Crime

By Richard Woodbury and Jeffrey Shapiro/Boulder

Although no suspects other than JOHN and PATSY RAMSEY have been named in the 1996 murder of their daughter JonBenet, a key figure in the investigation remains convinced that the killer was a pedophile bent on kidnapping who broke into the Boulder, Colo., home and assaulted the six-year-old while her family slept.

LOU SMIT, a retired Colorado Springs homicide detective, worked on the case for 18 months before quitting in protest over the direction the probe was going. Smit formed another theory using key pieces of evidence. He believes the killer may have spotted JonBenet as she glided by in a convertible in Boulder's holiday Parade of Lights. On Christmas night, while the family was out, he entered through a basement window, roamed the house and penned a ransom note, using a legal pad and black Sharpie marker he found near the kitchen.

Around midnight, after the family's return, he slipped upstairs to JonBenet's room and, using a stun gun, temporarily immobilized her. He carried the youngster to the basement and sexually assaulted her while simultaneously choking her, apparently for the thrill, with a garrote--a favored tool of pedophiles, Smit says--fashioned from the handle of one of Patsy Ramsey's paintbrushes.

When JonBenet woke, tore the duct tape from her mouth and began screaming, Smit theorizes that the killer panicked and struck her, perhaps with a heavy flashlight. With no time to retrieve his note from upstairs, the killer broke a window and fled. Later, police found a scuff mark from what appeared to be a boot on the nearby wall as well as unidentified boot and palm prints.

From his experience with more than 200 murder and fantasy-stalker cases, Smit believes the killer intended to go to Mexico--that is why he demanded the odd sum of $118,000, which at the time was close to a million pesos, and some of it in $20 bills, for easy exchanging. "I believe the Ramseys are innocent," says Smit. "If it's an intruder, it's not the parents, and I think it's that simple." He adds, "The theory doesn't determine the evidence. The evidence should determine the theory."

Those were comforting words to JonBenet's family. JEFF RAMSEY, John's brother, told TIME, "We want to do whatever we can to find the killer, hopefully with the help of law-enforcement agencies."

--By Richard Woodbury and Jeffrey Shapiro/Boulder