Later, he added that he is encouraged that the DNA is being called into question because "now maybe all of those other suspects who were excluded will have to be reinvestigated." ( Patrick Davison / Rocky Mountain News via AP ) 
 
 The DNA evidence in the JonBenet Ramsey case doesn't support a pivotal and controversial development in Colorado's most vexing unsolved murder — a former Boulder prosecutor's decision to clear the girl's family from all suspicion in her death, a joint Daily Camera/9NEWS investigation has found. In fact, those experts said the evidence showed that the DNA samples recovered from the long johns came from at least two people in addition to JonBenet — something Lacy's office was told, according to documents obtained by the Camera and 9NEWS, but that she made no mention of in clearing the Ramseys. According to the paper, the possible presence of a third individual's DNA on the long johns has never been publicly revealed. However, the Boulder Daily Camera's investigation published Thursday found the DNA results in the Bode report are not necessarily as clear cut as Lacy concluded they were. The experts who examined the laboratory results at the request of the Camera and 9NEWS reached similar conclusions on multiple points: 
 
 • Two of the three samples that led Lacy to declare publicly that no one in the Ramsey family could be responsible for the murder actually appear to include genetic material from at least three people: JonBenet, the person whose DNA profile originally was located in JonBenet's underwear during testing in the late 1990s and early 2000s, plus at least one additional as-yet-unidentified person or persons. To the extent composites were used in the search to identify the killer, the investigation states that the DNA profile "may be worthless as evidence." • The presence of that DNA on JonBenet's underwear and long johns, be it from one or multiple people, may very well be innocent; the profiles were developed from minute samples that could have been the result of inconsequential contact with other people, or transferred from another piece of clothing.  Mary Lacy was one of a team of four who walked through the home of JonBenet Ramsey just days after the 6-year-old beauty contestant was discovered dead in the house's basement in Boulder, Colorado, on Dec. 26, 1996. According to the paper, these opinions "cut both ways" on the competing theories of the case. They neither disprove the intruder theory nor "implicate or exonerate anyone in the family." Helen Davis/AP Photo 
 
 'Trying to Prevent a Horrible Travesty of Justice' 
 
 Former Adams County DA Bob Grant, one of a number of consultants on the case brought in early on by the Boulder County DA at the time, Hunter, told ABC News he was confounded by Lacy's 2008 decision. It's recently attracted new attention this fall as the 20th anniversary of JonBenet's death approaches, and police have received hundreds of new tips. Lacy did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story, sent to her by email, U.S. mail and left at her home. The 6-year-old's skull was fractured by a blow to the head, and her killer cinched a garrote around her neck, placed duct tape over her mouth and bound her wrists. And it could also lead them to take a new look at dozens of potential suspects who were ruled out because their DNA didn't match the profile known as Unknown Male 1. "Lacy did the right thing [in clearing the Ramsey family]," he said. John and Patsy Ramsey, as well as JonBenet's brother, Burke Ramsey, were the only other people known to be in the house at the time of the slaying, and for years after her death, they were each trailed by a cloud of suspicion. In 2006 when Patsy Ramsey was dying of cancer and even on her deathbed, Lacy said the distraught mother was trying to solve the death of her daughter. The truth is, she said, she cleared the Ramseys not just based on the DNA, but also from looking at the totality of the evidence. In the 2008 letter, Lacy hung her hat on newly discovered touch DNA found on JonBenet's long johns, which she said was found to belong to an unknown male. The report also showed some damage to JonBenet's hymen, indicating possible sexual assault. It's also possible that variations in the way the original tests were done could account for the failure to find the same profile in the panties during the 2008 tests. The DNA evidence was discovered after Lacy sent the long johns to Bode Cellmark Forensics to be tested for touch DNA. Kobilinsky said the markers found on the long johns are not enough of a profile to "match" those found in the panties, as Lacy wrote in her letter exonerating the Ramseys, but he would describe the markers from both the long johns and the panties as being "consistent" and noted that the DNA does belong to an unknown male. "But in a case like this, where the DNA is not from sperm, is only on the clothing and not her body, until you know whose it is, you can't say how it got there. 'Can't get my arms around that one' 
 
 Lacy established herself as a supporter of the intruder theory in the Ramsey case when she was still Mary Keenan, a chief deputy specializing in sexual assault cases under the man she would soon succeed, then-District Attorney Alex Hunter. She added that she is one of only two people who have read the entire transcripts of Patsy Ramsey's psychiatric interviews, in which Lacy said she saw no indication of jealousy toward JonBenet or any violent tendencies. It's a good-faith opinion and has no legal importance but the opinion of the person who had the job before I did, whom I respect." Lacy, who was the Boulder County DA from 2001 until 2009, said the Boulder police investigation had ignored important evidence that pointed away from the Ramseys and instead focused on them while "trying to get the death penalty." It was in that role that, in 2003, she made her first public proclamation on her belief in the Ramseys' innocence. And alluding to the exoneration letter of July 2008, Grant said, "That was the culmination of what she wanted to do all along." The day Lacy issued the letter, John Ramsey hailed the news in an exclusive interview with 9NEWS. While the standard for filing of charges is that of probable cause, the hurdle for conviction is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and Hunter didn't believe the evidence was strong enough for him to do so. A lawsuit filed against Garnett in September 2013 led to the unsealing the following month of the 1999 indictments, confirming the child abuse charges as well as charges against both parents for accessory to first-degree murder. But in 2008, Lacy -- who by then had been named Boulder County DA and taken over the investigation -- surprised even some of the most seasoned of her fellow prosecutors by exonerating the family. "I don't think any case is just a DNA case. There were problems with crime scene, you have the ransom note ... you have debates about the cause of death -- to solve this case we have to account for all of that." Former Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner, who headed up the department from 1998 to 2014, said in an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit last year that the investigation considered the DNA important, but that there was other crucial evidence in the case that couldn't be ignored. Although the unknown male sample had been entered into CODIS, it has never been matched to any of the other DNA profiles in the system. A call for new testing 
 
 The JonBenet Ramsey investigation remains under the control of the Boulder Police Department, which has been in command of the case since Garnett passed it back to the department's detectives when he became DA in 2009. "And it would be very good to hear from Mary Lacy or from others involved, in terms of what this new evidence should show them in terms of where we should go," Owens said. There have been conflicting views over whether the mystery of JonBenet's murder can be solved by DNA alone. The apparent presence of that indentation went on to help form a theory that Lacy believes to this day. "A prosecutor can file a John Doe warrant identifying the suspect by that DNA profile," Grant said. "If then-District Attorney Lacy was convinced that that suspect, that DNA profile, was the killer, and she was going to exonerate somebody else, then that's what she should have done. "But what I can tell you is that DNA evidence and the theory behind DNA work is changing almost daily, and I have excellent people on staff who review those issues and handle that, and we will make sure that any appropriate testing that can be done to update the theories of the evidence is done." Garnett said Lacy's 2008 decision was "legally insignificant" and "has no meaning," largely due to the fact that the evidence she cited in her letter was never subjected to the rigorous scrutiny and cross-examination that all evidence in any case goes through in a courtroom.
– After just short of 20 years, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey is as much of a mystery as ever—especially in light of a new examination of DNA evidence. A joint investigation by the Boulder Daily Camera and 9News calls into question former District Attorney Mary Lacy's decision to exonerate the Ramsey family. At the time, Lacy concluded that DNA evidence found on JonBenet's underwear and long johns belonged to a male intruder who was not part of the Ramsey family. But now three forensic experts who examined the DNA test results and lab reports used by Lacy say they do not support her conclusion. For one thing, a sample on her underwear identified as coming from "Unknown Male 1" may in fact be a composite from multiple people and thus "worthless as evidence," says the news report. Another revelation that further muddles the picture: DNA samples on her long johns appear to come from JonBenet and at least two other people, not one, a fact that has never been revealed before. What's more, the independent experts say all of the unknown DNA may be the result of "inconsequential contact with other people," reports the Camera. With the exoneration, "I was trying to prevent a horrible travesty of justice," Lacy tells ABC. (The interview was done before these latest revelations.) "I was scared to death that despite the fact that there was no evidence, no psychopathy, and no motive, the case was a train going down the track and the Ramseys were tied to that track." Comparison to the DNA profile now in doubt was used to exonerate dozens of other potential suspects. (JonBenet's older brother is suing a pathologist who accused him of the killing.)