JonBenét, the detective who fought to her grave to exonerate the Ramseys

The lives of every member of the Ramsey clan were forever changed the day after Christmas in 1996 when 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found brutally murdered in the basement.

But the life of one researcher, and then the life of the rest of his family, was about to change; Lou Smit didn’t know it yet as he drove from Colorado Springs to Boulder in the months immediately after the murder.

The retired veteran detective had been called in by Boulder’s district attorney to provide advice at a time when local police were grappling with media chaos and infighting as they tried to investigate a sensational murder – a crime almost unheard of in the affluent, leafy community.

But Smit already had more than 200 murder cases. He also helped secure high-profile convictions following the investigation into the 1975 murder of his sister, Karen Grammer. frasier the murder of actor Kelsey and a woman whose killer later confessed to taking the lives of 47 other people.

Grandfather Smit, a married father of four and known for his habit of carrying a toothpick in his mouth at all times, devoted himself to the investigation. He applied the same dedication that earned him almost legendary status among his colleagues, even agreeing to take on the case despite difficult family circumstances.

“He moved to Boulder a week or two after he started,” said Smit’s daughter, Cindy Marra. IndependentIt details how a local couple let him use a spare room as a base for the week. “We all needed to come together as a family because my mom was dealing with cancer and so we needed to come up with some kind of plan to take care of her.”

Despite his illness, Smit’s wife Barbara also helped.

“We have the diary; “Every day he would write it down on a tape recorder, and my mother would transcribe it,” says Cindy. “And within the first few days he said in that diary: ‘Something’s not right. Something isn’t right. ‘I see evidence of an intruder here.’”

While investigating the case, Cindy spoke to her father by phone “when he was finally able to get out for some air.”

“I remember saying to him: ‘So who did this? ‘Mother or father?’ Because that’s what the media fed us,” he says. Independent. “He said, ‘I don’t think so either. I don’t think he’s a family member. I think an intruder broke into that house and killed him.’

“So that was really surprising to me.”

Smit, who had grandchildren similar in age to JonBenét at the time, was convinced the perpetrator had entered the house through a basement window. He proved that this was possible by climbing in and out of the window. Smit believed that the killer used a stun gun on JonBenét and cited the marks on her body as evidence.

Consistent with the investigative transfer theory that the killer brought something or left something at the scene of the crime, he suggested that JonBenét’s attacker brought duct tape, rope, and a stun gun with him as part of his “kidnapping kit” and then left the evidence behind. .

Smit also pointed out that according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s laboratory report, DNA collected from under the child’s fingernails and underwear determined that JonBenét was male and foreign, with the exception of her parents and nine-year-old brother who were at home. time.

All of this put him at odds with Boulder police, who seemed adamant about their theory that someone in the Ramsey family was responsible. (In the four years after JonBenét’s murder, a former Boulder detective went on national television and claimed she feared for her life when she looked into John Ramsey’s eyes after discovering her daughter’s body in the basement; another detective wrote a book placing the blame squarely on Patsy. ) assumes that he killed his daughter in anger over a bedwetting incident.)

Smit resigned eighteen months after joining the JonBenét investigation, writing in a September 1998 letter that “the Ramseys did not do this”.

“There is significant, credible evidence of an intruder and a lack of evidence of parental involvement,” he wrote.

Smit’s friends and family note how damaging the case was to him, as he faced constant roadblocks with Boulder authorities. He had to fight to present evidence to the grand jury investigating JonBenét’s murder.

Years after Smit’s death in 2010, it was revealed that a grand jury had voted to indict the parents on child abuse charges; However, it is important to note that grand juries hear only allegations and evidence carefully selected by prosecutors. There is no defense.

“It was very difficult for him to think that people were proactively trying to prevent him from investigating or observing,” says Cindy. “That always made us angry because we knew he didn’t deserve it. We knew these people were only on their own pages.

“It was ridiculous to call him a dreamy old man or anything like that. “This was so wrong.”

In 1966, Smit applied to the department where his cousin Bill served as a police officer and devoted his life to family, faith and strength.

“The problem was the 6-foot-9-inch minimum height requirement — Lou was only 5-foot-8 ¾ inches,” writes Colorado Springs detective John Wesley Anderson, who asked Smit to be his best man at his 1997 wedding. Lou and JonBenét: A Legendary Lawman’s Quest to Solve the Murder of a Child Beauty Queen.

“Lou really wanted to be a police officer and told Bill to hit him in the head with the night stick. Later, upon medical examination, Lou’s height was measured to be exactly 1.5 meters 9.5 cm, including the swelling on his head.”

Within a decade of joining the department, Smit proudly brought his children to the trial of Freddie Glenn, who was found guilty of murdering Karen Grammer and two other victims in 1976. Glenn later confessed to dozens more.

“We didn’t know who Kelsey Grammer was, but I remember being so impressed when I went to that hearing,” says Cindy, who calls her father “my hero.”

Three-part documentary by filmmaker Joe Berlinger Unsolved Case: Who Killed JonBenét It premieres on Netflix on Monday and reveals much of Smit’s work, using the same word to describe the detective.

Berlinger says Smit was “an absolute hero, a really smart cop who was personally invested in this case and was horribly mistreated by Boulder police.” Independent, He added that he believes the then-Boulder DA “did a smart thing: hire a respected investigator, someone with tremendous respect.”

“And the Boulder police were fine with that until they came to the wrong conclusion for them, and then they smeared him and said he was like a delusional old man chasing fame and fortune,” Berlinger continues. “The opposite was true. “I wish I had the honor of meeting him in person…he struck me as someone deeply committed to his craft and deeply committed to the truth.”

Smit is described in similar terms by his law enforcement friends in the documentary; one compares him to a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. He continued to work the case on his own and with the Ramseys; When he was dying of colon cancer, he asked for help.

“He was trying to get the evidence in front of more and more people, but he ran out of time,” his friend Anderson said. Independent.

Anderson is among a group of family and friends who have carried on the mission in Smit’s memory after the detective’s death 14 years ago at the age of 75.

Weeks before Smit entered hospice care, while he was still in the hospital, Cindy remembers her father reiterating his hope that the investigation would continue after his death.

“My husband and I were in the room at the time, and he said again: ‘Make sure someone keeps following this.’ And he said, ‘Take a pen, take a pen and paper… and write these things down.’ “He gave me a name and said, ‘Start there.'”

Cindy says he was her “number one person of interest” at the time; Following his father’s death, he assembled a special group that did exactly what his father wanted, and they have been working on a list of possible culprits ever since; They go so far as to obtain DNA from individuals across the country.

They have a GoFundMe to help cover expenses; Donations totaled nearly $64,000 in the days before the Netflix documentary’s release.

“It speaks to the impact my father had not only on his children and grandchildren, but on the people he worked with, because we had just been on a mission to fulfill his dying wish – and I think if it hadn’t been for all of us, we would have given up on who he was a long time ago.” ” says Cindy.

Anderson, who says he served as a consultant on the new Netflix documentary, considers whether Smit will find the ongoing efforts to solve JonBenét’s murder bittersweet.

“Having known Lou most of my life, I’m sure from a professional standpoint he would be very appreciative of how much attention was paid to the investigation, the facts of the case, and keeping the case alive,” he says.

“He had a great saying, and he would often say this about the unsolved cases we had or the cases waiting to be solved: ‘If nothing else, you’ve got to stir the pot.’

“For me that always meant, if nothing else, let’s go re-interview some witnesses, let’s do something we haven’t done, let’s keep that pot from getting cold on the stove. And I think this Netflix documentary is a really big spoonful of mixing this up.

“I think this will create some sort of ripple effect where other people will say, ‘I thought that was solved’ or ‘I was waiting to share that information’ or ‘I thought it was the mother but now it’s solved. No’… so we’re hoping that more important clues will emerge.”