Career
Smit was portrayed by Kris Kristofferson in the television miniseries Perfect Murder, Perfect Town. Working his way up to the rank of detective, Smit was involved in a number of notable cases including the conviction of spree killer Freddie Glenn for a series of murders, including the 1975 killing of Karen Grammer, younger sister of actor Kelsey Grammer. In 1995, he arrested Robert Charles Browne for the 1991 murder of Heather Dawn Church.
Church"s father had been one of the original suspects in his daughter"s murder, but Browne ultimately confessed to a total of 48 murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Smit retired in 1996 from the El Paso County, Colorado Sheriff"s department where he had served as captain of detectives. In 1997, three months after the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, Smit was asked by the district attorney"s office to come out of retirement to assist with the investigation.
In his September 1998 resignation letter, Smit stated that "The Ramseys did not do it" and cited "substantial, credible evidence of an intruder and a lack of evidence that the parents are involved". Smit would later work for the Ramsey"s in helping establish their innocence and would be portrayed by Kris Kristofferson in a Columbia Broadcasting System television miniseries based on the case.
After the Ramsey case, Smit continued to work on cold cases.
As a detective, Smit boasted that he "never lost a homicide case" in a career in which he worked on more than 200 murder cases in which a suspect had been arrested and tried for their crime. Smit had gone to a doctor in April 2010 after experiencing abdominal pain. After a Centre for Alternative Technology scan identified a tumor as the cause of the pain, surgeons discovered that the cancer had spread throughout his body and was untreatable.
Smit died at age 75 on August 11, 2010, at the Pikes Peak Hospice in Colorado Springs due to colon cancer.
John Ramsey came to pray at his bedside shortly before Smit"s death.
