JonBenet Ramsey: What Really Happened (2021) - full transcript
A reopening of the case horrific murder of the six year complete with interviews with some of the parties involved in the initial investigation. Where people have died their relatives talk ...
[music playing]
MAN (ON RADIO): Police
were called to the home
in a report of a kidnapping.
Investigators were
following through
with demands and a ransom
note when the family
member found the body.
CINDY MARRA: My dad worked
on over 200 homicide cases.
He never lost a case.
He wanted to get justice
for those victims.
9-1-1 OPERATOR: 9-1-1 Emergency.
PATSY RAMSEY: There's
a ransom note here.
PATSY RAMSEY: Oh my god.
CINDY MARRA: While my dad was
working on the Ramsey case,
he kept an audio diary.
CINDY MARRA: It's unique.
Nobody has heard this
outside the family.
CINDY MARRA: The public thinks
that they know what happened,
but this allows the public
to have a ringside seat
to what was going on.
CINDY MARRA: We're releasing the
recordings now because we want
to find the killer of JonBenet.
We believe he's still out there.
Like my dad would say,
it's time to stir the pot.
CINDY MARRA: He wanted
nothing more than to find
who did this to her.
[music playing]
[MUSIC - MATT HIRT AND MARC
FERRARI AND STEVE MARK COLLOM,
"FOLLOW MY LORD"]
(SINGING) I'll still
follow my Lord.
Yes, I still follow my Lord.
MAN (ON RADIO):
[inaudible] This is
the best station in the city.
Don't touch that dial.
We got music from
morning, noon till--
[radio static]
We are looking to do
justice in this case.
Everyone knew by
then that the police
were very focused on the
family, just through the media.
REPORTER: Questions about the
Ramsey's mounted every day.
Meanwhile, investigators--
CINDY MARRA: So
when my dad came in,
he just figured it was a
matter of determining who it
was in the family that did it.
MAN (ON RADIO): A six-year-old
was discovered in the family's
basement by her father.
The parents are
suspected in the crime,
but they maintain
their innocence.
[music playing]
My name is Paula Woodward.
I'm an investigative
reporter and an author.
I reported on the JonBenet
Ramsey case from the beginning.
Is your investigation focusing
inside the Ramsey family
or outside the Ramsey
family as far as suspects?
This was initially a kidnapping.
A 2 and 1/2 page ransom
note was left in the house.
The ransom note writer
said, hey, I'll call
you between 8:00 and 10:00 AM.
There was never any phone call.
John Ramsey was asked
to search the house,
and he finds his
daughter's body.
PAGEANT ANNOUNCER: Our next
contestant is JonBenet Ramsey.
[applause]
[music playing]
It was known
almost immediately--
I would say within a day--
that she was a
child beauty queen.
REPORTER: Some media
outlets and the police
focused on these sensational
aspects of the case.
PAULA WOODWARD:
Pageant photographers
would sell their pictures and
their video to the networks.
The story just took off.
Within a week of her death,
it was an international story.
REPORTER: There is tremendous
public pressure to find
Little Miss Colorado's killer.
Reporters from all--
--little girl named
JonBenet Ramsey.
JonBenet's murder--
JonBenet Ramsey--
District attorney
Alex Hunter has
asked us to announce
another member of the
expert prosecution task force.
Lou Smit has been added
as a investigator.
I'm Lou Smit.
I'm the investigator
that's going
to be working the Ramsey case.
CINDY MARRA: My
dad was called out
of retirement to join
the investigation
of the Ramsey case.
REPORTER: Boulder is burdened
with an intense murder
investigation that
has now reached--
PAULA WOODWARD: Lou
Smit was hired because
of the huge disagreement between
Boulder Police and the Boulder
District Attorney's
Office on whether or not
there was enough evidence
to try and convict
John and Patsy Ramsey.
His job was to work
for the DA's office.
Any of the information that
they got in from the Boulder PD,
they had asked him to review
it, give his opinion on what
that evidence was showing.
One of the things that made
Lou Smit so unique was he
was not just a
homicide detective.
He had over 20 years
with the Coral Springs
Police Department, but
then he went to work
for the coroner's office.
So he knew the
legal medical side.
And then, he was
investigator for the district
attorney's office.
Lou was involved in
over 200 homicide cases,
and he never lost
one case in court.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: When
Lou looked at a case,
he would look at the
physical evidence,
the motive, and the character.
And so when you look at
the JonBenet Ramsey case,
why would a mom and
dad kill their daughter
on Christmas night?
[music - "deck the halls"]
Hello, I'm Patsy Ramsey.
This is JonBenet.
She's 4.
Burke is 7.
And we'd like to
welcome to our home
and wish you a very
Merry Christmas.
[MUSIC - "WE WISH YOU A MERRY
CHRISTMAS"]
The Ramseys had
a lot of money.
They lived in a beautiful
home in Boulder.
A week or so before
Christmas, an article
had been published about
John Ramsey's company
and that it had had a
billion dollars in sales.
They would be logical
targets of a kidnapper.
Merry Christmas and the
happiest of New Years.
PAULA WOODWARD:
Except the ransom
note was written on one of
Patsy Ramsey's notepads.
Boulder Police thought
the ransom note
was part of a cover-up
by John and Patsy Ramsey
to deflect attention away from
their murder of their daughter.
[music playing]
PAULA WOODWARD: It
wasn't computing
with him that the
Ramseys did this,
that they staged this murder.
[music playing]
MAN (ON RADIO): A
nightmare was coming true--
a beautiful young girl murdered
the day after Christmas.
Questions are now being raised
about whether her parents
could have been involved.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: The very
first thing is to secure
and contain the crime scene.
But instead, what happens is
that the family is actually
allowed to stay in the home and
call their friends to come over
to the home to provide comfort.
PAULA WOODWARD: There were
18 people in the house.
The crime scene
didn't have a chance.
PAULA WOODWARD: They left one
lone detective on the scene
to handle 18 people.
My name is John Ramsey.
I'm JonBenet's father.
The one woman detective was
there, said, why don't you
and your friend go
through the house.
See if you see anything
out of the ordinary.
[music playing]
As I was going through the
basement, I opened the--
we call it the wine cellar,
but it was an old coal room,
and I found JonBenet.
[music playing]
There was a rush of
relief, obviously.
I found my child, thank God.
She had tape over the
mouth, and her wrists
were tied above her head.
I immediately took the
tape off her mouth,
and I tried to untie the--
her wrists, and
it was too tight.
I couldn't get it untied.
So I scooped her
up and screamed.
And just-- I just wanted to--
I don't know, just
a panic scream.
I want to help.
How do I help my daughter?
I took her upstairs
and laid her down,
and the detective checked
and said, no, she's gone.
[music playing]
If they had opened the door,
they would have found her body
and any evidence would have
been forensically sterile
because nobody had been in that
room since probably the killer.
When her body had been found,
one of the Boulder officers
said, I knew it.
They killed their daughter.
They decided John and Patsy
were guilty within minutes.
REPORTER: John and Patsy Ramsey
buried JonBenet in their home
city of Atlanta, but
where the Ramseys went,
the police followed.
PAULA WOODWARD: Of course
they were suspects.
They were in the house.
They were related to her.
But that didn't mean
they were guilty.
REPORTER: They have only
just buried their daughter,
but most people
appear to believe
that John and Patsy
Ramsey had something
to do with the murder.
Pray with us.
Pray for our child.
PAULA WOODWARD: What we
learned from the autopsy report
was that JonBenet died from
strangulation and a blow
to the head.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN:
Boulder Police Department
started to formulate a theory
as to what they believe
happened inside of the home.
PAULA WOODWARD:
One of the things
that came out from
the investigation
is that JonBenet
was a bedwetter.
One of the theories
was she wet the bed
that night, Patsy became
enraged and slammed her head
against something,
and that either Patsy
or John staged the
strangulation to cover
up for what they had done.
PAULA WOODWARD: Lou Smit found
fibers from her night clothing
on those sheets, which
indicated that they had not been
washed or cleaned since then.
So therefore, she
had not wet the bed.
The Ramseys had
no criminal record.
The child beauty pageant,
the pictures, and the video
became the criminal
record they did not have.
Child beauty pageants
were really frowned upon.
Here are children
who are being
sexualized like Las
Vegas showgirls,
being taught how
to be coquettish.
This is not a good
thing to do to children.
PAULA WOODWARD: There
were wanted posters
with John Ramsey's picture being
circulated throughout Boulder.
That gives you an idea of
really how savage the reaction
was to them.
This was the taint.
I didn't like
her being portrayed
that way because that's
very one dimensional.
These are pictures of JonBenet.
This is JonBenet when she
went off to kindergarten.
She was just a neat
kid, and she and Burke
would run for the elevator, see
who could push the button first
to go up or down.
So we said, OK, wait,
let's have a rule.
One of you pick one button,
and the other pick the other.
And JonBenet says,
well, I'm the up girl.
Boy, that's the truth.
JOHN ANDREW RAMSEY: We
were a normal family.
JonBenet was a normal kid.
My name's John Andrew Ramsey,
JonBenet's oldest brother.
The JonBenet that I knew
was a six-year-old kid
that liked to ride a bike and
play with her older brother
Burke and his buddies.
JOHN RAMSEY: JonBenet was
very much an extrovert.
She loved to perform.
She didn't get it from me, so
she got that from her mother.
Patsy came from a small
town in West Virginia
and participated in
those kind of pageants,
went on to be Miss
West Virginia,
went to the Miss
America pageant.
She was portrayed
as a pageant mom who
dragged her child
into those pageants
and forced her to perform.
Nothing could have been
further from the truth.
JonBenet loved it.
It was the other way around.
JonBenet was dragging
Patsy to these things.
PAGEANT ANNOUNCER:
--JonBenet Ramsey,
and she'll be doing "Rock
Around the Christmas Tree."
JOHN RAMSEY: One of my treasured
memories was JonBenet--
and this was just before
she was murdered--
was performing in
a little pageant.
And I had always told
her, talents what count.
Don't worry about whether
you're the prettiest
or have the prettiest smile.
JONBENET RAMESEY:
(SINGING) Rocking
around the Christmas tree--
JOHN RAMSEY: I said, it's
the only thing that matters.
You just work on your talent.
I was late, and she'd
already performed
and then had the
talent competition.
And she came running
up to me and said, dad,
I won this for you.
And it was the
overall talent award.
And she put it around my neck.
REPORTER 11: Crime
scene investigators are
still combing through the home.
Police haven't
named any suspects.
But curiously, they are saying
that the public at large
is not in any danger,
that there is not
a random killer on the loose.
The evidence points to
someone inside the house
rather than outside the house.
JOHN ANDERSON: Lou
was pointing out
right from the very
beginning that, look,
you have evidence of an intruder
that's being overlooked.
He says, Johnny, there's
some things in this case
that aren't adding up.
There's something wrong here.
There's something amiss.
The story that's being
told is not factual.
[music playing]
REPORTER: The probe into the
murder of six-year-old beauty
pageant star JonBenet
Ramsey seemed stalled
two weeks after her death.
REPORTER: Police say
that they've narrowed
the list of suspects, but
they are not close to naming
a suspect at this time.
CINDY MARRA: There were no
visible signs of forced entry
into the home.
CINDY MARRA: When my dad first
started reviewing the photos,
something really
jumped out at him.
The information on
this case at that point
was that there was no
forced entry into the house,
and therefore it had to be
somebody inside the house that
killed JonBenet.
CINDY MARRA: Things
started jumping
out at my dad that
started leading
him down a different path.
CINDY MARRA: I remember a week
or two into the investigation,
I called my dad.
And I just said, so who
did it, the mom or the dad?
And he said, you know, I don't
think it was either of them.
And I was really
surprised because that's
all we were talking about.
Everybody was talking
about it was the parents.
That's all there was to it.
CINDY MARRA: My dad theorized
that the intruder was going
to kidnap JonBenet,
and that was the reason
he wrote the ransom note.
The Boulder Police
Department said
that there's no way that
somebody made their way
in through that window.
And so what Lou did was--
you know, he's
one of those guys,
he doesn't let go of things.
He's an alligator, right?
He actually showed how easily
it would have been for somebody
to open up the grate, get
inside of that window well,
climb in through the window,
and get into the basement.
He also showed how easy it
would be to step on a suitcase
and exit out of that area
without, really, any problem.
When Lou Smit
disproved the Boulder
Police Department theory, they
called that his theatrics.
REPORTER: Questions were
raised about whether Patsy
Ramsey was the author of
the mysterious ransom note.
REPORTER: So far,
they have refused
a formal police interview.
REPORTER: Nobody has been
ruled in or out as suspects.
Leaks by the case detectives
started immediately.
Part of the
misleading information
included that the Ramseys
were not cooperative.
JOHN RAMSEY: We'd done a number
of interviews with the police.
We were totally eager to help.
PAULA WOODWARD: It
was leaked that Patsy
Ramsey had not given DNA.
Not true.
JOHN RAMSEY: We gave
them hair samples.
We gave them pubic hair samples.
We didn't refuse anything.
PAULA WOODWARD:
One of the things
that was perpetually leaked
was that Patsy's handwriting
matched that of the note.
JOHN RAMSEY: We did
handwriting samples.
We had to rewrite that horrible
note time and time again.
PAULA WOODWARD: There were
several eminent handwriting
experts who examined Patsy
Ramsey's handwriting.
There's a scale that
says if it's 5 points,
then you're not the writer.
Patsy averaged
between 4 and 4.5.
So the indications
were very, very strong
that she was not the
writer, yet the information
continued to leak.
JOHN RAMSEY: One of the leaks
was that they were searching
our home for child pornography.
That made headlines,
big headlines.
The impression-- boom.
Ah, what does that mean?
PAULA WOODWARD: They
didn't follow up and say,
we didn't find anything.
The inference was the
Ramseys are guilty,
and they were abusing JonBenet.
JOHN RAMSEY: It was
meant to incriminate us
in the court of public opinion.
[music playing]
JOHN ANDERSON: Lou Smit
had remarkable experience
in solving cold cases.
He saw things that I think
other people just overlooked.
REPORTER: In September of 1991,
a 13-year-old girl mysteriously
vanished one night.
The Heather Dawn Church
case had some similarities
to the JonBenet
Ramsey case because it
involved a young girl
kidnapped out of her home.
JOHN ANDERSON: It was
a very violent murder.
REPORTER: The search for
Heather lasted two years
until her skull but
no other remains were
found off Rampart Range Road.
The case was four years
old, and it had gone cold.
There was a lot of
speculation that perhaps
it was a parental abduction.
The parents were going through
a messy divorce at the time.
This is it right here.
Yeah, that's the window.
They took some beautiful
prints off of that.
MARK SMIT: My dad came
across a fingerprint that
was found on a window screen.
Then we got two hits,
two hits on the prints,
and both same guy.
And that
fingerprint eventually
led them to the killer.
Boy, that was something
that day that we caught him.
We must have had 50
cars all lined up there.
JOHN ANDERSON: What Lou was able
to do in less than four months
was to have a suspect
identified, in custody,
and pleading guilty in court.
I feel blessed as a
sheriff to have the talent
that we have here to my right.
I'm happy for them that
we found out who did this.
KEVIN MACKEY: Can the man
who found Heather's killer
find JonBenet?
Kevin Mackey, Eyewitness News.
REPORTER: JonBenet grave has
seen a steady flow of visitors
paying their last respects
and wondering about the secret
that may be buried with her--
the identity of her killer.
The most valuable evidence
left behind by the killer
was JonBenet's body.
If investigators
continued to look,
there were still things that
she was willing to tell.
CINDY MARRA: When my dad
examined the autopsy findings,
he saw something different
than the police did.
[music playing]
CINDY MARRA: It's
a torture device.
It's a very vicious
and calculated way
to either control
or to kill somebody.
The person who did this
was doing it for some kind
of a perverted pleasure.
MARK SMIT: He had experience
with all kinds of killers
from crimes of passion
to serial killers,
and he just couldn't
believe that a parent
could do that to their child.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: If that's
significant blow to her head
had happened first,
she would not
have been able to respond
when that garrote was placed
around her neck
because she would
have been killed by that blow
to her head, and Lou knew that.
So Boulder's theory of the blow
to the head happening first
could not have happened.
[music playing]
This was a willful act
of another human being,
just incomprehendible.
[music playing]
For a long time, I
blacked out portions
and thought to myself
that, well, maybe JonBenet
was killed fast, she died fast.
But the facts of the case and
the reality of the situation
is she was tortured and
that it wasn't instant.
It was drawn out
and painful for her.
JOHN RAMSEY: Someone asked me
what would you say to JonBenet
now if you could talk to her?
And I would tell her, I'm
sorry I didn't protect you.
That's my job as a dad.
[music playing]
[music playing]
JOHN RAMSEY: We had heard
that Lou Smit would park
in front of our house
every morning on his way
to work and say a prayer.
And we wanted to meet Lou.
And so we went to the house,
and we introduced ourselves,
and got in hi big old
van, and just said,
we're grateful that you're
working on this case.
Lou said, let's
say a short prayer.
It was a very warm,
comforting feeling.
You know, we were desperate
for that kind of compassion,
and I just felt that from Lou.
He was caring.
He cared.
Lou was very harshly
criticized by the police
for talking to us.
He was widely
criticized for that.
PAULA WOODWARD: Initially,
boulder police really
liked him because,
initially, he thought
the Ramseys were guilty.
But when Lou Smit decided
there was an intruder,
he became a pariah, and
Boulder Police hated him.
They wanted the
best from Lou Smit.
But when he didn't fall in line
with them, they drove him out.
REPORTER: The Colorado
Bureau of Investigations
has completed DNA
tests on material
found at the crime scene.
The materials have now been
sent to the Cellmark Laboratory
in Maryland for
further examination.
[music playing]
CINDY MARRA: A couple of days
after the murder, the police
had taken DNA samples and
sent them in to be tested.
And the report of those tests
were available approximately
January 15.
When the police
got those results,
they did commission
another test.
And even though the results were
made available to the Boulder
PD in May, those results weren't
provided to the DA's office
until July.
Why would they
want to withhold
that information from the
district attorney's office?
The Boulder Police Department
is not able to eliminate
anyone as a suspect.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: They had
already made up their minds
that the Ramseys did it.
They do remain under
an umbrella of suspicion.
They didn't want to share.
It blew a hole in their theory.
CINDY MARRA: Those test
results showed the same thing.
Foreign DNA was found under
JonBenet's fingernails
and in her panties.
CINDY MARRA: To my
dad, you add that
to all of the other evidence
that he was uncovering,
and, again, it's just shining a
light down that intruder path.
CINDY MARRA: You
can't discount it
just because you don't like it
and it doesn't fit your theory.
You can't work a case that way.
You've got to
follow the evidence,
and that's what he was doing.
I [inaudible] district
attorney's office.
MAN: All right.
- [inaudible]
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: Lou
Smit was one of these guys
that can't let go.
He's going to keep going
and keep pursuing the truth.
He would go after anything
and everything that
was tied to a particular case.
CINDY MARRA: One
of the questions
was, how would the
parents not hear
somebody taking their
daughter from her bedroom?
Wouldn't she wake up?
Wouldn't she scream?
Wouldn't there be some
kind of a disturbance?
CINDY MARRA: He was
puzzling over that.
And at about the
same time, he was
looking at the autopsy photos,
and he sees these marks.
CINDY MARRA: My dad put
those two photos together.
You realize that the two
marks on each part of her body
were the same distance apart.
And he thought, that's
got to mean something.
That's when the light
bulb kind of went
off that this was a stun gun.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: In
true Lou Smit form,
he went and found
somebody who actually
worked a death of a stun
gun, Dr. Michael Doberson.
CINDY MARRA: My dad did a
lot of research on stun guns,
and he was able to find a stun
gun and air taser that left
the same distance
between those two points
where the electrodes
contact the skin were
just the same as the
marks on JonBenet's body.
CINDY MARRA: It was
a huge breakthrough.
It solved the puzzle about
how JonBenet was taken
into that basement
without waking up
or without alerting
somebody in the house.
But as soon as my dad
brought forth the evidence
that these were stun
gun marks, the police
got their own experts
to develop that lead.
REPORTER: JonBenet's parents
remain the prime suspects
in the investigation.
A full year has now
passed with plenty of clues
but still no arrests in the
murder of JonBenet Ramsey.
On the anniversary of
the Christmas killing,
there was a candlelight
vigil in Boulder, Colorado.
CINDY MARRA: My dad surmised
that there was a plan
to kidnap JonBenet that
night and that something
went wrong with that plan.
The police argument
was that it's just
silly to think that somebody
was able to break in, wander
around the house while
the parents are asleep,
take the daughter, stun gun her,
try and get her out the window.
There's no way that they
wouldn't have woken up.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: He goes
out to the Ramsey house,
and he's in the basement.
And as he's looking,
he sees a furnace.
He actually sees a
pipe that is actually
open on the end in
the house and his
remains open to the
exterior of the home.
It's another one of
those a-ha moments.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: What Lou
really wanted to find out
was could the parents
have heard was screaming
three levels below them?
This home is a 6,700
square feet Tudor.
It has multiple levels.
You have the basement level.
You have the main level.
You have the second
story level, which
is where JonBenet and her
brother Burke had bedrooms.
And then there's a level
above that, which was
entirely the master bedroom.
So he hired an audiologist,
and he had people in the master
bedroom on the third floor.
And he had people
across the street.
And he conducted the test.
And guess what?
They could not hear screaming
on the master level floor.
But if you went
across the street,
you could hear it perfectly.
CINDY MARRA: Whether the
kidnapper tried to put her
in the suitcase and
couldn't get out,
whether she woke up during
that time and screamed,
we don't know.
But something went
wrong with that plan,
and my dad theorized
that that's when
the kidnapper decided that he
was going to do what he did.
CINDY MARRA: The clank
of metal on cement
is very consistent with this
guy going out the window.
CINDY MARRA: In May of
1998, my dad and the others
in the district
attorney's office
put together a
presentation to show
to Boulder PD about
their evidence
to show that an intruder
was in that house that day.
CINDY MARRA: The
PD's reaction to it
was that it was just
a bunch of baloney.
CINDY MARRA: They had
reached an impasse.
The Boulder PD had their
theory, and the DA's office
had their theory, or at
least my dad and a few others
in the DA's office.
And in the meantime,
the Ramsey family
were offering to come in
for further interviews.
Nothing was being
done to find the killer.
And so I just felt compelled
to write the district attorney
and say, look, let's
cut through this stuff.
Dear, Mr. Hunter, we
will meet any time,
anywhere, for as long as
you want with investigators
from your office.
I'm living my life
for two purposes
now-- to find the
killer of JonBenet
and to bring it to the maximum
justice our society can impose.
While there is a rage within me
that says give me a few moments
alone with this
creature and there won't
be any need for a trial, I would
have succumbed to the behavior
which the killer did.
It's time to get down to
the most important mission--
finding JonBenet's killer.
That's all we care about.
Sincerely, John Ramsey.
[music playing]
Arrangements were made
to interview the Ramseys
over a three-day period.
OK, we're not--
we're live, so--
OK.
[inaudible]
We're live [inaudible].
[inaudible] today is
Wednesday, June 24, 1998.
CINDY MARRA: John and Patsy were
to be questioned separately--
Mr. Ramsey--
CINDY MARRA: --but
at the same time
so that they couldn't
confer with each other.
They wanted it to
be an interrogation.
They wanted to have the
pressure on the Ramseys.
CINDY MARRA: Pressure,
pressure, pressure,
that's how they wanted to
handle those interviews
to hopefully get them to crack.
CINDY MARRA: It was decided
that my dad would interview
or interrogate John Ramsey.
JOHN RAMSEY: They were accusing
her of murdering a child.
And as a protective
mother, she was angry.
She wasn't going to stand for.
The cops apparently
interpreted that as, well,
she's a tough woman and
therefore capable of, you know,
murdering her child.
Nonsense.
She kept hoping that they
had some level of discernment
to say, OK, these people are
not what we think they are,
but it just wasn't there.
CINDY MARRA: My dad and
his team at the DA's office
remain convinced that
an intruder was present,
and Boulder PD remained
entrenched in their theory
that it was the Ramseys.
Those interviews
had done nothing
to resolve that impasse.
And shortly after that, the
Boulder PD detective, Steve
Thomas, resigned from the case.
REPORTER 21: A former
detective in the JonBenet
Ramsey murder case
wrote a blistering
letter of resignation.
Thomas said his primary
reason for leaving
his job is the
belief the district
attorney's office continues
to mishandle the Ramsey case.
MARK SMIT: His resignation was
pretty explosive, very public,
and that got the gears
turning for what was
going to happen in the case.
[music playing]
It's been almost two
years now since JonBenet
Ramsey was found murdered.
And despite thousands of
hours of investigation,
no arrests have been made, but
the case is heating up again.
The turmoil surrounding
this case had never abated.
Nothing was being resolved.
This is a very large case.
It's going to be a
very great burden
to any particular office.
In August of 1998,
the governor of Colorado
had had enough.
You should know that this case
is on track for a grand jury.
PAULA WOODWARD: So he called
the Boulder DA into his office.
And he said, look, there's
going to be a grand jury.
In essence, what
happened was three
new prosecutors came in selected
by the Colorado governor.
And so there was going
to be this big shift.
REPORTER: Sources
close to the case
say the three new prosecutors
now support the police's theory
that JonBenet's parents were
implicated in the murder
or cover up.
My dad started
seeing people who
supported his intruder
theory being phased
out of the investigation.
REPORTER: Under the
media spotlight today,
12 members of the public
became the new jury
in the extraordinary
Ramsey murder case.
I felt like the
district attorney
had just punted the football
out of his possession
and up to a grand jury.
PAULA WOODWARD:
What was ultimately
going to be determined
by this grand jury was,
is there enough evidence to take
John and Patsy Ramsey to trial?
REPORTER: With the media
circus tailing them,
the 12 Boulder County residents
who make up the JonBenet
Ramsey grand jury arrived early
morning to do their civic duty.
MARK SMIT: What really
drove him was just
a commitment to the victims.
Up to that point in his
career, his chain of command
had really let him represent
his victims the way
he saw necessary.
But he said, if that ever
changes, if the people above me
ever get between me and what's
right for the victim, that's
the day I'll quit my job.
That day came with
the Ramsey case.
He wrestled with his decision
to resign from the case
because, once he
did that, he was
going to be outside the case.
He wouldn't have the
information anymore.
But he felt that he could
do more for JonBenet
by just investigating
the case on his own.
REPORTER: The grand jury
investigating the death
of JonBenet Ramsey is
hearing secret testimony
amidst a storm of controversy.
A top investigator in the
district attorney's office
resigned, saying the district
attorney is unfairly targeting
the murder victim's parents.
Lou Smit writes,
John and Patsy Ramsey
did not kill their daughter.
JOHN RAMSEY: He was
probably the main guy that
had a clear, unbiased
opinion of the case
and had the skill
set to solve it,
so we hated to see him resign.
REPORTER: In the wake
of Smit's resignation,
the grand jury continued
to hear from Boulder
Police and forensic
experts from the Colorado--
CINDY MARRA: My dad started
making a presentation
of the evidence in
this case that he
hoped to present to the grand
jury, and he was denied.
CINDY MARRA: They were alleging
that he had information that he
wasn't supposed to have,
and he had an injunction
filed against him.
What they wanted my dad to
do is turn over everything
that he had so that
they could destroy it.
CINDY MARRA: And he couldn't
allow that to happen.
I'm Greg Walta.
I've been a trial lawyer
in Colorado for 50 years.
Lou consulted me and
showed me the presentation,
and I thought it was
extremely persuasive.
So that evidence was going
to get to the grand jury
one way or the other.
We then filed a motion
stating that the grand jury
was entitled to hear
all the evidence.
REPORTER: Boulder DA Alex
Hunter says the grand jury
is making progress.
But with forensic and
investigative police
work still underway,
the grand jury's job
isn't finished either.
GREG WALTA: The district
attorneys pretty quickly
realized they were not
going to win that motion,
and they made an agreement
to have Smit testify to allow
him to keep his evidence.
GREG WALTA: It was
great relief because he
was willing to go to jail if
he wasn't allowed to testify.
CINDY MARRA: But my dad
felt that the prosecution
was trying to dismantle his
case as he presented it.
REPORTER: You might call it
the calm before the storm.
Media anticipation
is running high,
as television
networks are staking
out their coverage spots.
CINDY MARRA: He had only
been given three hours
of the grand jury's time,
whereas the prosecution had
months, so he was
resigned to the fact
that the Ramseys were
going to get indicted.
He fully expected
that to happen.
REPORTER: The grand
jury met twice,
and prosecutors have left him
alone several times, prompting
speculation they are
reviewing evidence
and may even be
close to a decision.
The grand jury
process about to make
his statement as he heads
towards a podium position.
JOHN RAMSEY: We had a guardian
paper drawn up for Burke.
Our attorneys were with us.
They were going to escort us to
the jail to turn ourselves in.
I want to thank
you for all joining
us on such short notice.
What we now know is
that the grand jury voted
to indict both Patsy
and John for child
abuse resulting in death
and accessory to a crime.
ALEX HUNTER: And before I
begin my very brief remarks--
PAULA WOODWARD: So what
happened next came as a surprise
to a lot of people.
ALEX HUNTER: --all of
us today and outlined
some things [inaudible].
The Boulder grand jury
has completed its work
and will not return.
No charges have been filed.
The grand jurors have
done their work extra--
ALEX HUNTER: We do not
have sufficient evidence
to warrant the filing of
charges against anyone
who has been investigated
at this time.
CINDY MARRA: I think
he felt a huge weight
lifted off of his shoulders
when he heard that announcement.
JOHN RAMSEY: It
was a funny feeling
because, you know, in your
life, you've got things planned.
You got a plan for tomorrow,
and I got a plan for tomorrow.
We didn't have a
plan for tomorrow.
We were going to be in jail.
Thank you very much.
Lou Smit's information when he
testified before the grand jury
was that an intruder did it.
That had to factor
in to the decision
by the three
prosecuting attorneys
that, hey, this is
going to be brought
up by a good defense attorney.
REPORTER: Are you satisfied?
PAULA WOODWARD:
They did not believe
there was enough evidence
to take them to trial
and convict them.
REPORTER: Does this mean
they're going to be off?
They're free?
We called Lou and met
with him that afternoon,
and we just said thank you
for being committed to this,
and we really appreciate it.
Our family appreciates it.
That was the most
important thing we could
do at that point in our minds.
If Lou Smit had not
testified as a witness
before the grand
jury, the Ramseys
would have been indicted
for first degree murder.
[music playing]
LARRY KING: Tonight, it's
one of the most sensational
unsolved crimes in US history.
Who brutally killed JonBenet
Ramsey in her own home
on Christmas night 1996?
It's a great pleasure to
welcome to "Larry King Live"
tonight Lou Smit,
the renowned Colorado
detective who has investigated
more than 200 homicides.
CINDY MARRA: My dad wasn't going
to let the Ramsey case die.
After he left the DA's
office, he started
working the case on his own.
LARRY KING: Have you been paid?
LOU SMIT: No, this
is not a paid job.
I'm doing it mainly because
I do want to seek the truth.
He would not accept any pay.
We couldn't reimburse
him for expenses.
I tried to buy Lou an
ice cream cone one day,
and he wouldn't accept the gift.
He was that ethical.
I believe that if law
enforcement and others look
carefully at the case,
we have a good chance
of catching the killer yet.
MARK SMIT: He was determined to
keep the intruder theory alive.
He felt like it hadn't
been fully investigated,
and he was the only
one left to do it.
LARRY KING: What's
it done to you?
I'm just a retired detective
that wants to retire.
But I won't be able to do that
as long as this case is open.
There's a very dangerous
killer out there.
In my mind, I see this person.
Thank you, Lou.
Thank you.
Lou stuck with this case
because his commitment
was to the victim.
His responsibility
was to JonBenet.
[music playing]
CINDY MARRA: My dad created
a list of people and items
that were important
to this case.
CINDY MARRA: Any
name that had been
brought up with regard to this
case was put on this list.
And then, from there, he
prioritized it in the hopes
that, at some point,
there would be
one person left on that list--
the killer.
CINDY MARRA: He felt the DNA
was very important in this case.
[music playing]
In 2000, Boulder got a new DA.
Her name was Mary Lacy.
She was an expert in sex crimes.
And she wanted to find
out whether or not
there was validity to
the intruder theory.
MARK SMIT: As
unlikely as it was,
she asked my dad to come back
and volunteer for the case,
so he did have a second bite
at the apple under Mary Lacy
to go back and work on the case.
I believe very strongly
that we should start again.
There are some strong leads
that can be found out even now.
REPORTER: DNA testing like this
may determine who is or is not
the killer of JonBenet Ramsey.
CINDY MARRA: Mary Lacy
tried to determine
what additional evidence there
might be that could yield DNA.
And since it was thought
that she had been sexually
assaulted, they looked to the
long johns she was wearing,
thinking that somebody
would have had to touch them
in order to pull them down
and pull them back up.
So they sent those long
johns in for testing.
20 minutes till the
top of the hour now,
and we are following
breaking news in the JonBenet
Ramsey murder case.
They found DNA in
those long johns.
The DNA was consistent with
the DNA found in her panties
in 1997.
The DNA was foreign
and had been determined
not to belong to any member
of the Ramsey family.
The parents have
now been cleared
in that little girl's murder.
So Mary Lacy
exonerated the Ramseys
based on the DNA
from this new report,
as well as just the totality
of all the other evidence
that had been collected
over the years.
REPORTER: Boulder District
Attorney Mary Lacy is
meeting with John Ramsey now.
She's giving him a letter
stating that the Ramseys are no
longer suspects, that she's
deeply sorry for everything
the family has endured,
and that they will now
be treated as
victims of the crime
due to the horrific
loss they suffered.
CINDY MARRA: Unexplained
DNA on the victim of a crime
is powerful evidence.
There is no innocent explanation
for its incriminating presence
at three sites on these two
different items of clothing
that JonBenet was wearing
at the time of her murder.
I was very grateful for her
courage to do the right thing.
For the Ramseys, you know,
there is somewhat that peace
of mind that knowing
that, you know,
their name has been
cleared in that.
It's huge.
This is huge news.
REPORTER: All right,
well thank you very much.
That was a big deal for my
dad because, at that point,
he finally felt
like he had rustled
things to a neutral position.
OK, now, everybody
can just look at this
from an objective perspective.
I think my dad did regret
that it came too late for Patsy.
Patsy was diagnosed with
cancer very early in life,
but she beat cancer
into remission.
And then, in 2002,
the cancer came back.
It eventually
attacked her brain.
And in 2006, she died.
Now to Atlanta and word today
of the death of Patsy Ramsey.
The mother of murder victim
JonBenet Ramsey died of cancer.
JOHN ANDREW RAMSEY: Patsy knew
that people thought of her
as a child killer, but
she also knew the facts,
and she knew the truth.
JOHN RAMSEY: Patsy loved
her children dearly.
That's what the real tragedy
is that Patsy's been so
maligned as this awful mother.
She was an amazing mother,
so it's real tragic
that the media has painted
as such a wicked person
because she wasn't at all.
I'd like to welcome
you to our home.
We wish you a very--
[music playing]
LOU SMIT: I see the
killer of JonBenet
at the end of the intruder
path, and that's the way
I'm going to continue to go.
MARK SMIT: My dad never
gave up on a case ever.
It didn't matter how
old that case got.
He would never give up on it.
LOU SMIT: I believe
this case can be solved
because a detective
always believes
that the case can be solved.
It's not a question
of solving it.
It's just a question of
when it will be solved.
He was committed to
the case to the very end.
He wasn't going
to give up on it.
CINDY MARRA: In
the spring of 2010,
my dad was starting to get
bothered by some stomach pain.
And in June of 2010, he
underwent exploratory surgery.
And the doctors
came out and said
he was just full of cancer.
That case was still on
the top of his mind.
He wasn't going to let something
like cancer make him give up.
If anything, I think that
he still felt that he
hadn't completed his task.
We were with my dad,
and he gave me a name.
He said, you know, this is
who you need to start with.
We decided that we would try
and do our best to carry that
on to not let the case die.
He was all wired up with
tubes and probes and stuff.
And it was a hard meeting.
I knew that's probably
the last time I'd see him.
And Lou told me in hospice
as he was dying, he said,
John, if the case remains
in the Boulder Police hands,
it probably will
never be solved.
And that's the first
time he admitted that he
wasn't going to get the guy.
And sadly, we lost him.
Lou believed that as one
charged with bringing justice
for the victim of
a crime, that he
stands in the victims' shoes.
I had the privilege of
speaking at his funeral.
All that is necessary for evil
to triumph is for good men
to do nothing.
Lou was a good man who
courageously stepped forward
in front of a tidal
wave of opinion,
who if I was to describe
him with one word,
it would be integrity.
I know when I approached his
casket, I cried like a baby.
I was very sad that we
lost Lou, both as a friend
and as a very important
part of this case.
[music playing]
He fought to get the
truth in front of people
because he knew the system
was capable of sending
us to prison, of convicting
us, maybe executing us.
I don't know.
So in that way, he
did save our lives.
Lou gave us hope that
the case might be solved.
The public narrative is
that this was a perfect crime.
This was a perfect murder.
But we have a
mountain of evidence.
We have DNA.
JonBenet's murder can be solved.
REPORTER: The case of
the Golden State Killer
had baffled investigators
for decades, suspected
of killing a dozen people
and raping more than 50
women in the 1970s and '80s.
We all knew that
we were looking
for a needle in a
haystack, but we also all
knew that the needle was there.
REPORTER: Ultimately, a
DNA match led to DeAngelo.
Now to a break in a
case cold for 44 years.
16-year-old Pamela
Maurer was strangled,
and now police say they
finally know who killed her.
CINDY MARRA: We're very
encouraged by the fact
that a lot of cold
cases, 20, 30 years old,
are being solved now.
JOHN RAMSEY: Lou believed
strongly that this was
going to be solved by the DNA.
We haven't found a match
yet, but there's lots of
new opportunities to work that.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: There are
so many advanced technologies
in DNA that there really is
no reason for us not to pursue
those avenues in trying
to find the killer
or killers of JonBenet.
REPORTER: Detectives spent eight
days scouring the Ramsey home
for any potential evidence.
Hundreds of items
seized including
bed sheets, towels, robes,
a hammer, a baseball bat.
There's hundreds of
pieces of physical evidence
that could contain
the killer's DNA.
We also know that lots of those
items have never been tested.
CINDY MARRA: We as
private citizens
can't do any of that testing.
Boulder has those
items in evidence,
and without them, we can't
get any DNA testing done.
There's nothing we
could do other than plead
with the police to do it.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: There is
strong evidence out there.
The question is whether or not
the Boulder Police Department
and the Boulder District
Attorney's Office
will now go after
that person or people
responsible for this murder.
[music playing]
I look at it now as I want
this closure, not for me,
not for Patsy, but for my
children and my grandchildren.
You know, they have to live
with this in their lives,
this unknown.
JOHN ANDREW RAMSEY: JonBenet
was a six-year-old child
that was taken from
her bed on Christmas
day and violently murdered.
And it's our obligation
and our responsibility
to find the killer,
to find who did that.
CINDY MARRA: What
we're doing right
now is very personal to me.
I mean, I loved my dad dearly.
I respected him so much.
And if we could carry on
what he asked us to continue,
we'd love to be able
to go to my dad's grave
and be able to say the
killer has been found.
That would just-- you know,
it would mean a lot to me.
When you look at
the whole of this case
and all of the media and the
coverage and everything else,
lost in all of that is a
little girl named JonBenet.
That's what was
important to my dad.
My dad kept a wallet with
pictures of the victims in it
as a reminder.
And I did find this
picture in there.
That's JonBenet.
Justice is still crying out for
her, and I think it's up to us
not to let that cry go unheard.
[music playing]
MAN (ON RADIO): Police
were called to the home
in a report of a kidnapping.
Investigators were
following through
with demands and a ransom
note when the family
member found the body.
CINDY MARRA: My dad worked
on over 200 homicide cases.
He never lost a case.
He wanted to get justice
for those victims.
9-1-1 OPERATOR: 9-1-1 Emergency.
PATSY RAMSEY: There's
a ransom note here.
PATSY RAMSEY: Oh my god.
CINDY MARRA: While my dad was
working on the Ramsey case,
he kept an audio diary.
CINDY MARRA: It's unique.
Nobody has heard this
outside the family.
CINDY MARRA: The public thinks
that they know what happened,
but this allows the public
to have a ringside seat
to what was going on.
CINDY MARRA: We're releasing the
recordings now because we want
to find the killer of JonBenet.
We believe he's still out there.
Like my dad would say,
it's time to stir the pot.
CINDY MARRA: He wanted
nothing more than to find
who did this to her.
[music playing]
[MUSIC - MATT HIRT AND MARC
FERRARI AND STEVE MARK COLLOM,
"FOLLOW MY LORD"]
(SINGING) I'll still
follow my Lord.
Yes, I still follow my Lord.
MAN (ON RADIO):
[inaudible] This is
the best station in the city.
Don't touch that dial.
We got music from
morning, noon till--
[radio static]
We are looking to do
justice in this case.
Everyone knew by
then that the police
were very focused on the
family, just through the media.
REPORTER: Questions about the
Ramsey's mounted every day.
Meanwhile, investigators--
CINDY MARRA: So
when my dad came in,
he just figured it was a
matter of determining who it
was in the family that did it.
MAN (ON RADIO): A six-year-old
was discovered in the family's
basement by her father.
The parents are
suspected in the crime,
but they maintain
their innocence.
[music playing]
My name is Paula Woodward.
I'm an investigative
reporter and an author.
I reported on the JonBenet
Ramsey case from the beginning.
Is your investigation focusing
inside the Ramsey family
or outside the Ramsey
family as far as suspects?
This was initially a kidnapping.
A 2 and 1/2 page ransom
note was left in the house.
The ransom note writer
said, hey, I'll call
you between 8:00 and 10:00 AM.
There was never any phone call.
John Ramsey was asked
to search the house,
and he finds his
daughter's body.
PAGEANT ANNOUNCER: Our next
contestant is JonBenet Ramsey.
[applause]
[music playing]
It was known
almost immediately--
I would say within a day--
that she was a
child beauty queen.
REPORTER: Some media
outlets and the police
focused on these sensational
aspects of the case.
PAULA WOODWARD:
Pageant photographers
would sell their pictures and
their video to the networks.
The story just took off.
Within a week of her death,
it was an international story.
REPORTER: There is tremendous
public pressure to find
Little Miss Colorado's killer.
Reporters from all--
--little girl named
JonBenet Ramsey.
JonBenet's murder--
JonBenet Ramsey--
District attorney
Alex Hunter has
asked us to announce
another member of the
expert prosecution task force.
Lou Smit has been added
as a investigator.
I'm Lou Smit.
I'm the investigator
that's going
to be working the Ramsey case.
CINDY MARRA: My
dad was called out
of retirement to join
the investigation
of the Ramsey case.
REPORTER: Boulder is burdened
with an intense murder
investigation that
has now reached--
PAULA WOODWARD: Lou
Smit was hired because
of the huge disagreement between
Boulder Police and the Boulder
District Attorney's
Office on whether or not
there was enough evidence
to try and convict
John and Patsy Ramsey.
His job was to work
for the DA's office.
Any of the information that
they got in from the Boulder PD,
they had asked him to review
it, give his opinion on what
that evidence was showing.
One of the things that made
Lou Smit so unique was he
was not just a
homicide detective.
He had over 20 years
with the Coral Springs
Police Department, but
then he went to work
for the coroner's office.
So he knew the
legal medical side.
And then, he was
investigator for the district
attorney's office.
Lou was involved in
over 200 homicide cases,
and he never lost
one case in court.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: When
Lou looked at a case,
he would look at the
physical evidence,
the motive, and the character.
And so when you look at
the JonBenet Ramsey case,
why would a mom and
dad kill their daughter
on Christmas night?
[music - "deck the halls"]
Hello, I'm Patsy Ramsey.
This is JonBenet.
She's 4.
Burke is 7.
And we'd like to
welcome to our home
and wish you a very
Merry Christmas.
[MUSIC - "WE WISH YOU A MERRY
CHRISTMAS"]
The Ramseys had
a lot of money.
They lived in a beautiful
home in Boulder.
A week or so before
Christmas, an article
had been published about
John Ramsey's company
and that it had had a
billion dollars in sales.
They would be logical
targets of a kidnapper.
Merry Christmas and the
happiest of New Years.
PAULA WOODWARD:
Except the ransom
note was written on one of
Patsy Ramsey's notepads.
Boulder Police thought
the ransom note
was part of a cover-up
by John and Patsy Ramsey
to deflect attention away from
their murder of their daughter.
[music playing]
PAULA WOODWARD: It
wasn't computing
with him that the
Ramseys did this,
that they staged this murder.
[music playing]
MAN (ON RADIO): A
nightmare was coming true--
a beautiful young girl murdered
the day after Christmas.
Questions are now being raised
about whether her parents
could have been involved.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: The very
first thing is to secure
and contain the crime scene.
But instead, what happens is
that the family is actually
allowed to stay in the home and
call their friends to come over
to the home to provide comfort.
PAULA WOODWARD: There were
18 people in the house.
The crime scene
didn't have a chance.
PAULA WOODWARD: They left one
lone detective on the scene
to handle 18 people.
My name is John Ramsey.
I'm JonBenet's father.
The one woman detective was
there, said, why don't you
and your friend go
through the house.
See if you see anything
out of the ordinary.
[music playing]
As I was going through the
basement, I opened the--
we call it the wine cellar,
but it was an old coal room,
and I found JonBenet.
[music playing]
There was a rush of
relief, obviously.
I found my child, thank God.
She had tape over the
mouth, and her wrists
were tied above her head.
I immediately took the
tape off her mouth,
and I tried to untie the--
her wrists, and
it was too tight.
I couldn't get it untied.
So I scooped her
up and screamed.
And just-- I just wanted to--
I don't know, just
a panic scream.
I want to help.
How do I help my daughter?
I took her upstairs
and laid her down,
and the detective checked
and said, no, she's gone.
[music playing]
If they had opened the door,
they would have found her body
and any evidence would have
been forensically sterile
because nobody had been in that
room since probably the killer.
When her body had been found,
one of the Boulder officers
said, I knew it.
They killed their daughter.
They decided John and Patsy
were guilty within minutes.
REPORTER: John and Patsy Ramsey
buried JonBenet in their home
city of Atlanta, but
where the Ramseys went,
the police followed.
PAULA WOODWARD: Of course
they were suspects.
They were in the house.
They were related to her.
But that didn't mean
they were guilty.
REPORTER: They have only
just buried their daughter,
but most people
appear to believe
that John and Patsy
Ramsey had something
to do with the murder.
Pray with us.
Pray for our child.
PAULA WOODWARD: What we
learned from the autopsy report
was that JonBenet died from
strangulation and a blow
to the head.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN:
Boulder Police Department
started to formulate a theory
as to what they believe
happened inside of the home.
PAULA WOODWARD:
One of the things
that came out from
the investigation
is that JonBenet
was a bedwetter.
One of the theories
was she wet the bed
that night, Patsy became
enraged and slammed her head
against something,
and that either Patsy
or John staged the
strangulation to cover
up for what they had done.
PAULA WOODWARD: Lou Smit found
fibers from her night clothing
on those sheets, which
indicated that they had not been
washed or cleaned since then.
So therefore, she
had not wet the bed.
The Ramseys had
no criminal record.
The child beauty pageant,
the pictures, and the video
became the criminal
record they did not have.
Child beauty pageants
were really frowned upon.
Here are children
who are being
sexualized like Las
Vegas showgirls,
being taught how
to be coquettish.
This is not a good
thing to do to children.
PAULA WOODWARD: There
were wanted posters
with John Ramsey's picture being
circulated throughout Boulder.
That gives you an idea of
really how savage the reaction
was to them.
This was the taint.
I didn't like
her being portrayed
that way because that's
very one dimensional.
These are pictures of JonBenet.
This is JonBenet when she
went off to kindergarten.
She was just a neat
kid, and she and Burke
would run for the elevator, see
who could push the button first
to go up or down.
So we said, OK, wait,
let's have a rule.
One of you pick one button,
and the other pick the other.
And JonBenet says,
well, I'm the up girl.
Boy, that's the truth.
JOHN ANDREW RAMSEY: We
were a normal family.
JonBenet was a normal kid.
My name's John Andrew Ramsey,
JonBenet's oldest brother.
The JonBenet that I knew
was a six-year-old kid
that liked to ride a bike and
play with her older brother
Burke and his buddies.
JOHN RAMSEY: JonBenet was
very much an extrovert.
She loved to perform.
She didn't get it from me, so
she got that from her mother.
Patsy came from a small
town in West Virginia
and participated in
those kind of pageants,
went on to be Miss
West Virginia,
went to the Miss
America pageant.
She was portrayed
as a pageant mom who
dragged her child
into those pageants
and forced her to perform.
Nothing could have been
further from the truth.
JonBenet loved it.
It was the other way around.
JonBenet was dragging
Patsy to these things.
PAGEANT ANNOUNCER:
--JonBenet Ramsey,
and she'll be doing "Rock
Around the Christmas Tree."
JOHN RAMSEY: One of my treasured
memories was JonBenet--
and this was just before
she was murdered--
was performing in
a little pageant.
And I had always told
her, talents what count.
Don't worry about whether
you're the prettiest
or have the prettiest smile.
JONBENET RAMESEY:
(SINGING) Rocking
around the Christmas tree--
JOHN RAMSEY: I said, it's
the only thing that matters.
You just work on your talent.
I was late, and she'd
already performed
and then had the
talent competition.
And she came running
up to me and said, dad,
I won this for you.
And it was the
overall talent award.
And she put it around my neck.
REPORTER 11: Crime
scene investigators are
still combing through the home.
Police haven't
named any suspects.
But curiously, they are saying
that the public at large
is not in any danger,
that there is not
a random killer on the loose.
The evidence points to
someone inside the house
rather than outside the house.
JOHN ANDERSON: Lou
was pointing out
right from the very
beginning that, look,
you have evidence of an intruder
that's being overlooked.
He says, Johnny, there's
some things in this case
that aren't adding up.
There's something wrong here.
There's something amiss.
The story that's being
told is not factual.
[music playing]
REPORTER: The probe into the
murder of six-year-old beauty
pageant star JonBenet
Ramsey seemed stalled
two weeks after her death.
REPORTER: Police say
that they've narrowed
the list of suspects, but
they are not close to naming
a suspect at this time.
CINDY MARRA: There were no
visible signs of forced entry
into the home.
CINDY MARRA: When my dad first
started reviewing the photos,
something really
jumped out at him.
The information on
this case at that point
was that there was no
forced entry into the house,
and therefore it had to be
somebody inside the house that
killed JonBenet.
CINDY MARRA: Things
started jumping
out at my dad that
started leading
him down a different path.
CINDY MARRA: I remember a week
or two into the investigation,
I called my dad.
And I just said, so who
did it, the mom or the dad?
And he said, you know, I don't
think it was either of them.
And I was really
surprised because that's
all we were talking about.
Everybody was talking
about it was the parents.
That's all there was to it.
CINDY MARRA: My dad theorized
that the intruder was going
to kidnap JonBenet,
and that was the reason
he wrote the ransom note.
The Boulder Police
Department said
that there's no way that
somebody made their way
in through that window.
And so what Lou did was--
you know, he's
one of those guys,
he doesn't let go of things.
He's an alligator, right?
He actually showed how easily
it would have been for somebody
to open up the grate, get
inside of that window well,
climb in through the window,
and get into the basement.
He also showed how easy it
would be to step on a suitcase
and exit out of that area
without, really, any problem.
When Lou Smit
disproved the Boulder
Police Department theory, they
called that his theatrics.
REPORTER: Questions were
raised about whether Patsy
Ramsey was the author of
the mysterious ransom note.
REPORTER: So far,
they have refused
a formal police interview.
REPORTER: Nobody has been
ruled in or out as suspects.
Leaks by the case detectives
started immediately.
Part of the
misleading information
included that the Ramseys
were not cooperative.
JOHN RAMSEY: We'd done a number
of interviews with the police.
We were totally eager to help.
PAULA WOODWARD: It
was leaked that Patsy
Ramsey had not given DNA.
Not true.
JOHN RAMSEY: We gave
them hair samples.
We gave them pubic hair samples.
We didn't refuse anything.
PAULA WOODWARD:
One of the things
that was perpetually leaked
was that Patsy's handwriting
matched that of the note.
JOHN RAMSEY: We did
handwriting samples.
We had to rewrite that horrible
note time and time again.
PAULA WOODWARD: There were
several eminent handwriting
experts who examined Patsy
Ramsey's handwriting.
There's a scale that
says if it's 5 points,
then you're not the writer.
Patsy averaged
between 4 and 4.5.
So the indications
were very, very strong
that she was not the
writer, yet the information
continued to leak.
JOHN RAMSEY: One of the leaks
was that they were searching
our home for child pornography.
That made headlines,
big headlines.
The impression-- boom.
Ah, what does that mean?
PAULA WOODWARD: They
didn't follow up and say,
we didn't find anything.
The inference was the
Ramseys are guilty,
and they were abusing JonBenet.
JOHN RAMSEY: It was
meant to incriminate us
in the court of public opinion.
[music playing]
JOHN ANDERSON: Lou Smit
had remarkable experience
in solving cold cases.
He saw things that I think
other people just overlooked.
REPORTER: In September of 1991,
a 13-year-old girl mysteriously
vanished one night.
The Heather Dawn Church
case had some similarities
to the JonBenet
Ramsey case because it
involved a young girl
kidnapped out of her home.
JOHN ANDERSON: It was
a very violent murder.
REPORTER: The search for
Heather lasted two years
until her skull but
no other remains were
found off Rampart Range Road.
The case was four years
old, and it had gone cold.
There was a lot of
speculation that perhaps
it was a parental abduction.
The parents were going through
a messy divorce at the time.
This is it right here.
Yeah, that's the window.
They took some beautiful
prints off of that.
MARK SMIT: My dad came
across a fingerprint that
was found on a window screen.
Then we got two hits,
two hits on the prints,
and both same guy.
And that
fingerprint eventually
led them to the killer.
Boy, that was something
that day that we caught him.
We must have had 50
cars all lined up there.
JOHN ANDERSON: What Lou was able
to do in less than four months
was to have a suspect
identified, in custody,
and pleading guilty in court.
I feel blessed as a
sheriff to have the talent
that we have here to my right.
I'm happy for them that
we found out who did this.
KEVIN MACKEY: Can the man
who found Heather's killer
find JonBenet?
Kevin Mackey, Eyewitness News.
REPORTER: JonBenet grave has
seen a steady flow of visitors
paying their last respects
and wondering about the secret
that may be buried with her--
the identity of her killer.
The most valuable evidence
left behind by the killer
was JonBenet's body.
If investigators
continued to look,
there were still things that
she was willing to tell.
CINDY MARRA: When my dad
examined the autopsy findings,
he saw something different
than the police did.
[music playing]
CINDY MARRA: It's
a torture device.
It's a very vicious
and calculated way
to either control
or to kill somebody.
The person who did this
was doing it for some kind
of a perverted pleasure.
MARK SMIT: He had experience
with all kinds of killers
from crimes of passion
to serial killers,
and he just couldn't
believe that a parent
could do that to their child.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: If that's
significant blow to her head
had happened first,
she would not
have been able to respond
when that garrote was placed
around her neck
because she would
have been killed by that blow
to her head, and Lou knew that.
So Boulder's theory of the blow
to the head happening first
could not have happened.
[music playing]
This was a willful act
of another human being,
just incomprehendible.
[music playing]
For a long time, I
blacked out portions
and thought to myself
that, well, maybe JonBenet
was killed fast, she died fast.
But the facts of the case and
the reality of the situation
is she was tortured and
that it wasn't instant.
It was drawn out
and painful for her.
JOHN RAMSEY: Someone asked me
what would you say to JonBenet
now if you could talk to her?
And I would tell her, I'm
sorry I didn't protect you.
That's my job as a dad.
[music playing]
[music playing]
JOHN RAMSEY: We had heard
that Lou Smit would park
in front of our house
every morning on his way
to work and say a prayer.
And we wanted to meet Lou.
And so we went to the house,
and we introduced ourselves,
and got in hi big old
van, and just said,
we're grateful that you're
working on this case.
Lou said, let's
say a short prayer.
It was a very warm,
comforting feeling.
You know, we were desperate
for that kind of compassion,
and I just felt that from Lou.
He was caring.
He cared.
Lou was very harshly
criticized by the police
for talking to us.
He was widely
criticized for that.
PAULA WOODWARD: Initially,
boulder police really
liked him because,
initially, he thought
the Ramseys were guilty.
But when Lou Smit decided
there was an intruder,
he became a pariah, and
Boulder Police hated him.
They wanted the
best from Lou Smit.
But when he didn't fall in line
with them, they drove him out.
REPORTER: The Colorado
Bureau of Investigations
has completed DNA
tests on material
found at the crime scene.
The materials have now been
sent to the Cellmark Laboratory
in Maryland for
further examination.
[music playing]
CINDY MARRA: A couple of days
after the murder, the police
had taken DNA samples and
sent them in to be tested.
And the report of those tests
were available approximately
January 15.
When the police
got those results,
they did commission
another test.
And even though the results were
made available to the Boulder
PD in May, those results weren't
provided to the DA's office
until July.
Why would they
want to withhold
that information from the
district attorney's office?
The Boulder Police Department
is not able to eliminate
anyone as a suspect.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: They had
already made up their minds
that the Ramseys did it.
They do remain under
an umbrella of suspicion.
They didn't want to share.
It blew a hole in their theory.
CINDY MARRA: Those test
results showed the same thing.
Foreign DNA was found under
JonBenet's fingernails
and in her panties.
CINDY MARRA: To my
dad, you add that
to all of the other evidence
that he was uncovering,
and, again, it's just shining a
light down that intruder path.
CINDY MARRA: You
can't discount it
just because you don't like it
and it doesn't fit your theory.
You can't work a case that way.
You've got to
follow the evidence,
and that's what he was doing.
I [inaudible] district
attorney's office.
MAN: All right.
- [inaudible]
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: Lou
Smit was one of these guys
that can't let go.
He's going to keep going
and keep pursuing the truth.
He would go after anything
and everything that
was tied to a particular case.
CINDY MARRA: One
of the questions
was, how would the
parents not hear
somebody taking their
daughter from her bedroom?
Wouldn't she wake up?
Wouldn't she scream?
Wouldn't there be some
kind of a disturbance?
CINDY MARRA: He was
puzzling over that.
And at about the
same time, he was
looking at the autopsy photos,
and he sees these marks.
CINDY MARRA: My dad put
those two photos together.
You realize that the two
marks on each part of her body
were the same distance apart.
And he thought, that's
got to mean something.
That's when the light
bulb kind of went
off that this was a stun gun.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: In
true Lou Smit form,
he went and found
somebody who actually
worked a death of a stun
gun, Dr. Michael Doberson.
CINDY MARRA: My dad did a
lot of research on stun guns,
and he was able to find a stun
gun and air taser that left
the same distance
between those two points
where the electrodes
contact the skin were
just the same as the
marks on JonBenet's body.
CINDY MARRA: It was
a huge breakthrough.
It solved the puzzle about
how JonBenet was taken
into that basement
without waking up
or without alerting
somebody in the house.
But as soon as my dad
brought forth the evidence
that these were stun
gun marks, the police
got their own experts
to develop that lead.
REPORTER: JonBenet's parents
remain the prime suspects
in the investigation.
A full year has now
passed with plenty of clues
but still no arrests in the
murder of JonBenet Ramsey.
On the anniversary of
the Christmas killing,
there was a candlelight
vigil in Boulder, Colorado.
CINDY MARRA: My dad surmised
that there was a plan
to kidnap JonBenet that
night and that something
went wrong with that plan.
The police argument
was that it's just
silly to think that somebody
was able to break in, wander
around the house while
the parents are asleep,
take the daughter, stun gun her,
try and get her out the window.
There's no way that they
wouldn't have woken up.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: He goes
out to the Ramsey house,
and he's in the basement.
And as he's looking,
he sees a furnace.
He actually sees a
pipe that is actually
open on the end in
the house and his
remains open to the
exterior of the home.
It's another one of
those a-ha moments.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: What Lou
really wanted to find out
was could the parents
have heard was screaming
three levels below them?
This home is a 6,700
square feet Tudor.
It has multiple levels.
You have the basement level.
You have the main level.
You have the second
story level, which
is where JonBenet and her
brother Burke had bedrooms.
And then there's a level
above that, which was
entirely the master bedroom.
So he hired an audiologist,
and he had people in the master
bedroom on the third floor.
And he had people
across the street.
And he conducted the test.
And guess what?
They could not hear screaming
on the master level floor.
But if you went
across the street,
you could hear it perfectly.
CINDY MARRA: Whether the
kidnapper tried to put her
in the suitcase and
couldn't get out,
whether she woke up during
that time and screamed,
we don't know.
But something went
wrong with that plan,
and my dad theorized
that that's when
the kidnapper decided that he
was going to do what he did.
CINDY MARRA: The clank
of metal on cement
is very consistent with this
guy going out the window.
CINDY MARRA: In May of
1998, my dad and the others
in the district
attorney's office
put together a
presentation to show
to Boulder PD about
their evidence
to show that an intruder
was in that house that day.
CINDY MARRA: The
PD's reaction to it
was that it was just
a bunch of baloney.
CINDY MARRA: They had
reached an impasse.
The Boulder PD had their
theory, and the DA's office
had their theory, or at
least my dad and a few others
in the DA's office.
And in the meantime,
the Ramsey family
were offering to come in
for further interviews.
Nothing was being
done to find the killer.
And so I just felt compelled
to write the district attorney
and say, look, let's
cut through this stuff.
Dear, Mr. Hunter, we
will meet any time,
anywhere, for as long as
you want with investigators
from your office.
I'm living my life
for two purposes
now-- to find the
killer of JonBenet
and to bring it to the maximum
justice our society can impose.
While there is a rage within me
that says give me a few moments
alone with this
creature and there won't
be any need for a trial, I would
have succumbed to the behavior
which the killer did.
It's time to get down to
the most important mission--
finding JonBenet's killer.
That's all we care about.
Sincerely, John Ramsey.
[music playing]
Arrangements were made
to interview the Ramseys
over a three-day period.
OK, we're not--
we're live, so--
OK.
[inaudible]
We're live [inaudible].
[inaudible] today is
Wednesday, June 24, 1998.
CINDY MARRA: John and Patsy were
to be questioned separately--
Mr. Ramsey--
CINDY MARRA: --but
at the same time
so that they couldn't
confer with each other.
They wanted it to
be an interrogation.
They wanted to have the
pressure on the Ramseys.
CINDY MARRA: Pressure,
pressure, pressure,
that's how they wanted to
handle those interviews
to hopefully get them to crack.
CINDY MARRA: It was decided
that my dad would interview
or interrogate John Ramsey.
JOHN RAMSEY: They were accusing
her of murdering a child.
And as a protective
mother, she was angry.
She wasn't going to stand for.
The cops apparently
interpreted that as, well,
she's a tough woman and
therefore capable of, you know,
murdering her child.
Nonsense.
She kept hoping that they
had some level of discernment
to say, OK, these people are
not what we think they are,
but it just wasn't there.
CINDY MARRA: My dad and
his team at the DA's office
remain convinced that
an intruder was present,
and Boulder PD remained
entrenched in their theory
that it was the Ramseys.
Those interviews
had done nothing
to resolve that impasse.
And shortly after that, the
Boulder PD detective, Steve
Thomas, resigned from the case.
REPORTER 21: A former
detective in the JonBenet
Ramsey murder case
wrote a blistering
letter of resignation.
Thomas said his primary
reason for leaving
his job is the
belief the district
attorney's office continues
to mishandle the Ramsey case.
MARK SMIT: His resignation was
pretty explosive, very public,
and that got the gears
turning for what was
going to happen in the case.
[music playing]
It's been almost two
years now since JonBenet
Ramsey was found murdered.
And despite thousands of
hours of investigation,
no arrests have been made, but
the case is heating up again.
The turmoil surrounding
this case had never abated.
Nothing was being resolved.
This is a very large case.
It's going to be a
very great burden
to any particular office.
In August of 1998,
the governor of Colorado
had had enough.
You should know that this case
is on track for a grand jury.
PAULA WOODWARD: So he called
the Boulder DA into his office.
And he said, look, there's
going to be a grand jury.
In essence, what
happened was three
new prosecutors came in selected
by the Colorado governor.
And so there was going
to be this big shift.
REPORTER: Sources
close to the case
say the three new prosecutors
now support the police's theory
that JonBenet's parents were
implicated in the murder
or cover up.
My dad started
seeing people who
supported his intruder
theory being phased
out of the investigation.
REPORTER: Under the
media spotlight today,
12 members of the public
became the new jury
in the extraordinary
Ramsey murder case.
I felt like the
district attorney
had just punted the football
out of his possession
and up to a grand jury.
PAULA WOODWARD:
What was ultimately
going to be determined
by this grand jury was,
is there enough evidence to take
John and Patsy Ramsey to trial?
REPORTER: With the media
circus tailing them,
the 12 Boulder County residents
who make up the JonBenet
Ramsey grand jury arrived early
morning to do their civic duty.
MARK SMIT: What really
drove him was just
a commitment to the victims.
Up to that point in his
career, his chain of command
had really let him represent
his victims the way
he saw necessary.
But he said, if that ever
changes, if the people above me
ever get between me and what's
right for the victim, that's
the day I'll quit my job.
That day came with
the Ramsey case.
He wrestled with his decision
to resign from the case
because, once he
did that, he was
going to be outside the case.
He wouldn't have the
information anymore.
But he felt that he could
do more for JonBenet
by just investigating
the case on his own.
REPORTER: The grand jury
investigating the death
of JonBenet Ramsey is
hearing secret testimony
amidst a storm of controversy.
A top investigator in the
district attorney's office
resigned, saying the district
attorney is unfairly targeting
the murder victim's parents.
Lou Smit writes,
John and Patsy Ramsey
did not kill their daughter.
JOHN RAMSEY: He was
probably the main guy that
had a clear, unbiased
opinion of the case
and had the skill
set to solve it,
so we hated to see him resign.
REPORTER: In the wake
of Smit's resignation,
the grand jury continued
to hear from Boulder
Police and forensic
experts from the Colorado--
CINDY MARRA: My dad started
making a presentation
of the evidence in
this case that he
hoped to present to the grand
jury, and he was denied.
CINDY MARRA: They were alleging
that he had information that he
wasn't supposed to have,
and he had an injunction
filed against him.
What they wanted my dad to
do is turn over everything
that he had so that
they could destroy it.
CINDY MARRA: And he couldn't
allow that to happen.
I'm Greg Walta.
I've been a trial lawyer
in Colorado for 50 years.
Lou consulted me and
showed me the presentation,
and I thought it was
extremely persuasive.
So that evidence was going
to get to the grand jury
one way or the other.
We then filed a motion
stating that the grand jury
was entitled to hear
all the evidence.
REPORTER: Boulder DA Alex
Hunter says the grand jury
is making progress.
But with forensic and
investigative police
work still underway,
the grand jury's job
isn't finished either.
GREG WALTA: The district
attorneys pretty quickly
realized they were not
going to win that motion,
and they made an agreement
to have Smit testify to allow
him to keep his evidence.
GREG WALTA: It was
great relief because he
was willing to go to jail if
he wasn't allowed to testify.
CINDY MARRA: But my dad
felt that the prosecution
was trying to dismantle his
case as he presented it.
REPORTER: You might call it
the calm before the storm.
Media anticipation
is running high,
as television
networks are staking
out their coverage spots.
CINDY MARRA: He had only
been given three hours
of the grand jury's time,
whereas the prosecution had
months, so he was
resigned to the fact
that the Ramseys were
going to get indicted.
He fully expected
that to happen.
REPORTER: The grand
jury met twice,
and prosecutors have left him
alone several times, prompting
speculation they are
reviewing evidence
and may even be
close to a decision.
The grand jury
process about to make
his statement as he heads
towards a podium position.
JOHN RAMSEY: We had a guardian
paper drawn up for Burke.
Our attorneys were with us.
They were going to escort us to
the jail to turn ourselves in.
I want to thank
you for all joining
us on such short notice.
What we now know is
that the grand jury voted
to indict both Patsy
and John for child
abuse resulting in death
and accessory to a crime.
ALEX HUNTER: And before I
begin my very brief remarks--
PAULA WOODWARD: So what
happened next came as a surprise
to a lot of people.
ALEX HUNTER: --all of
us today and outlined
some things [inaudible].
The Boulder grand jury
has completed its work
and will not return.
No charges have been filed.
The grand jurors have
done their work extra--
ALEX HUNTER: We do not
have sufficient evidence
to warrant the filing of
charges against anyone
who has been investigated
at this time.
CINDY MARRA: I think
he felt a huge weight
lifted off of his shoulders
when he heard that announcement.
JOHN RAMSEY: It
was a funny feeling
because, you know, in your
life, you've got things planned.
You got a plan for tomorrow,
and I got a plan for tomorrow.
We didn't have a
plan for tomorrow.
We were going to be in jail.
Thank you very much.
Lou Smit's information when he
testified before the grand jury
was that an intruder did it.
That had to factor
in to the decision
by the three
prosecuting attorneys
that, hey, this is
going to be brought
up by a good defense attorney.
REPORTER: Are you satisfied?
PAULA WOODWARD:
They did not believe
there was enough evidence
to take them to trial
and convict them.
REPORTER: Does this mean
they're going to be off?
They're free?
We called Lou and met
with him that afternoon,
and we just said thank you
for being committed to this,
and we really appreciate it.
Our family appreciates it.
That was the most
important thing we could
do at that point in our minds.
If Lou Smit had not
testified as a witness
before the grand
jury, the Ramseys
would have been indicted
for first degree murder.
[music playing]
LARRY KING: Tonight, it's
one of the most sensational
unsolved crimes in US history.
Who brutally killed JonBenet
Ramsey in her own home
on Christmas night 1996?
It's a great pleasure to
welcome to "Larry King Live"
tonight Lou Smit,
the renowned Colorado
detective who has investigated
more than 200 homicides.
CINDY MARRA: My dad wasn't going
to let the Ramsey case die.
After he left the DA's
office, he started
working the case on his own.
LARRY KING: Have you been paid?
LOU SMIT: No, this
is not a paid job.
I'm doing it mainly because
I do want to seek the truth.
He would not accept any pay.
We couldn't reimburse
him for expenses.
I tried to buy Lou an
ice cream cone one day,
and he wouldn't accept the gift.
He was that ethical.
I believe that if law
enforcement and others look
carefully at the case,
we have a good chance
of catching the killer yet.
MARK SMIT: He was determined to
keep the intruder theory alive.
He felt like it hadn't
been fully investigated,
and he was the only
one left to do it.
LARRY KING: What's
it done to you?
I'm just a retired detective
that wants to retire.
But I won't be able to do that
as long as this case is open.
There's a very dangerous
killer out there.
In my mind, I see this person.
Thank you, Lou.
Thank you.
Lou stuck with this case
because his commitment
was to the victim.
His responsibility
was to JonBenet.
[music playing]
CINDY MARRA: My dad created
a list of people and items
that were important
to this case.
CINDY MARRA: Any
name that had been
brought up with regard to this
case was put on this list.
And then, from there, he
prioritized it in the hopes
that, at some point,
there would be
one person left on that list--
the killer.
CINDY MARRA: He felt the DNA
was very important in this case.
[music playing]
In 2000, Boulder got a new DA.
Her name was Mary Lacy.
She was an expert in sex crimes.
And she wanted to find
out whether or not
there was validity to
the intruder theory.
MARK SMIT: As
unlikely as it was,
she asked my dad to come back
and volunteer for the case,
so he did have a second bite
at the apple under Mary Lacy
to go back and work on the case.
I believe very strongly
that we should start again.
There are some strong leads
that can be found out even now.
REPORTER: DNA testing like this
may determine who is or is not
the killer of JonBenet Ramsey.
CINDY MARRA: Mary Lacy
tried to determine
what additional evidence there
might be that could yield DNA.
And since it was thought
that she had been sexually
assaulted, they looked to the
long johns she was wearing,
thinking that somebody
would have had to touch them
in order to pull them down
and pull them back up.
So they sent those long
johns in for testing.
20 minutes till the
top of the hour now,
and we are following
breaking news in the JonBenet
Ramsey murder case.
They found DNA in
those long johns.
The DNA was consistent with
the DNA found in her panties
in 1997.
The DNA was foreign
and had been determined
not to belong to any member
of the Ramsey family.
The parents have
now been cleared
in that little girl's murder.
So Mary Lacy
exonerated the Ramseys
based on the DNA
from this new report,
as well as just the totality
of all the other evidence
that had been collected
over the years.
REPORTER: Boulder District
Attorney Mary Lacy is
meeting with John Ramsey now.
She's giving him a letter
stating that the Ramseys are no
longer suspects, that she's
deeply sorry for everything
the family has endured,
and that they will now
be treated as
victims of the crime
due to the horrific
loss they suffered.
CINDY MARRA: Unexplained
DNA on the victim of a crime
is powerful evidence.
There is no innocent explanation
for its incriminating presence
at three sites on these two
different items of clothing
that JonBenet was wearing
at the time of her murder.
I was very grateful for her
courage to do the right thing.
For the Ramseys, you know,
there is somewhat that peace
of mind that knowing
that, you know,
their name has been
cleared in that.
It's huge.
This is huge news.
REPORTER: All right,
well thank you very much.
That was a big deal for my
dad because, at that point,
he finally felt
like he had rustled
things to a neutral position.
OK, now, everybody
can just look at this
from an objective perspective.
I think my dad did regret
that it came too late for Patsy.
Patsy was diagnosed with
cancer very early in life,
but she beat cancer
into remission.
And then, in 2002,
the cancer came back.
It eventually
attacked her brain.
And in 2006, she died.
Now to Atlanta and word today
of the death of Patsy Ramsey.
The mother of murder victim
JonBenet Ramsey died of cancer.
JOHN ANDREW RAMSEY: Patsy knew
that people thought of her
as a child killer, but
she also knew the facts,
and she knew the truth.
JOHN RAMSEY: Patsy loved
her children dearly.
That's what the real tragedy
is that Patsy's been so
maligned as this awful mother.
She was an amazing mother,
so it's real tragic
that the media has painted
as such a wicked person
because she wasn't at all.
I'd like to welcome
you to our home.
We wish you a very--
[music playing]
LOU SMIT: I see the
killer of JonBenet
at the end of the intruder
path, and that's the way
I'm going to continue to go.
MARK SMIT: My dad never
gave up on a case ever.
It didn't matter how
old that case got.
He would never give up on it.
LOU SMIT: I believe
this case can be solved
because a detective
always believes
that the case can be solved.
It's not a question
of solving it.
It's just a question of
when it will be solved.
He was committed to
the case to the very end.
He wasn't going
to give up on it.
CINDY MARRA: In
the spring of 2010,
my dad was starting to get
bothered by some stomach pain.
And in June of 2010, he
underwent exploratory surgery.
And the doctors
came out and said
he was just full of cancer.
That case was still on
the top of his mind.
He wasn't going to let something
like cancer make him give up.
If anything, I think that
he still felt that he
hadn't completed his task.
We were with my dad,
and he gave me a name.
He said, you know, this is
who you need to start with.
We decided that we would try
and do our best to carry that
on to not let the case die.
He was all wired up with
tubes and probes and stuff.
And it was a hard meeting.
I knew that's probably
the last time I'd see him.
And Lou told me in hospice
as he was dying, he said,
John, if the case remains
in the Boulder Police hands,
it probably will
never be solved.
And that's the first
time he admitted that he
wasn't going to get the guy.
And sadly, we lost him.
Lou believed that as one
charged with bringing justice
for the victim of
a crime, that he
stands in the victims' shoes.
I had the privilege of
speaking at his funeral.
All that is necessary for evil
to triumph is for good men
to do nothing.
Lou was a good man who
courageously stepped forward
in front of a tidal
wave of opinion,
who if I was to describe
him with one word,
it would be integrity.
I know when I approached his
casket, I cried like a baby.
I was very sad that we
lost Lou, both as a friend
and as a very important
part of this case.
[music playing]
He fought to get the
truth in front of people
because he knew the system
was capable of sending
us to prison, of convicting
us, maybe executing us.
I don't know.
So in that way, he
did save our lives.
Lou gave us hope that
the case might be solved.
The public narrative is
that this was a perfect crime.
This was a perfect murder.
But we have a
mountain of evidence.
We have DNA.
JonBenet's murder can be solved.
REPORTER: The case of
the Golden State Killer
had baffled investigators
for decades, suspected
of killing a dozen people
and raping more than 50
women in the 1970s and '80s.
We all knew that
we were looking
for a needle in a
haystack, but we also all
knew that the needle was there.
REPORTER: Ultimately, a
DNA match led to DeAngelo.
Now to a break in a
case cold for 44 years.
16-year-old Pamela
Maurer was strangled,
and now police say they
finally know who killed her.
CINDY MARRA: We're very
encouraged by the fact
that a lot of cold
cases, 20, 30 years old,
are being solved now.
JOHN RAMSEY: Lou believed
strongly that this was
going to be solved by the DNA.
We haven't found a match
yet, but there's lots of
new opportunities to work that.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: There are
so many advanced technologies
in DNA that there really is
no reason for us not to pursue
those avenues in trying
to find the killer
or killers of JonBenet.
REPORTER: Detectives spent eight
days scouring the Ramsey home
for any potential evidence.
Hundreds of items
seized including
bed sheets, towels, robes,
a hammer, a baseball bat.
There's hundreds of
pieces of physical evidence
that could contain
the killer's DNA.
We also know that lots of those
items have never been tested.
CINDY MARRA: We as
private citizens
can't do any of that testing.
Boulder has those
items in evidence,
and without them, we can't
get any DNA testing done.
There's nothing we
could do other than plead
with the police to do it.
JOHN SAN AGUSTIN: There is
strong evidence out there.
The question is whether or not
the Boulder Police Department
and the Boulder District
Attorney's Office
will now go after
that person or people
responsible for this murder.
[music playing]
I look at it now as I want
this closure, not for me,
not for Patsy, but for my
children and my grandchildren.
You know, they have to live
with this in their lives,
this unknown.
JOHN ANDREW RAMSEY: JonBenet
was a six-year-old child
that was taken from
her bed on Christmas
day and violently murdered.
And it's our obligation
and our responsibility
to find the killer,
to find who did that.
CINDY MARRA: What
we're doing right
now is very personal to me.
I mean, I loved my dad dearly.
I respected him so much.
And if we could carry on
what he asked us to continue,
we'd love to be able
to go to my dad's grave
and be able to say the
killer has been found.
That would just-- you know,
it would mean a lot to me.
When you look at
the whole of this case
and all of the media and the
coverage and everything else,
lost in all of that is a
little girl named JonBenet.
That's what was
important to my dad.
My dad kept a wallet with
pictures of the victims in it
as a reminder.
And I did find this
picture in there.
That's JonBenet.
Justice is still crying out for
her, and I think it's up to us
not to let that cry go unheard.
[music playing]