A former police officer has joined the Boulder County district attorneys office to investigate the JonBenet Ramsey case.
Tom Bennett, who retired from the Arvada police department in 2001, will spend 20 to 30 hours a week looking for a suspect in the beauty queens 1996 slaying, District Attorney Mary Keenan said Monday. The Daily Camera of Boulder first reported his hiring on its Web site.
Keenan said an investigator in her office had been working on the case but had been pulled off periodically to help with other cases.
If we were really going to make some progress we were going to have to devote some resources to this, Keenan said in a telephone interview.
Keenan took over the case from Boulder police in December. She said police did an exhaustive investigation of the Ramseys as potential suspects and her office would pursue new or previously unchecked leads.
The 6-year-old was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her parents Boulder home Dec. 26, 1996.
Bennett has worked several complex cases in Arvada and was recommended for the Ramsey case by Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas.
He also has the respect of his collegues in the Arvada Police Department.
He is probably one of the most thorough investigators around, said police spokeswoman Susan Medina. He never leaves a stone unturned and he is very careful with his investigation.