true crime

See the moment JonBenet Ramsey's brother cracks a smile recalling the day she went missing.

As the 20th anniversary of his sister’s murder draws near, Burke Ramsey has spoken to Dr Phil about life as the centre of one of the most compelling and mysterious murder cases in US history.

In a preview for his first ever interview in the 20 years since JonBenet’s unresolved murder, Ramsey told Dr Phil what it’s like living under and intense cloud of suspicion for the better part of his 29 years.

“The first thing I remember is my mum bursting in my room, really frantic, saying, ‘Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!’ running around my room — now I know looking for JonBenét,” he told Dr. Phil.

“The next thing I remember is a police officer coming into my room and shining a flashlight.”

Bizarrely for the viewer, Ramsey is seen smiling throughout the recollection, a jarring reaction to a sensitive tragedy.

According to Dr. Phil, who sat down with US TODAY’s Natalie Morales after the interview, viewers may be surprised by Ramsey’s demeanour throughout the entirety of the conversation.

“For 20 years he has been off the grid. And my impression is he’s socially awkward,” he said.

“People are going to be very interested in his demeanour, and they’re going to find his demeanour atypical. He might be talking about some pretty dark aspects of this story and smiling while he’s talking about that.”

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The interview comes ahead of the release next week of CBS’s The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey, which will be aired in Australia on Channel 9.

Today, Burke Ramsey works as a software engineer after living much of his life under suspicion for the murder of their six-year-old daughter and sister.

After sitting through footage of his nine-year-old self being talked through police interrogations, Ramsey said he was not under any illusion that the public and media thought the family were all completely innocent.

“I know people think I did it; that my parents did it,” he said. “I know that we were suspects.”

In 1999, a grand jury voted to indict his parents in the killing, but they were never charged.

And as for why he is coming out to discuss the case now?

“I didn’t want anyone to forget,” he said.