Mary Lacy

Mary Lacy (formerly known as Mary Keenan) was the Boulder District Attorney from 2001 to 2009, the second District Attorney involved with the case after Alex Hunter. She was involved in the case from the beginning as chief of the sexual assault unit in the DA's office. As District Attorney, Lacy was known for her multiple public statements in support of the Ramseys, and for enthusiastically pursuing the theory that John Mark Karr killed JonBenet, resulting in the case's most notorious failed lead.

Early Involvement in the case (1996-2001)
Born in Iowa, Mary Lacy had been with the DA's office since 1983. text

"Butt print"


At the time of the killing, Mary Lacy worked for Alex Hunter as the head of the District Attorney's office's Sexual Assault Unit. Just "days" after the crime, Mary Lacy was reportedly one of "a team of four" who toured the Ramsey home.

In a 2016 ABC News interview she said “just around the corner from JonBenét's room on the second floor" she had noticed "an indentation in the carpet" which made "chills run down her spine":


 * It was a butt print. We all saw it. The entire area was undisturbed except for that place in the rug [...] Whoever did this sat outside of her room and waited until everyone was asleep to kill her.

According to James Kolar, Lacy told him her "buttprint theory" in 2006 and said she had heard it from Boulder Police Detective Tom Wickman:


 * Apparently, Lacy thought that Wickman was suggesting the intruder had found some time to sit on the floor outside JonBenét's bedroom after penning his note. I didn't recall seeing anything like that in any of the police reports I had read and subsequently asked Wickman about it. He told me he had no idea what I was talking about.

Support for "Santa Claus" theory
Since the summer of 1998, Mary Lacy (then Keenan) was a firm believer in the theory that Bill McReynolds was the killer. According to multiple law-enforcement sources, Lacy was "hard-charging on Bill McReynolds" in 1998. A source said, "I'm basing this on my own conversations with her. She was convinced that McReynolds did it."

"Right after the (June 1998) interviews, she went in and sat down and spent two hours talking to the Ramseys about their suspicions about Santa Claus," the source said. "It was clear she thought this woman (Patsy Ramsey) was a victim".

After the Ramseys' 1998 interviews, Mary Lacy "chided [Investigator Tom] Haney for being too tough on Patsy Ramsey". She reportedly "thought that the Ramseys were being really pushed around". According to Detective Steve Thomas, who left the case in 1998, Lacy had "said the body language of John and Patsy wasn't suggestive of deception, and that men were not in a position to judge Patsy Ramsey's demeanor".

One of Lacy's campaign workers, Frank Coffman discussed the case with Lacy in 2000, the year before she became District Attorney. Coffman said:


 * "Her basis for believing the Ramseys are innocent, as she explained it to me, is that the Ramseys don't have a history of being abusive parents that would be apt to kill their child ... At least from what she told me about it, she was basing her opinion on the Ramseys' innocence on the fact that they don't fit the profile of murdering parents. This would have been the summer of 2000 that I talked to her."

Police Chief Mark Beckner also later claimed that "Mary Lacy ... made up her mind years before that a mother could not do that to a child, thus the family was innocent. Even though we pointed out that it is not unheard of for mothers do such things."

Election as District Attorney (2001)
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Taking the Case from Police
The Ramseys' lawyer, Lin Wood, threatened a lawsuit against the Boulder Police. The Ramseys were refusing to speak to police despite police saying they had "new questions". In a letter to Lacy, Wood repeated his threats, and promised that the Ramseys would cooperate if the case was transferred to the District Attorney's office. Mary Lacy and Police Chief Mark Beckner agreed to this arrangment.

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First Public Statement of Support for Ramseys
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It was reported on February 2, 2006 that the Ramseys had paid a "social visit" to Mary Lacy "simply to say hello and check in with her on the status of the investigation." According to the Ramseys' lawyer Lin Wood "They had a very nice meeting with Mary, and she continues to believe this case will be solved by DNA evidence... the DA's office continues to see the case as a DNA case that will be solved - hopefully sooner as opposed to later - by getting a match."

John Mark Karr Arrest
Lacy claimed she was "not embarrassed" by the Karr fiasco

Trip Demuth publicly criticized her saying “I can’t say I’ve found her to be meticulous in the past and thorough,” he said. “I would have never (arrested Karr). … You collect your evidence first, then you arrest.”

James Kolar
Lacy appointed James Kolar to investigate the case-file but rejected his suggestion to investigate Burke Ramsey as a suspect as she "didn’t want to harm her relationship with the Ramsey family."

2008 "Exoneration Letter"
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2016 exposé
The Boulder Daily Camera revealed Mary Lacy had known

Post-Retirement
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