When John Ramsey appeared on Dr Phil last month, he said it would be the final time he would speak to the media about his daughter’s infamous death.
But this morning, the 72-year-old broke his silence and opened up to KIIS FM radio host Meshel Laurie about what has become one of the world’s most famous cold cases — the murder of child beauty queen JonBénet Ramsey.
“I tell people that really was probably the worst moment of my life, in that my daughter was gone. My six-year-old child,” he told Laurie, speaking of the moment he realised his little girl was missing.
“As a parent, if you have been in a shopping mall or department store and you lose sight of your child for a minute, you just have this panic feeling. That’s the feeling I had, and it just didn’t go away.”
John discovered JonBenét's body in the basement of the family's Colorado home on Boxing Day 1996, just hours after his wife, Nancy, found a rambling ransom note from a "small European faction" that claimed to have kidnapped their daughter.
"Well, we'd gotten up early, and I was in the upstairs bathroom when I heard Patsy scream my name. I knew by the tone it was something serious," Ramsey told Laurie.
"She had found a ransom note on the stairway and had checked JonBenétt’s room. At the same time we immediately called the police."
When questioned by Laurie as to why they involved authorities, when the apparent kidnappers forbade them from doing so, Ramsey said there was "no question".
"I would have called the army if I could have. You want help, you want help now," he said.