John and Barbara Fernie



John Fernie and his wife Barbara "Barb" Fernie were friends of the Ramseys who were called to the Ramsey home on the morning of December 26, 1996, along with other friends. When the Ramseys left the home that afternoon, they drove to the Fernies' residence, and stayed the night there.

The Fernies have never publicly spoken on the case. Though initially close and supportive of John and Patsy Ramsey, Barbara Fernie raised questions about inconsistencies in their statements and became increasingly distressed and suspicious of their involvement. After the Ramseys placed a newspaper ad with false information in it, the Fernies severed contact with them.

John and Barbara Fernie are not suspects in the killing and have never been linked to the crime in any way.

Barbara Fernie
Prior to the killing Barbara Fernie was "Patsy's closest friend".

John Fernie
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December 26, 1996
Early on the morning of December 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey called 911 and reported that JonBenet had been kidnapped. She then immediately called family friends the Fernies and the Whites. The reverend Rol Hoverstock was also called to the home.

The Fernies rushed to the home to console their friends.


 * "I drove my car into the—up the alley and parked in the back of your house, and went around to the patio door, which was a glass door leading into the kitchen and back of the house, and didn't see anybody, but saw a piece of paper laying on the floor. Looked at that. It was facing the other direction. Read it. And after the first few lines realized something very strange was happening. And so I ran around to the front of the house and knocked on the door and was let in. ... I didn't pick it up. It was inside the door and I was outside. The door was locked. I read it through the door. [...] Fleet and Priscilla White were there when I arrived. And my wife came shortly thereafter. And our—Overstock, our priest, came afterwards as well."

That afternoon, when Detective Linda Arndt asked John Ramsey to search his home again, John Fernie went upstairs as JonBenét's father and Fleet White headed for the basement.

On December 28, just two days after the crime, the Ramseys' investigators hired by the Ramseys' attorneys interviewed John and Barb Fernie. Police interviewed them later that day.

Barbara Fernie was with Patsy when Patsy had a panic attack in January 1997:


 * Barbara Fernie picked me up one day from where we were staying and I started having a panic attack, hyperventilating and all that stuff, and she was taking me to the doctor at that time, I had a bronchial infection, by the time I got to the doctor's office I was in a full-blown panic attack.

Statements to Police
Kolar: Over the course of interview, conducted on January 1, 1997, Barb Fernie shared a concern that had raised a question for her. As things were developing in the house on the morning of December 26th, she had begun to ask if Burke had awakened yet. She was aware that like her son, Burke was an early riser and typically got up in the morning around 5:30 a.m. She and her husband had been at the house for a while, and like others, were beginning to wonder if Burke was sitting up in his bedroom, awake and alone, while all of the commotion was going on downstairs. She pointed out a discrepancy that created some additional concern for her. She told the investigators that Patsy Ramsey had told her on the morning of December 26th that she had just “given the ransom note to John,” after finding it on the spiral staircase. More importantly, however, Mrs. Fernie stated that she didn’t know Patsy had screamed out for her husband that morning. She apparently was under the impression, based on her conversation with Patsy on the morning of the kidnapping, that she had somehow just handed off the note to her husband. Several days later, it didn’t make sense to her that Burke would not have been awakened when Patsy screamed John’s name. Mrs. Fernie had been pondering the question: If John Ramsey had been able to hear Patsy scream from his bathroom on the 3rd floor of the house, why not Burke? His bedroom was just down the hall.

PRy marks: "Barbara Fernie told the police she had seen the pry marks before the murder and they were already old by then."

Kolar: Barbara Fernie had raised another flag when she decided to contact investigators in early January, 1998. She and her son had seen photographs of golf clubs in a tabloid story about JonBenét while shopping in a grocery store and her son recognized the set of clubs as belonging to Burke. The sight of the golf clubs spurred her memory about an odd comment that John Ramsey had made to someone while the family was staying at the Fernie residence, after the discovery of JonBenét’s body. [...] Mrs. Fernie recalled that John Ramsey had asked a strange question of the person stopping by her home one evening: He asked if they had remembered to “get his golf bag” from his house. Mrs. Fernie recalled that the individual replied that they had not been able to retrieve the bag, as the police would not let them downstairs. Given the emotional condition of everyone in her home after JonBenét’s murder, John Ramsey’s request for his golf clubs seemed out of the ordinary to her.

Severed Contact
Mrs. Fernie shared one additional tidbit of information with investigators that had been bothering her. She indicated that late in the summer, or early fall of 1996, she had observed damages to the latch area of an exterior screen door located on the rear, south side of the Ramsey home. Mrs. Fernie was concerned that perhaps a burglary attempt had been made to the home, and shared this information with Patsy. They inspected the door, and determined that the interior door exhibited no damages whatsoever. Patsy expressed no concern about the damaged screen door and suggested that perhaps John was responsible for the marks. He reportedly was always forgetting his keys and had broken into the house on other occasions. Mrs. Fernie indicated that she had seen a photograph of this same screen door displayed in an advertisement running in one of the Denver newspapers shortly after the murder. The advertisement, placed by Ramsey attorneys and taking up at least half of the page of the newspaper, purported that this may have been a possible point of entry used by the kidnapper of JonBenét. This did not sit well with Mrs. Fernie, because Patsy was fully aware that these damages had been inflicted upon the screen door weeks or months prior to the murder of JonBenét. The use of this particular photograph seemed to be an attempt to mislead the public about the evidence associated with the crime and the Fernies indicated that they severed their contact with the family following their observation of that advertisement.

Views on the Crime
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 * Even Barbara Fernie, according to friends, began to have doubts. For months, she and Patsy had been inseparable—shopping, lunching, chatting on the phone. By early spring, Fernie began telling people, “I am the one doing the grieving. Something is wrong with Patsy.” Soon, friends say, Barbara was dropped from the Ramsey inner circle, though her husband, John, has continued his relationship with Ramsey, as have many other business associates.

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Detective Linda Arndt testified that Barbara Fernie had made repeated phone calls and attempts to contact her for emotional support. Arndt testified that Barbara Fernie was struggling to come to terms with JonBenet's death:


 * From the time that JonBenet was discovered dead, Barb Fernie had an extremely difficult time believing that JonBenet was dead. And she was the one who held on to my arm and said, 'Don't leave, don't leave.' So she said that when she saw me, she - it helped her - not accept, but that's kind of the gist she was getting at, that JonBenet was dead. ... It distressed her to think that John or Patsy would be involved. And I don't remember her expressing any direct comment about John Ramsey ... She, as I remember, never said out loud, 'I think John and Patsy were involved.' It would be more, 'I can't believe John or Patsy would do this.'

In his 2000 interview, John Ramsey confirmed that John Fernie had written to him requesting that Patsy no longer contact Barbara Fernie.


 * John [Fernie] wrote us, I don't know, I guess months later and said that Barbara is having difficulty dealing with this and please ask Patsy not to write her or respond to her.

John Ramsey claimed in that interview that Barbara Fernie "had some emotional problems before this all happened".

John Ramsey said he had spoke to John Fernie "probably twice" on the phone.