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The brother of JonBenet Ramsey is suing American TV network CBS for $US750 million – a little more than $A1 billion – over a four-hour documentary that accused him of beating his then-six-year-old sister to death with a flashlight. The program, which aired over two nights in September, claimed to be a "complete reinvestigation" of the murder of beauty pageant star JonBenet on December 26, 1996. But according to the suit, filed by lawyers on behalf of 29-year-old Burke Ramsey, it was nothing but a rehash of theories self-published in the book Foreign Factions by police officer James Kolar, who was briefly part of the cold case team investigating the case in Boulder, Colorado before leaving the District Attorney's office in 2006. Despite generating numerous theories over almost 20 years, and though multiple suspects including both the murdered girl's parents have been named, the case has never been solved. In the CBS documentary, The Case of: JonBenet Ramsey, a team of investigators made much of a six-second audio recording at the end of the 911 call in which Burke's mother, Patsy Ramsey, reported what was at first identified as an abduction. The investigators claim that in the audio clip, which was never presented to a jury, she can be heard talking to Burke, who was allegedly asleep at the time. In the scratchy audio, father John Ramsey allegedly says: "We're not talking to you." Mother Patsy Ramsey adds: "What did you do? Help me, Jesus." A third voice, supposedly that of the nine-year-old Burke, asks: "Well, what did you find?" This was presented in the program as brand new evidence yet, according to the suit, it is in fact "nearly verbatim" a rendering of a transcript of the 911 recording carried out by the Aerospace Corporation at the request of the Boulder Police Department in 1997. The suit alleges that CBS had "originally intended to produce the documentary … in-house through its highly-respected show that specialises in true crime stories, 48 Hours" but decided to work with outside production company Critical Content instead because "CBS knew that the documentary's preconceived conclusion – that Burke killed JonBenet – would not pass CBS's stringent broadcast review standards". The suit even cites in its evidence an interview the documentary's lead investigator, former FBI agent Jim Clemente, gave to Fairfax Media in September. "It explains who did what to whom and when and how," he said. "Our team got together, we argued it out, and we came up with one comprehensive theory. Hopefully that documentary will build enough groundswell support to get the District Attorney's office to resolve the case." The suit alleges CBS has deliberately misled viewers, selectively withheld evidence that exonerates Burke Ramsey and misrepresented so-called evidence, such as the claim that Burke did not show visible signs of upset at his sister's death (claims remarkably similar to those levelled against Lindy Chamberlain at the time of her daughter Azaria's death in 1980). "CBS knew that a documentary rehashing stale theories from a commercially unsuccessful and self-published book would not capture the public's imagination and produce the ratings and profits sought," the claim states. "CBS needed the public to buy into the idea that the well-trodden Ramsey case was about to be blown wide open with JonBenet's killer being publicly revealed by a new reinvestigation, which would solve the 20-year-old murder mystery. "To accomplish their goals of achieving ratings and profits, defendants produced the documentary to make the false accusations of Foreign Faction appear to be real." The suit claims that Burke Ramsey has suffered and will continue to suffer, as a result of the documentary being aired to an average 10 million viewers across its two nights, "damage and other harm, including economic damages, damages to his reputation, mental anguish, and special damages". They seek compensatory damages of "not less than $250 million" and punitive damages of "not less than $500 million". The amounts sought are in addition to a separate suit for $US150 million being brought against one of the seven experts in the documentary, retired forensic pathologist Werner Spitz. The Ramsey family has sued for defamation several times in the past, with many cases being settled confidentially out of court. Karl Quinn is on facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on twitter @karlkwin

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