The father of murder victim JonBenet Ramsey hopes that something worthwhile can result from his family’s tragedy: More emphasis on collecting DNA from every felon in the United States. JonBenet Ramsey was found dead in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado.

On Wednesday, authorities announced that recently developed “touch DNA” technology had cleared all members of JonBenet Ramsey’s family of her slaying. The family had lived under a cloud of suspicion for nearly 12 years.

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy formally apologized in a letter to John Ramsey.

In an interview with CNN affiliate KUSA, John Ramsey said what is needed is “a law that requires police agencies to DNA print individuals arrested for felony and put it in the national database.”

“We have a great national database that’s been set up; it’s been in place for a number of years with very little population in it. There’s a huge backlog of DNA samples from crimes scenes and some states submit samples, some states don’t.”

John Ramsey had a message for lawmakers.

“For those that will have the authority and the power to pass this DNA legislation I think is so important. . . It just hasn’t gotten on the radar in a lot of state legislatures, and it needs to be there.