Court documents released on Friday revealed that a Colorado grand jury voted to indict JonBenet Ramsey's parents, John and Patsy, of child abuse ending in the death of their 6-year-old beauty pageant daughter in 1999.
However, the former district attorney, Alex Hunter, did not have the charges brought up and the Ramseys avoided prosecution - though not by the media at the time, the Los Angeles Times is reporting.
The grand jury vote occurred without the DNA evidence that exonerated JonBenet's parents back in 2008, when Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy apologized. John and Patsy's attorney, L. Lin Wood, told the Denver Post, "The DNA was not available to the grand jury in 1999."
Wood continued, "What we have here is a release of a sliver of evidence that the grand jury looked at and reviewed. It's just based on incomplete evidence."
John Ramsey asked that if the indictment were to be released, then the entire grand jury record should be too, but that request denied as the documents he wanted are not "official action," as most grand jury work is done privately.
Wood said the documents should be released to show how innocent JonBenet's parents were. "Anything less than the release of all proceedings is a gross injustice to the Ramsey family."
The L.A. Times notes that JonBenet was found murdered in her house on Christmas. Her parents initially reported her missing, and then she was discovered in their basement dead by strangling and a blow to her head. The murder case was a huge media sensation and the time. The case is currently considered a cold-case homicide.