Despite the suspicions, the Ramseys were never named as suspects. But they were a focus of the grand jury, which first convened in September 1998.

On Monday, CNN talked with one juror and another's spouse, both of whom indicated that -- at the behest of the district attorney's office -- they would not discuss the case. Messages left by CNN with several other jurors were not immediately answered.

But according to Wise and several jurors who talked with the Daily Camera, the decision was eventually made to indict John and Patsy Ramsey. This was even though the jurors weren't sure who, exactly, had killed young JonBenet.

16 years later, still no arrests or charges

According to Wise, who worked as a prosecutor for 28 years before retiring, there was disagreement among the eight or so involved in the prosecution about what to do after the grand jury voted to indict. He told the Daily Camera that he thinks his former boss did the right thing not pressing forward with the case, arguing that the evidence didn't show whether Patsy or John Ramsey may have been more directly responsible.

"If I were on a jury, I would not convict either of them," said Wise.

As is, while there have been many twists and turns since the grand jury was discharged in 1999, there's been no closure.

The Ramseys were busy in March 2000, releasing their book "The Death of Innocence," filing multimillion-dollar lawsuits against media organizations who they say libeled their son (who was 9 at the time of JonBenet's death) and settling a lawsuit with a tabloid newspaper.

That May, the Ramseys returned to CNN to face off with Steve Thomas, a former Boulder police detective who'd released a book of his own. Thomas claimed the girl died after "an explosive encounter" over a bed-wetting incident, something the Ramseys fiercely denied.

The district attorney's office, then led by Lacy, took over the case from Boulder police in 2002.

Four years later, there was an apparent breakthrough with the arrest of 41-year-old teacher John Mark Karr in Bangkok, Thailand. This came after he freely -- and repeatedly -- said he was with JonBenet the night she died, although he insisted her death was an accident and that he "loved" her.

But soon after his arrest and return to Colorado, prosecutors announced DNA evidence proved Karr had nothing to do with JonBenet's death.

That same year, 2006, Patsy Ramsey died at the age of 49 following a fight with ovarian cancer.

Then came Lacy's 2008 letter to John Ramsey, exonerating him and the rest of his family after tests of DNA evidence found in the girl's underwear and beneath her fingernails.

"To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry," Lacy wrote.

Since then, authorities have said they'd continued to try to find answers.

But despite their work, the case remains as cold as it was on that late December day, 16 years ago.