Technically a one-hour dramatic special, Getting Away With Murder: The JonBenet Ramsey Mystery was advertised as a "mini-movie" by the Fox Network. In its recounting of the events preceding and following the brutal Christmas 1996 murder of five-year-old JonBenet Ramsey (here played by Seventh Heaven regular MacKenzie Rosman), the program chronicles all the existing facts, then incorporates the dozens of opinions and theories surrounding the still-unsolved homicide. Alice Barrett-Mitchell is cast as an unnamed "composite" journalist who, after interviewing all the family members and investigators involved in the case, presents several opposing theories. In one, JonBenet's parents (Cliff De Young and Judi Evans Luciano) were themselves the killers, while in another, the "unknown intruder" notion is propounded. By adopting this multiple-scenario approach, the producers permit the viewers to draw their own conclusions (which they'd been doing since 1996 anyway).
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
