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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about him Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 5: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 6: Good Evening. On Christmas Night nineteen ninety six, six year
Speaker 6: old John Benet Ramsay was murdered in her family's home
Speaker 6: in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note was found in the home,
Speaker 6: but it was hours before her father, John found her
Speaker 6: body in the basement. She'd been strangled with a garat
Speaker 6: and her skull was fractured. The media sensationalized the tragic
Speaker 6: death of the child beauty queen, and public speculation and
Speaker 6: rumors ran rampant. What followed was one of the most
Speaker 6: notorious unsolved murder investigations in American history. Boulder police fixated
Speaker 6: on John Binney's parents as suspects. Needing investigative help, the
Speaker 6: Boulder DA brought in legendary homicide detective Lou Smitt. However,
Speaker 6: he was soon disenchanted with law enforcement's obsession with the
Speaker 6: Ramsey family as the primary suspects excluding other possibilities, Smitt
Speaker 6: resigned but continued to work on his own time and
Speaker 6: at his own expense, determined to find justice for John Benay.
Speaker 6: He determined the Ramsey family was not involved in her death,
Speaker 6: but died in twenty ten before he could identify the killer.
Speaker 6: Thousands of people attended his funeral service, including John Ramsey
Speaker 6: and the detective's lifelong friend and colleague, John Anderson, along
Speaker 6: with a handful of retired detectives. Anderson and Smith family
Speaker 6: continued to pursue justice. Aiste on Smith's work now for
Speaker 6: the first time and Lou and John Beney Anderson tells
Speaker 6: the story of Smith's investigation and why the Smit family
Speaker 6: team now believes that the killer can be identified. The
Speaker 6: book that we're featuring this evening is Lou and John Beney,
Speaker 6: A Legendaries Lawman's Quest to Solve a Beauty Queen's Murder,
Speaker 6: with my special guest author, John Wesley Anderson. Welcome to
Speaker 6: the program, and thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 6: John Wesley Anderson.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Dan, It's a privilege to be with you.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much and congratulations on this extraordinary book.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. I accept that on behalf of the team.
Speaker 4: There was quite a significant team over the last several
Speaker 4: years that have been involved in making sure this book
Speaker 4: was out there and that the truth was known.
Speaker 6: You write about that what you wanted to do with
Speaker 6: this book, what you intended, the three things that you
Speaker 6: hoped that this book would produce. Could you tell us
Speaker 6: about that briefly?
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you. In the purpose of the book is
Speaker 4: to do three things. Is to get the truth out there.
Speaker 4: There's been a lot of misperceptions and untruths about the book,
Speaker 4: so that's first thing. The second thing is to communicate
Speaker 4: the belief that Loose Smith had that no member of
Speaker 4: the Ramsey family was involved in any way in the
Speaker 4: death of John Bennet, and that's been established I think
Speaker 4: in the book beyond any reasonable adapt But the third
Speaker 4: thing is to encourage particularly law enforcement, except the fact
Speaker 4: that this case is still solvable. The DNA is good
Speaker 4: enough that it can identify who the killer is, it
Speaker 4: can show who the killer is not, and it can
Speaker 4: exclude people of interests that have been brought up in
Speaker 4: the case, such as the Ramsey family.
Speaker 6: Let's get right away to this fascinating story that you
Speaker 6: have here, which includes your mentor, Loui Smith. Andrew Lewis
Speaker 6: Louis Smith born nineteen thirty five in Denver, Colorado, entered
Speaker 6: the Navy at seventeen and married his sweetheart Barbara. Four kids, Lori, Cindy, Mark,
Speaker 6: and Don. I became a comp in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 6: and he called you, Johnny. You were eighteen years old
Speaker 6: working at the Identification Bureau in Colorado Springs Police Department.
Speaker 6: This is nineteen seventy two. Tell us about Andrew Lewis
Speaker 6: lou Smidt, what you already knew about him, what was
Speaker 6: his already his background that you knew about, And tell
Speaker 6: us about the relationship that you gradually and eventually developed
Speaker 6: with Loosemid.
Speaker 4: Happy to do that. One minor correction, just a slip.
Speaker 4: The murder was in ninety six. Lou began his career
Speaker 4: in sixty six, nineteen sixty six on the Colins Springs
Speaker 4: Police Department. And I started in nineteen seventy two, right
Speaker 4: out of high school. It wasn't old that be a
Speaker 4: police officer in Colorado you have to be a twenty
Speaker 4: one to be a police officer to make an arraster
Speaker 4: carry again. But at eighteen, I was hired full time
Speaker 4: by the Colors Springs Police Department as a cadet and
Speaker 4: for the most part we were given administrative jobs that
Speaker 4: worked in communications, evidence, then cound lot. I worked in
Speaker 4: the Identication record section was my first job for a
Speaker 4: year and a half and that's where I met Lou
Speaker 4: and the detect At the time, the detective bureau was
Speaker 4: just down the hall from the ID Bureau Records identication,
Speaker 4: and whenever detecteds needed to see if there was a
Speaker 4: bug shot on a person over they if they had
Speaker 4: higher records or anything and file, they came to the
Speaker 4: Identification ID Bureau counter and cadets as well as civilians
Speaker 4: would ask the detectives what is it that you need?
Speaker 4: And Lou really stood out from one of the very
Speaker 4: first times I've met him there. He was so thorough,
Speaker 4: so engaging. He was just a very polite, humble man,
Speaker 4: and so I really enjoyed that interaction and went out
Speaker 4: of my way whenever he asked for something that was
Speaker 4: related to a case. In the middle of that not
Speaker 4: we worked shift work, so in the middle of the
Speaker 4: night I'd often read the unsolved cases, and when lou
Speaker 4: had come in and talked to him about those cases,
Speaker 4: because he's were un solders today called gold cases. And
Speaker 4: so when he filed a report, I'd go through his
Speaker 4: supplementary reports to see how he detailed an interview or
Speaker 4: an interrogation or a search board. And he clearly stood
Speaker 4: out from the other detectives just he was so terbole
Speaker 4: and he became kind of an early mentor role model
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 6: He said that Loosenet believed in this Litcard's exchange principle
Speaker 6: or the transfer theory.
Speaker 4: Explain that, yes, professor Lecard from Lyons, France was the
Speaker 4: worst first one who actually documented this theory. Then there's
Speaker 4: a couple of different names transfer theory and the exchange theory,
Speaker 4: but basically what the point it gets across is that
Speaker 4: whenever a crime is committed, the suspect either leaves something
Speaker 4: at the scene in or takes something with them and
Speaker 4: that exchange. It's almost a triad between the suspect, the victim,
Speaker 4: and scene. And the stronger you can connect those three
Speaker 4: points true physical evidence, through interviews with witnesses, through a
Speaker 4: statements conventions, through interviews with the victim of their life,
Speaker 4: the stronger your case becomes. And what Lou would do
Speaker 4: is he would go to extraordinary debts to prove that
Speaker 4: transfer theory and document extensively well, what was taken from
Speaker 4: the scene, What might the suspect have with them in
Speaker 4: his possession if we get a search wark what did
Speaker 4: he leave at the scene.
Speaker 6: And so that.
Speaker 4: Fundamental understanding and application of the transfer theory is something
Speaker 4: that in experienced detectives just may not have a good
Speaker 4: understanding of. What Lou really understood. Even beyond that is,
Speaker 4: after he returned from the Cross Springs Lace Department, he
Speaker 4: went to work for the Coroner's office in the District
Speaker 4: Attorney's office, so he understood the medical legal side of
Speaker 4: death investigations side investigations. Work a number of major cases there,
Speaker 4: and he had experience in over two hundred murder investigations
Speaker 4: to include pennsul murder, that kid Netmber in Colorado's or
Speaker 4: in El Paso County Outsyagoma Springs, Colorado, where he was
Speaker 4: able to take the same physical evidence that had been
Speaker 4: there all along in a cold case that was four
Speaker 4: years old, had in languished of a young girl by
Speaker 4: the name of a HEATHERD. On Church and within eleven
Speaker 4: weeks he had that suspect, I identified it in custody
Speaker 4: in that suspected up pleading guilty to this first degree
Speaker 4: murder and later pled guilty to a second counter of
Speaker 4: first degree murder. And that was all that Lou Smith's
Speaker 4: worked with he and his team detectives.
Speaker 6: You also chronicle another case where you say that evil
Speaker 6: came to Colorado Springs in nineteen seventy five with the
Speaker 6: Freddie Lee Glenn, and Michael Corbett, and that one of
Speaker 6: these victims was Karen Grammer Kelsey, Grammar's sister, and that
Speaker 6: Lew had connected the crimes of Glenn and Corbett and
Speaker 6: which we were five murders. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 6: about Lou and his involvement in this case, a very
Speaker 6: tragic case where Aaron Kelsey, Grammer's younger sister had a
Speaker 6: job here in Clora Springs at a restaurant and a
Speaker 6: group of African American arm robbers came in to rob
Speaker 6: the restaurant, left without any money at Karen, who was
Speaker 6: dating one of the other employees that were one of
Speaker 6: the cooks, was waiting for him to get off and
Speaker 6: as the Robberty's suspects for leaving the restaurant. They abducted
Speaker 6: Kieran and she was brutally raped and murdered. And this
Speaker 6: was one of a string of cases that these suspects
Speaker 6: were involved in, and I was only on the scene
Speaker 6: on one of these. I was a young rookie police
Speaker 6: officer by that time, and I of course knew Lou
Speaker 6: from the time I'd been at police cadet. But Lou
Speaker 6: was one of the detectives on one of the scenes
Speaker 6: that I was present at. But he had the ability
Speaker 6: to look at the evidence of all of these different cases.
Speaker 6: I think there were five that he ended up late
Speaker 6: together with the same group of suspects, those of whom
Speaker 6: were at the time for Carson soldiers for Carson is
Speaker 6: a large military base here in the Color Springs, Colorado area,
Speaker 6: and ended up getting convictions on both Borbaden and Glenn.
Speaker 6: And the reason I kind of bring out those earlier
Speaker 6: cases is to show the complexity of the investigations and
Speaker 6: his capability of a detective to see things and a
Speaker 6: lot of other detectives myself included, may have overlooked, and
Speaker 6: he had the experience and knowledge to apply those investigative
Speaker 6: skills on cases successfully. So when he was hired to
Speaker 6: be part of the Boulder District Attorney's Office Ramsey Task Force,
Speaker 6: he brought all that experience with him and that was
Speaker 6: sorely needed because the Boulder Police Department did not have
Speaker 6: experienced homicide detectives. For people not familiar with Boulder, Colorado,
Speaker 6: it's a bedroom community outside of Denver, Colorado, the state capital.
Speaker 6: It's a beautiful community. It has the state at Coloro
Speaker 6: State University is their large campus. There's some high tech
Speaker 6: industry there, but it's a smaller community where you don't
Speaker 6: get a lot of major crimes to include home sides. Now,
Speaker 6: you just mentioned that Lou Smith's involvement with Boulder Caiado
Speaker 6: Police Department and this task force, the Ramsey Task Force,
Speaker 6: tell us where you are in your career at that time.
Speaker 6: You talked about that you gained invaluable experience being involved
Speaker 6: with Low seeing how he operated from the beginning right
Speaker 6: to the conviction, through the entire process, even the following
Speaker 6: two perpetrators we talked about. He had asked you to
Speaker 6: come along to that interview, so very very interesting how
Speaker 6: he got how involved you were in learning from Lou
Speaker 6: Smidt tell us about the circumstances in which he is
Speaker 6: involved with the Ramsey case, and what is his belief
Speaker 6: initially about the Ramseys and their field.
Speaker 4: Good question, and let me try to wrap that up
Speaker 4: with the belief that he had going in. And I
Speaker 4: know this because we talked about this when he was
Speaker 4: hired from being interviewed by Alex Hunder the Boulder District Attorney.
Speaker 4: Lou had used me for reference and he gave me
Speaker 4: heads up that Hey, Johnny, you might be getting call
Speaker 4: from Boulder DA. I put you down as a reference.
Speaker 4: They're putting together this tennis force and they need a
Speaker 4: couple of experienced investigators, so I was happy to give
Speaker 4: a reference to the Bulder DA. At that time I
Speaker 4: had been elected the sheriff in Alpass County. Hola Spring
Speaker 4: is the county seat. Boulder is about an hour and
Speaker 4: a half in a north and a little west of
Speaker 4: where I lived at the time, and when I became
Speaker 4: the sheriff in nineteen ninety four, I was elected. I
Speaker 4: started Janior mccamp in ninety five and Lou became my
Speaker 4: captain of detectives. Unfortunately, his wife, Barb had been diagnosed
Speaker 4: with cancer and was undergoing some treatment. So Lou ended
Speaker 4: up retiring from the county from the Sheriff's office, had
Speaker 4: already previously retired from the police as and I and
Speaker 4: that so he had gone into retirement. When the Boulder
Speaker 4: DA called him, he was Alexhander. The DA Lou out
Speaker 4: of retirement to be a part of this task force.
Speaker 4: So going in. Before Lou started first day with the
Speaker 4: task force, he and I had talked when he gave
Speaker 4: me heads up that the DA may be calling me,
Speaker 4: and we both thought, again, just from living to information
Speaker 4: from the media and what the police department had put
Speaker 4: out there, this was probably going to be a pretty
Speaker 4: straightforward case. It sounded like initially that it had to
Speaker 4: have been a family member, since there was reportedly no
Speaker 4: footprints in the snow, no forest entry. And what Lou
Speaker 4: said is, well, I think it's probably just a matter
Speaker 4: of supporting through in the family was responsible. But you know,
Speaker 4: within probably a week or two, it wasn't very long. Actually,
Speaker 4: the next time I spoke to Lou, I asked him
Speaker 4: how things were going in Boulder, and the first thing
Speaker 4: he said is, Johnny, there's something wrong with this case.
Speaker 4: He said, The evidence doesn't make with what we're being told,
Speaker 4: and the more he got involved in the case, the
Speaker 4: more he was perplexed with what is being told by
Speaker 4: the police to the media and to the public into
Speaker 4: other law enforcement was not at all the truth. There
Speaker 4: was forced entry into the home in the basement. There
Speaker 4: was no footprints in the snow on the south side
Speaker 4: the house because the snow had melted. In Colorado, when
Speaker 4: you have a southern facing the home or business that
Speaker 4: the sun warms the snow there more quickly than on
Speaker 4: the shaded side, so the snow had already melted. And
Speaker 4: Blue came to the belief that there had to have
Speaker 4: been an intruder who came into the home. And when
Speaker 4: he brought that to the attention of the Boulder detectives,
Speaker 4: they were incensed he was not going along with what
Speaker 4: their theory had been it was a family member, and
Speaker 4: whenever he pointed out physical evidence to the contrary, he
Speaker 4: was dismissed and really chastised for not going along with
Speaker 4: what they were saying. I know I'll be criticized too
Speaker 4: by Boulder and other law enforcement agencies for speaking out,
Speaker 4: but Lou had the courage to say, this is just
Speaker 4: not right. The work the case is as long as
Speaker 4: he could tolerate it for a year and a half.
Speaker 4: But when the Boulder Grand Jury was being in panel
Speaker 4: to indict the parents, Lou resigned in protest and he
Speaker 4: wrote a letter, a very heartfelt letter to the district
Speaker 4: attorney and like Senator who had hired him, and he said,
Speaker 4: I just cannot be a part of this injustice. He said,
Speaker 4: it just is unethical. And so he resigned in protests
Speaker 4: and had to fight his way to get in to
Speaker 4: testify at the grand jury.
Speaker 6: Let's go back, Let's unwine this story and go back
Speaker 6: to the faithful. December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety six, five
Speaker 6: point fifty two, Patsy Ramsey calls nine one one. Tell
Speaker 6: us what the family had done on Christmas Day? Where
Speaker 6: they had gone, You talk about the plans that they
Speaker 6: had for Disneyland a few days later. Tell us where
Speaker 6: the family was at beforehand, and what happens at five
Speaker 6: point fifty two, and what is the first response from
Speaker 6: Boulder Police Department.
Speaker 4: And I'm happy to and I might qualify this that
Speaker 4: in deciding to write this book about two years ago,
Speaker 4: I realized that I was in a unique position to
Speaker 4: write this not only had a known blue personally and
Speaker 4: been involved on the fringe of the investigation since he
Speaker 4: was first brought in. But the family, through the Smith
Speaker 4: family team that I'm still gard of, I was given
Speaker 4: unrestricted access to his investigative notes in his tentation. He
Speaker 4: put it together a a an extraordinary spreadsheet, very detailed.
Speaker 4: Family was so supportive of this book and helping get
Speaker 4: the truth out there that I had restricted access to
Speaker 4: six hundred and thirty two slides that he had put
Speaker 4: together in his lifetime, a spreadsheet of eight hundred and
Speaker 4: eighty three columns I mean rose fifty four callum of
Speaker 4: each of these spreadsheets. This spreadsheet, each the cells over
Speaker 4: forty seven thousand potential pieces of information. The report, the
Speaker 4: Boulder Police report on this investigation is over one hundred
Speaker 4: thousand pages. And he had all of this information on
Speaker 4: his computer and his investigative notes. And what I realized
Speaker 4: was what he left behind his legacy was this investigation
Speaker 4: that now I was in a unique position to write about.
Speaker 4: I had been with him on so many of these cases.
Speaker 4: So got to the point where I felt, you know
Speaker 4: that the family deserves this information to come to help
Speaker 4: public deserves to know the truth and if I don't
Speaker 4: write this story, well, then who is I apologized, Dan,
Speaker 4: I kind of went off on a tangent there, and
Speaker 4: I don't know that the answer your question originally, But
Speaker 4: can you respond and get me back on track if
Speaker 4: I took this off on the Sidebarder.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm glad you did. You did indicate that based
Speaker 6: on Loosemith's comprehensive and extraordinary note taking along with these slides,
Speaker 6: the amount of slides that he has that are on
Speaker 6: the Wild Blue Press website for people to see from
Speaker 6: that you were able to go back to December twenty sixth,
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety six, see what the Boulder police response was initially,
Speaker 6: and see how this tragedy unfolded. Tell us about five
Speaker 6: point fifty two and Patsy Ramsey's cult into nine one
Speaker 6: one and what happens when Boulder police respond.
Speaker 4: Thank you to forget me back. And I should make
Speaker 4: sure that I'm not overstating what's on the Wild Blue
Speaker 4: Press website. Just wwww dot wildbluepress dot com. What's on there?
Speaker 4: Or twenty slides of loes. The book has an additional
Speaker 4: thirty six, so it's only fifty six slides of his
Speaker 4: six hundred and thirty two slide presentation that he put together.
Speaker 4: The other unique thing that I have is true, lou
Speaker 4: he introduced me to both Patsy and John Ramsey. Patsy
Speaker 4: passed away four years after the worker at the age
Speaker 4: of forty nine, but I have since then been in
Speaker 4: contact with John Ramsey as well as his son, John
Speaker 4: Andrew Ramsey.
Speaker 6: And so I'm in a.
Speaker 4: Unique position when someone might make a statement based upon
Speaker 4: secondhand information speculation. Getting in a unique position because I
Speaker 4: know the story that you're asking about at five Pot
Speaker 4: fifty two a m under Simmer twelfy six, nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 4: not only through Low's Lands as a Thomspen detective and
Speaker 4: having still in this case for the last twenty six years,
Speaker 4: but I've also heard this story from John Ramsey, John
Speaker 4: Bennie's father. As the family wakes up that morning, Patsy
Speaker 4: the mother goes down the huge home three level above
Speaker 4: ground and then a basement, and she's going down from
Speaker 4: the upper level, which is where the master bedroom suite was.
Speaker 4: As she's going down the spiral staircase on the bottom step,
Speaker 4: she finds this three page ransom note that the killer
Speaker 4: had laughed saying that they have their daughter and if
Speaker 4: they're not paid this ransom demand one hundred and eighty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, then it should be murdered. And so she
Speaker 4: runs upstairs to the second floor, which is where John
Speaker 4: Benney's bedroom was, finds the bed empty, screams out. John Ramsey,
Speaker 4: who is upstairs in the master bedroom, comes down. They
Speaker 4: search the house, they can't find her. Immediately, John Ramsey
Speaker 4: tells Patsy, now call the police.
Speaker 6: Call the police. Why he's searching, you know, the rest
Speaker 6: of the home. And to also feel like dear question.
Speaker 4: About what the family had been doing that day, what
Speaker 4: they were intending to do, because that's an important part
Speaker 4: of the story. Is on Christmas Day, December twenty six,
Speaker 4: ninety six, and when they open their presence, you know,
Speaker 4: just like any family would. That evening, they go to
Speaker 4: a French house, they have a nice dinner, and then
Speaker 4: they come home around ten thirty. Return home in the car.
Speaker 4: There's an attached broad floor. John Beney had all the
Speaker 4: sleeve per day stairs, it's bed, and then and Bert
Speaker 4: also goes to sleep. He's on that same level. So
Speaker 4: it's been a long day for them. Christmas Day everybody
Speaker 4: is tired, and they're trying to prepare for the next
Speaker 4: day because they were going to be leaving early in
Speaker 4: the morning. John Ramsey is pilot, then he would at
Speaker 4: the time his own plane, and they were going to
Speaker 4: fly to their baby ship home in the four Ramseys,
Speaker 4: John Patsy, John nam Peru. They were going to catch
Speaker 4: commercial flight from Denver to Florida, where they were going
Speaker 4: to board the Disney CRUs who was a lot of
Speaker 4: exciting time head that they had been planning.
Speaker 6: So John tell us about the initial search by police,
Speaker 6: what they discover, before we talk about the subsequent searches
Speaker 6: of the Ramsey home.
Speaker 4: The first responding officer is Officer French from the Boulder
Speaker 4: Police Department. When he arrives within minutes so the nine
Speaker 4: on one call, he's handed the kidnapping note. He takes
Speaker 4: a brief look at it, then he searches the home.
Speaker 4: Does not open the door downstairs in the basement where
Speaker 4: John Benney's body was found. But he was there in
Speaker 4: the basement and he saw that door and for whatever
Speaker 4: reason did not unlock it and go inside. A fall
Speaker 4: for assistance. One of the good things that happened is
Speaker 4: there's other officers, supervisors and the crime lab that arrives
Speaker 4: and they do photograph the scene early on, and those
Speaker 4: photographs were important for Lou to be able to determine
Speaker 4: that there was a window standing open in the basement.
Speaker 4: It was a window that had been previously opened by
Speaker 4: John Ramsay munstertly when he had been locked out of
Speaker 4: the home. And Lou saw that there was this large
Speaker 4: green suitcase propped up below the window that he theorized
Speaker 4: might have been used by the suspect and exiting the home.
Speaker 4: So there was some good photography at the crime scene
Speaker 4: that was used later on.
Speaker 6: Where was the suitcase from and what was found inside
Speaker 6: that suitcase?
Speaker 4: The suitcase, all of the luggage of the family was
Speaker 4: in the basement, but it was not in that position.
Speaker 4: And so when John Ramsey was asked by Detective Arnt
Speaker 4: to take one other person who was in the home
Speaker 4: and searched the house from top to bottom. When he
Speaker 4: went into the basement with this other neighbor, this is
Speaker 4: now seven hours after nine one one. But when John
Speaker 4: Ramsey went down the basement with the other gentleman, he
Speaker 4: pointed out that that window was standing open. He said,
Speaker 4: that's the window that I got in that I'd broken before,
Speaker 4: and he said that suitcase wasn't there, that doesn't belong there.
Speaker 4: Inside the suitcase was two important things. That was not
Speaker 4: John Benney's suitcase, but inside was one of her Barbie
Speaker 4: dolls in one of her favorite books, a Doctor Zeus's Book.
Speaker 4: And what Lu theorized is that the suspect had intended
Speaker 4: to remove John Benny from the home by being inside
Speaker 4: that suitcase, and when he was preparing that, he obviously
Speaker 4: wanted her to have a book and a doll and
Speaker 4: so Lu believed that she was alive when that suitcase
Speaker 4: was positioned below that window. But for whatever reason, whether
Speaker 4: or not, they weren't able to it's window, the suitcase
Speaker 4: through the window. But that's an important part of showing
Speaker 4: that there was an attempt to kidnap.
Speaker 6: The little girl. Now this ensuing seven hours. They look
Speaker 6: at the ransom note. They look at the gist of
Speaker 6: the ransom notes, which directs them to the specific specific
Speaker 6: amounts of money one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. And
Speaker 6: you write, when John was asked what the one hundred
Speaker 6: and eighteen thousand dollars might be, that specific amount that
Speaker 6: was there was blank checks or there was indications of
Speaker 6: that amount of money which was a bonus for that
Speaker 6: year of his work, so that the perpetrator could have
Speaker 6: seen some evidence of that specific number, one hundred and
Speaker 6: eighteen thousand. So they were arranging. He was arranging to
Speaker 6: get that money in that ensuing seven hours before he
Speaker 6: was asked by a friend and the Detective Aren't to
Speaker 6: go search the house once again. He opened that door
Speaker 6: that had not been previously open, and he discovered John
Speaker 6: Bennet on her back, her hands tied with sort of
Speaker 6: a string like material, and a black duct tape on
Speaker 6: her mouth. Tell us what he does and as a result,
Speaker 6: obviously contaminates this crime scene.
Speaker 4: Yes, and tragically, one of the biggest mistakes that was
Speaker 4: made by the police early on was not locking down
Speaker 4: that crime scene and preserving the crime scene. There were
Speaker 4: people that were allowed in, family members rolling throughout the house.
Speaker 4: The ransom note was passed around to different people that
Speaker 4: the family's priest was wowed into the home, and detectives
Speaker 4: came and went. Crime scene people came and went. Nobody
Speaker 4: looked into that behind that door for seven hours until
Speaker 4: Detective Aren't asked John Ramsey to take one other man
Speaker 4: that was there a friend in searched the home. The paychecks.
Speaker 4: I should mention that John was Ramsey was paid a
Speaker 4: bonus at the beginning of the year for the one
Speaker 4: hundred and eighteen thousand dollars, and that amount was on
Speaker 4: each of the paycheck steps that was subsequently printed throughout
Speaker 4: the year. Since this was the end of the year,
Speaker 4: there were paycheck steps, John explains throughout the house, So
Speaker 4: anybody could have looked at that paycheck step and seeing
Speaker 4: that mount one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. That was
Speaker 4: his best guess of where that amount came from. Other
Speaker 4: than that it really had no value to him.
Speaker 6: Now the also the thing that Lou Smith noticed there
Speaker 6: was other evidence outside that he thought was pursuant to
Speaker 6: the injuries that John Bennet had experienced. So tell us
Speaker 6: about the baseball bats.
Speaker 4: Lou in reviewing the crime scene photos on the exterior
Speaker 4: of the home that we're taking that morning before the
Speaker 4: body was found, he noticed an aluminum baseball bat, a
Speaker 4: black one that was along the foundation on the north
Speaker 4: side of the house where he thought that maybe of significance.
Speaker 4: Was the day after the murder, during the autopsy the
Speaker 4: corner found that His determination was that she died through
Speaker 4: a fixial strangulation, but also had a severe fracture to
Speaker 4: the right side of her skull that ran from the
Speaker 4: front to the back eight inch skull fracture. Another expert
Speaker 4: had later determined that it was equivalent to person falling
Speaker 4: off a three story building and landing on their head.
Speaker 4: What Lou believed is that had to have been inflicted
Speaker 4: such as violent blow, probably had some kind of a
Speaker 4: blunt object. And when he saw that photo of the
Speaker 4: baseball bat near the butler door on the north side
Speaker 4: of the house, he thought that was significant for two reasons.
Speaker 4: The butler door on the morning of the twenty six
Speaker 4: was found to be unlocked, that no forced entry. Didn't
Speaker 4: know if it was unlocked the night before when the neighbors,
Speaker 4: one of the officers unlocked that door and left open.
Speaker 4: But when you go in that butler door. Lu pointed
Speaker 4: out that theviral staircase where the note was found was
Speaker 4: very close to that butler door, so he thought that
Speaker 4: was significant. There's a second baseball bat that Lou noticed
Speaker 4: in the exterior Creansine photos taken that morning on the
Speaker 4: south side of the house. Now the Ramsays were asked,
Speaker 4: are those baseball bats yours? And they said no, Neither
Speaker 4: of the baseball bats were theirs. They didn't recognize them. However,
Speaker 4: they did say it's not beyond the possibility that some
Speaker 4: of the neighbor kids who came over and loved to
Speaker 4: play with Burke and John Benney, that they might have
Speaker 4: brought the baseball bats over there, but they thought that
Speaker 4: they were not part of any of the toys that
Speaker 4: the family owned. Salutha that baseball bat, especially on the
Speaker 4: north side, could be very significant.
Speaker 6: Let's talk about the immediately the Boulder Police Department and
Speaker 6: their conclusions as to what happened, which informs how they proceed.
Speaker 4: Within four days the case detective and supervisors. But one
Speaker 4: of the detectives, tr Trump Tom track Heel, was filling
Speaker 4: out a LAB request for the Colored Bureau Investigation CBI
Speaker 4: and at the top this abated twelve thirty of ninety six,
Speaker 4: so four days after the murder. He's filling out the
Speaker 4: LAB request form and puts at the top that it
Speaker 4: is John Benny Ramsey is the victim. The suspects are
Speaker 4: Patsy Ramsey and John Ramsey and puts the offense as
Speaker 4: WillFull kill homicide family. So immediately within forties of the murder,
Speaker 4: the detectives had reached the conclusion that the parents were
Speaker 4: responsible for that murder. And what's tragic is in the
Speaker 4: fifteenth of January nineteen ninety seventh, so within three weeks
Speaker 4: of the murder, the lab report came back on those
Speaker 4: articles that were submitted for biological testing, as well as
Speaker 4: other lab examinations. But the fingernail scrapings that were obtained
Speaker 4: during the autopsy on the twenty seventh of December nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety six, as well as the panties that John that
Speaker 4: he was worrying does identifying DNA that excluded the Ramsey
Speaker 4: family specifically John Ramsey, Burke Ramsey, Patsy Ramsey, a total
Speaker 4: of ten people whose DNA blood was submitted. One of
Speaker 4: those people that's named on that report is Patsy Ramsey.
Speaker 4: What's said is on that same day, December twenty or
Speaker 4: December thirtieth, nineteen ninety six, the Bowlder Police Department is
Speaker 4: holding a press conference and during the press conference, the
Speaker 4: Public Information Office for PIO makes the statement that they
Speaker 4: had obtained blood samples from all of the Ramsey family
Speaker 4: except for Patsy Ramsey, and the PIO makes some kind
Speaker 4: of a comment about perhaps she was too distraught to comply. Well,
Speaker 4: that's a lie. That is not true, and they knew
Speaker 4: it was not true because the detective who's in charge
Speaker 4: of the evidence has just submitted a form with all
Speaker 4: of their names submitted the biological samples. One or two
Speaker 4: possibilities either the PIO just misspoke and it's an inverting mistake,
Speaker 4: or it was a deliberate, intentional distortion of the truth.
Speaker 6: Now, had it.
Speaker 4: Been an unintentional mistake, somebody should have stepped forward, either
Speaker 4: during that press conference or immediately after and say, wait
Speaker 4: a minute, we have to do a correction. You know,
Speaker 4: we did have her sample, but that was not done.
Speaker 4: So it implies that this was a deliberate, intentional attempt
Speaker 4: to use the media and provide this information to the
Speaker 4: public in an effort to coerce a confession or statement
Speaker 4: or cooperation from the parents.
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Speaker 6: the philosophy that Lousimid had, and of course subsequently you
Speaker 6: have is that the belief that the perpetrator brings things
Speaker 6: to the crime scene and then takes things away from
Speaker 6: the crime scene. Tell us what loose Smith investigated in
Speaker 6: terms of what was left and what more importantly the
Speaker 6: killer took with them.
Speaker 4: Well l pointed out was there were several items of
Speaker 4: physical evidence left at the crime scene that had to
Speaker 4: have been brought by the suspect into the home. Specifically,
Speaker 4: the black duct tape that was found over John Binney's mouth.
Speaker 4: It had been torn on both sides, is about a
Speaker 4: four or five inch strip of duct tape, but instead
Speaker 4: of being cut, it was torn. Well, that's important is
Speaker 4: if you could find the role of duct tape that
Speaker 4: was torn, that was used before and after that piece
Speaker 4: was torn, you could make those together. But nowhere in
Speaker 4: the Ramsey home were there any black duct tape roles found. Ever.
Speaker 4: Secondly was the white parachute cord known as pachord five
Speaker 4: point fifty that was used by the suspect to tie
Speaker 4: their wrists with slip knot and then also a separatist
Speaker 4: used to fashion the garat that she was strangled with.
Speaker 4: There was no other pursuit cord found anywhere in the home.
Speaker 4: That was another item that had been brought in. The
Speaker 4: other thing that Lou did was he showed that there
Speaker 4: were two marks wound patterns, one on the right side
Speaker 4: of John Beni's cheek on the right side look her ear,
Speaker 4: and the other one on her back, and Lou believed
Speaker 4: those were made by a stun gun, where there was
Speaker 4: no stun gun in the possession of the ramsays they
Speaker 4: had never bought one, they didn't know anybody who owned
Speaker 4: a stun gun. There was not one found in the
Speaker 4: crime scene or anywhere in the home by the police.
Speaker 4: So that was another item that Lou said had been
Speaker 4: brought into the crime scene by the suspect, and he
Speaker 4: also took that item with him when he left. But
Speaker 4: the most important thing that he took with him, Luke
Speaker 4: point out, was his DNA. He left DNA both into
Speaker 4: the fingernails on the panties and then later in two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight, another lab report verified that there was
Speaker 4: touch traced DNA that was compatible with the DNA on
Speaker 4: the finger nails and the paeanties that was found on
Speaker 4: John Beannese Long John since she was wearing for pajama bottom.
Speaker 4: So there's three sources of DNA that was compatible with
Speaker 4: one another in two thousand and eight that excluded the family.
Speaker 4: It also came back and showed it was mail DNA.
Speaker 6: You also mentioned that there was a bootprint left by
Speaker 6: the body in that wine cellar.
Speaker 4: Yes, Lou thought that was significant because this high tech
Speaker 4: bootprint was right next to John Beanese's body and it
Speaker 4: was very crisp, very clean, so it didn't look like
Speaker 4: it had been there very long. But all of the
Speaker 4: first responders, the lab personnel who had been there, their bootprint,
Speaker 4: their footwear was checked, as was all of the footwear
Speaker 4: and the Ramsey household, and there was no high tech
Speaker 4: footwear being worn by any of those people. So Lou
Speaker 4: their eyes that it's probable that the suspect who entered
Speaker 4: the whole it was wearing high tech boots.
Speaker 6: Now let's get to the explanation of despite what Lou
Speaker 6: Smith has already found, what already has been determined about
Speaker 6: the DNA itself, basically excluding the entire Ramsey family, and
Speaker 6: this idea that Lou points out, all of these things
Speaker 6: that were not found. Any evidence was found of duct
Speaker 6: tape or parachute cord or high tech boots or stun
Speaker 6: gun or any evidence to point that the Ramseys had
Speaker 6: anything to do with the assault itself. In terms of
Speaker 6: all the things we're missing from the home, it makes
Speaker 6: no sense where they would have gone to if they
Speaker 6: were in that home and it was searched thoroughly. Let's
Speaker 6: talk about how Lou wants to make a presentation to
Speaker 6: the prosecutor in this case and how a grand jury
Speaker 6: was impaneled and the results.
Speaker 4: Yes, Lou was adamant that the grand jury should hear
Speaker 4: all of the evidence in this case, and not just
Speaker 4: certain parts of the evidence that would omit any possiblity
Speaker 4: of an intruder theory intruder coming to the home. So
Speaker 4: what Lou had to do was this was right after
Speaker 4: he left the Boulder DA's office, after the grand jury
Speaker 4: was impaneled by the special prosecutors, and Lou wrote a
Speaker 4: letter to the grand jury foreman asking permission to come
Speaker 4: in and speak and show some of his slide presentation
Speaker 4: to the grand juror. And he said in his letter
Speaker 4: that there's evidence here of an intruder that needs to
Speaker 4: be shown. Instead, the special prosecutor for the grand jury
Speaker 4: contacted Lou and said, you're not going to be allowed
Speaker 4: to testify for the grand jury, and we want all
Speaker 4: of your case reports and the slide presentation back. You
Speaker 4: shouldn't have any of that information. Lou had to hire,
Speaker 4: didn't hire that. He atteamed legal services through two attorneys
Speaker 4: pro bono. That they didn't charge him for this, but
Speaker 4: they represented Lou and argued that the information Lou had,
Speaker 4: he didn't take anything from the Boulder Police or the
Speaker 4: DIAISM because they already had that. He just had copies
Speaker 4: of the autops report, copies of the grand scene photos,
Speaker 4: copies of different documents police reports that came from their
Speaker 4: file in CBI reports for example. So what the decision
Speaker 4: was Since these were already in the possession of the
Speaker 4: Boulder Police, the decision was made that he would be
Speaker 4: allowed to testify. He asked for three hours and only
Speaker 4: gave you two hours. Not sure which slides he got
Speaker 4: to present and that limited amount of time, but he
Speaker 4: did get to fulfill his request to testify. He later
Speaker 4: told me that it was a very difficult, challenging examination.
Speaker 4: In presentation, he said he was never more rudely treated
Speaker 4: by an attorney or by members of the grand jury
Speaker 4: as he experienced during that session.
Speaker 6: Now they what is stated in that grand jury decision.
Speaker 4: The grand jury transcripts have never been released, and we've
Speaker 4: tried as our team or spent family team to obtain them.
Speaker 4: Different attorneys have attempted to attain copies of the grand
Speaker 4: jury transcripts to no avail. They've never been shown to
Speaker 4: the public, which is wrong. We should know what the
Speaker 4: grand jury transcripts say. What we were told was there
Speaker 4: were indictments against both Patsy Ramsey and John Ramsey. For
Speaker 4: some it wasn't for homicide, it was some lesser crime
Speaker 4: will fold something about I don't have it here in
Speaker 4: front of me, but subjecting the child to dangerous situation
Speaker 4: or something like that. Those charges were never filed, so
Speaker 4: that grand jury returned to true Bill, which is why
Speaker 4: Luke could talk about it. But the parents were never
Speaker 4: charged with those crimes, primarily in Low's belief was that
Speaker 4: they couldn't be proven. In fact, the district attorney said
Speaker 4: that during a press conference that the grand jury has
Speaker 4: concluded their investigation, but there's no evidence to substantiate any
Speaker 4: wrongful doing. But what also, what the da knew was
Speaker 4: that the parents were represented by major law firm out
Speaker 4: of Denver, and no doubt the district attorney knew their
Speaker 4: store this was going to be Lou Smith, and this
Speaker 4: was a case that against appearance, they could not be proven.
Speaker 4: But the statute limitations expired after three years. So that's
Speaker 4: another reason why we think the grand jury transcripts should
Speaker 4: be released.
Speaker 6: Now, you write about what happens afterwards, and you go
Speaker 6: to February twenty third, two thousand and a Perfect Murder,
Speaker 6: Perfect Town TV miniseries broadcast by CBS, tell us a
Speaker 6: little bit about this and why you've included some of
Speaker 6: this information.
Speaker 4: There's been several documentaries, articles, books like mine that have
Speaker 4: been written. One of the ones that did get a
Speaker 4: lot of exposure was Lawrence Schiller's Perfect Murder, Perfect Town,
Speaker 4: and in that one there were different people, including Lou Smith,
Speaker 4: who had a major role that was played by an actor.
Speaker 4: In this case, Chris Christ Jefferson was selected to portray
Speaker 4: Lou Smith, and as he was going in to be
Speaker 4: filmed for this role of Chris Christoffers and wanted to
Speaker 4: meet Lou and flew into Colorado Springs. I was there
Speaker 4: when Lou met with Chris Christoffers and we spent the
Speaker 4: day together. It was an interesting experience, and that documentary
Speaker 4: did have a lot of success when it was released.
Speaker 6: You read about the continuing effort by Lou Smith and
Speaker 6: then your eventual involvement. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: that and how the circumstances in which all that happens,
Speaker 6: and soil we can get to the point where we
Speaker 6: talk about the extraordinary efforts that Lou continues to do
Speaker 6: to prove his stun gun theory.
Speaker 4: When Lou left the DA's office, he did take all
Speaker 4: of his investigator files, notes, his computers that contained a
Speaker 4: lot of the documents and photos with him, and then
Speaker 4: he continued on his own to investigate this case attempting
Speaker 4: to punify that the suspect. One of the things that
Speaker 4: he did after he left the DA's offic this was
Speaker 4: to continue to try to prove that it was a
Speaker 4: stun gun that was used. And the importance of that
Speaker 4: cannot be understated or overstated, because and lose bind that
Speaker 4: went to prove the intent of the killer was immobilized
Speaker 4: not to kill, but to mobilize the victim in the home,
Speaker 4: which goes with the kidnet for ransom intent. So Lou
Speaker 4: ended up doing to prove that it was a stun
Speaker 4: gun was He purchased an adult sized pig, a full
Speaker 4: grown pig with a coroner out of the Denver metro area,
Speaker 4: had the pig euthanized, and then applied the stun gun.
Speaker 4: He found a stun gun of the same make and
Speaker 4: model that he theorized was used and used the pig
Speaker 4: to recreate the stun gun marks, which came back identical
Speaker 4: to what was shown on John Benay's back. The distance
Speaker 4: between the two probes on the stun gun is important.
Speaker 4: Masure three point five centimans between the two probes, which
Speaker 4: did identify a aircaser stun gun that had been used,
Speaker 4: and Lou was able to acquire that exact model.
Speaker 6: Now tell us about the effort that Lou does to
Speaker 6: still approach Boulder Police Department, especially given his focus on
Speaker 6: this DNA. He believes that the ramses have been exonerated
Speaker 6: by virtue of this DNA and technology advancements make Lou
Speaker 6: believe that this should be definitely tested. Tell us about
Speaker 6: his efforts to approach the Boulder Police Department and offer
Speaker 6: his services.
Speaker 4: Yes throughout the rest of his life until he passed
Speaker 4: away in twenty ten. Lou continued, even though he wasn't
Speaker 4: paid to be on the DA Task Force any longer,
Speaker 4: on his own time and own expense. He wasn't working
Speaker 4: for financial gain. He was working really to help solve
Speaker 4: this case. And so he continued to send emails and
Speaker 4: what he called darts, and he would send a little
Speaker 4: dart into the Boulder Police to say, you know, this
Speaker 4: person here, their DNA needs to be checked. And he
Speaker 4: tapped on his spreadsheet of eight hundred and eighty three
Speaker 4: entries what four tier systems. So as he learned more
Speaker 4: about an individual, they would move up to the top tier.
Speaker 4: So he continued until he passed away, feeding this information
Speaker 4: to the mystery or to the police department and trying
Speaker 4: to get them to follow some of these leads. The
Speaker 4: problem he had was that the parents still remained under
Speaker 4: the umbrella of suspicion with Boulder Police detectives, and any
Speaker 4: time that Lou or anyone else would try to say,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe these other people should be looked at,
Speaker 4: there was just this pushback from the Boulder police. We
Speaker 4: felt that too. As a team. After Lou had passed away,
Speaker 4: our Smith family team met with a Boulder law enforcement
Speaker 4: on two occasions, and we felt the same thing every
Speaker 4: time we brought up somebody that should be pursued. There
Speaker 4: was just I was met with the lack of any
Speaker 4: interest at all.
Speaker 6: You're right about the extraordinary relationship that was developed between
Speaker 6: John Ramsey, Patsy Ramsey, and Lou Smith, and also that
Speaker 6: you were able to meet with Patsy once and meet
Speaker 6: with John as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm not sure why. I was still the sheriff
Speaker 4: of bel Passo County and there was a meeting in
Speaker 4: Carl Springs with an attorney who Lou was very close to,
Speaker 4: and John and Patsy Ramsey were both attending that meeting,
Speaker 4: and Lou pulled me aside and he says, hey, John,
Speaker 4: I want you to go to this meeting with me
Speaker 4: because I want you to meet John and Patsy Ramsey.
Speaker 4: I said, well, I'll be happy to do that. I
Speaker 4: didn't realize that would be the only time I got
Speaker 4: to meet Patsy because shortly after that is when she
Speaker 4: cancer returned, and then she died shortly thereafter. But Lou
Speaker 4: had established a very close relationship with John and Patsy
Speaker 4: for two reasons. Not only were they grieving parents and
Speaker 4: had first hand information on this case. But Lou also
Speaker 4: wanted to make sure that he kept that line of
Speaker 4: communication open so that he could on a person of interest.
Speaker 4: He could call them and say, you know, was this
Speaker 4: person here ever employed by X Graphics, John's Ramsey's business,
Speaker 4: So he purposely kept that line of communication open. When
Speaker 4: Patsy was diagnosed with cancer and was in hospice in Atlanta,
Speaker 4: Lou flew from Color Springs to Atlanta to spend a
Speaker 4: little bit more time with her about this case, hoping
Speaker 4: some information might come out that you would have been lost.
Speaker 4: So he documented very carefully each of those meetings that
Speaker 4: he had with Patsy Ramsey and also with John Ramsey.
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Speaker 6: The idea of what was learned, You talk about the
Speaker 6: best practices and lessons learned with this particular case, but
Speaker 6: you also were so involved with Lou Smith that you
Speaker 6: were asked by the family to do the eulogy, and
Speaker 6: very important you include what you did have to say
Speaker 6: about this very important figure in your.
Speaker 4: Life is I was honored to be asked to represent
Speaker 4: Lou's other homicide detective partners, to include Dave Spencer, who
Speaker 4: had a major role after Lou passed away in trying
Speaker 4: to continue this best friend and partner's work Lou and
Speaker 4: the book is dedicated to Blue Smidt and Dave Spencer,
Speaker 4: and without Dave's support, I don't know that we'd ever
Speaker 4: gotten as far as we have. Dave passed away also
Speaker 4: to cancer on the twenty four year anniversary of John
Speaker 4: Bedey's death December twenty sixth twenty and left a real
Speaker 4: void our with our team, and it was one of
Speaker 4: the other reasons why I decided I needed to get
Speaker 4: this book written and I relied so heavily on date
Speaker 4: with his thoroughness of documenting or interview, surveillances or reports
Speaker 4: that when he was gone, he right before he passed
Speaker 4: away impact our last face to face conversation, he asked
Speaker 4: me to come over to his house and pick up
Speaker 4: his notes in his case file. He had a three
Speaker 4: ring binder that he had put together. And so I
Speaker 4: decided that I needed to make concentrated effort getting this
Speaker 4: case docsment as best I could in this this book
Speaker 4: for me, knowing that you know, as this may be
Speaker 4: my best opportunity to do that as well.
Speaker 6: You chronicle that Lou was adamant he would be involved
Speaker 6: with this right to his dying day, and so he
Speaker 6: made appearances on with Barbara Walters an interview and Larry King.
Speaker 6: And despite those appearances and all of the incredible evidence
Speaker 6: he was able to bring forth in those interviews, still
Speaker 6: the narrative was not what loose knit would have liked,
Speaker 6: was it?
Speaker 4: It was not. It seemed like whenever he tried to
Speaker 4: bring this evidence out through media, Katie Curry or Larry
Speaker 4: King or Barbara Walters, the interviewers certainly understood lose credibility,
Speaker 4: his credentials. What he was trying to communicate, but Bolder
Speaker 4: police were continually resistant of any possible intruder theory despite
Speaker 4: all the physical evidence, and we've experienced that to our team.
Speaker 4: There was another reason I felt that the book need
Speaker 4: to be written because I'm not so sure that Boulder
Speaker 4: police really understand their case all that well. I think
Speaker 4: that there's been so much misinformation disinformation, and it's such
Speaker 4: a complex case with over one hundred thousand reports. I
Speaker 4: think that there may be some misperceptions or misinformation within
Speaker 4: the Boulder law enforcement community. Do they know that this
Speaker 4: DNA excluded the family? Was that report well known? I
Speaker 4: know Lou was still at the District Attorney's office in
Speaker 4: Boulder when it came to light, but that was like
Speaker 4: six or seven months after it was turned over to
Speaker 4: the police. So has something happened to some of the evidence,
Speaker 4: to some of the reports? How retrievable is that information?
Speaker 4: For example, Lou knew that there were a total five
Speaker 4: forensic handwriting examiners who looked at the note that the
Speaker 4: ranting note and had varying results. Some said that they
Speaker 4: couldn't exclude Patsy or one in particular said, and I
Speaker 4: think this gets misinterpreted that she may have written the note,
Speaker 4: and then that's represented that she did write the note.
Speaker 4: But there were other examiners who said they couldn't confirm
Speaker 4: that she had written note. But there was a really
Speaker 4: important one that lou had identified a Friensic examiner who
Speaker 4: gave the Frenzy his expert opinion that Patsy Ramsey was
Speaker 4: not the author of the note. She did not write
Speaker 4: the note. But this is another thing that I think
Speaker 4: Blue brought out that other people just either didn't know
Speaker 4: or ignored, was that the Ramseys both took and passed
Speaker 4: polygraph examinations by one of the leading polygraph operators in
Speaker 4: the US at the time. And one of the questions
Speaker 4: that was asked both of them was do you know
Speaker 4: who murdered John Bennie? And they said no when they
Speaker 4: passed that question. But a specific question that went to
Speaker 4: Patsy was did you write the note? And she said
Speaker 4: no and passed that part of the examination that results
Speaker 4: that were validated by an independent polygraph operator. Now I
Speaker 4: know people say, well, you know, polygraphs can't be used
Speaker 4: in court and that's why they're not admissible. They had
Speaker 4: both of the parents failed the polygraph exam examination, everybody
Speaker 4: would have said, let's see, you know that shows that
Speaker 4: they were involved. Now, as a detective, we used polygraphs
Speaker 4: and the results of the polygraphs extensively on major cases.
Speaker 4: But what we always knew was, well, you have to
Speaker 4: confirm what the polygraph says with a physical evidence. So
Speaker 4: when we have forensic examiners such as what Lou had
Speaker 4: found out, or he's now retired, a US Secret Service
Speaker 4: handwriting expert who said Patsey did not write the note,
Speaker 4: and then she passes a polygraph and she not write
Speaker 4: the note, how much of that information is known too
Speaker 4: bolderbal enforcement and known to the public. And those are
Speaker 4: things that Lou tried to communicate through the various appearances
Speaker 4: that he did on different shows and TV shows and
Speaker 4: through documentaries, but it was ignored it. So what I've
Speaker 4: tried to do is continue to lose work and continue
Speaker 4: to get the truth out there in the written form,
Speaker 4: in publishing some of his slide presentations to give references
Speaker 4: not only not just an opinion that he had, but
Speaker 4: what's the original source, what's the physical covenant?
Speaker 6: Show us talk about? Really, and I'd like to ask you,
Speaker 6: how do you is you did make this presentation to
Speaker 6: Bold the Police Department with your team, with this incredible
Speaker 6: amount of evidence, how do you explain especially the resistance
Speaker 6: to retest DNA utilizing new genetic genealogy. You say it's
Speaker 6: just a phone call, that all you would have to
Speaker 6: do is make a phone call.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I can't explain that. As our team, our
Speaker 4: family team, the Boulder DA and two detectives PD came
Speaker 4: to that meeting. It was hosted in the DA's office.
Speaker 4: Michael Doherty is the District attorney still and we thought
Speaker 4: there was a fairly positive meeting. We left them information
Speaker 4: that was actionable, but then we never heard anything. We'd
Speaker 4: offer to come up and go through lose slight presentation.
Speaker 4: That offer was ignored. So what we did is we
Speaker 4: took the initiative and I sent a meeting beques back
Speaker 4: to the Boulder DA in the police requesting a second meeting.
Speaker 4: The District Attorney did return that email and he said
Speaker 4: that any future meeting or investment have beg We're dated
Speaker 4: through Commander Tom Trehillo of the Boulder Police Department schedule
Speaker 4: the meeting if I have, if I'm available, I'll try
Speaker 4: to stop by. So the second meeting was at the
Speaker 4: Boulder Police Department with Commander Trehio, Commander Gossip and the
Speaker 4: District Attorney was able to and during that meeting. This
Speaker 4: was during COVID, so we kept our team presidence just
Speaker 4: Indy Smith, Marron and I were in a parent representatives,
Speaker 4: but we did offer to come back up and go
Speaker 4: through lose Slight presentation in detail. We offered to give
Speaker 4: them as hard copies of all six hundred and thirty
Speaker 4: two slides. We gave them actionable information. We gave them
Speaker 4: our top twenty list of persons of interest. We even
Speaker 4: list of the independent Eliminada through DNA collection esting efforts.
Speaker 4: I think there was probably eight or nine on that
Speaker 4: confidential list at that time. We shared with them the
Speaker 4: other people that we were full into their cooperation and
Speaker 4: their trust and the refuse any future meetings. They just
Speaker 4: completely cut off all phone email exchanges, to the point
Speaker 4: that after some time, when Commander Trihio refused to return
Speaker 4: my email's or phone calls, I put it Maavis Herald
Speaker 4: and specifically asked for a meeting with her, and she
Speaker 4: wouldn't even give me the courtesy of a return phone.
Speaker 6: Now, despite that, the Smith Family team continues, What is
Speaker 6: your goal with this book and what is your goal
Speaker 6: with this investigation that continues.
Speaker 4: What our Smith family team hopes to do, and this
Speaker 4: is Low's life, is to communicate through the physical evidence,
Speaker 4: the anniable proved that the no member of the Ramsey
Speaker 4: family was involved in the murder of John. Today one
Speaker 4: point two is that this case, it's still solvable. The
Speaker 4: DNA that was there, the genetic markers can rule people out,
Speaker 4: not just the Ramsey family when it can be used
Speaker 4: in a variety ways. Now we don't know that the
Speaker 4: state of the DNA evidence because Loder Police won't release.
Speaker 4: We do have the genetic markers that lou had. Initially
Speaker 4: there were tan genetic workers in ninety seven. Since then
Speaker 4: in two thousand and eight they're additional course, so there
Speaker 4: was at least fourteen genetic markers.
Speaker 6: But there are.
Speaker 4: Advances being made every day in DNA technology with private labs.
Speaker 4: When we last met with Boulder Police, we gave them
Speaker 4: the names, phone numbers, email addresses of three private labs
Speaker 4: that we're willing to step forward and help with the investigation.
Speaker 4: We've stayed in touch with those three private labs. They
Speaker 4: have never been contacted. Our team even offered to pay
Speaker 4: for the testing through our goalfundme page, and that request
Speaker 4: has been denied as well. One of the other things
Speaker 4: that happened in December. December sixth, the last year of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two, Older Police disclosed a media release of
Speaker 4: the results of an internal investigation that showed that Detective
Speaker 4: Tom Trahiel and four other investigators were being disciplined for
Speaker 4: misconduct and specifically not investigating or thoroughly investigating their case load.
Speaker 4: They did not say that it was the John Binney case,
Speaker 4: but there was discipline to include Commander Traheu being removed
Speaker 4: from the supervisor over the investigations division and put on
Speaker 4: midnights in patrol. So we hoped to do and after
Speaker 4: that meeting, I sent another meeting request to the police
Speaker 4: chief as well as the DA and the commanders involved
Speaker 4: with well Or Police on the investigation, asking for a
Speaker 4: meeting and gave them to the end of January of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three to respond. They never never called, never
Speaker 4: TERMINI never accepted art or requests for a meeting. Helped
Speaker 4: share within the evidence that clearly shows that the Ramsey
Speaker 4: family are not involved and that this DNA can be
Speaker 4: used to eliminate additional persons of interest and hopefully identify.
Speaker 6: With the friends. I want to thank you so much,
Speaker 6: John Wesley Anderson for coming on and talking about your book,
Speaker 6: Lou and John Benet, A Legendary Lawman's Quest to Solve
Speaker 6: a Beauty Queen's Murder. I want to applaud you for
Speaker 6: this book and for your extraordinary effort and all obviously
Speaker 6: chronicling the incredible story of legendary Lou Detective Loosmith.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Dan.
Speaker 6: Do you have a website that people might refer to
Speaker 6: tell us about that? Thank you?
Speaker 4: Yes, I have probably website for this case. Is my
Speaker 4: publisher wellbluepress dot com. I have a separate website that
Speaker 4: does not have anywhere near the information that the publishers do.
Speaker 4: My website is jawonder dot com. My initials jw a
Speaker 4: nder dot com.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, John Wesley Anderson, Lou and John Beney,
Speaker 6: A Legendary Lahman's Quest to Solve a Beauty Queen's Murder.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for this interview, and you have
Speaker 6: a great evening. Good night,