Lou Smit

Former FBI profiler Greg McCrary believed the note and the staging suggested someone within or close to the family had committed the crime.

Investigator Lou Smit rejected the claim that handwriting similarities proved Patsy wrote the note, observing that similarities will naturally appear when large amounts of handwriting are compared.

Smit argued that an intruder could have entered while the family was away, spent time inside the house and written the note before the Ramseys returned.

That scenario gives an intruder time to compose the document, but it requires the offender to remain hidden, leave the note before committing the crime, and then abandon the planned kidnapping, when the girl was killed accidentally on purpose, who knows, but without ever retrieving the note.

Now, whether that's true or not, we don't really know, but there is some evidence that supports it.

A suitcase that was not normally stored there stood beneath the window.

Lou Smit believed the window, the suitcase, and the debris supported an intruder's entry or escape.

Other investigators pointed to cobwebs.

But before that happened, another investigator began studying the case.

His name was Lou Smit.

was an experienced homicide detective brought into the investigation through the boulder district attorney's office and the more smith looked at the evidence the less convinced he became that the answer was john patsy or burke he believed boulder police were becoming too focused on the family and he thought the house itself contained evidence of another possibility a basement window unexplained marks footwear evidence an unidentified biological material Lou Smit believed somebody else had been inside 755 15th Street that night.

An intruder.

By 1997, investigators were increasingly focused on the Ramsey family, but one investigator became convinced that they might be looking in the wrong direction.

His name was Lou Smit.

Smit was an experienced Colorado homicide detective brought into the investigation through the Boulder District Attorney's Office.

He studied the photographs, the autopsy, the layout of the house, and the evidence recovered from the basement.

Whether anyone used the window to enter or leave during the homicide is not established.

Retired Colorado Springs homicide detective Lou Smit, brought into the district attorney's investigative team, became a leading supporter of an intruder theory.

He pointed to the window and suitcase as a possible route.

Critics disputed whether the physical arrangement showed recent entry or exit.

He resigned in 1998 and later published his own account of the investigation.

His specific theory that bedwetting triggered the events was described in Wolf vs. Ramsey as speculation not supported by direct evidence.

Lou Smit became the best-known law enforcement supporter of the intruder interpretation.

He cited the basement window, the suitcase, alleged stun gun-like marks, the ligature and biological evidence.

Wow, in a weird twist.

Will Patton as Lou Smit, recurring.

John Billingsley as...

Now, this says Santa Bill McReynolds.

Then, he believed, the family staged the kidnapping to cover it up, writing the note, building the garrote, selling the story of an intruder.

Not everyone bought it, and the loudest skeptic was a detective the District Attorney's office had specifically brought in to help, a veteran named Lou Smit.

Unlike Thomas, Smit had decades of homicide experience, and he reached the exact opposite conclusion.

He believed an intruder did this, someone who got into the house, possibly through that broken basement window, and attacked JonBenét.

And while they deliberated, the investigation lost both of its central figures.

In August 1998, Steve Thomas resigned with a scorching letter accusing the DA's office of obstructing the case.

That same fall, Lou Smit resigned, too, with the mirror image complaint, warning that a dangerous killer was still out there and the authorities were wasting their energy on the Ramseys.

Two lead detectives, opposite theories, both convinced the system had failed JonBenét.

Behind the scenes, though, the investigation continued to flounder.

That fall, there was yet another high-profile resignation, this time from veteran homicide detective Lou Smit.

Although he and Steve Thomas had opposing theories, they had the same complaint.

Justice was being obstructed.

The program featured interviews with former investigators and took a fresh look at some of the evidence.

JonBenet had been found with markings on her back.

Years earlier, Detective Lou Smit believed they were the result of a stun gun.

But the CBS program said they were train tracks, possibly from Burke running a toy over her back.