'48 Hours Investigates' meets with JonBenet's parents

By Pam Regensberg, Camera Staff Writer
September 28, 2002

Videotaped police interviews — portions of which contain sensitive information never
before released — with John and Patsy Ramsey will be aired on national television
next week.

It is unclear which of the three police interviews with the Ramseys that CBS' "48
Hours Investigates" will focus on in their Friday evening report "Searching for a Killer."

The former Boulder couple and parents of the slain 6-year-old JonBenét met with
investigators on three separate occasions — in April 1997, for three days in June
1998 in Broomfield and in August 2000 in Atlanta.

Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner said his office gave the Ramseys copies of each
videotaped interview. He said they did not give copies of the tapes to CBS.

Beckner said he will not be tuning in to the news show.

"I've tried to stay away from the whole thing," Beckner said of what he called "the
media circus" surrounding the investigation.

Beckner said the tapes contain information that could be damaging to the nearly
6-year-old investigation.

"It all depends on what they show," he said.

District Attorney Mary Keenan, who observed the June 1998 interviews, said it's been
so long that she doesn't recall details from the meeting. A great deal of information
already has been leaked to the media, she added.

Neither the Ramseys nor their attorney, L. Lin Wood of Atlanta, could be reached for
comment on Friday.

In the nearly six years since JonBenet Ramsey was found strangled and beaten to
death in the basement of her parents Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996, the Ramseys
have maintained their innocence. Police say they are still under the "umbrella of
suspicion."

Lou Smit, a retired El Paso County homicide investigator brought in by the district
attorney in March 1997 to help in the case, said he thinks the tapes will show
investigators "interrogating" Patsy Ramsey.

"It was pretty heavy-duty," Smit said of Patsy's June 1998 session. He was in a
separate room at the time questioning John Ramsey.

Smit resigned from the investigation in September 1998 just as a grand jury probe of
the case was beginning; it concluded 13 months later without issuing any indictments
— due to concerns that then District Attorney Alex Hunter's team was wrongly
targeting the Ramseys.

Smit, said he was interviewed by "48 Hours" about two weeks ago about his theory
an intruder killed the girl. It's a theory embraced by the Ramseys.

"The Ramseys are still trying to progress this case as far as finding the killer," Smit
said.

Contact Pam Regensberg at (303) 473-1329 or regensbergp@dailycamera.com.

I believe Lou Smit is right - - it will be the 1998 interview. And can you imagine that the chiefof police won't be watching? IMO, that is very sad - - it IS his case,doesn't he want to know what is happening? (rhetorical question, apparently - - his refusal to watch the show shows his position. I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing.)

Patsy Ramsey (interview tape): "We're still waiting to find the killer of our daughter."

(Voiceover) If you're like most Americans, you think John and Patsy Ramsey are hiding something in the murder of their daughter, JonBenét. But take a look at this:

Patsy (interview tape): "I didn't do it, John Ramsey didn't do it, and we don't have a clue of anybody who did do it."

(Voiceover) 48 Hours Investigates has obtained the never before seen police interrogation tape of the Ramseys.

John (interview tape): "Patsy and JonBenet were extremely close."

John: "There was a strategy that was put in place to put immense pressure on us to break us".

Voiceover): "We have new evidence and new leads. This detective was working for the DA, so why did he switch sides?

Lou Smit: "I don't think the Ramseys did it, and I think they ought to start lookin for the people that did."

Patsy Ramsey: "If our DNA matched anything significant, they would have arrested us in a New York Minute."

(Voiceover) 48 Hours Investigates "Searching for a Killer" it could change your mind. Next Friday.

Do you think you know who killed JonBenet
Ramsey? Watch the never-before-seen police
interrogation of her parents. It could change
your mind.

48 HOURS INVESTIGATES takes a fresh look at
the JonBenet Ramsey case. The broadcast will
air never-before-seen videotapes of police
interrogating both John and Patsy Ramsey. The
broadcast will also report on new evidence,
new leads, as well as on the Ramseys’ own story, and their thoughts on what
happened in their house the night their daughter was killed. Plus: Meet the detective
who once suspected the Ramseys, and is now convinced of their innocence; see the
evidence that he says exonerates them.

We know about the fiber stuff - - - nothing new there to us- - but we are smarter than the average bear.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A convicted sex offender,

suspected by John and Patsy Ramsey of involvement in the 1996

murder of their beauty queen daughter, has spoken of his

obsession with the child in a CBS television investigation

into one of the most riveting unsolved crimes in America, the

network said on Thursday.

The CBS program "48 Hours Investigates", to be broadcast on

Friday, will also show never before seen police interrogation

tapes of the Ramseys and interviews with the couple, who have

never been charged but who police have said remain "under an

umbrella of suspicion."

JonBenet Ramsey, a former Little Miss Colorado, was found

beaten and strangled in the basement of her Boulder, Colorado

home on the day after Christmas 1996.

Her parents and retired homicide detective Lou Smit have

said repeatedly that they believe an intruder, possibly

carrying a stun gun, entered the house, and they have accused

Boulder police of failing to follow up on thousands of leads.

One of those leads involves Gary Oliva, a sex offender who

is believed to have been in the Ramsey neighborhood the night

of the murder and who turned himself into Boulder police about

two weeks ago because he was wanted in Oregon for probation

violations.

Oliva told "48 Hours Investigates" in a jailhouse interview

that he did not hurt or kill JonBenet. But he added; "I believe

that she came to me after she was killed and revealed herself

to me."

A CBS spokeswoman said Boulder police were in the room

during the interview but, correcting an earlier network

statement, said Oliva had not to her knowledge been formally

interviewed by police.

A friend of Oliva's, identified only as Michael, told the

program that Oliva had called him just days after the murder

saying he had done something horrible.

The spokeswoman said the Ramseys had talked "openly and

without restrictions" in the television interviews, which were

conducted last month immediately following Patsy Ramsey's

chemotherapy treatment for a recurring ovarian cancer.

Boulder police interviewed 650 people during an

investigation costing $1.7 million but have never charged

anyone with JonBenet's murder.

REUTERS

10-03-02

I wonder if that was ever communicated to the BPD at the time?

A known pervert saying he had 'done something horrible' and whose mailing address was the nearby Aquinas Hall which he reached by traversing the alley way in back of the Ramsey home ... but the BPD didn't feel he should be "under the umbrella of suspicion"?

the fact is - - the cops knew very early on that he was a reasonable suspect - (Michael made a call) - in the area at the time, a history, a history and a history.... and they didn't take the time to check him out.

the fact is a year later they had another opportunity to put the pieces together and did not.

the fact is that TWICE in 2000 they arrested this guy and saw links to JBR - - and they STILL didn't formally interview him - - they were too busy interrogating the Ramseys about how they DARE let Susan Stine drive Burke to school after the murder!

Now they have the man in custody and - - - I can only hope public pressure can help encourage them to really investigate this most reasonable suspect -- compare the handwriting (I willpost a sample immediately after the show tonight) and do the DNA comparison.

If he can be cleaared, I hope they will issue a press release as they did when they cleared John Brewer Eustace.

If he is as good a suspect as it may appear, let's goto a grand jury and see if there is an indictment here!