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SUSPECT ARRESTED IN JON BENET RAMSEY CASE


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Family: JonBenet suspect researched case By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer

Thu Aug 17, 12:01 PM ET

PETALUMA, Calif. - John Mark Karr displayed a deep fascination with JonBenet Ramsey long before he was arrested in her death.

Karr, who told reporters Thursday that he was "with JonBenet when she died" but that "her death was an accident," began teaching children in Georgia and Alabama before he became a substitute teacher in Petaluma, a bucolic wine country town where he lived until 2001 with his wife and three sons.

The Denver Post reported that Karr, 41, disappeared that year after being released from jail, where he had been held on child pornography charges. His father, Wexford Karr of Atlanta, told the newspaper his son had told him he was behind bars in connection with the Ramsey case.

Sonoma County Chief Deputy District Attorney Joan Risse confirmed the pornography charges and an outstanding arrest warrant against a John M. Karr, though she said she did not know if he was the same person held in JonBenet's 1996 death in the child's Colorado home.

Lara Karr of Petaluma, who divorced Karr in 2001, told KGO-TV in San Francisco that he often spent time reading up on the cases of Ramsey and Petaluma resident Polly Klaas, who was abducted and slain in 1993.

His father told The Denver Post that while Karr was in college as an adult, a professor encouraged him to write a book about the Ramsey case after being impressed with a school paper.

"He researched everything he could about her," Wexford Karr said.

John Karr spoke with JonBenet's grandparents, but the Ramseys refused an interview, Wexford Karr said.

He said he feared his son may have been dead before hearing about the arrest Wednesday in Thailand because he had not heard from him in several years.

Karr's interest in the case continued during his foreign travels.

Ramsey family attorney Lin Wood told The Associated Press on Thursday that Karr sent numerous e-mails over the last several months to a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, making statements in the messages about JonBenet's death. The e-mails were key in linking Karr to the crime, he said.

"There is information about the murder that has never been publicly disclosed," Wood said.

A spokesman for the University of Colorado, Barrie Hartman, confirmed that journalism professor Michael Tracey communicated with Karr over several months and contacted police.

John Karr declined Thursday to say what his connection was to the Ramsey family.

An attorney for the Ramseys said Karr once lived near the family in Conyers, Ga., but the Ramseys moved to Colorado when JonBenet was a baby. The head of Thailand's immigration police, Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, quoted Karr as saying that he tried to kidnap JonBenet for $118,000 ransom but that the plan went awry and he strangled her. "He said he was in love with the child, she was a pageant queen," Suwat said.

Two resumes posted online with Karr's name and picture offered possible clues to his whereabouts after he left California.

Starting in 2001, one resume said, Karr was a private teacher and caregiver in Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Costa Rica and Honduras, almost always working with young children. The other resume was less detailed.

The longer resume said that in Germany he cared for two girls, ages 5 and 8, and a boy, 10, getting them ready for school and helping with homework.

"At days end, I made sure the children had their evening bath, then put them to bed and read to them before they went to sleep," the resume said.

From 2004-05, the resume said, he worked as a second-grade teacher in Honduras.

The authenticy of the resumes could not be confirmed. An English institute removed the shorter resume from its Web site Thursday in response to a reporter's query, citing concerns about bad publicity. A call to the administrator of the site with the longer resume was not immediately returned Thursday.

Karr, a short, thin blond with a Southern accent, had a valid California teaching credential and passed the background check that included submitting his fingerprints to the Department of Justice to make sure he had no criminal record, Sonoma County school officials said.

But his desire to teach didn't translate into ability, according to one administrator.

Bob Raines, superintendent and principal at Wilson Elementary School outside Petaluma, twice hired Karr as a substitute in second- and fourth-grade classes in 2001. After observing him, Raines said he concluded Karr hadn't been trained, had poor skills keeping classes focused and was ineffective.

"He just seemed like somebody who thought he wanted to be a teacher," Raines said. "After a few days, I could see it just wasn't for him."

He instructed his secretary not to call Karr again unless they were desperate.

A couple months later, Sonoma sheriff's officials sent a letter to school officials saying Karr had been arrested, said Carl Wong, the Sonoma County superintendent of schools.

John and Lara Karr's former Petaluma neighbor, Sylvia Ross, said she occasionally asked him over to her house to fix her computer.

"Personality-wise, I think there was a little kink that I saw," said Ross, a retired schoolteacher and real estate agent. He was "too friendly, too talkative, too inquisitive."

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That guy has the skinniest neck I've ever seen.

He looks so much like the 6th grade teacher I didn't have (there were just 2, and I got the other one.) I'm probably going to end up having a very disturbing dream mixing up my childhood with this. :ph34r:

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Excuse the language: What kind of bullshit media does this country have, when I click on CNN, supposedly one of the main sources of news in the country, and this banner headline is on the main page?

Plane carrying JonBenet Ramsey slaying suspect John Mark Karr from California lands in Boulder, Colorado.

And it's a "news alert" at that!!??!!

This is such a disgrace it's not even funny anymore. :angry:

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This story is weird central........but the other news of the day out of Austria seems even creepier. :blink:

These are, flat-out, with-out-a-doubt, freakin' weird times we live in.

To top it off we have to throw out everything we were ever taught about Pluto.

He's not a dog after all?

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No shit! Now here's a surprise -- and to think the idiots behind this told Mrs. Ramsey before she died that there was a suspect! What a fiasco...

BOULDER, Colo. - Prosecutors decided not to charge John Mark Karr in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, his lawyers said Monday after a TV station reported that the schoolteacher's DNA failed to match genetic material on the 6-year-old girl's body.

"The warrant on Mr. Karr has been dropped by the district attorney," public defender Seth Temin said outside the jail. "They are not proceeding with the case."

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy's office did not return repeated calls from The Associated Press.

"We're deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption that he did anything wrong," Temin said.

Earlier in the day, Denver's KUSA, citing two sources close to the investigation, said that hair and saliva from Karr were tested over the weekend at the Denver police crime lab and that he was ruled out as the source of the DNA taken from the crime scene.

Investigators have said male DNA was found in blood spots on JonBenet's underwear. Other physical evidence in the case includes a ransom note, the garrote used to strangle the girl, a boot print found outside the Ramsey house and some indications an intruder could have entered through a basement window.

The schoolteacher's arrest in Thailand a week and a half ago was seen a surprise break in the decade-old murder mystery that had cast suspicion over JonBenet's parents.

But Karr's bizarre account — and his apparent fascination with the little girl's death — immediately raised suspicions that he might be an obsessed follower of the case who confessed to a crime he didn't commit.

Among other things, Karr's relatives insisted that he was with them, celebrating Christmas in Georgia and Alabama, around the time the child beauty queen was found strangled and beaten at her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996. They said that if Karr had not been with his family at Christmas, they would have certainly remembered it.

In an interview with the media in Thailand, Karr said that he was with JonBenet when she died and that her death was an accident. Asked if he was innocent, he said no.

In an interview Monday with MSNBC, Gary Harris, who had been spokesman for the Karr family, said of the DNA: "I knew it wouldn't match."

Karr has been "obsessed with this case for a long time. He may have some personality problems, but he's not a killer," Harris said. "He obsesses. He wanted to be a rock star one time. ... He's a dreamer. He's the kind of guy who wants to be famous.

Ramsey family attorney Lin Wood had no immediate comment.

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I don't think its incompetent investigators so much as a deeply disturbed individual seeking attention.

Given the information that came out at the time he was identified, no one should be surprised at the ultimate outcome. We're just lucky they didn't drag it out.

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I don't think its incompetent investigators so much as a deeply disturbed individual seeking attention.

Given the information that came out at the time he was identified, no one should be surprised at the ultimate outcome. We're just lucky they didn't drag it out.

Yes, he's a nutjob looking for attention, but this whole thing was mishandled from the get-go. There was no reason to release information about this aspect of the investigation until they were absolutely *certain* that they had something. Honestly, how hard would it have been to take a sample from Karr and Fed Ex it to Boulder for testing? There was no reason to haul his ass all the way from Thailand. If they had kept their heads, they would have seen this whole thing for what it was, and the rest of us would have been spared this pitiful charade...

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