Steve Pease Offers Insight Into The JonBenet Case

For almost 20 years, people of America — and around the world — have been fascinated by the murder of young beauty pageant queen JonBenét Ramsey and the ensuing investigative case in her hometown of Boulder, Colorado that has been left unsolved. Now, a number of interviews and investigative specials are returning to the case, one of which is Investigation Discovery's JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery. But, since it's tough to remember everyone involved, I'm here to help. So, who is Steve Pease on JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery and how could his latest interviews offer new insight into the case? Bustle reached out to Pease for comment and has not yet received a response.

The short answer is that he wasn't involved with the case directly but Pease was one of the protégés to Lou Smit, a former Colorado Springs detective who came out of retirement to help on the JonBenét case, according to Deadline's report on the Investigation Discovery special. Denver Post's timeline of the JonBenét case noted that Smit joined the investigation team on March 13, 1997 — less than three months after she was found dead in late December 1996. Further reported by Denver Post, Smit left the investigation in September 1998. In his resignation letter, he wrote, "The Ramseys did not do it," and suggested the evidence pointed toward an intruder, as reported by the New York Times in their obituary for Smit when he passed away in 2010. (The Ramseys were never charged with any crime in relation to JonBenet’s murder, maintained their innocence, and were officially cleared of any suspicion in 2008 due to DNA evidence.)

However, Smit is credited as one of the members of a group of former law enforcement officers in Colorado known as the Apple Dumpling Gang. According to Investigation Discovery's press release for JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery, Pease and Bobby Brown were "former Colorado Springs Detectives and protégés of Lou Smit's famed Apple Dumpling Gang.” Currently, Pease works as a private investigator for Rick Johnson & Associates of Colorado according to the organization's website. He is described as a "retired Southern Colorado law enforcement officer" with experience in over 20 homicide investigations, as well as those into major crimes and catastrophes. Additionally, he travels teaching techniques in interviewing and interrogation to police detectives, social workers, and federal agents among others.

According to Cosmopolitan's break down of the JonBenét specials, Pease's interview is exclusive to JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery , so the Investigation Discovery event series will be the only chance to hear his insight into the case. Given that there will be plenty of rehashing the information from the case as TV specials and the public revisit the highly publicized case, perhaps Pease will be able to offer a unique perspective or shed some new insight into the murder of JonBenét Ramsey.