JonBenét Ramsey Murder Investigators Expect New DNA Tests Will Prove Killer Is ‘Someone Completely Unrelated’ to Her (Exclusive)

Investigators looking to crack the unsolved JonBenét Ramsey murder case hope new DNA technology will help them unravel one of the country's most enduring mysteries — but they don't expect to learn that the 6-year-old beauty queen's killer was a member of her family.

Authorities in Boulder, Colo., have sent several previously untested pieces of evidence to a laboratory for DNA testing as part of a renewed push to solve the 27-year-old cold case, The Messenger has learned.

After a DNA profile is generated from the unexamined evidence, the results will be compared to public databases, including those from genetic testing services.

A successful familial DNA search could identify the killer or potential relatives of whoever is responsible for JonBenét's brutal 1996 murder. Investigators hope the process will help them narrow their focus in their decades-long search for a suspect.

The girl's family — especially John, his wife Patsy and 9-year-old son Burke — were under an "umbrella of suspicion" for years. They weren't formally cleared as suspects until 2008.

Boulder police detectives believe that the DNA will belong to an intruder, not to anyone in JonBenét's family.

"No one in the department expects the familial DNA to be a Ramsey, or even a distant Ramsey relative," a source within the Boulder Police Department tells The Messenger. "We expect it to be someone completely unrelated."

The mystery has baffled investigators since it began on Dec. 26, 1996, when JonBenét's desperate family reported her missing.

Her father, John Ramsey, found his daughter's body in the basement of their sprawling Boulder home seven hours later.

She had been strangled. A garrote was found around her neck. She also had a broken skull from a blow to the back of her head. An autopsy stated her official cause of death was "asphyxia by strangulation."

A handwritten ransom note was also found at the scene.

Experts say the members of JonBenét's family should have been cleared much earlier in the investigation.

Initial DNA analysis from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation shows that investigators tested blood and DNA taken from JonBenét's body and clothes not long after her body was found.

By Jan. 15, 1997 — just 20 days after the little girl's murder — authorities had excluded JonBenét's immediate family and many close family friends.

"John Andrew Ramsey, Melinda Ramsey, John B. Ramsey, Patricia Ramsey, Burke Ramsey, Jeff Ramsey, John Fernie, Priscilla White and Mervin Pugh would be excluded as a source of the DNA analyzed on those exhibits," the report reads.

John Ramsey spoke about the DNA with Ashleigh Banfield during an appearance on her NewsNation show on Monday.

"We know there's evidence that was taken from the crime scene that was never tested for DNA. There are a few cutting edge labs that have the latest technology. That's where this testing ought to be done," he said.

"And then use the public genealogy database with whatever information we get to research and basically do a backwards family tree, which has been wildly successful in solving some very old cases."