JonBenét is found dead in her parents' basement The child beauty queen had died sometime during the previous night but wasn’t found until hours later. Smit was called out of retirement to help the investigation three months after JonBenét was found dead in the basement of her parent’s Boulder, Colorado, home on the morning of Dec. “It was really important to him.”Īs part of their promise to keep the case alive, van der Woerd and Smit’s other granddaughter, Lexi Marra, created the podcast “The Victim’s Shoes,” where they discuss details of the case. “When he got sick with cancer … he knew that his time was limited and so, during that time, he just talked to others about not letting this case die,” said Cindy Marra, Smit’s daughter. Watch the full story on '20/20' Friday at 9 p.m.