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JonBenét Ramsey ‘killer’ Gary Oliva pictured out for first time since prison release on charges for child sex abuse pics
Gary Oliva walked free from prison on January 31
A CONVICTED pedophile who has claimed to be JonBenét Ramsey's killer has been spotted for the first time since being paroled on child pornography offenses.
Gary Oliva, 60, was released early from the Arkansas Valley Correction Facility in Ordway, Colorado, on January 31, having served less than eight years of a 10-year sentence.
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Since then, he's been staying at a ramshackle motel and halfway house on the east side of Denver.
Oliva was first sighted by The U.S. Sun on February 23 talking with neighbors on his doorstep.
One of his neighbors presented him with a box. Oliva reached inside, retrieved a handful of indiscernible items, had a brief conversation, and closed his door.
He wouldn't emerge from his room again for another four days, with no lights appearing to be on in his room and limited movement recorded inside.
During that time, other motel residents smoked and gathered outside of his door, and sex workers shivered on nearby street corners waiting for a John.
Oliva finally stepped out on Tuesday wearing a dark sweatshirt and jeans, with a hood pulled tightly around his face.
The child predator took a bus to a nearby train station and rode to the end of the line before disappearing out of sight.
Where he's residing is a 45-minute drive from the Boulder home where child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey was found strangled and beaten to death in her parents' basement.
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Oliva was arrested in June 2016 after he was caught uploading images depicting the sexual abuse of children to his personal Gmail account on public Wi-Fi connections across Boulder.
A search of his phone yielded approximately 695 images depicting child pornography. He was also found to be in possession of 335 photos of - or relating to - JonBenét.
JonBenet Ramsey's dad reveals fresh hope 'monster' who killed his daughter will be found after probe takes major turn
Throughout his stay in prison, Oliva penned dozens of rambling letters to his old high-school classmate, Michael Vail, claiming to be responsible for JonBenét's murder.
In copies of his letters obtained by The U.S. Sun, Oliva also expressed grappling with cannibalistic urges and often composed hand-drawn sketches of JonBenét, deifying the young girl.
Vail has claimed for years that he received a call on Dec. 26, 1996, from a crying Oliva - hours before news of JonBenét's death would make headlines across the country - who allegedly told him, "I hurt a little girl" in Boulder.
He reported the call to the police the following day but claims Boulder investigators failed to act on the tip for more than four years.
Oliva was due to be released from jail in 2025 but was granted parole early.
The U.S. Sun obtained a copy of Oliva's parole agreement earlier this month.
Per the terms of his release, Oliva is subject to"Intensive Supervision," must maintain compliance with all prescribed medications, and must participate in mental health treatment and a sex offender program, among other requirements.
In a statement issued ahead of Oliva's scheduled release, Vail voiced his shock that his old school friend would soon be roaming free and ominously warned that "no child will be safe" as a consequence.
"I spent 1996 to 2016 agonizing and worrying about Gary [being] loose in society. I couldn’t understand why he went free. I couldn’t understand why the media would dismiss his guilt," said Vail.
"After that terrifying phone confession on December 26, 1996, it was obvious to me that Gary had killed JonBenet," he alleged.
"I’ve also received hundreds of prison letters with numerous murder confessions from Gary. [...] It’s astounding.
"I must remain hopeful and optimistic that law enforcement will look at our solid convincing evidence and that justice for JonBenet is right around the corner.
"The truth is I’m extremely concerned about Gary being released.
"Parents teach your children well. No child will be safe."
ENDURING MYSTERY
JonBenét was just six years old when she was found dead in the basement of her family's sprawling Boulder home on December 26, 1996.
She was reported missing hours earlier by her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, who awoke sometime after 5 am to find the pageant queen missing from her bed and a strange three-page ransom note laid out on a staircase toward the rear of the home.
The odd note - addressed to John and signed "Victory! S.B.T.C" - demanded $118,000 in exchange for JonBenét's safe return, and failure to comply with the kidnapper's explicit instructions would result in her immediate "execution."
Hours passed and the purported kidnappers never called as promised.
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A restless John was instructed by a detective with Boulder PD to search the home for anything that seemed out of place to give him something to do while they waited for the phone to ring.
A short while later, a gut-wrenching cry was heard from the basement: John had found a cold and motionless JonBenét swaddled in a white blanket in a seldom-used storage room that the family referred to as the wine cellar.
Her wrists were tied, black duct tape covered her mouth, and a makeshift garrote - fashioned from one of Patsy's paintbrushes and a white rope - was wound around her neck.
JonBenét had also suffered a large fracture to the back of her skull and there were signs of sexual assault. Her cause of death was ruled asphyxiation with blunt trauma to the head.
BPD immediately launched a murder investigation and, from the outset, John and Patsy Ramsey were placed under an "umbrella of suspicion," later becoming the prime suspects in the case.
In the aftermath of JonBenét's death, BPD received upwards of 3,000 tips from the public but 95 percent of the leads wouldn't be followed up on.
Refusing to entertain the possibility that an intruder had somehow slipped inside the house and committed the murder, police instead leaked information to the media - sometimes fabricated information - to turn up the heat on John and Patsy and force one of them into a confession.
All the while, cops withheld the existence of bombshell DNA evidence that would later be used to exonerate them.
Among the thousands of tips ignored by the department was one left by Michael Vail, who reported receiving a call from Oliva hours prior that he'd hurt a young girl in Boulder.
Investigators never returned Vail's call. He reported the tip for a second time three months later and again was greeted only with silence.
Meanwhile, growing ever frustrated with BPD, John Ramsey hired his own team of private investigators to look into his daughter's death as police fixated on him and Patsy and a media storm ensued.
Last summer, John told The U.S. Sun that in the early spring of 1997, his investigative team received a call from the Boulder District Attorney's Office to inform them about the tip concerning Gary Oliva.
"The Boulder police were the biggest obstacle to finding the killer, that’s for sure," he said.
"Very early on [...] interesting fact, the Boulder District Attorney [Alex Hunter] called our detectives with the Oliva lead.
"He said he knew the police wouldn't follow up but asked that we follow up on it.
"[Oliva] definitely made it to the top of my list [of suspects] when I first learned of him."
A COMPELLING SUSPECT
Oliva wouldn't land on BPD's radar for nearly four years until he was arrested for trespassing on the University of Colorado Boulder's campus.
During that time, Oliva had been spotted by John Ramsey's investigative team attending a candlelight vigil on the first anniversary of JonBenét's murder, paying his respects and clutching a large sealed envelope.
In addition to his cryptic call to Vail, Oliva had ties to an address just 13 homes away from the Ramseys' where he collected his mail and was often spotted drinking in the parking lot.
He was one of 38 registered sex offenders found to have been living within a two-mile radius of the Ramsey family in 1996.
After digging into his past, John's PI team additionally discovered that Oliva had a lengthy, violent, and disturbing criminal history.
In 1990, Oliva was charged with sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl.
The following year, he was charged with attempted murder after he tried to strangle his mother with a telephone cord in Pass, Oregon.
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According to police records obtained by The U.S. Sun, during the attack, Oliva threatened his mom, warning, "I should have killed you a long time ago."
He also stated, "When the sheriff arrives, they will find you dead."
"Oliva removed a butcher knife from the drawer and had it in his possession," reads the report. "Oliva also pulled a telephone cord loose from a telephone and wrapped it around his mother's neck and began tightening it."
Oliva ran off before police arrived but was later caught and jailed for 17 months.
He was arrested for a third time - this time in Boulder - on December 12, 2000.
A DEEP-SEATED OBSESSION
When he was apprehended on the University of Colorado campus in December 2000, Oliva was found with a stun gun in his possession, along with a photograph of JonBenét, news clippings about the case, and a poem he'd written about the girl titled Ode to JonBenét.
Investigators had long theorized that a stun gun had been used on JonBenét to subdue her shortly before her death.
In a copy of the police report, it's revealed that Oliva was arrested for illegally entering the university's fine arts building after hours.
"Oliva claims to be some sort of amateur artist and likes to hang out around the Fine Arts Center," the report says.
"We talked about his background and his criminal charges and past problems. He stated that his main mistake was the sex assault in Oregon.
"Other than that, he said everything else is because of him getting drunk and stupid."
Oliva denied being a thief and claimed that he had been in the arts center to get out of the cold.
"Oliva seems very emotional about the JonBenett Ramsey [sic] and Susanna Chase murders even to the point of getting tears in his eyes," the report continues.
"Conclusion is that Oliva shows [signs] of being fairly intelligent but that at other times he seems off in a faraway land."
He was once again arrested in Boulder 16 years later - and again was found to be in possession of many JonBenét-related artifacts.
In June 2016, Oliva was caught uploading images depicting the sexual abuse of children to his personal Gmail account on public Wi-Fi connections across Boulder.
In a copy of his arrest affidavit obtained by The U.S. Sun, Boulder PD said it was made aware of Oliva's illicit activity by Google.
"Some were regular photographs of her likely found online," reads the report. "Of those photographs, 19 were images of JonBenét's autopsy like from photographs that had previously leaked to the press in years past.
"There were also many photographs of what appear to be shrines to JonBenét Ramsey. It is unknown where these shrines are located or if they were created by Oliva or not."
Investigators also noted that several contacts in Oliva's phone referenced members of the Ramsey family, and various videos paying tribute to her were saved on the device.
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Vail contacted investigators in Boulder after Oliva was detained, reiterating his belief that Oliva was in some way involved in the murder of JonBenét.
He also started writing to Oliva in prison in an attempt to elicit a confession from him.
By 2019, Vail achieved a breakthrough. Oliva sent him more than a dozen letters over several months claiming to have killed JonBenét by accident.
"I never loved anyone like I did JonBenét and yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half and I watched her die," Oliva wrote in one message.
"It was an accident. Please believe me. She was not like the other kids."
"JonBenét completely changed me and removed all evil from me," he wrote in another.
"Just one look at her beautiful face, her glowing beautiful skin, and her divine God-body, I realized I was wrong to kill other kids. Yet by accident, she died and it was my fault."
Boulder PD was made aware of the letters and acknowledged them publicly in a statement at the time but appeared to brush Oliva's confessions off.
He has never been charged in the case and was not a match for DNA found at the scene.
However, BPD has not explicitly ruled him out as a suspect.
HANDWRITING BOMBSHELL
Then, in December last year, two handwriting experts hired by private investigator Jason Jensen forensically analyzed Oliva's letters and the Ramsey ransom note.
Both of the experts, Mozelle Martin and Dawn McCarty, concluded that Oliva was "most likely" the author of the ransom note.
On a scale of 1 through 5 - with 1 being a definitive, identical match to the ransom note - both experts ranked Oliva at a 1.75.
When contacted about the findings, John called them "very interesting."
"That is very interesting," he reiterated. "When he was referred to us by the district attorney early on, they said he was a very interesting suspect.
"The district attorney told us, 'Look, I know the police won't follow up on this. Will you have your investigators look into it?'
"And we did and when it was described to me, all the circumstantial stuff, I said, 'Man, this is the guy!'
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"My attorney told me not to jump to conclusions, but there was some circumstantial stuff that was very compelling.
"I don't know about him, but this is certainly encouraging."
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