JonBenet Parents Pin Hopes On DNA

In light of revelations by 48 Hours that DNA evidence clears them in their daughter's murder, John and Patsy Ramsey tell Hannah Storm they hope every day for a DNA match to the killer, but they know he may never be found.

Sunday marks the eighth anniversary of JonBenet Ramsey's murder.

The CBS News broadcast 48 Hours revealed last week that detectives now believe one or perhaps even two intruders entered the Ramsey home in Boulder, Colo., and killed JonBenet.

What's more, reported 48 Hours, the Denver police crime lab has two spots of JonBenet's blood found on the underwear she was wearing the night of the murder. Mixed in with that blood is

Augustin and Gray, private detectives hired by John and Patsy Ramsey in 1999, are convinced the DNA sample belongs to JonBenet's killer, because of a small amount of matching DNA that also was found under the 6-year-old murder victim's fingernails.

JonBenet's father John Ramsey told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm Thursday it's "certainly gratifying and encouraging" that he and wife Patsy seem to be out from under the cloud of suspicion that enveloped them almost from the time JonBenet's body was found in the family home.

Asked about the DNA profile of JonBenet's likely murderer, Patsy Ramsey told Storm, "We hope that we will have a DNA match. Every day, we expect the telephone to ring. Every time a new felon's DNA is submitted into the national database, it will run against this DNA that we have. And we're ever hopeful. This DNA, they are sure, belongs to the killer, so when the match is made, we will have our man."

Over the past eight years, the Ramseys were under investigation in JonBenet's death. They had to move away from Boulder. They had to dodge tabloids. John Ramsey, who had a very successful business, began having trouble finding work.

Just how difficult has this time been? "Well, it has been hell on earth," Patsy Ramsey responded. "I mean, it is your worst nightmare, losing your child for starters. We'd lost our oldest daughter in a car accident. That was horrible enough. But then to have someone defile the sanctity of our home was just unconscionable. Then on top of that, the assassination of our reputation just added injury to insult and it just has continued and continued and continued. If it hadn't been for our faith and our wonderful family and our wonderful friends, it just would've been unbearable."

John Ramsey told Storm having JonBenet's murder unsolved has made the grieving process that much tougher. "You just don't know why or how someone could be this evil," he says. "We lost our oldest daughter in an accident, and it was an accident. But the taking of a small child's life by another human being is just unimaginable. So you just ask why. Why did this happen? How could this happen in a civilized world?

"We remain hopeful that we'll know why eventually and who, but we've also resigned ourselves to the fact that it may be a long while before we know or perhaps, we'll never know. But we are hopeful."

Patsy Ramsey said she was "dumbfounded" to learn that, at the time of JonBenet's murder, there were 38 sex offenders living in their Boulder neighborhood, and there'd been more than 100 burglaries in the months prior to the killing.

"The trouble is," she explained, "with this kind of offender, they can live right next door to you and walk around in your neighborhood and look perfectly normal. There is no scarlet letter on their forehead identifying them as a sex offender, so you just have to be aware at all times where your children are concerned."

Storm wanted to know what John Ramsey thinks happened that tragic night. "You know, I don't know. We certainly believe, as detectives believe, that someone came into our house while we were out, waited for us to fall asleep, and took our daughter from her room. They believe that it was a kidnapping and that something went wrong and, obviously, she was murdered and left in our home.

"But, you know, whoever did this does not think like you and I do, so it's very hard to make any sense of it."