DeMuth, who attended Patsy Ramsey's funeral on June 29, said Wednesday that the Ramsey family was notified the investigation was moving forward shortly before Patsy's death. However, no individual had been positively identified at the time of Patsy's funeral.

And whether or not John Karr is involved in JonBenet's death, DeMuth contends the case could have been solved years ago if the intruder theory was allowed to be explored.

Instead a myopic bureaucracy enveloped the case and thwarted the intruder investigation, leaving the three law officials who wanted to look past the Ramseys on the outs.

DeMuth, Boulder County Sheriff's Detective Steve Ainsworth, and investigator Lou Smit, begin advocating exploring the possibility that an intruder beat and strangled 6-year-old JonBenet in 1997. They wanted investigators to move away from the "blindfolded" investigation that was focused on John and Patsy Ramsey.

"I really think if they had let Lou, Steve and I investigate the other alternative a conclusion to this case could have happened a lot sooner," DeMuth said. "I really believe that in my heart of hearts. We will never know because we weren't given the opportunity."

Instead, DeMuth and Ainsworth found themselves at odds with the Boulder Police Department after they began supporting the intruder theory.

In the ensuing months, they often butted heads with the Boulder Police Department and were even investigated by the state for allegedly stealing secrets from the police department's $35,000 JonBenet Ramsey "war room."

In 1997, Boulder police believed someone gained access to a computer containing sensitive material in the case. CBI investigators seized computers at the homes of DeMuth and Ainsworth. However, a week later police said the war room's computer had suffered a malfunction and that a break-in had never occurred.

DeMuth and fellow prosecutor Peter Hofstrom were removed in 1998 after former Gov. Roy Romer suggested that "new blood" was needed in the investigation. Ainsworth also left the investigation.

That same year Smit quit the case saying he felt authorities were wrongly concentrating on the parents.

DeMuth is cautious to jump to conclusions about John Karr's arrest. He said he won't feel vindicated until there is a conviction.

However, any conviction will not have come soon enough for Patsy Ramsey who died in June.

"Patsy will not have been vindicated in her lifetime," DeMuth said. "She will not have seen the killer of her child brought to justice. That's really tragic."