tv 2020 ABC January 15, 2021 9:01pm-11:01pm PST
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i'll show you how easily it can be done. >> our grandfather was a detective on one of the biggest unsolved murder of our generation. >> this was a child who was put to bed by her parents and never woke up. >> i just kept saying, no, no. asked god raito raise her. >> police found evidence from the beginning that in their minds pointed directly to the ramseys. >> they knew at the time that there was dna, and it was not the ramseys' dna.
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>> we, the media, lapped up what the boulder police department wanted to tell us. >> all of us that wanted to pursue the intruder were being removed from the case. >> and he just said, i have a name. i want to you write it down, and i did. and he said, that's where you startle all but one person on that list is innocent. >> then you got your killer. ♪ jonbenet ramsey, the little girl in colorado, was murdered. >> beauty queen, jonbenet. >> jonbenet's murder has frightened residents of boulder. >> the murder of jonbenet ramsey really is, right now in this country, the most infamous cold case. >> what'd you get jonbenet?
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oh! >> people want to know who killed jonbenet ramsey. there is so much mystery surrounding jonbenet's murder, and it's lasted nearly a quarter of a century. >> the reason i think it continues to resonate is because we just don't know what happened. >> she was a spark plug in her family. that's how i looked at her. she kept things alive and going. >> she was a ball of fire. she was always very caring and spiritual. she could stand on her head. she could hula hoop. she could roller blade. and she just recently learned how to climb a rock wall. >> she was a 6-year-old girl, somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, and she was taken from us in a very violent way. >> i think the fascination for
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this case endures because we still don't know who killed this little girl. >> we want to know what happened to jonbenet. we want justice for jonbenet. that's why the story endures. >> until the day we die, we'll be looking for the person that murdered our daughter. >> in 1996, a little girl named jonbenet ramsey was 6 years old. >> she was brutally assaulted and murdered on christmas night in the basement of her home in boulder, colorado. >> hey, guys. welcome to our first ever podcast episode. thanks for tuning in. my name is jessa. >> and i'm lexi. >> and we're sisters. >> i think there's a new generation who's into the jonbenet ramsey case, who were her age and were told to stay inside by their parents when she was murdered. >> i think, yeah, growing up it scared me a little bit because we were the same age and same
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state. blond hair, blue eye. it's a little bit scary. >> i remember thinking that i could not believe this happened so close to our home. you think that your home is safe, that this place is safe, and you just don't think that it could have happened here. and it did. >> the murder took place sometime between 10:00 p.m. on december 25th and 5:30 a.m. on december 26, 1996. >> they know a lot about the case, my two girls. they loved their grandfather. >> our grandfather was a detective on one of the biggest unsolved murders in our generation -- the jonbenet ramsey murder. and with this podcast, we want to talk about the jonbenet ramsey case from our grandfather, lou smit's, perspective. >> lou smit was a really legendary detective from colorado that was brought in early to investigate the homicide. >> once he got a hold of a case, he never let go, and he had great attention to detail. >> lou smit made an eight-hour video presentation that includes notes on the case, potential
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suspects, the evidence collected over the years. it's a virtual encyclopedia of the jonbenet ramsey case. >> my name is lou smit. i'm a retired homicide detective from the colorado springs police department, and i have worked the ramsey case now for approximately ten years. what i'm going to do today is to just show a presentation that was made back in 1998. >> he had a history of closing cases. he had a 90% success rate. >> he advocated for the victim and stood in their shoes. >> so that's why we've chosen "the victim's shoes" as our podcast name. >> this really meant something to him, and he really felt he needed to find the killer of this little girl. and he needed to do that for jonbenet. >> and first and foremost, we wanted to continue our grandpa's legacy. that was one thing he asked for before he died. he wants the case to remain alive.
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>> there's a saying here in colorado that boulder is 30 square miles of fantasy surrounded by reality. >> it's very wealthy. it's well to-do. >> boulder looks like something out of a storybook in many ways, especially the neighborhood in which the ramseys lived. >> john and patsy ramsey lived in a 6,700-square-feet tudor there on 15th street. >> what i'd like to do first is to just talk a little bit about the ramsey family. john ramsey had interest in sailing and flying. patsy ramsey was the mother. >> john and patsy ramsey had two children together. their firstborn was burke, 9 years old, and jonbenet, 6 1/2, in kindergarten. >> i'm a daughter. i'm a sister. i'm a friend. i'm a wife and a mother. john used to tell people that i invested in futures --
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the futures of my children. that's how i usually answer my occupation. >> my name is john andrew ramsey. i'm jonbenet's half-brother. jonbenet would go around and ask everybody how their day was and what they did. just an energetic and fun kid. >> by all accounts, they were a happy couple. patsy was a high-society woman from atlanta. john was a smart guy who had just been nominated or voted as entrepreneur of the year. >> patsy ramsey was a stylish woman. she was a former beauty queen, miss west virginia. ♪ >> all that is interesting because the case had gained so much attention because jonbenet was in pageants. >> by the time jonbenet was 4 years old, she was in the pageant system with big hair and lots of makeup. ♪ i want to be a cowboy's
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sweetheart ♪ >> i think it starts with the video of jonbenet. it starts with the fact you have this beauty pageant video of a 6-year-old. that is where this starts, because people start saying, what's that about? how could that have played in? >> i think it also touches on parents who have young kids. like, could this happen to me? >> i really believe that if we hadn't seen the beauty pageant photos of jonbenet ramsey, it might have just gone into the ether as another child murder. hundreds of children are murdered in america every year. but this one captivated us because we saw the beauty pageant pictures. >> hello, i'm patsy ramsey. this is jonbenet. she's 4. burke is 7. >> well, christmas seemed to be kind of a crescendo for our family. it just became this moment that we all looked forward to. and it's a day of peace and quiet. >> christmas was patsy's
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favorite time, and she really went all out. she had a christmas tree for every room, and every tree had a theme. the windows were done with garland. the staircases had garland. there were red ribbons everywhere. >> everything was about entertaining, and she loved people. she loved to make people feel good. >> and from all of us in our house to everyone at your house, merry christmas and the happiest of new years. >> there was plenty to celebrate in the ramsey home. patsy ramsey had recently been declared clear of this ovarian cancer that she had battled. and that was a huge relief to come back from stage four cancer. plenty to celebrate that christmas. >> so, on christmas day, the ramsey family opened presents at their home that morning. patsy made pancakes. jonbenet rode her bike around on the patio, and both jonbenet and burke had friends over to play that morning. >> the kids went outside to play with their friends with their
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new presents. they were going to a friend's house for dinner that night. >> we were going to leave early the next morning for a trip to our summer cottage in michigan. it was going to be the first time we'd gotten all of our family together in michigan for kind of a post-christmas celebration. so we came home, we came home, went to bed. jonbenet was asleep when we arrived home. we took her to bed, got burke to bed, set the alarm and went to sleep. >> the next morning, patsy was up first. >> you get up. you're dressed. what happens? >> i went down our steps from our bedroom to the second floor, and then i started walking down the spiral staircase. and as i came to the bottom of the stairs, there were three pages neatly laid across one of the runs of the stairway. >> she picked up the note,
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and she started to read it. >> i just remember when i read, "we have your daughter," it just -- this overwhelming fear. >> and then? >> then i just screamed for john. screamed. le. >> we have a kidnapping. hurry, please. >> explain do me what's going on. what's your name? >> patsy ramsey. i'm the mother. oh, my god! tasha, did you know geico could save you hundreds on car insurance and a whole lot more? hmm. so what are you waiting for? hip hop group tag team to help you plan dessert? ♪ french vanilla! rocky road! ♪ ♪ chocolate, peanut butter, cookie dough! ♪ ♪ scoop! there it is! ♪ ♪ scoop! there it is! ♪ ♪ scoop! there it is! ♪ ♪ scoop! there it is! scoop! ♪ ♪ shaka-laka! shaka-laka! ♪ ♪ shaka-laka! shaka! scoop!. ♪ ♪ choco-laka! choco-laka!...♪ geico. switch today and see all the ways you could save. ♪ sprinkles! ♪ thanks for the big mac. yeah, thanks for driving! ♪ ♪
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911 emergency. >> i was the call taker that night shift when the call came in. >> police. we live at 55 15th street. >> what's going on there, ma'am? >> we have a kidnapping. hurry, please. >> explain to me what's going on, okay? >> there's a note left and our daughter's gone. there's a ransom note here. >> it's a ransom note?
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>> oh, my god! please. >> she was hysterical, and she says there's a kidnapping. >> please! >> okay, i'm sending an officer over, okay? >> thanks. >> do you know how long she's been gone? >> no, i don't. please. we just got up and she wasn't here. oh, my god, please. >> the note said, if you do anything, if police come, if fbi come, your daughter will die. you called 911. >> yes, i did. i had to do something. i had to take action. and i mean, all this happened in a matter of moments. >> patsy calls 911 at 5:52 a.m., and the first officer arrives at 5:55. >> wow, that's fast. >> i know. that's really fast. more friends start to arrive and more officers start to arrive. so, at this point, lots of people are at the house. >> we called friends for help at that point. your daughter is gone. >> we're desperate. >> she's in the hands of a madman. >> my phone rang. "pam, they've got her." "what do you mean they've got
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her?" "they've kidnapped jonbenet. she's gone." >> what was the atmosphere like as you sat and waited? >> well, it was awful. first of all, we didn't know whether the kidnapper was going to call that day, because the note said, "i will call you tomorrow. get plenty of rest." i was deathly afraid that tomorrow was in fact the 27th. >> you lose all perception of time, of place. you've just been dealt a horrible crushing blow. >> the police came in just before 6:00 in the morning on the 26th of december, thinking that we had a missing child. they go into this beautiful house with 18 or so rooms. >> and they did a cursory search of the residence, and they didn't find anything. >> the mistakes they made were outrageous. they were mystifying. they were mistake after mistake
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after mistake. >> the police did a terrible, terrible job securing that scene. and if you don't secure the scene, you don't get good evidence. people were streaming through that house. they were in the kitchen. they were in the living room. they were some friends of patsy's that were helping her wipe up the kitchen. there could have been fingerprints there. >> you had friends that were windexing the sink and washing dishes and -- >> people were making toast in the kitchen. and -- yes, a kidnapping is a crime scene, but we were so focused on getting jonbenet back. that was the task. >> what we have learned is that everyone should have been sequestered into an area so that people weren't roaming around the house. >> and that was a mistake on my part. the reason i didn't is because these people were the ramseys'
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support system. there was no indication at all to indicate the family was involved at that point. >> it was a crime scene, and it was getting contaminated. the note was being passed around and reviewed by all of their friends. >> of all of the evidence left behind, that ransom note is the most baffling. number one, it is too damn long. a ransom note is not that long. a ransom note says, i have your child. i want $1 million. i'll call you later. >> this is the infamous ransom note. it begins -- >> mr. ramsey, listen carefully. >> it was three pages long, and some people believe that a kidnapper that was truly kidnapping somebody would have written a very direct and to-the-point ransom note. >> three pages? what was that about? >> that ransom note was the "war and peace" of ransom notes. >> who would write a three-page
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rambling ransom note other than someone trying to cover their tracks who was in the house? >> it's the weirdest ransom note i've ever read. >> you will withdraw $118,000 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills, and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills." >> you think about this number and how is it relevant? and it's relevant because john ramsey got a bonus from his company for $118,000. how many people knew that? i'm going to guess not a lot of people. >> our grandpa compared to note so some examples he found in movies. >> the movie "ransom" was playing in boulder. >> i have your son. >> oh, jesus! >> i want $2 million. >> in that particular movie,
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a fat cat industrialist, his son was kidnapped. there's a lot of the same verbiage in this note as was in the the note that was written in that particular movie. >> "if we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies." >> if you talk to anyone, i don't care if it's a against a lamp post -- >> you and your family are under constant scrutiny, as well as the authorities. don't try to grow a brain, john. >> our guy's a real -- watcher of that particular type of movies. >> dan, what does this tell you in terms of evidence? >> first of all, that someone felt comfortable spending the time writing this long note in the house. >> and whoever wrote the note is about to go from a kidnapping suspect to a murder suspect. so, what should we do today? ♪ ♪
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now california phones offers free devices and accessories for your mobile phone. like this device to increase volume on your cell phone. - ( phone ringing ) - get details on this state program visit right now or call during business hours. the ransom note had indicated there would be a call between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. >> and the police had prepped me on how to respond to a phone call. very important that you hear jonbenet's voice. >> police officers were leaving
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at 9:30 to at 40 before that period of a phone call had even expired. one lone detective was left on the scene. >> detective linda arndt is left behind in the house with john and patsy ramsey. >> she didn't have extensive homicide experience. managing a kidnapping and what was about to unfold, this was likely pretty overwhelming for one, lone police officer. >> everyone is cleared but the family friends, victim advocates, and the detective. >> so, nobody was cleared? >> yeah, that doesn't make sense to me, because everyone should be cleared from the scene. >> the house was full of people. so, this is a crime scene that is now being destroyed, piece by piece. >> i was praying. linda arndt had said to me, we're hopeful that the kidnappers will, will just drop jonbenet off someplace. and i kept looking out the window, clutching this cross, and just imagining that she was going to come running down the
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street. >> they're waiting for a telephone call from the kidnapper. what's going to happen next? >> 10:00 comes and goes. and there's no acknowledgment that the deadline imposed by the author of the ransom note has come and gone. >> nobody seemed to mark it or freak out about it. she noticed john ramsey checking his mail in the kitchen and thought that was odd. >> linda arndt tells the restless john, why don't you look around the house, see if anything is missing or looks strange? >> check the house top to bottom. look for anything that might belong to jonbenet that is in a place where it shouldn't be. >> john took a friend with him. they went to the basement, and john opened the door. >> you opened the door to the small room.
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>> i knew instantly -- instantly what i found. i found my daughter. she was lying on a white blanket. the blanket was wrapped around her. her hands were tied above her head. she had tape over her mouth. i immediately knelt down over her, felt her cheek, took the tape off -- immediately off her mouth. i tried to untie the cord that was around her arms. i couldn't get the knot untied. picked her up, and i ran upstairs and laid her on the floor, and, uh, still had a hope that she was alive. >> and i see john ramsey carrying jonbenet up the last three steps from the basement. she looked like she was sleeping. she had some marks on her face and on her neck. i knelt next to her and i leaned down to her face, and john leaned down opposite.
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and he asked if she was dead. and i said, yes, she's dead. as we looked at each other, i remember -- and i wore shoulder holster -- tucking my gun right next to me and consciously counting, i've got 18 bullets. >> why did you do that? >> because i didn't know if we'd all be alive when people showed up. >> she clearly felt in danger at that moment. she made it clear that she thought that john ramsey killed his daughter, and that they might kill her. it was shocking to me that she would think that. >> how is it that you have all these cops searching a home and nobody finds the body? but you ask john ramsey to go look for things out of the ordinary, and he finds his daughter in a room that had never been opened by anybody in law enforcement?
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that's crazy. >> he lays her on the living room floor where, just a few minutes before, friends and neighbors have been walking and bringing fibers and whatever to contaminate the scene. and then the coup de grace. he grabs a blanket, which is full of who knows what kind of contaminants, and throws it over the body. >> patsy was being kept out of the room, and i didn't want patsy to see jonbenet laying there like that. >> i remember walking in and seeing her lying there in front of the christmas tree. i knelt down over her and just laid my body on her body, and my cheek against her cheek, and it was cold. and father rall was there. and, um, he started saying the
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last rites, i believe, and i just kept saying, no, no. you know? ask god to -- ask god to raise her. >> so, the kidnapping of jonbenet has turned into the murder of jonbenet. >> jonbenet ramsey was murdered in a horrific way. many injuries to this little girl's body. >> we have the x-ray of her skull, which shows a fracture, a massive one. >> right. this is a 1/8-inch skull fracture, so we're talking a major blunt force. this is just a massive blow. >> but the ultimate cause of death was strangulation with something called a garrotte. >> brad, what type of a weapon
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is a garrote? how does it work? >> it's a device of a string and it's wrapped around what ends up being a piece of a paintbrush. and what happens is, as jonbenet is losing consciousness, she's leaning forward. and so this gets tighter and tighter. and you can see how it cuts into my hand. you can see exactly why it cut into her neck. and that's ultimately, according to the m.e., is what killed her. >> it seems to me that she had been attempting to remove the ligature from around her neck. and that tells me she was alive when she was garroted. >> there were signs that jonbenet had also been sexually abused. the broken pieces of the paintbrush that had been used for the garrote were also used to sexually assault her. >> what does it tell you about the murderer, just how vicious and awful this death was for
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her? >> a person that would do this to a 6-year-old in this fashion clearly is into sort of sadistic behavior, that they like torture to a certain extent. this is clearly somebody who was really into this. >> and was here with the intent to kill. >> there was no evidence of a break-in. there was no jimmying on the front door. >> there were four people in that house and one died overnight. from the very beginning, they suspected the parents. >> within minutes of jonbenet's body being found, this was who they were going to go after. and that's what they did. >> the police are thinking, we gotta talk to those parents. and we gotta talk to them right now, before they start getting their stories straight together. ve to make: the largest 5g network...
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they brought jonbenet's body out past the candy canes that were decorating the front of the house, and there were only like two reporters outside to capture that, and then, the storm happened. >> jonbenet ramsey, the little girl in colorado, was murdered. >> beauty queen, jonbenet -- >> jonbenet's murder has frightened residents of boulder. >> news outlets from around the world had descended upon boulder and were just hiding in trees
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and bushes and digging through our trash. following me around town. i mean, it was, uh, it was war. >> the jonbenet ramsey case was completely out of control. >> you also have to remember, the o.j. simpson case had wrapped up. the 24 hour news cycle, their content, had dried up. and so along came the ramsey family, and we fit right into that slot. >> jonbenet was a precocious 6-year-old. strangled in the basement of her own home. >> you have the shock, this incredibly horrendous crime. and then you have these videos that surface. ♪ i want to be a cowboy's sweetheart ♪ ♪ i want to learn to rope and to ride ♪ >> of this beautiful, young girl. >> jonbenet ramsey. >> has blond hair and green
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eyes. >> dancing in her costumes. and those were the first viral videos. >> she wants to be an olympic ice skater. >> and that's part of what turned it into a international circus. >> now we have instagram and we have snapchat, but back then, this was one of the first moments in time where something truly went viral. this little girl's image was everywhere overnight. >> the biggest negative factor about john and patsy ramsey was that they had allowed their daughter to be in child beauty pageant contests, and people did not like them. >> as our grandpa stated, this was a brutal, premeditated murder, not just a little doink on the head covered up by perverted staging. >> it seems unimaginable to most parents out there that any parent could do something this brutal, this heinous to their own child. and yet police found evidence from the beginning that in their
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minds pointed directly to the ramseys. >> particularly, amy, when you start with children of this age when they die tend to die at the hands of their parents. so the focus is naturally going to be on the parents to begin with. now, in the house, the ransom note is written on a pad that belonged to patsy. so, this is the notepad. this location right here is where the note was physically found by patsy. the pen that was used was in the house. >> so this is the garrote that was used in the murder of jonbenet and it's of a special significance because of what it was made from. >> yes. it basically is an artist's paintbrush that's broken. and what's important is that it actually came from patsy's art supply. >> and there were even fibers on the backside of the duct tape that had been on jonbenet's mouth, from patsy's clothing. >> and that was very, very important.
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but there are problems, because patsy lived in that house. would those fibers have been there anyway? >> the police started thinking, well, maybe this is just a coverup, that the ramseys harmed their child some way, then panicked and tried to create basically a kidnapping scenario. >> patsy and john should have been taken to the police station immediately for separate interviews, for examination of their body for defensive wounds, for collection of their clothing. that never happened. >> at this point, they haven't interviewed the mother or father. um, not surprisingly, they're still very grief-stricken. they have not been in any kind of condition to be interviewed. >> a couple of days after he finds his daughter's body in the basement, police speak with john ramsey, but this is not a formal interrogation. >> my father, myself, we all marched into that police station, gave blood. we gave hair, we gave fingerprints. the thing that really stuck with
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me is two detectives hand me their business cards and one says narcotics officer and the other says auto theft, and i bury my head into my hands. because i knew at that point we were in a bad spot. boulder police didn't have the resources to solve a complex homicide. >> john interviewed with boulder police. patsy's doctor said she was too medicated and unable to get out of bed. >> the police were faced with lawyers and wealthy friends, people in the community who told police, please, give them room. they're grieving. what's the matter with you? >> though the police had spoken to the ramseys, what they really wanted to do was formally interrogate them. >> the police are thinking we gotta talk to those parents, and we gotta talk to them right now before they start getting their story straight together. >> your lawyers advised you then not to submit to police questions. why no not? people say. wouldn't you have wanted to tell them everything? >> well, i don't recall that our lawyers told us that at the time.
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we said, you know, "yeah, we want to keep working with you, but can't you come here? we can't go out. patsy was in bed. patsy was barely able to move. we were perfectly willing and anxious to work with the police to find the killer. we had a higher priority at that point, and that was to bury our daughter. >> the family is flying the body back to atlanta for burial. >> on new year's eve, jonbenet was laid to rest just outside of atlanta, georgia. >> this service is in loving memory of jonbenet patricia ramsey. >> we flew back to atlanta to bury jonbenet. atlanta being our home. atlanta being where my oldest sister beth is buried. >> we give thanks today for jonben jonbenet, for the love she had for her parents. >> i want to go back to the
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funeral. >> whatever we do, we're going to go through it together. we may not get far, but sure as the star, wherever we are. it's together. ♪ wherever we are it's together ♪ >> we sang that. she and i sang it together. we sang it driving in the car. and we just knew that we would always be together in everything. i wanted my children to know that i was with them through thick and thin, regardless of what happened in life. unconditional love. >> what have you got? you can go places now. >> every murder case that i've ever done, the parents are so grief-stricken. but they sometimes make a nuisance out of themselves at the police department. >> the ramseys, literally the day after jonbenet's funeral, sit down for a television interview. >> the next thing the police knew, they were on cnn.
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the boulder police don't interrogate the ramseys, but they remain the main suspects. >> many people found the ramseys' behavior peculiar, suspicious, weird, off-balance. and from that thought they must be guilty. >> when you realized that you two were the prime suspects, what did you think? what did you feel? what did you say? >> well, we were outraged. we were shocked. how could they think that? we were a normal family. >> why? >> i just didn't believe it. you just can't believe it. i mean, you're -- we're suffering from having lost our child, and then, for someone to accuse you, it's just, you can't believe that that would happen. >> a lot of people said, you know, if that were me, i'd be on the steps of the police department finding the murderer of my daughter. then they go on cnn and say they didn't do it.
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>> if anyone knows anything, please, please help us. >> we've sensed from our friends that this tragedy has touched not just ourselves and our friends, but many people. >> as a mother, my heart went out to this couple. >> if i were a resident of boulder, i'd tell my friends to keep -- keep your babies close to you. there's someone out there. >> but my journalistic brain said to me, this isn't right. they should be talking to the police, not the public. >> police end their 10-day search of the ramsey house and remove the crime scene tape. >> it is unknown if the family intends to resume residency at the home. we have no comment on the whereabouts of the family at this time.
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>> starting from the beginning of this case, we, the media, lapped up what the boulder police department wanted to tell us about what they were doing in the jonbenet ramsey case. >> for the most part, the police were very tightlipped in this thing. they didn't tell us a lot of secrets. they didn't leak a lot of information, other than broadly, we think the mom did it. >> people who believe patsy killed their daughter believe it was over bedwetting and then staged to look like an intruder. >> the bedwetting theory was a big theory at the time. the bedwetting theory suggests that patsy was angry with jonbenet and killed her because the bed was wet. >> i am a cancer survivor of stage 4 cancer. when you are standing on the brink of death with a terminal illness, your priorities suddenly line up. bedwetting is totally insignificant. i love my children.
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i wouldn't harm them for anything in the world. >> but americans were fascinated with the possibility that the ramseys might have done this. >> what happened in that house? did she go berserk and hurt jonbenet by accident, not on purpose, certainly? did burke hurt her by mistake and cause her death? >> it was leaked by boulder police that it was possible that burke ramsey's voice was on the 911 call that patsy had made. >> patsy? patsy? >> the 911 operator believed she heard an unexplained voice at the end of the 911 call. patsy ramsey has put the phone down, but she hasn't hung it up and the recording continues. >> i heard her say, okay, i
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called the police, now what? i thought, huh. and then i heard two people talking to her. and i heard a male voice respond, and then i heard a more faint voice respond. >> some speculated at the time that faint voice might have been burke, but the family denied it, saying he was asleep at the time. we asked an expert to weigh in on the call. >> my name is ed primeau. i'm an audio-video forensic expert. and i was asked about what people have heard throughout the years from this 911 call. here we go. >> what's your name? >> i'm the mother. oh, my god! >> so when patsy is speaking to the operator, we can clearly see bright yellow and orange colors and as i zoom into the recording here, i can see the formants. this is a visual representation of sound. the brighter the color, the louder the volume. >> patsy? patsy? >> the sound changes right here. the section in question where people are hearing voices. we can see some sounds, but we
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don't see the formants like we saw over here, so i can't rely on those being words. there's just not enough signal-to-noise ratio in order to be able to perceive what those sounds are. they could be noise, and they could be voices. i just can't, as a scientist, arrive at a reasonable conclusion. >> the secret service and the fbi also concluded that no additional conversation is audible. >> i think we've given way too much weight on whether or not burke ramsey was present when mom makes the 911 call. if burke's voice was there, or john ramsey's voice is there, does that mean they're the killer? >> and it's important to remember that the boulder police never considered burke a suspect. they suspected the parents, even though the ramseys had no history of abuse or neglect of their children. >> all the evidence shows me that up until this point, they were devoted parents.
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>> would you get up in the middle of the night and slaughter your child? we're parents. we love our children. >> there are so many puzzle pieces here that just don't fit. >> do you really think your daughter's murder will be found? >> yes, i do. because the killer has never been pursued. an objective, wide investigation hasn't taken place. the parents have been focused on. that's all that's been done. >> might be an unknown entity, then? not one of the suspects we've all been currently talking about? >> oh. >> and dissecting? >> i don't think it's any of the suspects we're talking about. >> what we know is that just within a few mile radius of the ramseys' home, there was approximately 38 to 40 sex offenders in that area. and the question is, have they all been completely vetted? >> was it an accident? was it intentional,
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our killer of jonbenet -- how many victims has he had in the past? and how many victims is he going to have in the future? >> the grand jury couldn't point the finger at one or the other, but they were convinced that it was one of the two of them and that the other helped. >> go back to the damn drawing board. >> there was a person seen going across the lawn of the ramsey house. >> lou dedicated a big part of his life to finding jonbenet's murderer. >> detective lou smit was like, whoa.
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>> he just said i have a name. i want you to write it down. >> lou took all of the information that he had and developed a database. three generations of my family has been involved working on the jonbenet ramsey case. >> the first officer arrives at 5:55. >> wow, that's fast. >> i know, that's really fast. >> lou smit's family believes all but one person on that list is innocent. >> we're in better position today than we've ever been to solve the jonbenet ramsey case. >> jonbenet ramsey! >> jonbenet was an entertainer. she would entertain at the drop of a hat. >> she loved to sing and dance and perform. it was natural for her. >> i competed with jonbenet. she had all these wonderful costumes and outfits, and she had this presence.
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>> third runner-up, jonbenet ramsey. >> it wasn't really a competition to her. it was more of like, this is fun. like, let's go on stage and do that. >> my name is jonbenet ramsey, and i'm 5 1/2. >> what is your favorite animal at the zoo? >> the monkeys because they laugh and hang around. >> today, that little girl would be 30 years old. >> i was her age. she would be my age now. she would be pursuing her own career. she never got to grow up. she is frozen in time now. >> well, the police were convinced pretty early on that patsy and/or john were involved. and you had a district attorney's office that was
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saying not so fast, and that created enormous tension between the two. >> did you hear anything yesterday? >> i think there are some new developments. >> alex hunter, the district attorney, wanted someone to come in with fresh eyes in this case and look at it from the perspective of a defense attorney. who might have killed jonbenet as an intruder? not just the parents, but from the outside? >> the d.a. alex hunter brought lou smit out of retirement to dry to do the case right. >> one of the great challenges is to try to do the case right. and you know, i think we're making efforts to meet that challenge by involving people like lou smit. >> the legendary investigator lou smit. he had a history of closing cases. >> he had such tenacity. he was a bulldog. once he got something in his mind -- you know, once you got the reins in his teeth, he was not letting go. >> lou smit was my father.
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he was just known as the, you know, detective that solved cases. when he got to a, murder scene, he spent time dictating everything he saw -- where the sun was in the sky, what the weather conditions were like, what the neighboring houses looked like. >> our grandfather was a detective on one of the biggest unsolved murders in our generation. prior to this case, lou smit had investigated over 200 homicide cases that led to arrests and convictions. lou dedicated a big part of his life to finding jonbenet's murderer. >> when he started his investigation, he felt like everybody else did that it was probably one of the two parents. >> it seemed as though the parents were probably involved in it. i thought this was be a fairly easy case. i thought it would be a slam dunk. and i even remember talking to my daughter. i kind of joked with her, saying that, you know, if somebody did get in the house, uh, it must have been santa claus coming
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down the chimney. >> it was within a couple of days after my dad started on the investigation when he had a chance to review pictures the evidence that he was already saying, i think that they need to look the other way. he was already noting in his journal that he felt that they needed to look at an intruder. >> lou came up with the intruder theory. you can't think about that theory without associating it with lou smit. >> the first thing that stood out to him was an open window in the basement. there was a suitcase propped up against it. >> he didn't buy the boulder police department's conclusion that no one could get in that basement window. he began to say maybe somebody did get into that house. >> i'll show you how easily it can be done. >> so, what did lou smit do? he went and climbed in the window himself with a camera rolling to prove that it could be done.
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>> it really wasn't that difficult coming in that window. >> but some say that the idea of somebody going in the window is complicated by something else that's spotted in the images of the crime scene. >> when you go to a photograph of the actual window, there are cobwebs in the window, which could support that no one did go through this window. the big question is, could you have gotten through this window, this small window, without disturbing this cobweb? i think the answer to that is maybe. but the other important point is how soon was this picture taken after jonbenet was killed? because spiders can replicate webs very fast. >> also found in the basement >> also found in the basement by jonbenet's body, a shoe print. hi tec brand, which didn't match any of the shoes in the ramsey's house.
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>> and then there's the high tech footprint as well. >> then there's the high tech footprint found next to jonbenet that i think the investigators believe, and maybe rightly so, that that's the bad guy's footprint. >> some argue the footprint could have been inadvertently left by police officers there at the scene. but another factor in lou smit's investigation, two strange marks on jonbenet's face and back. >> the marks themselves, uh, both on the back and on the face, were the same distance apart. suddenly, a little light went on, and it was just like, uh, wait a minute. it was a stun gun. >> smit looked at other murders where a stun gun was known to have been used. he examined images of a crime victim who had a known stun gun injury. >> and the marks are very similar to the face of jonbenet. >> he also looked into an experiment performed using stun guns on pigs. these marks were also the same as the marks found on jonbenet.
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>> when we did the pigs, we get perfect marks, just almost like on the back of jonbenet. >> this brings back our grandpa's whole motto that things are usually what they seem, don't make it complicated. >> there's no reason at all for the ramseys to use a stun gun, and the ramseys don't have a stun gun. if it's not a stun gun, what is it? that's the question i always ask. you tell me what it is. >> so, everybody sort of pooh-poohed and ridiculed the intruder theory until lou smit started to stand up and point out things that everybody else, from the boulder pd to the general public at large, had overlooked or dismissed. he said, wait a second, we need to look at this again. it actually is possible. it actually is plausible. and in his view of it, it's actually the most likely thing that happened. >> the police and the district attorney are at odds. the d.a. is looking at the intruder theory. the police are focused on the parents, but both want to get the ramseys to come in for a
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formal videotaped interrogation. >> go back to the damn drawing board. i didn't do it. >> lou smit thought that the ramseys were being targeted unfairly. >> i thought there was something drastically wrong. i had scene evidence of an intruder. ♪ ♪ when you drive this smooth, you save with allstate the future of auto insurance is here you've never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today unexpected situation? l'oréal's magic root cover up. three seconds to flawless roots. three...two...one... roots gone! magic root cover up by l'oreal paris. need at-home haircolor help? contact new haircolor
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within a few weeks of jonbenet's murder, police had an important clue, the discovery of foreign dna on her body. >> crime scene detectives discovered dna underneath jonbenet's fingernails and in her underwear that did not match anybody in the ramsey family. that was not something that was made public for quite a long
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time. >> they knew at the time that there was dna in her panties and that it was mixed foreign dna and it was not the ramseys' dna. not patsy's. not john's. and not burke's. >> detective lou smit was like, whoa, while you're pouring water all over the intruder theory, you're not revealing that you have found unidentified dna, and it doesn't match anybody in the ramsey family. >> lou is just incensed that the focus is still being, well, it could be patsy. maybe we need to get her to confess. >> the ramseys had been interrogated by police four months after jonbenet's death. but now authorities want the ramseys to come in again for a formal, videotaped intear interrogation. >> there were months and months of negotiations. things about whether they could be videotaped. what are the questions going to
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be? should the boulder police be a part of it? because the ramseys said, we don't trust the police. we don't want them there. >> ultimately, the interrogation took place at a different police department. >> and at the end, the boulder police had to watch it from another building. >> the ramseys finally sit down with the police for a videotaped interrogation in june 1998, a year and a half after jonbenet's murder. >> today's wednesday, june 24, 1998. broomfield police department. patricia ramsey. >> tom haney, who is one of the most respected homicide detectives out of denver, was chosen to interview patsy ramsey. >> patsy ramsey had a year and a half to prepare. i knew that it was going to be tough to get a spontaneous response. >> do you ever recall purchasing
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black duct tape like this? >> no. >> it seems like there can't be a house in the world that doesn't have duct tape, because it repairs everything. >> well, i never liked it because it's so gooey. isn't it gooey? >> he started off softly and kindly and curious, and then he got pointed with his questions, and that made patsy angry. >> if i told you right now that we have in the process of being examined trace evidence that appears to link you to the death of jonbenet, what would you tell me? >> that is totally impossible. go retest. >> how is it impossible? >> i did not kill my child. i didn't have a thing to do with it. >> she said it was impossible that we had physical evidence linking her to the crime.
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i'm talking about scientific evidence. >> i don't give a flying flip how scientific it is. go back to the damn drawing board. i didn't do it. john ramsey didn't do it, and we didn't have a clue of anybody who did do it. >> i am so taken with her swagger. she just tells them, you know, you think you have some evidence on me? well, you better look again. >> we loved that child, okay? we're not involved. read my lips. let's find out who is. >> she's very feisty. she's very combative. and that doesn't mean she's guilty, but it doesn't mean she's innocent, either. >> my life has been hell from that day forward. and i can't stand the thought thinking somebody's out here walking on the street. god knows they might do it again to some other child. you know, quit screwing around, asking me about things that are
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ridiculous, and let's find the person that did this. >> lou smit was assigned to interrogate john ramsey. >> when lou interviewed someone, he pried anything out of people just by being understanding and really listening. >> now, john, and i know this is -- we're touching right back on a very delicate spot. but was this tape wrapped around anywhere, or was it stuck down? >> it was very firm across her lips. >> i thought john was much more measured and composed. you don't see the drama. i see a lot of pain in that man. >> i reached up, flipped the latch, opened the door. i knew immediately what i found. >> okay, and you say immediately. >> there was a white blanket, um, and i just knew i'd found her. >> i think those tapes were so intriguing to watch.
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but the bottom line is, there's nothing there that they could use to say, a-ha, we've got you. >> both john and patsy deny in the interrogations that anyone in their family killed jonbenet. >> and we want to do anything we can to help solve this case for you. >> my dad's conclusions after that interview were just firmed up his belief that the ramseys had nothing to do with this murder. >> i'm not saying parents don't kill their kids. parents do kill their children. but they're trying to say patsy did it. their actions before, during and after are all consistent with innocent people. they didn't do it. >> my dad started getting frustrated as time went on because he felt that the case against the ramseys was being slanted where no other evidence was coming in. >> i thought there was something drastically wrong and that there was a gross injustice in this case. i had seen evidence of an intruder in the house that night. >> lou smit thought the ramseys
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were being targeted unfairly. and he didn't believe that police were listening to him. >> smit so strongly disagrees with the prosecutor's focus on the ramseys that he is resigning from the case, saying, the case tells me john and patsy ramsey did not kill their daughter. >> he wrote a letter to alex hunter, telling him that he couldn't be a part of the persecution of these people, is how he termed it. >> he wrote, i intend to stand with this family and somehow help them through this and find the killer of their daughter. >> my dad may have resigned from the district attorney's office, but he never stopped work on the case. he walked in jonbenet's shoes, and he owed it to her, he felt, to continue his investigation. >> one thing lou smit fought to do was tell a grand jury his side of the story, the intruder theory. >> there were too many questions. in particular, that dna in the underwear that appears to have been from a man didn't match anyone at all.
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grand jurors arrived at the boulder county justice center this morning and were escorted into the courthouse by sheriff's deputies. >> i think alex hunter got shamed into calling a grand jury. i mean, he didn't do it until september 1998, almost two years later. and i think the media pressure and the pressure from the police department forced him to do it. >> and remember, this is after o.j. simpson. most people think the evidence of simpson's guilt was insurmountable. >> we the jury in the above and titled action, find the defendant, orenthal james simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder. >> and yet he walked. alex remembered that. he told me one time, i don't
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wanna spend two years of my life and $5 million of the taxpayers' money and lose in court. >> alex hunter sat a grand jury for 13 months. >> are you surprised by anything you've seen? >> no. >> over 13 months, those people heard over 100 witnesses. >> my name is jonathan webb. i was a grand juror on the jonbenet ramsey case. it bothers me that the murder of a little girl like this has gone on unsolved for essentially a quarter century. >> members of the boulder grand jury looked very much like detectives themselves as they finally toured the ramsey house. >> from a crime scene perspective, it was very disturbing how she was found. she's on a concrete floor, a garrote around her neck, and she's 6 years old. that's pretty horrible. >> webb told us that the grand jury spent most of their time focused on two main issues. first, who wrote that ransom note?
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>> we heard from three handwriting experts. and even though the handwriting experts couldn't definitively say that she wrote it, they all three came to the same conclusion that it could've been patsy ramsey. >> the ramsey defense team had their own experts who said that the comparison between the writing on the ransom note and patsy's handwriting was not conclusive. >> we asked an expert to weigh in on the case. >> my name is jennifer naso. i am a forensic document examiner. handwriting is a great piece of evidence to have, because you can identify the writer of a piece of writing. throughout the ransom note, there's potential that the author attempted to disguise their writing. it doesn't look smooth and fluid. it's very, very shaky. so, it looks like someone was purposely trying to shake their hand to alter the way that the writing looks. this is an example from the ransom note, where you see that kind of type-written formation
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of the letter. this is also from the ransom note, where you see that regular printed "a". there are similarities between the ransom note and patsy ramsey's writing, however the similarities that are seen are very general in nature. they're characteristics that many people execute within their writing. so, here is another example. this formation seen in the ransom note is two strokes, where there's a stroke downward, the pen is lifted up and then, the bowl is created. right here, again, from the ransom note, where it starts the formation of the bowl and terminates upward. so down here are examples of patsy ramsey's known writing, and you do see some of those formations. again, that is significant, that we see each of the formations represented but keep in mind, this is one letter from the whole ransom note. is it possible that patsy ramsey wrote the ransom note? yes. is it possible someone else wrote the ransom note? yes. >> and the grand jury believed that she wrote it.
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>> the second focus for this grand jury, according to johnathan webb, was the viability of the intruder theory. >> smit actually presented his intruder theory to the grand jury. >> this is the very first photo taken of the train room basement window. the window is wide open. now, if i was the detective i'd say, wow, this is entry. >> but the grand jury wasn't buying the intruder theory because of those cobwebs in the window. >> the intruder theory didn't make sense to the grand jury. the bowleder police had graphed cobwebs, so for someone to get through a small opening like that and not disturb any cobwebs would be remarkable. >> a grand jury does not decide guilt or innocence the way a regular jury does.
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the grand jury is only there to decide whether or not there is probable cause to charge the suspects with a crime. >> we were troubled by, to what level of confidence do we need to have to vote to indict? and it's the preponderance of the evidence, which means greater than 50%. and soon after that, we voted to indict. >> both patsy and john are accused of permitting a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation which posed a threat of injury to the child's life or health, which resulted in the death of jonbenet ramsey. and then in the other one, did unlawfully, knowingly and feloniously render assistance to a person with intent to hinder the apprehension of the person. these two things together make it clear that the grand jury couldn't point the finger at one or the other but that they were convinced that it was one of the two of them and that the other one helped.
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>> this is 7news at 5:00. >> there is high anticipation in boulder right now for a ramsey decision. and we are about to hear an announcement from boulder d.a. alex hunter. >> i and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time. >> i was shocked. it's extremely unusual for a grand jury to vote to charge and the d.a. not charge. >> and you think it was the right decision? >> i think it was the right decision. i think no matter what you think about the case, i think that they would never have gotten a conviction. >> thank you very much. >> there were too many questions. in particular, that dna in the underwear that appears to have been from a man who didn't imagine anyone they knew. >> we've done all this work to try and vet the ramseys. what work have we done to truly vet other potential suspects in this case?
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>> that's why lou smit continued investigating even after he resigned from the case. >> lou smit calls me cold, and i said to him, i've been praying for somebody to call and want to listen. i believe a friend of mine killed her. an break this down for me? coach saban... i crutched out to the mailbox and there it was - a medical bill for twelve-hundred dollars. i had no idea i'd have to pay that. that's right. it's hard to know exactly what your health insurance is going to cover, so you gotta protect your blind side. aflac! aflac pays you money directly to help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. really? aflac. get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. get to know us at aflac.com.
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this whole case has always been dna. the killer left behind, i believe, part of his dna. >> over nearly 13 years, lou took all of the information that he had on this case and developed a database. in this particular murder, he thought that dna would solve this case. but lou smit couldn't have imagined the advances in dna that were to come. advances that would lead to a number of big surprises in the case. >> what was developed was a thing called touch dna. so i just touched this picture, i touch the table, i have now left skin cells on both locations. in theory that could be scraped and they could match that up to my dna. >> in 2008, the then-district attorney for boulder, mary lacy, decided to do a new round of dna testing on jonbenet's pajama leggings.
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>> more than a decade later, the items were retested and they found something new. remember, the previous analysis had already found dna from an unknown male under jonbenet's fingernails and in her underwear. now this new touch dna uncovered dna from at least one unknown male, maybe two, on her leggings as well. >> that's a pretty big thing. that's a pretty clear indication that somebody else was there. you've got dna now in three places on jonbenet's body that doesn't match anybody in the ramsey family. anybody. and nobody knows whose it is. >> and so i think that's what drove the district attorney to make a comment that she's basically not going to look at the family any longer. >> the news broke here at the district attorney's office with this incredible letter to jonbenet's father. d.a. mary lacy wrote john ramsey, 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.
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>> john ramsey appeared on a local newscast. >> we are certainly grateful for an acknowledgement that we are innocent. this was an intruder which, of course, we've always maintained. >> somewhere, somehow there may be a match to that dna. then you got your killer. >> our killer of jonbenet, how many victims has he had in the past? and how many victims is he gonna have in the future? so this killer could still be murdering even today. >> lou smit spent years organizing and investigating the evidence in the jonbenet ramsey murder case. but eventually, he ran out of time. >> when he got sick with cancer, he knew that his time was limited, and so during that time, he just talked to others
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about not letting this case die. >> he had people coming every single day. 60 to 70, 80 people a day coming to see him. and they said their goodbyes. and during that time, he would still talk about the case. >> i remember about the last three days, he had slipped into a coma. and, uh, the conversations would become one way, you know, and, uh -- i don't know if he could hear me or not. ♪ >> it's very much an honor to be here to celebrate lou smit's life and to share my thoughts with you. i'm john ramsey. i had the opportunity to visit lou a week before he died. remarkably, during our time together, we talked about the case. he hadn't given up. he never, never, never gave up.
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>> when lou smit died, he passed the torch of the jonbenet ramsey investigation on to his daughter, cindy marra. and she took it. >> he just said, i have a name. i want you to write it down. and i did. and he said, that's where you start. >> we'd be glad to pay that. we don't have that electronic report, so we would need boulder to send it. after my dad died, you know, a couple of our family and some of his old homicide partners, we just formed a team. >> we're gonna go down to number two because that is an in-state one. what we all share in common is that commitment to fulfill lou's dying wish that this case doesn't die with him. and i think it's that devotion, that respect, that love for lou, is what keeps our team moving forward. >> there were a whole host of other possible suspects. >> this is bill mcreynolds, the local santa in town.
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bad character, show me evidence. >> he had condensed everything he knew about every person of interest into a spreadsheet. >> the team that his family created is confident that the killer's name is on that spreadsheet. >> so what do we know about the person suspected of killing jonbenet ramsey. the d.a. says the genetic profile from the dna belongs to a male. >> there were a whole host of other possible suspects, ranging from known criminals to friends of the ramseys. >> brad, investigators looked beyond the ramsey family. in fact, there was some speculation into potential involvement by two local men, correct? >> correct. here you have gary oliva.
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>> he was a homeless man who hung out at a church just a block and a half from the ramsey's home. and he confessed that he killed jonbenet ramsey. in fact, he called a friend right after she was killed, crying, sobbing saying he just killed a little girl. >> they took a look at him but eventually eliminated him because there's absolutely no connection between he and the ramseys. and his dna, they used that to eliminate him. this is bill mcreynolds, the local santa in town. >> i was the santa claus for three years at their party and i always liked the ramsey party, so i called patsy in particular and said it's time for our party. >> and apparently, jonbenet had made a comment that he, bill mcreynolds was coming to their house to see jonbenet. i think everybody thought that was a little weird. his dna didn't match, and he's out of the picture. >> and then, this is someone who actually gets brought up quite a
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bit. this is michael helgoth. and this was high on lou smit's list. >> michael helgoth was an interesting character. >> lou smit calls me cold, and i said to him, i've been praying for somebody to call and want to listen. mike said he wanted to kill himself to get it over with. that's one thing. and then he said that he and a partner were going to make 50,000 or 60,000 at christmas. he wanted to crack a human skull. >> michael helgoth evidently committed suicide the day after the boulder district attorney threatened that, hey, we're going to find you. >> the list of suspects narrows. soon there will be no one on the list but you. >> so, he committed suicide after authorities said they were narrowing their list. he had a stun gun, and he had hi-tec boots. >> correct. >> stun gun, a bit odd for people to have. hi-tec boots, fairly common thing for people to have. but the real clincher would be dna, didn't match and he has no connection to the ramsey family. >> so he was ruled out.
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>> and he was ruled out. >> and then brad, who could forget john mark karr? >> of course. >> he made quite the headline. >> i loved jonbenet and she died accidentally. >> are you an innocent man? >> no. >> everyone probably around the world knows john mark karr. >> her death was an accident. >> so you were in the basement? >> yes. >> the problem is he was not in boulder, colorado, when she died. and his dna didn't match. >> and that was it. he was ruled out. what does it say about the state of this case and the possibility of ever solving it? >> well, that's a big question. >> we went through the people of interest, the suspects, and came up with our top 20. >> take a look at it and run it through their program. >> what our team has been doing is focusing on collecting dna and testing dna.
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>> do you want to get in touch with them? >> i think we should make the effort. >> you want to just start maybe in september? >> and since lou has passed away, the team has been able to clear a number of people from that list. however, the work is pretty slow because of the time and expense involved in locating somebody on that sheet and obtaining their dna and then testing it. >> we have asked suspects for their dna, and in other cases we've, i guess, done it the old fashioned way with surveillance and trickery. >> we've gotten together and followed people and gotten a discarded cup or some such thing. >> so, the dna is evolving constantly, so, we're in better position today than we've ever been to solve the jonbenet ramsey case. >> we are just trying to eliminate people from that list and we just figure if we keep at it, hopefully we'll finally whittle it down to one person remaining on that list. >> lou smit's family believes
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that all but one person on that list is innocent. fors check out this one. long hair, loves to hike and plays frisbee... what is he, a labrador? (laughing) so, should i meet him? you're not that adventurous. yes i am! try me. ok... ...jump into that lake. i'll do it. let's all do it! i'm in. this is crazy! (laughing) you coming? seriously? it is way too comfortable in here. the all-new sienna. toyota. let's go places. thanks for the big mac. yeah, thanks for driving! ♪ ♪ wait, what are we listening to?
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who murdered jonbenet ramsey? >> will the case ever be prosecuted? >> is it still just as mysterious today as it was in 1996? >> absolutely. >> i think it's even more mysterious now to some degree, because people have moved away from john and patsy ramsey as possible suspects. and so then you're sort of faced with this question of, who the heck was in that house? how'd they get in? why'd they target her? and to some degree, that makes it even more fascinating. >> there was a person seen going across the lawn of the ramsey house the night of the murder. was there a killer trying to get into the house? >> in september, we met with the boulder d.a.'s office and pd. >> and what we presented was a confidential list of our top 20 people of interest, and the list of the eight people of interest that our team had eliminated through dna analysis.
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>> we just don't feel at this point that they are actively investigating this case. >> the boulder police department says the ramsey case is an active, ongoing investigation, but they have never publicly commented on the handling of the case. >> this team isn't going to give up. there's a third generation. >> my daughters and others that will continue on with this case when we end up being too old to do it. but we're not going to stop investigating. we're just not going to do it. >> this case boils down to an intruder, and a ramsey. and if the ramseys didn't do it, then it's an intruder. and if it's an intruder, the intruder's still out there. >> the case took its toll on the whole ramsey family, emotionally and financially over the years. john ramsey would lose his job and spend millions on private investigators, lawyers and security. >> there's still people today, john, 22 years later, who believe you or patsy or burke had something to do with the murder of jonbenet.
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>> i know that. and how could they have believed otherwise? because that's what they were told. you know, even if we have a conviction, a confession, and this person's in prison, there's going to be 5%, 10% of the population that still thinks we're guilty. >> my dad certainly suffered a tremendous amount. but i think he's focused on life today and enjoying life, uh, with his family and grandkids. and he's remarried. patsy died from cancer in 2006. she's buried in marietta, georgia, next to jonbenet. >> in my mind, she's still my 6-year-old little girl. that's how i remember her. every once in a while, i'll see a little child from behind, little blonde-headed ponytail girl, about 6 years old, and it catches me for a second because it looks like jonbenet. >> the family has not lost the will to fight and the will to
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find the killer. we work on this daily. there's a group of dedicated volunteers that work on this daily. i want the trauma to stop for the family, and if we can find the killer, then the next generation doesn't have to live with that trauma and the unknown and the speculation. the only way to do that is to find out who did it. >> i think it's really important for people to understand that this case can be solved. there's a narrative out there that this is an unsolved homicide and that's -- we just have to accept that as fact. and that is not the truth. if we leverage the evidence, we follow the facts, we will find this killer. >> i used to give people my trust, and it was theirs to lose. everybody carries a burden. they struggle with loss or heartbreak. but everybody has to have hope. just recognize that there could be evil around you.
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