Original subtitles

It's the trial we may never see.

John and Patsy Ramsey stand charged with the murder of JonBenét Ramsey,

in a courtroom drama more compelling than any fiction could ever be.

Hi, welcome to the program.

The investigation into the awful death of…

I remember one day coming in and kind of plopping down on the sofa,

and just, you know, clicking on the TV.

And the Geraldo Rivera Show was in progress.

It is entirely possible that this murder mystery

will never be solved

and that no one will ever be tried

for the terrible crime committed against that lovely child.

Except for today.

Except for the mock trial we are about to stage for you,

right here in our studio.

And I'm just sitting there on the sofa going, "They're talking about us."

Our six-man and woman jury of volunteers

will be asked at the end of this presentation

whether they think it is more or less likely

that one or both of these parents committed this dreadful act.

Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Who dressed up this child in a sexually provocative pose

with high heels, lipstick, uh, suggestive dances going on?

I mean, this is the baggage they bring to this case.

You must do justice here.

I didn't know who these people were. They didn't know who we were.

Now, Raoul Felder, the plaintiff's attorney,

continues his case with a well-known expert in child abuse.

How did they know anything about anything?

What did you study in preparation for your testimony today?

Twenty-three hours of tapes of JonBenét,

uh, during the time that she was in the beauty pageants.

And do any highlights from the tapes you've studied

stand out in your mind?

On December 23rd,

JonBenét is dressed as a little elf doing a show for senior citizens.

♪ Rockin' around the Christmas tree Have a happy holiday ♪

♪ Everyone's dancing merrily In a new old-fashioned way ♪

She picks up a saxophone, and for the next minute and a half,

she masturbates with it.

***

What's the significance?

That child's been sexually stimulated.

At six years of age, you're not going to put a saxophone

between your legs and rub it back and forth.

That's right on the tape before… I don't know why nobody picked it up.

I couldn't believe it. I could not believe what I was hearing.

It's sick!

For someone to even remotely… allude

to something so horrible

just nauseates me.

We, the jury, find Patsy Ramsey liable for the wrongful death of JonBenét Ramsey.

And I just… came unglued.

I just…

I went to bed for about two days because I just… was mortified.

We understand anything is possible under the sun.

To the best of our knowledge, however, there is no real evidence in this case

that points in any direction

other than straight into the faces of John and/or Patsy Ramsey.

Where's Burke?

Hi, Aunt Pam.

There's Burke.

Hello. Are you crazy?

Bull's eye.

Hello.

Burke, have you been sailing and swimming?

Yeah.

Yoo-hoo. Hello.

JonBenét.

Oh, hello.

It's been exactly 14 days now

since little JonBenét Ramsey was found dead

in the basement of her home.

Boulder Police say no one has been ruled out as a suspect,

including family members.

Within the first week after the murder,

the decision was made we would only have a small group of people

who would be what I call the ongoing investigative team.

So I wasn't involved with the ongoing Ramsey investigation.

Detective Tom Trujillo is the lead investigator on this case.

I'm Detective Steve Thomas, we're not going to take questions.

Steve Thomas was a dedicated cop.

He was very, very involved in the case.

But he was in the narcotics unit.

He had no experience on any type of homicide case.

He was very passionate. He had his opinions.

And he was… he was very adamant about those opinions.

The detectives were just telling me, "Yeah, the Ramseys did it."

"We know they did it."

So I had no reason to disagree with them. I thought, "They know what they're doing."

But years later, after I retired from the police department,

I found out all this other information,

and I started questioning if the Ramseys did it or didn't do it.

There was a civil lawsuit a few years after the murder.

Please state your full name.

My full name is William Stephen Walton Thomas.

The attorney for the Ramseys asked Detective Steve Thomas,

was there a plan from the Boulder Police Department

to release information to the news media

to say that the Ramseys were involved with their daughter's murder.

Was there any strategy on the part of the Boulder Police Department

to… try to put pressure on the Ramseys… through the public?

I believe there were discussions with the FBI, yes,

about, uh, um, how to exert, uh, some

public pressure on people who were not cooperating, yes.

Were they also… thinking that they might use the media

to apply pressure so that there might be a possibility

that one of the parents might confess involvement in the crime?

Was that ever discussed?

That may have been, uh, some motivation.

Do you believe, from your recollections, that was discussed?

I wouldn't disagree with it.

Their strategy to solve the case was basically sweat us out.

It's like the old movies, where, you know, they set the suspect down at a table

and grill him for 18 hours, and he finally signs the confession

just to get out of there.

But they used the media to do it.

A series of stories were told about the case that were lies.

There was a narrative that started

by the Boulder Police Department

that it was done by somebody inside of the home

because there was a lack of footwear impressions in the snow.

No footprints in the snow, therefore no intruder.

Well, there's a reason why there was no footprints in the snow. There was no snow.

There's a slight dusting you can see

on the front end of the house.

But if you look at the backside of the home, there's no snow.

The police fed a lot of information that they wanted out there

to a guy named Charlie Brennan.

I was given information by a source I trusted

that police took note of the fact

when they got there that they didn't see footprints in the snow.

And they considered that to be significant.

Is that Charlie Brennan saying that that's significant? No.

I'm reporting the police latched onto that

and made an observation and felt it was important.

They took these little bits of information, twisted them around,

and then gave it to these few… media reporters

who said, "Hey, I'll go with it. I'll go with it on one source."

I have a police report that says,

"No footprints were found in the snow."

I'm not sure how I would run down that.

I mean, uh, short of being an investigator myself, which you couldn't do.

You know, you couldn't, as a reporter…

It's not that you take it as gospel, that's what you have to work with.

The Ramseys weren't talking.

Their attorneys weren't talking.

I mean, it was up to us,

and it was our responsibility that if the police told us something,

we should try to confirm it and try to reconfirm it,

and always use the old rule, two sources, right?

And usually I would find two sources. They were usually investigative sources.

A really powerful story that was told

was that John Ramsey had piloted his jet

back to Atlanta with JonBenét's coffin on board.

I remember saying to my husband,

"What kind of person is he?"

How could he do this, when he's got to be so distraught

over the terrible way his daughter died and the fact that she was murdered?

How could he fly his plane to Atlanta? I said, "That doesn't make sense."

And my husband was going, "No, it doesn't."

It wasn't true.

John was not piloting a jet. John Ramsey didn't have a jet.

When I reported that John Ramsey had piloted his own plane

back to Atlanta for the funeral, that was inaccurate.

It came from a… from a source that I thoroughly trusted

and had given me other solid information.

That information was wrong.

My source was wrong in that case, and that was a mistake.

One of the things that's really important to realize

during all of this dishonesty that's being leaked

is that, on January 15th,

the DNA results came back from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

DNA results often leak in murder cases.

Yet, when the one piece of evidence that clears them,

or at least clears their DNA, comes back, there's not a leak about it.

She does not want to answer any questions.

Patsy Ramsey's attorney has kept her from talking with investigators,

but not from giving handwriting samples.

Very early on, there was massive police leaking

that Patsy Ramsey had written the ransom note.

According to a report,

investigators have found similarities between Patsy Ramsey's handwriting

and the writing used in the ransom note.

At least four experts, and two of them from the Secret Service,

looked at the handwriting and said, "Patsy Ramsey did not write the note."

No evidence that Patsy Ramsey executed any of the questioned material

appearing on the ransom note. Was that Mr. Dusick's conclusion?

Uh, am… among other things.

And he was a document analyst for the United States Secret Service?

Right.

They didn't like the answer, so they leaked information

saying she did write it.

If you were an investigator trying to put together a case,

what you might make of what we do know about the… the note?

One of the things that's been brought out is that the $118,000 figure,

which seemed rather peculiar to people,

it wasn't a good round number at the time,

now is reportedly the amount

of, uh, Mr. Ramsey, the father's, uh, bonus for the year.

The amount of the ransom was $118,000, which is really bizarre.

It turns out that that ransom amount requested

was similar to John Ramsey's bonus amount, 118,700-some dollars.

It immediately leaked to the newspapers

with the impression,

"Hey, they wrote the ransom note and used this amount of money."

Which is kind of silly when you think about it.

If this intruder came in and had waited in the house

and went to Mr. Ramsey's office, he could have gone through the papers.

I was told that apparently it was listed in… in documents that were there.

Two people who haven't been cleared are JonBenét's parents,

who remain in seclusion.

Police continue to send out signals

the parents of JonBenét are prime suspects,

particularly John Ramsey.

At the beginning, not many people

were on the Ramseys-didn't-do-it side.

And most people thought that John Ramsey had killed his own daughter,

maybe molested his daughter and killed her.

The law enforcement sources I talked to

believed that there had been some sort of sexual abuse of JonBenét,

chronic sexual abuse, not just that it occurred that night.

I had sources who talked to me.

There were pictures of JonBenét that were on her dad's desk and things like that.

And at the time, I think they were considered sexualized pictures.

There was a lot of… eyebrows raised.

They just thought those were odd pictures

that a father would have of a six-year-old in his office.

The logic seemed to be,

she's in the pageants.

Her parents have put her in the pageants.

She's kind of sexualized.

John Ramsey's her dad.

Therefore, John Ramsey is sexually abusing her.

It's… It's impossible to connect the dots.

But a lot of people did connect the dots.

The police, did they ask about sexual abuse of JonBenét?

Yes, of course they did.

What did you tell them?

I told them absolutely, categorically, no.

There was absolutely no evidence, either physical or historical.

When I interviewed JonBenét's pediatrician,

he told me, no, she's never had any sexual abuse in her life.

He would have lost his medical license if he ever lied about that.

There was never any… hint whatsoever of sexual abuse.

Uh, I didn't see any… any hint of emotional abuse or physical abuse.

She was a very much loved child.

The tabloids were crucial

in pushing the narrative about sexual abuse.

It was just everywhere.

And it was great for the tabloids. They sold a lot of copies.

They were untrue, unfounded, but that didn't matter.

It was a good story.

One of the reasons I became involved in this case

was not because of the crime itself.

It was because of the way the media dealt with the crime.

A lot of my work and research has been about the decline of journalistic values.

I thought the media coverage of JonBenét was a pitch perfect example of that.

A documentary on British television about the Ramsey case.

With us in Denver, Michael Tracey, creator of Who Killed JonBenét,

a documentary professor at University of Colorado.

I called Brian Morgan, who's John Ramsey's attorney,

and I said, "I want to make a documentary about your clients' experience."

We then did five days of interviews with them.

Are you ready?

And that was a fascinating experience.

At the heart of all the media coverage,

overwhelmingly, is a very basic argument

that JonBenét was a sexually abused child.

First, what is your general reaction to that large allegation?

Well, it's… it's disgusting to even have to respond to that.

It's absolutely false. False, all of it.

People make this stuff up. I mean, they just make it up.

There is no one that they have to be held accountable to.

I mean, it's just false.

It's a lie. I don't know how else to say it.

And then it just… it just snowballs.

"I heard, he heard, she heard," and they just build on it. It's…

The latest interview in the JonBenét Ramsey murder investigation

belongs to a former Miss America,

a woman who hid her own story of child abuse for decades.

One of the things that the police did, uh, in that effort

to basically convict us in the court of public opinion,

they brought in a woman named Marilyn Van Derbur.

Marilyn Van Derbur Atler, who was a victim of incest by her father,

says Boulder Police wanted to talk to her.

They asked me every question that you would ask me.

I don't know who she was.

Still, I couldn't… I wouldn't recognize her if she walked in the door.

Was your home, like JonBenét's home,

the public image at least, a loving father?

Oh, my, yes. Oh, yes.

A well-known father?

And so the inference in the interview was,

"Yeah, I've seen this. I've… I've experienced sexual abuse as a child."

"This looks to me like sexual abuse by the parents."

And, of course, that was absolute false.

***

They even… alleged that perhaps my daughter, Beth…

who had just graduated from college, was working and was killed in a car accident…

might have been sexually abused.

Investigators in the JonBenét Ramsey murder

are now looking into the death of her 22-year-old half-sister.

JonBenét's 22-year-old half-sister Elizabeth

was killed in a car crash five years ago.

It was like, "Oh, my God. How low could you go?"

When we made our first documentary,

we went to great lengths to say, "Is there any evidence of sexual abuse?"

We talked with friends, we talked with family. Melinda, um…

Nothing.

You know, I'm… I'm John Ramsey's daughter. Um…

I grew up with him. He raised me.

And I saw him raise JonBenét.

And I don't understand why they don't believe me

that he's the most caring father in the world.

He has never, ever abused us in any way.

And I just wish I could say something to convince them.

You know, you're looking to see if there was any pathology in this family

on either John Ramsey's part or Patsy Ramsey's part, right?

We did.

And you didn't find any, did you?

I don't think, to answer your question, that there was anything,

uh, remarkable or outstanding as far as what you're inquiring about.

Illegal drug use would be pathology.

Child abuse would be pathology.

Domestic violence would be pathology, right?

Yes.

Didn't find anything

with respect to this family, did you, sir?

Drug use, child abuse, or spousal abuse, uh, not that I'm aware of.

We were being prosecuted in the court of public opinion.

And, of course, by that time, we were pretty much convicted.

Gallup, the poll people, did a poll at some point in that period.

Seventy percent of those polled felt that the family killed their daughter.

The parents killed their daughter.

People hated the Ramseys, they hated them.

And it was because of the information that had come out about them

that was incorrect.

We were followed by the media.

We'd stay with friends, and within a day or two,

the house would just be surrounded by cameras

and… and people banging on the door and the windows.

What really got us off the floor was we realized we had other children

that needed us now to be more strong than ever.

Burke particularly.

He'd lost his sibling.

They were pals and…

A horrible thing for a nine-year-old kid to… be exposed to.

We had tried to shield Burke as much as possible

over the months and weeks…

…keeping him away from any kind of television or newspaper.

We went out shopping for school supplies,

and we had the paper and pencils and all the little supplies

in our shopping buggy, and headed for the checkout,

and, you know, bam!

Right there at eye level, his eye level, he couldn't help but see them.

So I just… I put my arm around him, and I said, "Honey,

they're all lies." I said, "They're ugly, ugly stories."

And I said, "You just have to… pretend like you don't see them."

It's just simply not fair to him.

Um, you know, you look back at pictures of nine-year-old Burke.

I mean, it's just absolutely absurd

to think, "Oh, yeah, he's… he could've, you know, killed his sister

and… and delivered this level of violence." I mean, it's just… just crazy.

I want to say something to the person or persons that committed this crime.

The list of suspects narrows.

Soon there will be no one on the list… but you.

When law enforcement would talk sort of formally or officially,

they gave every indication that, um, that they were close to solving it.

We will see that justice is served in this case

and that you pay… for what you did.

And we have no doubt that that will happen.

The complicating factor that the law enforcement sources had,

they told me, is that, okay, so if you think that the Ramseys did it,

right, which one did what?

They felt it was one person who did this.

It wasn't something, like, where both parents were involved.

At what point in time did you say…

…"I think Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter"?

There was not a defining moment in which the, uh, bell rang,

and I noted the… the date and time.

Uh, early in 1997,

it… it became more and more apparent to me

that, uh, that's where the, uh, abundance of evidence was leading.

One of the initial theories developed by Boulder Police

was that… Patsy Ramsey, in a fit of rage,

killed her daughter because she had soiled the bed.

"In my hypothesis, an approaching 40th birthday,

the busy holiday season, an exhausting Christmas Day,

and an argument with JonBenét had left Patsy frazzled."

"Patsy would not be the first mother to lose control in such a situation."

"One of the doctors we consulted cited toileting issues as a textbook example

of causing a parental rage."

"So in my hypothesis,

there was some sort of explosive encounter in the child's bathroom

sometime prior to one o'clock in the morning."

"I believe JonBenét was slammed against a hard surface

such as the edge of a tub, inflicting a mortal head wound."

Detective Steve Thomas said Mrs. Ramsey became upset

because JonBenét was wetting the bed, and, in a fit of rage, uh, lost control

and supposedly, uh, hit JonBenét and then staged a scene.

"As I pictured the scene, her dilemma was that

the police would assume the obvious."

"Patsy needed a diversion

and planned the way she thought a kidnapping should look."

"In my hypothesis, she took the next step,

looking for the closest available items in desperation."

"Only feet away was her paint tote."

"She grabbed a paintbrush and broke it to fashion the garrote with some cord."

"In my scenario, she choked JonBenét from behind

with a grip on her broken paintbrush handle,

pulling the ligature."

"Throughout the coming hours, Patsy worked on her staging,

such as placing the ransom note where she'd find it the next morning."

The evidence does not match that at all.

First of all,

we know that JonBenét was alive

while she was being tortured in the moments before her death.

We know this because she had hemorrhaging in her eyes, hemorrhaging in her heart.

That was consistent with being strangled.

So if you believe that Patsy Ramsey did this,

she would have had to do all these things while JonBenét was alive.

This wasn't staging. She was alive when this was being done.

Well, did all the experts agree that

JonBenét Ramsey was alive at the time of the injury to her vagina?

Uh, again, I don't know what experts you're referring to.

I'm talking about the acute vaginal trauma

she suffered at the time of her murder.

The agreement was unanimous that she was alive at the time

that that vaginal trauma was inflicted. True?

Yes, I believe that's correct.

So Patsy Ramsey, theoretically, had JonBenét Ramsey there

pulling at this garrote around her neck, scratching at it,

and you still believe that the garrote

would've been placed there by Patsy Ramsey to stage the crime?

Is that what your testimony is?

Uh, if that's what you're telling me, I won't dispute. That's what happened.

Well, do you believe that's what happened?

Uh, no, I've offered a hypothesis that I believe was consistent, uh,

with the evidence as I knew it, uh, that, uh, possibly what happened.

I have five children.

They all wet their beds, I'm sure,

when they were little. That's no big deal.

It's just part of little kids.

Um…

Patsy had just recovered from stage four ovarian cancer.

She was grateful to be alive.

Do you think that her child wetting her bed

would… be a big deal? No.

She was happy to be alive and to have some more time with her children.

So it's just nonsense. It didn't pass the… the sanity test.

But yet that was their premise, that she wet her bed, Patsy went crazy,

killed her, and we made the whole kidnapping thing up.

For months now, the nation has been hanging on every detail

surrounding JonBenét Ramsey's death.

And tonight there's more information, not about the case.

There appears to be a major rift

between the Boulder Police and the prosecutor.

One thing to note here that's important is

there was a lack of… respect

from the Boulder Police Department

towards the Boulder district attorney's office.

Some Boulder Police people

thought they knew who did it.

And some of my people were convinced… that it was an intruder that did it.

So that you had a split.

Relations between the district attorney and police

by the spring of '97 had really got sour.

And Alex Hunter, the district attorney,

wanted an experienced eyes and ears for him.

And Alex hired Detective Lou Smit.

This is Lou Smit.

Today is March the 9th, 1997.

And I'm on my way to Boulder, Colorado, to talk with Alex Hunter,

who is the district attorney.

I do feel very strongly that the killer of… JonBenét Ramsey

should be caught and…

and made to pay for what he or she has done to this little girl.

Initially, I got involved with the JonBenét Ramsey case,

uh, because of my good friend and mentor, uh, Lou Smit being involved.

Lou, for me, has always been

one of those guys that's a law enforcement legend.

He was an exceptional person. He's an exceptional detective.

Captain Smit has worked on a number of high profile cases

and has investigated more than 150 homicides.

He had an impeccable reputation and is highly respected by police officers,

prosecutors, and judges throughout the state of Colorado.

He had solved another case in Colorado Springs,

where a little girl had been taken from her home

from a single fingerprint on a window.

Many times things are as they seem.

I'm not saying it's a kidnapping

or a kind of a botched plan for a kidnapping.

Maybe even family related in some way.

But all I'm saying is that, uh,

things just, uh, don't feel good as far as it being completely the family.

But I do know this, that that little girl had to mean an awful lot to them.

And…

she did mean something in this world.

I just hope I can… be of some use in…

bringing that killer or killers to justice.

So at the time, I was an employee of a local sheriff's office,

and, uh, Lou Smit was actually my commander.

He said, "Hey, I need you to come on board and help me organize

and figure out what's going on in this case."

Lou is… is one of those guys… He's… He's, uh…

He was a Sherlock Holmes of his time.

And, you know, when he looked at this,

I mean, obviously one of the first things you're gonna do is look over the body.

Now, what I'd like to show you is

what I think is one of the most important clues

left behind by the killer.

Stun gun.

There's marks on JonBenét.

Those are marks on her back.

Those are marks on her face.

And they're the same distance apart.

The marks on her face and the marks on the back are the same distance apart.

And if you look, they're slightly rectangular in shape.

Something made those marks.

Lou did a number of tests

determining that they were Air Taser marks from a stun gun.

He actually did a test using a pig,

because our… the pig skin is the closest to the human skin.

And they found that the injuries from the stun gun

looked very similar to the injuries from what was on JonBenét's face and back.

The thing with the Taser,

I think that that's what was used to incapacitate her when she was in bed.

Uh, that would be the easiest way with making very little noise,

and then he could carry her down and do whatever he wanted to do with her.

The law enforcement sources that I had,

at least to me, never indicated that they put much of any kind of importance

on whether a stun gun was or wasn't used.

Boulder PD thought the stun gun marks for her face and back

were created from laying on some train tracks.

If anything, they've been doing nothing but dismissing the stun gun.

What did Boulder police conclude caused these marks

found on JonBenét Ramsey's back?

What was believed to be stun gun marks may have been a patterned object,

if I recall correctly,

or, uh, I think, another explanation was, uh… uh…

on her back, uh, lying on, uh, some sort of object.

Stun gunning, like, that… that never sat well with Lou.

Like, why?

Why would a mom or dad

stun gun their daughter multiple times?

To take her to the basement?

I'm gonna show you JonBenét's bedroom.

When the police come in that morning, the very first picture they take

is of that bed right there.

And that's early in the morning. This is what JonBenét's bed looked like.

If you look real carefully, you can see

where somebody has pulled off the bed here.

See how it looks like it pulls and then stops right there.

Almost as if she's stun gunned while she's sleeping

and pulled from the bed.

There's another thing.

Steve Thomas says that, you know, Patsy Ramsey came in, and she wet the bed.

Now, if you'll notice real close down here,

there's a lot of things. Number one, the bed is not wet.

Were they wet?

When?

That morning.

I don't--

Did you ask?

Did you ask any of the officers there, "Hey, by the way,

were the sheets on JonBenét's bed wet?" Did you ask that question to anybody?

I did not.

And people say that maybe Patsy Ramsey changed the bedding.

But there's all kinds of fibers and hairs and stuff in the bedding already there.

So if it was washed, it wouldn't be in there like that.

So this bedding had been on there for a little while.

There's a little guest bedroom there that's right next to JonBenét's room.

This rope was found in the guest bedroom. It's not the Ramseys'.

Nobody in the Ramsey family can identify it.

It is a possibility that the… that the intruder could've taken that in with him,

also to use as binding, and just left it up there.

When they brought Lou Smit in, people were open-minded.

But then police started realizing that he was starting to believe

that the Ramseys were innocent.

That was not what they thought.

It was, uh… They felt like he was going down the wrong road.

They called him a delusional old man,

that they felt like he was, uh, just a bumbling guy

who was trying to make a name for himself by presenting a different theory.

Lou was far from being a delusional old man.

He's the kind of detective

that everyone would want in their community.

I went to bed fairly late last night, I… and I tossed and turned. I…

I really feel that the investigation is going down the wrong track.

That open window in the basement has really been bothering me.

It is open.

That's where the body is found.

I believe our killer may have entered that way and may have exited that way.

There's a lot of attention focused on this window right over here.

Can you talk about that?

I can't. I'm sorry.

Now, this is where I think the killer actually got in at some point.

And, uh, there is a gas grill here, and then there's a south door to the house.

Right behind this gas grill is a grate.

And you put the grate up, you're looking straight down into the window.

There's three windows there. The center one was the one that was open.

These photographs tell a story, and they tell a great story,

because look at this photograph real closely. Now.

And you're going to see foliage, that green foliage,

under the leading edge of that grate.

Don't grow that way. The grate has to be picked up and put down in order for that.

Lou Smit was seen several times,

uh, entering in and out of… of this window

because Boulder Police didn't think that it was possible.

I think at the time, Lou was about 66, uh, years old,

and, uh, he wanted to prove that it was possible

and, uh, did it quite easily.

If you remember, there was a suitcase

that was right underneath this window.

And on top of the suitcase

was a very small, tiny, pea-sized piece of glass,

and a faint impression of possibly a footprint on the suitcase.

A lot of people say, well,

you know, who would go into a house where the parents are…

and hide in the house, wait for the parents?

And, uh, who would do that?

It takes a special kind of a person to do that.

I firmly believe that, uh, we left for…

Took the kids, went to some friends' house for dinner Christmas night.

I think I don't remember when we left. Maybe six, six-ish.

Got home by 9:30, probably.

I believe the killer came into our home while we were gone…

and, uh, waited until we were asleep.

I think that's… for sure.

It's important to know that we had cases in Boulder

where suspects went into residence in the middle of the night

and either attempted a sex assault or completed, uh, sex assaults,

uh, both before and after the Ramsey case.

In September of '97, about nine months after JonBenét's death,

there was an incident in another nice neighborhood in Boulder,

not that far from the Ramseys' home.

A little girl was assaulted in her home

when her mom was sleeping in a master bedroom,

her dad was gone away, uh, for business.

My feeling is he got into the house while they were out

and hid inside the house.

Sometime in the late hours,

Mom hears a noise going on.

And she grabbed, I believe, pepper spray and went down the hall.

And there was, in fact, an intruder in her daughter's bedroom

preparing to molest her.

And that woman succeeded

in chasing that intruder out of the house using her pepper spray.

That person has never been identified.

It subsequently came to light

that that girl had attended the same dance studio as JonBenét.

Are the two cases connected? I don't know.

The police, in their wisdom, said, "Well,

it's not the same because that child wasn't murdered."

"JonBenét was murdered."

If I were a novice detective,

I'd say those are pretty similar methods… of a killer.

Are they right? Are they wrong?

Was their conclusion shaded by the accusation…

…that they have been focused solely on, uh, a different theory of the case?

I don't know.

You want a piece?

In Boulder, Colorado, the sensational and unsolved murder

of a young beauty pageant queen is back in the news

under the heading "Starting Over One Year Later."

I've never been this popular before, guys.

But the new man in charge of the JonBenét Ramsey case

still couldn't say police are any closer to solving the grisly crime.

We have not yet submitted a case for prosecution,

nor have we prepared an arrest warrant.

Beckner confirmed John and Patsy Ramsey

remain under the umbrella of suspicion.

By this point, it's been a long time, right?

And I think there was a general sense of, you know, why is this still not solved?

Last year, Hunter spent $128,000 on the investigation,

and $51,000 so far this year.

Hunter's latest expenditure is $60,000 to pay a grand jury specialist,

a person who will advise investigators

about whether a secret panel should see JonBenét Ramsey's case.

When I got involved in the case, they were going nowhere

because there had been such a rift that had developed

between the district attorney's office, uh, prosecutors,

and the police department.

Kane's background is impressive.

He currently works for the state of Pennsylvania

and used to be a prosecutor in Denver.

His specialty? Grand juries.

That's why he's joining the Ramsey investigation,

to help DA Alex Hunter

should a secret panel investigate the murder.

My first day on the job, it was a big presentation

that the police department gave.

How long do you think this is expected to take?

Uh, we've got the whole day scheduled, and we don't know.

Over two days,

Steve Thomas and other detectives put forward everything they had.

Detective Steve Thomas ran a list of reasons

why the Ramseys were under suspicion,

including, "The behavior of John and Patsy Ramsey

was not in keeping with a kidnapping,

but more like the way people would respond after a death."

They felt that they had put forward enough

to… perhaps… trigger the filing of charges

or, at the very least, convening of a grand jury.

It's going to be, at this point, a process of sifting through that

and really making a decision about, uh, w… the strength

of a case against anybody or whether there's a need to go further.

After it was all over, we all met,

and Alex Hunter said, "What do you think?"

And I said, "Well… you don't have a… you don't have a chargeable case right now."

And it was… It was like… some people in that room were shocked.

And then that's when, all of a sudden… …I get this letter handed to me

that came into the office from Steve Thomas.

Turmoil once again in the long and deeply troubled investigation

of JonBenét Ramsey's murder.

ABC News has learned that one of the lead detectives in the case

has resigned in protest,

firing off a blistering letter that attacks the district attorney.

Steve Thomas' resignation was big news.

After 20 months,

a growing number are going public about their concerns,

their frustration over what happened in this home December 26th of 1996.

Governor Roy Romer summoned all the key players

down to the governor's office in Denver to say, "What's going on here?"

It was pressure from the governor's office which ultimately persuaded Alex Hunter,

"Okay, we're gonna do a grand jury."

It appears as though that letter did, somehow,

influence the… the direction that this investigation is going to take.

I have no doubt in my mind that because of this,

that, uh, the Ramseys will be indicted.

Especially with the atmosphere and the poisoned well

of false information against the Ramseys.

Clearly there's evidence of an intruder, I say this over and over and over again.

Nobody wants to listen.

And, uh, as a result of that,

there's a very good chance that… uh, tragedy could again strike this family.

Amid a buzz of activity outside the Boulder County Justice Center,

people jockeyed for parking space amid tangled traffic and tight security.

With the media circus tailing them,

the 12 Boulder County residents who make up the JonBenét Ramsey grand jury

arrived early morning to do their civic duty.

When the grand jury was in process,

we fully expected and were prepared to be indicted.

The saying is, "You can indict a sandwich in front of a grand jury."

It's a one-sided argument.

In a regular criminal trial, you have your 12 jurors here,

and then you have two tables, one for the defense, one for the prosecution.

But in a grand jury, it's different. There is no defense.

The goal is to get an indictment for murder.

Don't worry about any counter… thoughts or defense.

Michael Kane, Bruce Levin, and Mitch Morrissey

arrived bright and early too.

They are the prosecutors specially brought in to present the case.

I'll never forget. I pulled up in my car the first day.

Can't comment.

And I was surrounded by cameras.

Leading the team is grand jury specialist Mike Kane.

We asked ourselves every day, how could a person do this?

Well, we've seen cases where people who are,

you know, look like the all-American family,

turn around and do something horrendous

because something triggered something on a particular date.

My impression of Mike Kane was he was out to get us

just like any other… other police department.

He was… He was in their camp.

Mitch Morrissey comes by way of the Denver County DA,

where he's considered an expert on the use of DNA evidence.

I have seen cases where, no matter how they presented themself publicly,

no matter how wealthy they were,

no matter how, you know, the family seemed to be a cohesive unit,

the parents did it.

There may be strategic reasons why John and Patsy Ramsey

have not been called to testify before the grand jury.

We offered to testify to the grand jury.

They wouldn't… let us.

Prosecutors may fear the Ramseys could charm the grand jury

if they testified in person.

Well, today is quite a day.

It's September 22nd, 1998.

This is going to be my last official day in this investigation.

Because of the grand jury, Lou resigned.

Regretfully, he resigned.

He would have no part in trying to convict an innocent couple.

And that's how strongly he felt about this case.

This grand jury is a farce.

The police are going to submit a manufactured version of the case,

sugar-coated and spoon-fed to this grand jury.

Mike Kane is going to do this.

My intentions at this time are to try, in every way that I can,

to testify before the grand jury,

because I really think it's important that they do hear this information.

Lou Smit fought to get into that grand jury

to show the other side.

I did get a… a, uh… letter from Michael Kane

that I… my request to testify before the grand jury was denied.

The letter from Michael Kane also stated that I could not even repeat

that I had been contacted by this letter in any way,

and so they're trying to silence me completely.

That's absolute garbage. Absolute garbage.

I didn't take any steps to keep Lou Smit out of the grand jury.

And to try to portray it that, you know… And I know it's been portrayed in books

and people, like, making statements that, you know, I… I was like,

"God, no, I can't… I can't have the grand jury hearing."

That is just absolute garbage.

An attorney threatened to sue

to get him in front of the grand jury, and he finally was allowed.

I was never treated so unfairly

or so badly in 40 years of law enforcement

where everything I said was attacked.

And I've never felt so humiliated.

In fact, when I was at the grand jury, I remember turning to Alex Hunter,

who was sitting there, and I said, "Alex, there is no way that the defendants

are not going to be indicted on this."

Like detectives tracing the path of a killer,

the grand jurors, who've been studying the murder of JonBenét Ramsey,

took their investigation from the courtroom

to the crime scene today.

When we started the… the grand jury, we thought, you know,

that would be helpful for them to see the house.

This was an old house that had been added onto

and had kind of a rabbit warren-type… feel to it.

You know, it'd be difficult to navigate this house if you didn't know this house.

To get to the second floor where her room was,

it wouldn't have been intuitive of how to get there.

And then to find your way from there down into the basement

really was not intuitive, especially in the middle of the night

when no lights are on.

So I'm not saying that that… that sealed the deal

that it had to be somebody on the inside

versus somebody from the outside,

but it certainly was a factor.

With questions about unmatched DNA found in JonBenét's underwear,

it's not clear how much time prosecutors will need

before the grand jury probe is finished.

Everybody bringing me in

kind of thought, "Okay, there's this DNA,

but it's really not that big a deal in this case."

And actually, it became the big deal in the case.

We had a DNA profile that had come out of the little girl's underpants.

This was in the crotch, mixed with blood

that clearly came when she was penetrated by a broken paintbrush.

And that penetration caused her to bleed and mix with this DNA.

We knew it was male, but we knew it wasn't sperm.

It could've been saliva.

It could have been some other form of bodily fluid.

It could be a large, significant amount of skin cells.

None of the family members match.

And then basically all of the criminals

that are in the national DNA database were compared.

None of them match.

So you have this dilemma that was created.

Without having a match, we can't say, "A killer left this,

and… he's out there somewhere,"

because it wasn't anybody who was in the house.

You just can't say that.

The problem is we never found the male that left that DNA.

They tried to go to China to the underwear factory

where JonBenét's underwear was made…

…and see if they could find a white male working in the factory,

take his DNA,

match it to the unidentified DNA

and therefore explain away why that DNA was there and who it belonged to.

We went so far as to find out the whole manufacturing, uh, chain.

They tried desperately to find a match

that was an innocent explanation.

That was the mentality.

After more than a year of looking over evidence

and hearing testimony, the grand jury has now made its decision.

There was gonna be an announcement,

so, I'm telling you,

the parking lot across from the Boulder County Justice Center

was packed with satellite trucks,

television cameras,

reporters standing on boxes.

It was almost like leading up to a Super Bowl.

We were ready to go be arrested.

We've signed papers to have Burke under guardianship of my brother.

We're pretty much ready to go to jail and be tried.

…the district attorney, Alex Hunter, are now talking live

about what the grand jury has decided.

Down in front, please. Down in front.

Excuse me.

Speak up!

Shout, please!

Tell 'em something's happening.

All right.