Weld County Man Jailed for Hiring PI to Track Estranged Wife

GREELEY, Colo. - A local private investigator is under arrest, for what some say is simply doing his job. And a Weld County father is in jail, simply for hiring the investigator.

Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck is charging both with felony stalking.

Jeff Schudel says he hired the investigator because he was concerned about his 17-month-old son's safety. The investigator was hired to track Schudel's estranged wife's movements.

"We needed to create an accurate picture for the courts to determine custody," Schudel told us.

He says he never questioned the investigators methods.

According to police reports, the investigator did routine surveillance on the estranged wife and placed a GPS tracking device on her car. She found it and called La Salle Police, who arrested Schudel and the investigator for felony stalking.

Schudel maintains they did not do anything illegal.

"This was a legal endeavor. We hired professionals to conduct this investigation," he says.

Schudel says while he sits in jail, he remains concerned about his son's safety.

We talked with other private investigators who expressed concern that routine surveillance was being considered a felony. They say the GPS devices fall into a gray area. Some private investigators use them, but many do not.

Schudel is due back in court in late September.


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Lou Smit, Detective in JonBenet Ramsey Case, Is Dead at 75

Lou Smit, a longtime police detective who was called out of retirement to help investigate the 1996 slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old beauty pageant winner, but resigned after concluding that the police had wrongly focused on her parents, died Wednesday in Colorado Springs. He was 75.

The cause was colon cancer, a spokeswoman for Pikes Peak Hospice said.

Detective Smit helped solve several cases that gained national attention, including the killing of Karen Grammer, the sister of the actor Kelsey Grammer, in 1975.

He is also credited with identifying the killer of 13-year-old Heather Dawn Church. She was killed in 1991, and her father was among more than 40 suspects, but in 1995 Detective Smit arrested Robert C. Browne, who confessed to the crime and has since admitted to 47 other murders.

Detective Smit was proud to assert that of the more than 200 murder cases he had investigated and turned over to prosecutors in his 30-year career, all led to convictions. “I’ve never lost a homicide case,” he told The Denver Post.

But he was unable to solve the Ramsey case.

JonBenet Ramsey was found strangled and bound in the basement of her upscale home in Boulder, Colo., on Dec. 26, 1996. The case, which attracted enormous attention, remains unsolved.

Three months after the killing, the district attorney asked Detective Smith to join the investigation. He initially explored the Boulder Police Department’s theory, that JonBenet’s mother, Patsy Ramsey, was the killer and had written the ransom note she said she had found in her home. The department also believed that JonBenet’s father, John, was protecting Mrs. Ramsey.

Eighteen months after joining the investigation, Detective Smit resigned, accusing the police of pursuing the Ramseys as suspects despite substantial evidence to the contrary.

“The Ramseys did not do it,” he wrote in his resignation letter, dated Sept. 20, 1998. “There is substantial, credible evidence of an intruder and a lack of evidence that the parents are involved.”

For years after his official involvement in the case ended, Detective Smit continued to work to identify the killer, both independently and with a private investigator hired by the Ramseys. He carried a photo of JonBenet in his wallet.

He also teamed up with a former F.B.I. agent, Charlie Hess, and a former publisher of The Colorado Springs Gazette, Scott Fischer, to investigate local cold cases.

In 2008 the Boulder County district attorney, Mary T. Lacy, said in a letter to John Ramsey that DNA evidence, unobtainable by earlier methods, had “vindicated your family.” The evidence pointed to an intruder, as Detective Smit had concluded.


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Glenwood Springs Colorado Investigator

The PInow.com team would like to welcome their newest investigator in Colorado.

Dave Stark of Aspen Country Surveillance provides investigative services throughout Pitkin County, CO and Garfield County, CO. Please visit Dave's PInow.com profile page for additional contact information and a detailed list of services provided.

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Laporte Colorado Private Investigator

The PInow.com team would like to welcome their newest investigator in Colorado.

Marty Strom of APS Investigations provides investigative services throughout Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming. Please visit Marty's PInow.com profile page for additional contact information and a detailed list of services provided throughout Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming.

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Eastlake Colorado Private Investigator

The PInow.com team would like to welcome their newest private investigator in Colorado.

Jeffrey Zoerb of Eagle Investigations, Inc. provides investigative services throughout Northern Colorado, as well as the Denver Metro area. Please visit Jeffrey's PInow.com profile page for additional contact information.

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Colorado Springs CO Investigator

The PInow.com team would like to welcome their newest private investigator in Colorado.

Sean Moncalieri of CSI Enterprises; Colorado Special Investigations provides investigative services throughout Southern Colorado, as well as providing Nationwide and Worldwide investigative services. Please visit Sean's PInow.com profile page for additional contact information.

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