Smit draws some support

Boulder's police chief still skeptical on intruder theory

Todd Hartman, News Staff Writer

Published May 5, 2001 at midnight

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A handful of veteran Colorado law enforcement and legal figures are rallying behind retired detective Lou Smit's belief that an intruder likely killed JonBenet Ramsey.

They say Smit's views were dismissed by inexperienced Boulder investigators who became so fixated on the Ramseys early in the case that they put more energy into explaining away evidence pointing to an intruder than following clues wherever they might lead.

"When I saw Lou's presentation, I was stunned, and frankly I was outraged by the course this case has taken," said Greg Walta, the state's chief public defender from 1978 to 1982 and an attorney who has both battled and represented Smit in the courtroom.

"What concerns me isn't just that the Ramseys have been crucified," said El Paso County Sheriff John Anderson, "it's that a killer is still at large. I'm convinced of it."

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This week, Smit, a career Colorado Springs lawman who has investigated more than 200 homicides, took his boldest step yet to draw public attention to his intruder theory, releasing crime scene photographs and offering a detailed explanation of his view of the evidence in a weeklong series on NBC's Today Show.

Smit released the same information to the Rocky Mountain News on the condition that it not be published until after the television series aired. A detailed look at Smit's evidence appears in the Insight section of today's newspaper.

Boulder police and the district attorney's office are critical of Smit for taking his case public, but said throughout the week they won't debate the facts in public.

"I don't know what Lou Smit's intentions are," said Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner. "I don't know what he hopes to gain. There's just nothing we could say that's going to make any difference at this point. We're just going to keep doing our job."

Gov. Bill Owens weighed in, calling Smit's theories "old news" to investigators. In previous statements, Owens has suggested that police know who the killer is and admonished the Ramseys to stop "hiding behind" their attorneys.

"Surely Mr. Smit knows that as a matter of professional ethics, none of the law enforcement officers actually working the JonBenet murder investigation can comment publicly on the evidence," Owens said. "If they could, they could respond to every one of his charges."

Owens' statement drew a terse response from Smit's lawyer, Bob Russel.

"Lou Smit is the most ethical professional I've ever met," Russel said. "The comments by the governor are totally inappropriate, as he has no authority to inject himself into the case."

It was three months after JonBenet's murder in December 1996 that Smit was hired by Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter to assist on the case. Eighteen months later, Smit resigned, saying Boulder authorities were focusing too hard on the Ramseys and dismissing the likelihood that an intruder killed the 6-year-old girl.

Since then, Smit has occasionally spoken publicly about his intruder theory, but never in such detail.

El Paso Sheriff Anderson hired Smit to run the county's detective operation after being elected in 1994. He calls Smit a "phenomenally gifted, experienced, uniquely qualified violent crime detective," and supports him in taking the intruder evidence public, a move typically frowned upon by law enforcement. Boulder District Attorney Mary Keenan told Smit she opposed his decision.

This case is different, Anderson said, because a predator may be on the loose and Boulder law enforcement isn't pursuing him. He calls Smit's actions "very responsible."

Other supporters of Smit include Arapahoe County Coroner Michael Doberson, who, like Smit, contends that a stun gun was used on JonBenet, and that the blow to her head likely came just before death -- not long before as one police theory suggests.

Steve Ainsworth, a Boulder County Sheriff's detective, and Trip DeMuth a former assistant district attorney in Boulder, spoke on Smit's behalf on the Today Show.

While declining to take a specific position on the JonBenet case, DeMuth told the News that Smit "should be taken seriously." He called him the most experienced investigator who worked the case.

"It's not only the fact that he has a tremendous amount of experience," DeMuth said. "He was amazingly successful in previous investigations. He has probably a higher success rate than anyone else I know of."

Smit's attorney, Russel, is a former district attorney in El Paso County who held the office for two decades and was involved in some of the earliest efforts to educate district attorneys nationally about child abuse.

Throughout his career, Russel said, he has never heard of another case in which a parent garroted a child.

"When I first saw (Smit's presentation), this alone told me it could not have been the parents," Russel said.

"(The parent) would have to start turning (the garrote) while the child is grasping," Russel said. "There's probably tape over her mouth. She's alive and squirming.

"That's sadistic intent. That's not the irrational anger you see in child abuse."

Smit bases part of his argument on autopsy photos illustrating the brutality of JonBenet's death. The News is not publishing the pictures because of their graphic nature.

One shows the girl's neck squeezed almost into an hourglass shape by a nylon cord used to choke her. What appear to be numerous scratches on her neck above and below the cord are what Smit believes to be fingernail marks left by JonBenet struggling to escape strangulation.

Another shows JonBenet's skull with the scalp removed, revealing a massive fracture on the right side that Smit says could only have come with a tremendous blow to the head by someone wanting the girl dead.

"The world thinks the Ramseys did it," Smit said. "But if I'm right, there's a very dangerous killer out there and no one's looking for the SOB."

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