Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen Team Up for Paramount+'s JonBenét Ramsey Limited Series

McCarthy will star as the six-year-old's mother, Patsy, while Owen will star as her father, John Bennett Ramsey

The tragic mystery of JonBenét Ramsey is coming to the small screen.

On Thursday, Sept. 5, Paramount+ announced that a limited series will explore the "cold case that captivated the nation" and is set to star Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen as Patsy and John Bennett Ramsey, respectively.

The series, which has a working title of JonBenét Ramsey, comes in tandem with the approach of the 30th anniversary of the six-year-old's still unsolved murder, and will follow the family "before and after the tragedy as they go through the painful loss of a child while facing intense public scrutiny caused by a media frenzy that caused this case to captivate an entire nation."

Patsy and John Ramsey are at "the heart of the series," as it explores their "unbreakable partnership" both as a couple and as parents, who "had committed themselves and their children to building the narrative of a perfect, privileged life only to have it destroyed one Christmas night in 1996."

Related: Who Killed Child Beauty Queen JonBenét Ramsey in Her Colorado Home 27 Years Ago Today?

In a statement, Chris McCarthy, Paramount Global Co-CEO and President/CEO, Showtime & MTV Entertainment Studios said that Owen, 59, and McCarthy, 54, "are an extraordinary duo to delve into this tragic story that has cast a long, haunting shadow over American culture for nearly three decades."

"We have been working to bring this thought provoking and bold project to audiences for some time now and could not be happier with the top notch team working in front of and behind the camera,” David Glasser, CEO of 101 Studios, said.

Paramount+'s Executive Vice President of Programming Jeff Grossman said that the series will illuminate Ramsey's story "with the acuity and nuance it deserves."

Related: JonBenét Ramsey's Father Is Optimistic DNA Advances Will Catch Daughter's Killer, Slams Boulder Police

JonBenét was a six-year-old pageant contestant who was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado on Dec. 26, 1996. The investigation into her death has been ongoing ever since, and has been explored onscreen various times, mostly in documentary style.

Her parents Patsy and John were cleared of suspicion in the case, but Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett told PEOPLE in 2016 that the "exoneration" decision was "misleading."

Based on DNA analysis in 2008, then-DA Mary Lacy issued a letter to John Ramsey stating, "We do not consider your immediate family including you, your wife, Patsy, and your son Burke to be under any suspicion in the commission of this crime."

Garnett said he didn't feel that "exoneration was warranted based on the state of the evidence and the complexity of the case."

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The part marks McCarthy's first TV role since 2022, when she starred in Netflix's God's Favorite Idiot and Nine Perfect Strangers.

Owen, meanwhile, led AMC's Monsieur Spade this year and last year's A Murder at the End of the World on Disney+.

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