwriting sample to investigators.
He emphatically denied any involvement in the young girl’s death and was later reportedly cleared of any wrongdoing by police.
On Monday, Wolf was spotted in Studio City, Los Angeles, sporting a white T-shirt and blue jeans with a large long-lens camera slung over his left shoulder.
The former journalist has been working in Tinsel Town for several years as a paparazzo, catching clandestine glimpses of the city’s rich, famous, and embattled.
Less than three decades ago, Wolf found himself caught in the crosshairs of investigators and the Ramsey family after his girlfriend, Jacqueline Dilson, accused him of killing JonBenét.
However, Dilson continued to level suspicion at Wolf years afterward, and JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, identified him as one of their prime suspects in their controversial book, The Death of Innocence.
Wolf sued the Ramseys for defamation but the $50 million suit was tossed out by a judge three years later.
Wolf’s entanglement in the Ramsey saga began when he was arrested for a traffic infraction in Boulder, in January 1997.
In what he’d later claim was a set-up, Wolf was handcuffed in the back of a BPD patrol car for apparently speeding along North Broadway.
Infuriated by the situation, Wolf told the arresting officer “Can’t you find something better to do? You people can’t even solve the Ramsey murder”, per police records.
Once he arrived at the police station, Wolf was whisked away into an interrogation room where Detective Steve Thomas, the then-lead detective on the Ramsey case, was already waiting for him.
Thomas asked Wolf to provide BPD with a handwriting sample for comparison to the bizarre three-page ransom note written by JonBenét’s killer that was left behind at the crime scene.
Wolf refused Thomas’ request and was detained on a suspended license, according to court records. He was released 30 minutes later.
Wolf would later discover that his girlfriend, Jacqueline Dilson, had identified him as a potential suspect in JonBenét’s death within days of her body being discovered in the basement of her family home, on December 26, 1996, having been beaten and strangled to death.
GIRLFRIEND’S CLAIMS
Dilson, a local wellness retreat owner, was living with Wolf at the time and told investigators he left their home on Christmas night without telling her where he was going.
In an interview with police, she claimed to have awoken early the following morning, sometime around 5:30am, to the sound of Wolf showering in the bathroom.
Clothes that Wolf had been wearing the night before – a navy sweatshirt and black jeans – were also covered in mud, Dilson claimed.
She told detectives when she asked him where he’d been Wolf became hostile and aggressive.
Later, when the news of JonBenét’s death was announced on TV, Dilson claimed Wolf became agitated and said he hoped “that f**ker dies. He was sexually abusing her,” referring to John Ramsey.
She claimed he spent the next day equally as highly strung, tirelessly pacing around their home.
Dilson pointed to several other elements that she believed pointed to Wolf’s potential involvement.
According to Dilson, the sweatshirt Wolf had been wearing that night included a logo that referenced Santa Barbara.
Since the supposed foreign faction claiming responsibility for JonBenét’s kidnapping in the ransom note identified itself as “SBTC,” Dilson questioned if it stood for “Santa Barbara Tennis Club.”
Wolf’s partner also claimed he often expressed hostile emotions when talking about John Ramsey and Ramsey’s company, Access Graphics, which was bought out by Lockheed Martin.
Wolf believed Lockheed was responsible for exploiting third-world countries, Dislon claimed, telling police Wolf’s views were incredibly similar to the political beliefs espoused in the Ramsey ransom note.
Dilson further claimed that Wolf’s handwriting looked near-identical to that of the killer’s.
In 2011, still convinced of his involvement, Dilson took out a paid advertisement in the Boulder Camera, comparing the ransom note to a re-created version using words and letters lifted from Wolf’s journal.
In the ad, Dilson called for Wolf to be re-investigated in connection with the murder and claimed a handwriting expert from the Forensic Document Laboratory had “confirmed” Wolf was the likely culprit of the ransom note.
At the time, Police Chief Mark Beckner said Wolf had already been “thoroughly investigated” and analysis by a Colorado Bureau of Investigation handwriting expert found he had not written the note.
‘IT WASN’T ME’
For his part, Wolf has emphatically denied any involvement in JonBenét’s death and unsuccessfully sued John Ramsey for $50 million for publicly naming him a suspect in his book and various national TV interviews.
In an interview with Boulder Weekly in 2000, Wolf challenged Dilson’s version of events and denied having any prior knowledge of John Ramsey or Access Graphic before JonBenét’s murder.
He described Dilson as unstable and suggested she’d falsely accused him to the police in retaliation for their relationship coming to an end.
“I was outraged by this, as a lot of people were,” Wolf said of the murder. “This was just something on the news that had absolutely no direct connection to my life whatsoever.”
Of his refusal to submit a handwriting sample, he added, “They asked me for a writing sample and I said ‘No, you’ve got to be kidding me.’ I was thinking ‘This isn’t going to help you solve this case.’ I didn’t want to be involved in it in any way, so I refused.”
Wolf admitted to leaving Dilson’s home on Christmas night but said he returned at 9:30pm and remained there throughout the night.
Excerpts found in Wolf’s journals by investigative journalist Jeff Shapiro would find that Wolf did know about Access Graphics before JonBenét’s death.
Shapiro came upon an interview Wolf conducted with a spokeswoman at Access Graphics for a story he wrote about the company for the Boulder County Business Report.
After the murder, the Ramsey family floated the theory that JonBenét was killed by someone who knew and disliked John Ramsey, possibly to get revenge against him for a perceived slight or his financial success.
The ransom note was addressed directly to John and sought a sum of $118,000 for JonBenét’s safe return, an amount matching a bonus John had recently been issued by Access Graphics.
Just five days before the murder, a story about Access Graphics appeared in the Boulder Camera, celebrating the company surpassing $1 billion in revenue.
This was just something on the news that had absolutely no direct connection to my life whatsoever.
Chris Wolf
In a sit-down interview with The U.S. Sun in December 2022, John Ramsey said he believes the article put a target on his family’s back.
“That [article] was a huge mistake,” reflected John.
“Our company had just crossed a threshold of sales and our PR person said they would call the newspaper and get publicity.
“I had a gut feeling it wasn’t a good idea. You should always really listen to your gut feeling, but I didn’t because I thought it would be nice for our employees and so that they could be proud of their company.
“And in this element of pride on my part, I wanted my neighbors to know, which is why pride is a bad idea and dangerous.”
He added, “Now did that attract attention to my family? Possibly […] I always look back and regret doing that.”
PERSONAL TOLL
Wolf told Boulder Weekly in 2000 that he had no recollection of ever interviewing someone at Access Graphics, though conceded he had for a story about construction at Denver International Airport and its impact on local business.
“I wrote one story once a month for the Business Report for eight years,” Wolf said, adding it was difficult to recall quick conversations, particularly after conducting hundreds of interviews throughout his career.
He said becoming entangled in the Ramsey web had been physically and emotionally exhausting for him and his family.
Wolf’s parents were shocked to discover their son was being explored as a suspect while reading Newsweek in 1997.
“This has devastated them,” Wolf said in 2000.
“My dad called after reading about me in Newsweek and said ‘We want you to know we think this is ridiculous.’ But it’s been very hard on them. This is not a cloud they anticipated would hang over their retirement years.”
Later, in 2003, he shared with The Globe, “I feel as though I have been blackballed from the regular world for 6 years.
“Clearly, I was not involved in JonBenét’s death. But the suspicion has been a burden, both emotionally and psychologically.”
Wolf sued John and Patsy Ramsey for $50 million after the release of their book, The Death of Innocence, in 2000, accusing them of malicious defamation.
In the suit, he claimed Patsy Ramsey had murdered JonBenét and written the ransom note to cover her tracks.
However, the suit was tossed by a judge in 2003, who ruled there was no evidence showing the parents killed JonBenet but considerable evidence showing that an intruder killed the child.
Dilson could not be reached for comment. A call made to a phone number belonging to Wolf went unanswered.
Nobody has ever been charged with the murder of JonBenét Ramsey.
Aside from Wolf’s brief jailing in January 1997, the only arrest made in the case came in 2006 when convicted sex offender John Mark Karr falsely confessed to the killing, only to be found to be lying following a brief investigation.
A TRAGIC MYSTERY
JonBenét was found dead in the basement of her family’s sprawling Boulder home on December 26, 1996.
She was reported missing hours earlier by John and Patsy who awoke sometime after 5am to find the pageant queen missing from her bed and a strange three-page ransom note laid out on a staircase toward the rear of the home.
The odd note – addressed to John and signed “Victory! S.B.T.C” – demanded $118,000 in exchange for JonBenét’s safe return, and failure to comply with the kidnapper’s explicit instructions would result in her immediate “execution.”
Hours passed and the purported kidnappers never called as promised.
A restless John was instructed by a detective with Boulder PD to search the home for anything that seemed out of place to give him something to do while they waited for the phone to ring.
A short while later, a gut-wrenching cry was heard emanating from the basement: John had found a cold and motionless JonBenét swaddled in a white blanket in a seldom-used storage room that the family referred to as the wine cellar.
Her wrists were tied, black duct tape covered her mouth, and a makeshift garrote – fashioned from one of Patsy’s paintbrushes and a white rope – was wound around her neck.
JonBenét had also suffered a large fracture to the back of her skull and there were signs of sexual assault. Her cause of death was ruled asphyxiation with blunt trauma to the head.
BPD immediately launched a murder investigation and, from the outset, John and Patsy Ramsey were placed under an “umbrella of suspicion,” later becoming the prime suspects in the case.
However, they were eventually cleared of any wrongdoing in 2008 by the local district attorney’s office.
NEW RELATIONS
Boulder PD has, for years, been tight-lipped on the status of its investigation, refusing to disclose the direction of its probe, sharing only that the case remains active and ongoing.
John, meanwhile, has been incredibly outspoken about BPD’s handling of the case.
Speaking in December last year, the 80-year-old said the biggest hindrance in his daughter’s case was BPD’s unwillingness to accept external help when they were clearly out of their depth.
“In our case, Boulder police refused help from the outside, which I’ve always said is the second tragedy in this case,” he said, days before the 27th anniversary of JonBenét’s murder.
“I was told by experienced homicide detectives that this case wouldn’t have been difficult to solve had they had the right resources in the very beginning.
“There’s been lots of help that’s been offered over the years from people that have the experience to solve this and they’ve always refused that help.
“And that’s foolish at a minimum, and criminal at worst.”
John met with BPD investigators twice last year to discuss the status of his daughter’s case and appeal, once again, for officials to accept external help.
During the meeting, John made two demands to the department that he believes will help to solve JonBenét’s murder once and for all.
The first request was to test several items of evidence for DNA that were never tested in the immediate aftermath of her murder in December 1996, including the garrote that was found embedded in the tragic beauty queen’s neck.
While Boulder PD has voiced reluctance to conduct new DNA tests for fear of destroying the small sample they have left, John noted that DNA technology has developed significantly over the last two-and-a-half decades.
Now, it only takes an incredibly small sample to develop a profile when placed in the right hands.
After also re-testing the other items of evidence they have previously screened, John’s second request to BPD is to turn all DNA yielded over to a state-of-the-art genealogy lab.
“We’ve seen wild success stories with these genealogy labs involving some very old cases, so those are the two things we want them to do,” explained John.
“These labs can use the DNA to basically do a reverse family tree and narrow that down to someone who was in Boulder in 1996 that fits the profile.
“The key is they have to go to one of the two or three cutting-edge DNA labs in the country – not the government labs.
“We were told by the FBI the government does not have the latest technology yet, so you’ve got to go to an outside lab […] and that’s what we hope they do.”
‘WE JUST DON’T KNOW’
There have been over 140 suspects in the murder of JonBenét since the police began their investigation in 1996.
Another former suspect, Gary Oliva, a convicted pedophile who has confessed to killing the numerous times in jailhouse letters, was released from prison in January 2024, having served less than eight years for child pornography offenses.
At the time of his arrest in 2016, he was found to be in possession of hundreds of images of JonBenét, including crime scene photos and images of shrines to the slain girl.
John believes whoever killed his daughter is likely not one of the 140 suspects already looked at by police.
Speaking about Oliva last month, he said, “In so many cold cases throughout the years, the killer is always someone no one has been suspected.”
He admits it’s worrying that men with a history like Oliva’s are free and potentially put more children at risk.
But he stopped short at pointing the finger at the 60-year-old. “We just don’t know for sure,” he said.
