Jennifer Watkins Murder, Colorado 1999 JonBenet Ramsey

Police announce they solved the 1999 cold case murder of Jennifer Watkins in Colorado Springs at Memorial Hospital

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - Police in Colorado Springs announced they solved the cold case murder of a hospital employee after her body was found more than 20 years ago.

The body of Jennifer Watkins was found in a “secluded” stairwell of Memorial Hospital at 1400 E. Boulder Street on Nov. 8, 1999. For years police asked for help in the case. On Wednesday, CSPD announced to the public the case has been solved.

According to investigators, Watkins had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death before her body was wrapped in plastic. A person of interest was identified in August of 2020 through DNA profiling using semen that was found on her clothing. The person of interest was identified as Ricky Severt. In October of 2020, a case report was sent to the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office for review as investigators were certain Severt was responsible for the death of Watkins because of the DNA findings and Severt’s place of employment was also Memorial Hospital. Severt was killed in a traffic accident in 2001, and the investigation into the murder of Jennifer Watkins will be closed out as Exceptionally Cleared / Death of Offender.

On November 8, 1999, at approx. 10:00 A.M., while detectives were at Memorial Hospital conducting interviews regarding the missing person report of Jennifer Watkins, they were notified that a body was found under a stairwell in an area of the hospital under construction. Officers learned two Dover elevator service employees entered the stairwell on the eighth floor to inspect and repair an elevator shaft. When they entered the stairwell area, they detected a “distinctive smell.” The elevator personnel looked under the stairwell and saw what appeared to be the shape of a body wrapped in plastic and bound with duct tape. Investigators from the CSPD Homicide Unit, Metro Crime Lab, and the El Paso County Coroner’s Office were requested and responded to the scene. Investigators removed the plastic and found the dead body of an adult white female with brown hair. The victim was wearing a teal colored uniform smock, a purple blouse, and black pants. The clothing was positioned as such to indicate a sexual assault had occurred. During the course of the investigation multiple employees and contractors working at Memorial Hospital were interviewed by detectives. Other potential suspect leads were investigated as well, but no suspect was identified.

The El Paso County Coroner’s Office completed the autopsy of the deceased adult female and she was positively identified as Jennifer Watkins. The El Paso County Coroner at the time, Dr. David Bowerman, reported that the victim died as result “of blunt force trauma” to the head. Her death was ruled a homicide.

As part of the crime scene processing, a careful examination of the plastic used to wrap the body of Jennifer Watkins revealed some hairs, fibers, and a “yellow/white” stain, later determined to be semen. Additional biological evidence was collected at autopsy as well. Multiple items of evidence were sent to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for analysis. Two DNA profiles, other than the victim’s, were developed from the evidence items submitted for analysis. These profiles were developed from semen samples collected at autopsy, from the plastic wrap, and from the victim’s pants. The semen recovered from the plastic wrap and from the pants of Jennifer Watkins matched each other but were not a match to the sample collected at autopsy.

Biological samples were taken from several possible suspects and all of these individuals had been cleared due to their respective DNA not matching the two unknown DNA samples. As the investigation continued Jennifer’s husband, Michael Watkins, was interviewed several times and fully cooperated with any request made by investigators. After an extensive investigation no suspect was identified and eventually the investigation became a Cold Case. Over the past 21 years, multiple detectives continued to work on this case in order to identify a suspect to no avail.

Between 2017 and 2018, Cold Case detectives, with the assistance of Parabon NanoLabs (Parabon) - a DNA technology company in Virginia - utilized DNA Phenotyping to predict the physical appearance and ancestry from the unidentified DNA evidence. Using DNA evidence recovered from the pants of Jennifer Watkins, Parabon produced trait predictions for the associated person of interest (POI). Individual predictions were made for the subject’s ancestry, eye color, hair color, skin color, freckling, and face shape. By combining these attributes of appearance, a Snapshot composite was produced depicting what the POI may have looked like at 25-years-old and with an average body-mass index (BMI) of 22. These default values were used because age and BMI cannot be determined from DNA. This composite was subsequently released to the media in an effort to generate leads. Investigators also attempted to use the DNA evidence collected at autopsy but were unable to due to the poor quality of the sample.

In March 2019, a Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) hit was received on the unknown DNA profile developed from the evidence collected at the autopsy of Jennifer Watkins. The match in this instance was to Michael Watkins and was expected to be present based upon information learned during the initial investigation.

The remaining unknown DNA profile developed from the semen on the pants of Jennifer Watkins was submitted for Genetic Genealogy (GG) research through Parabon. Genetic Genealogy uses advanced DNA testing in combination with innovative genetic analysis, sophisticated identification techniques, and traditional genealogical methods to establish the relationship between an individual and his/her ancestors. For forensic investigations, it is used to generate highly informative leads as to the possible identity of an unknown victim or offender.

In the investigation of the homicide of Jennifer Watkins, Parabon submitted the genetic data profile created from the unknown crime scene DNA sample collected from the pants of Jennifer Watkins to a public genetic genealogy database for comparison in hopes of finding individuals who share significant amounts of DNA with the unknown subject. These genetic matches served as clues to inform traditional genealogy research: first, family trees of the matches were constructed back to the set of possible common ancestors using online genealogy databases, newspaper archives, public family trees, obituaries, and other public records, after which descendancy research was employed to enumerate the possible identities of the unknown subject. Other information, such as age, location, triangulation between matches, and/or ancestry and phenotype (trait) predictions, were used to narrow down the possibilities before a final list of leads was produced.

In August 2020, the CSPD was notified of a potential GG DNA lead to the still unknown DNA profile. The person of interest was identified as Ricky Severt.

With the new lead generated by Parabon, Cold Case Unit detectives used traditional investigative best practices to follow-up on this information. A search of the original case report revealed Ricky Severt, then 29-years old, was interviewed by detectives on November 19, 1999, as part of that initial homicide investigation. Mr. Severt worked as an employee in the maintenance department at Memorial Hospital and he had been employed with Memorial Hospital since April 1998. Based on the work schedule Ricky Severt provided during his interview, he would have been working a swing shift on November 5, 1999, the date Jennifer Watkins was last seen. He also denied having seen Ms. Watkins before. Further investigation revealed Ricky Severt was killed in a traffic accident on November 2, 2001, on Hwy. 94 just east of Colorado Springs.

Familial DNA was collected from surviving relatives of the suspect Ricky Severt. In September 2020, CBI conducted analysis of the DNA and determined that the percentage of the population that can be excluded as a contributor to the DNA collected in this case is 99.99994%. Mr. Severt cannot be excluded.

On October 1, 2020, this case was sent to the Forth Judicial District Attorney’s Office for review. After the review was completed in December 2020, the District Attorney’s Office is confident the person responsible for the murder of Jennifer Watkins is Ricky Severt. Because Ricky Severt was killed in a traffic accident in 2001, the investigation into the murder of Jennifer Watkins will be closed out as Exceptionally Cleared / Death of Offender.

“After all these years, we are grateful to finally give Jennifer Watkins’ family the answers they deserve. No matter the length of time, we will always work to serve this community, and I am proud of all the Cold Case detectives throughout the last 21 years who have never stopped working for Ms. Watkins. Not for one moment did they ever lose sight of what was most important: Finding the truth for the Watkins’ family. And thank you to our partners. We would not have been able to solve this case without your time, skill, and dedication,” says CSPD Chief Vince Niski.

The Colorado Springs Police Department would like to thank the numerous units/agencies who have provided a tremendous amount of investigative assistance in this case over the years including the Fountain Police Department, the Forth Judicial District Attorney’s Office, The El Paso County Coroner’s Office, the Metro Crime Lab, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and Parabon.

tricia griffith wrote:
Anti-K, this whole forum has example after example after example that an intruder did not commit this crime.

No one can show one scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

As owner, I do my best to stay out of actual discussions about a crime.

The JBR case is the one expection.

Websleuths is a leader in true crime information as well as discussion. People come here to get information. It is imperative we deal with the facts. Not fantasy.

All I ask for are facts and a logical connecting of the dots. Logic and facts.

When I get time I will be going through the forum to make sure the JonBenet Ramsey forum is being held up to the high standards just like all our other forums on Websleuths.

The days of allowing anyone to post anything because it's part of their "theory" are gone. Facts and logic. Very simple.

Host Tricia Griffith is a veteran radio disc jockey and owner of Websleuths.com and owner of Forums for Justice.org.

tricia griffith wrote:
Anti-K, this whole forum has example after example after example that an intruder did not commit this crime.

No one can show one scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

delmar england wrote:
Letter to Boulder Colorado District Attorney, Mary Keenan

The crime scene consisted of an obviously bogus multi-page "ransom note" utilizing local materials. JonBenet's body was left in the basement of the Ramsey home with crude trappings falling woefully short of presenting a convincing kidnap\murder scene as it was intended to do. Even without pointing out more of a very long list of corroborating facts, the bogus note and inept staging is more than sufficient to isolate the perpetrators to the Ramsey household. Only a few minutes in examining and evaluating the evidence is required to reach this conclusion. It is impossible to reach any other conclusion on the facts. There was and is no evidentiary reason to look anywhere else. The only mystery to be solved was and is which Ramsey did what in relation to JonBenet's death.

Although it is not possible to reach any other conclusion from the evidence, it is possible to ignore the evidence and mentally invent "evidence" to take the place of truth and keep it hidden. Prompted by preconceived notions set in a context of money and political influence in conjunction with investigative cowardice and incompetence, this is precisely what has been going on for over six years.

delmar wrote:
Handwriting? Patsy has not been ruled out by several examiners. By my own analysis, not of the writing, but of the mind match between the note and Patsy is clear. This is explained in my analysis of the "ransom note." So far, neither you nor anyone else has quoted and challenged it. So, to say the handwriting does not match the Ramseys, thus all Ramseys are excluded as author, is just another arbitrary declaration without substance. Note the exclusion of Ramseys necessarily depends on the intruder idea of no factual substance.

DNA? So, it does not match the family. So what? Who does it match? Unknown? If unknown, how can it be known to connect to the crime and be "evidence?" If the source of this DNA were known, then factually connected to the crime scene, then it is evidence. Absence this, it is just more speculation that caters to intruder mental creation.

Does the DNA have to be connected to the crime? Could it not be from a benign source totally removed from the crime scene? Again, the alleged evidence evidences nothing except itself with no known connection to the crime. No outsider as perpetrator is required to explain the DNA since no connection is known as crime related.

The same is true for boot print, hairs, fibers, etc.. A close look into anyone's house would most likely turn up all sorts of things whose source were unknown whether there is a crime or not. To call something whose source and cause is unknown as evidence is to say it causal related while simultaneously saying cause is unknown, thus relationship unknown; more "negative evidence." If my recollection of high school Latin is correct, this could be called "ignotium per ignotius", the unknown by the more unknown.

This "Ramsey defense" "thinking" is a direct and absurd contradiction that is without limit. With this kind of "investigative latitude", I dare say that one could "prove" anything; or at least, convince the deluded self that he or she has done so. "negative evidence?" Surely, thou jest. I repeat: All known evidence is local.

delmar england wrote:
For every "could be", there is a "could be not", therefore, inconclusive until cause is known. Right? No thing is evidence until evidentiary cause is known. Right? Are we in agreement so far? If not, please point out what you think is my error in thinking, and why you think it is error.

A shoe print is found in the basement whose cause is unknown. It "could be" evidence of an intruder. "Could be not" is forgotten and "evidence" of an intruder is declared to be fact. There is a palm print with cause unknown; a rope with source unknown that "could be" something brought in by an intruder; an unidentified fiber, a baseball bat that "could have" been used by the intruder; a bit of dirt or leaves at a window well which "could have" been disturbed by an intruder. The list goes on and on and on.

This massive "evidence" stated to be more consistent with a theory of intruder than Ramsey guilt is hot air, nothing more than a string of unknowns verbally laced together on "could be", simultaneously divorced from the known, and declared to be much evidence of an intruder. Ridiculous to the max. No wonder no one will step forward and answer questions about alleged evidence of an alleged intruder. Its indefensible.

The beauty of truth is that it is consistent. Every fact is a complement of and blends with every other fact without contradiction. The presence of a contradiction is also the presence of error. Are we in agreement up to this point?

Familial DNA was collected from surviving relatives of the suspect Ricky Severt. In September 2020, CBI conducted analysis of the DNA and determined that the percentage of the population that can be excluded as a contributor to the DNA collected in this case is 99.99994%. Mr. Severt cannot be excluded.