Love it or hate it, True Crime TV is here to stay. But the genre’s renaissance has lasted a long time now; are there any infamous stories networks haven’t adapted (much less left well enough alone, for the sake of the victims and their families)? This week, Paramount+ greenlit one of the ’90s most notorious scandals for a limited series: the murder of 6-year-old beauty pageant queen JonBenét Ramsey on Christmas Day 1996.
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Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen will star as JonBenet’s parents Patsy and Jon Ramsey in the show, chronicling the couple’s marriage and family life before their daughter’s death. “A Family Affair” director Richard LaGravense serves as showrunner on the series, with “Presumed Innocent” director Anne Sewitsky helmed four of the show’s eight episodes. The series will be LaGravenese’s first since 2014’s legal drama “The Divide.” Other TV credits for him include a writing credit on Steven Soderbergh‘s 2013 HBO film “Behind The Candelabra.”
JonBenét Ramsey’s death remains unsolved to this day despite Patsy passing away in 2006; John remains alive today at age 80. The 6-year-old’s death became a national scandal and tabloid sensation after she was found dead in Christmas Day 1996 in the basement of her family’s Boulder, Colorado home, hours after being reported missing and the discovery of a ransom note. An autopsy later revealed Ramsey’s cause of death was strangulation. While many considered JonBenét’s parents prime suspects at one point, there’s no conclusive evidence to connect them to the murder. In 2006, the same year Patsy passed away, John Mark Karr, a former school teacher, confessed to killing Ramsey, but DNA evidence failed to place him at the scene of the crime. Investigators later determined Karr’s statement to be a false confession.
The upcoming Paramount+ series won’t be the first TV how to center on JonBenét Ramsey. The 2016 doc series “The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey” stoked so much controversy that JonBenét’s older brother Burke Ramsay filed defamation lawsuits against CBS and forensic pathologist Werner Spitz for implicating him in his sister’s murder.  That lawsuit was eventually settled in 2019.
Neither McCarthy nor Owen are strangers to TV projects.  In fact, McCarthy has a slew of recent TV credits, including 2021’s “Nine Perfect Strangers,” 2022’s “God’s Favorite Idiot,” and a guest spot in “Only Murders In The Building” this year. She also recently starred in Disney‘s live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” and “Genie.” As for Owen, recent TV credits include AMC‘s “Monsieur Spade,” FX On Hulu‘s “A Murder At The End Of The World,” and “Impeachment: American Crime Story.” The actor will also star in Martin Campbell‘s next film, “Cleaner.”
Stay tuned for more details on Paramount+’s “JonBenét Ramsey” (the limited series’ working title).