MSNBC News Services

Updated: 7:13 a.m. ET Aug. 17, 2006

 

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BANGKOK, Thailand - The American suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case said publicly Thursday he was with the 6-year-old when she died and called her death “an accident,†a stunning admission that will help answer 10 years of questions in the unsolved murder case.

 

“I was with JonBenet when she died,†John Mark Karr told reporters in Bangkok, visibly nervous and stuttering as he spoke. “Her death was an accident.â€

 

Police said Karr, 41, admitted to the killing after he was arrested Wednesday at his downtown Bangkok apartment by Thai and American authorities.

 

 

Karr will be transported to Colorado in the next week where he will face charges of murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault, said Ann Hurst, a U.S. official with the Department of Homeland Security.

 

One law enforcement official told The Associated Press that Boulder police had tracked Karr down online.

 

The head of Thailand immigration police said Thursday that Karr admitted to the killing after he was arrested at his downtown Bangkok apartment Wednesday night. Karr arrived in Bangkok on June 6 from Malaysia to look for a teaching job, Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul told The Associated Press.

 

“They fell in love with each other. She was very beautiful. So he kidnapped her and killed her by accident,†Suwat said.

 

Attorney: Parents vindicated

Ramsey family attorney Lin Wood said the arrest vindicated JonBenet’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. Patsy Ramsey died of ovarian cancer on June 24.

 

“John and Patsy lived their lives knowing they were innocent, trying to raise a son despite the furor around them,†Wood said. “The story of this family is a story of courage, and story of an American injustice and tragedy that ultimately people will have to look back on and hopefully learn from.â€

 

The attorney said the Ramseys learned about the suspect at least a month before Patsy Ramsey’s death. “It’s been a very long 10 years, and I’m just sorry Patsy isn’t here for me to hug her neck,†Wood said.

 

 

Suspect once lived Georgia

Karr was a teacher who once lived in Conyers, Ga., according to Wood. The attorney said the Ramseys gave police information about Karr before he was identified as a suspect.

 

 

 

Wood would not say how the Ramseys knew Karr. But JonBenet was born in Atlanta in 1990, and the Ramseys lived in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody, about 30 miles northeast of Conyers, for several years before moving to Colorado in 1991.

 

Thai police said that when Karr was arrested, he initially denied any involvement in JonBenet’s slaying. A law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that Karr had been communicating periodically with somebody in Boulder who had been following the case and cooperating with law enforcement officials.

 

A University of Colorado spokesman, Barrie Hartman, said journalism professor Michael Tracey communicated with Karr over several months and contacted police. The CU spokesman said he didn’t know what prompted Tracey to become suspicious of Karr.

 

Tracey produced a documentary in 2004 called “Who Killed JonBenet?†A woman who answered the phone at a number under his name said he didn’t live there anymore; his office phone mailbox was full.

 

Child pornography charges

It was widely reported, but not confirmed by authorities, that Karr taught in California until he was stripped of his teaching credentials following an arrest on child pornography charges.

 

Sonoma County Chief Deputy District Attorney Joan Risse confirmed the child pornography charges and arrest warrant against a John Mark Karr, though she cautioned that she didn’t know if he was the same person held in the Ramsey case. State records show Karr lost his teaching credential in 2002.

 

A woman who said she was the ex-wife of former Petaluma teacher John Karr told KGO-TV in San Francisco that they got divorced after his arrest. The woman, who the station identified as Laura Karr, said her ex-husband spent a lot of time reading up on the cases of Ramsey and Petaluma resident Polly Klaas, who was abducted and slain in 1993.

 

She said she does not believe her former husband was involved in JonBenet’s killing and said she was with him in Alabama at the time of the homicide.

 

Bob Raines, superintendent and principal at Wilson Elementary School, twice hired a John Karr as a substitute at his Sonoma County school in 2001. He said a picture of the suspect resembled the man he hired, who stood out because of a “soft, Southern drawl.â€

 

Raines, who observed Karr in second- and fourth-grade classrooms, said he was an ineffective teacher with poor skills in keeping children focused.

 

“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.â€

 

He instructed his secretary not to call Karr again unless they were desperate, and in April 2001 they received a letter from the county superintendent of education saying Karr had been taken off a list of acceptable substitutes.

 

District Attorney Mary Lacy said the arrest followed several months of work, but she said no details would be released until Thursday.

 

 

 

JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family’s home in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996. Patsy Ramsey reported finding a ransom note in the house demanding $118,000 for her daughter.

 

Haunting image

The image of blonde-haired little JonBenet in a cowgirl costume and other beauty pageant outfits has haunted TV talk shows ever since, helping feed myriad theories about her killer, and the case became one of the most sensational unsolved murder cases in the nation.

 

Over the years, some experts suggested that investigators had botched the case so thoroughly that it might never be solved.

 

Investigators at one point said JonBenet’s parents were under an “umbrella of suspicion†in the slaying. And some news accounts cast suspicion on JonBenet’s older brother. But the Ramseys insisted an intruder killed their daughter, and no one was ever charged.

 

In the months after the slaying, Patsy Ramsey went before the cameras, vigorously defending herself and her husband, chastising the media and blasting local law enforcement as incompetent.

 

In a statement Wednesday, John Ramsey said: “Patsy was aware that authorities were close to making an arrest in the case, and had she lived to see this day, would no doubt have been as pleased as I am with today’s development almost 10 years after our daughter’s murder.â€

 

The Ramseys moved back to Atlanta after their daughter’s slaying.

 

Family 'elated' at arrest

Wood lashed out at the frenzy that long surrounded the case, and he accused the media of “the most obscene false accusations.†“I think the public’s mind was so poisoned against this family that no one was able for too many years to look at the evidence,†he said.

 

Patsy Ramsey’s sister, Pam Paugh, of Roswell, Ga., said the family was celebrating the news of the arrest. “We are elated. We are elated. If this is, in fact, the killer, then we have a very heinous killer off the streets to never harm another child,†Paugh said.

 

Lib Waters of Marietta, Ga., visited the gravesites of Patsy and JonBenet Ramsey in the Atlanta suburb immediately after hearing news reports about the arrest.

 

Waters, who described herself as a longtime friend of the Ramsey family, taped a piece of notebook paper to JonBenet Ramsey’s headstone that read: “Dearest Patsy, Justice has come for you and Jon. Rest in peace.â€

 

In 2003, a federal judge in Atlanta concluded that the evidence she reviewed suggested an intruder killed JonBenet. That opinion came with the judge’s decision to dismiss a libel and slander lawsuit against the Ramseys by a freelance journalist, whom the Ramseys had named as a suspect in their daughter’s murder. The Boulder district attorney at the time said she agreed with the judge’s declaration.

 

“Today is additional vindication of the family,†Wood said.

 

Wood said he and the Ramseys “have been totally amazed and impressed with the professionalism of law enforcement†under Lacy’s direction. Lacy became district attorney in 2001.

 

DNA was found beneath JonBenet’s fingernails and inside her underwear, but Wood said two years ago that detectives were unable to match it to anyone in an FBI database. It was not immediately known Wednesday whether investigators had any DNA evidence against Karr.

 

 

 

 

Sorry it's so long! But I'm glad to finally see something has been done, what was done to this girl was terrible :cry:

Edited August 17, 200618 yr by Kalen

Oh my god, I was shaking reading this! I have followed her case for years and it still scares me. So basically the guy was a teacher? Was he her teacher? I have so many questions. I best read your post again (or a few times). Thanks for this post!

No problem! I have followed this case for quite a long time too. I think he was a teacher, but not JonBenet's teacher, he won't say how he knows her family... hopefully this will all come out! And the case is scary, I agree, but what I've always found weird is them asking for ransom but they had allready killed her :huh:

That's what I meen, there are so many questions that need answering. I have read your post but I can't see how the authorities came to think it was him? Its such a scary and unusual story. I wish her mother was still alive! I wonder how John Ramsey is copeing and the brother.

I think he was arrested for something in Thailand, and he admitted it... Weird because he would have probably never been caught if he didn't admit! I think he's well known as a child abuser etc... I wish her mother was alive to see this too, also, her father said he doesn't want to discuss this at the moment until a verdict has been found! I can't wait to hear from the murderer, I want to know what exactly happened too! They even accused JonBenet's mother for the murder before her death! But the parents did know that Karr was a suspect before the mothers death!

Edited August 17, 200618 yr by Kalen

I know its morbid but I do want to know exactly what happend. How he got in the house, did what he did without anybody knowingand most importantly, WHY

I know its morbid but I do want to know exactly what happend. How he got in the house, did what he did without anybody knowingand most importantly, WHY

I want to know too.

 

What the parents went through (to lose your child in that way and then to be accused of murder) should never happen.

Kill him :)

I think pageants are wrong and should be banned.

I want to know too.

 

What the parents went through (to lose your child in that way and then to be accused of murder) should never happen.

 

Let's not make out that the parents of this poor girl are all that 'innocent'. They exploited that poor girl and made money off her, they chucked her into these disgusting kiddie 'beauty pageants' (in total agreement with Royston Poisoner, ban them all, utterly disgusting thing to do to children... :puke2: ) and dangled her out there to every fukkin' disgusting pervert like a worm on a hook... <_< Did it not enter into their tiny little inbred, cracker brains that this sort of thing was a possibility...?

 

B/astards, they may not of actually killed her, but they sure as hell did not live up to their responsibilities as parents and protect their daughter. Negligent, at best....

Let's not make out that the parents of this poor girl are all that 'innocent'. They exploited that poor girl and made money off her, they chucked her into these disgusting kiddie 'beauty pageants' (in total agreement with Royston Poisoner, ban them all, utterly disgusting thing to do to children... :puke2: ) and dangled her out there to every fukkin' disgusting pervert like a worm on a hook... <_< Did it not enter into their tiny little inbred, cracker brains that this sort of thing was a possibility...?

 

B/astards, they may not of actually killed her, but they sure as hell did not live up to their responsibilities as parents and protect their daughter. Negligent, at best....

 

100% spot on

Did it not enter into their tiny little inbred, cracker brains that this sort of thing was a possibility...?

 

B/astards, they may not of actually killed her, but they sure as hell did not live up to their responsibilities as parents and protect their daughter. Negligent, at best....

This is a bit strong.

 

I don't think parents will assume by entering their children in pageants, there is the possibility they will be murdered in their homes.

It's a parent's nightmare. But if you did not let your child do anything that exposes them to the eyes of other people, the child would hardly have a healthy childhood.

 

I don't think pageants (or any other hyper-competitive things like that) are good for children's confidence but they're quite safe. Going to the beach or even the mall, or walking to school poses similar risks.

 

Most of the audience at these things are proud parents, aunties and neighbours - not perverts.

 

When someone breaks into a home and murders a child, I don't see how the parents are to blame.

This is a bit strong.

 

I don't think parents will assume by entering their children in pageants, there is the possibility they will be murdered in their homes.

It's a parent's nightmare. But if you did not let your child do anything that exposes them to the eyes of other people, the child would hardly have a healthy childhood.

 

I don't think pageants (or any other hyper-competitive things like that) are good for children's confidence but they're quite safe. Going to the beach or even the mall, or walking to school poses similar risks.

 

Most of the audience at these things are proud parents, aunties and neighbours - not perverts.

 

When someone breaks into a home and murders a child, I don't see how the parents are to blame.

 

Mate, have you actually seen footage of these things...? Little kids dressed up and made up like 'little adults', it's really quite disturbing and distasteful, and I question the judgement of anyone who lets their kids enter into these things... And how do you know that the next door neighbour, the 'kindly uncle', the 'nice family friend' isn't a wolf in sheep's clothing...? THE VAST MAJORITY of child abuse occurs in the family home, the VAST MAJORITY of these abusers are known to the child and the child's family...

 

And these 'pageants' are videotaped, quite often by outside, professional crews and who knows who gets to see them..? There is a high liklihood that the killer saw JonBenet either in one of these pageants or saw a tape of one of these pageants and let his own sick and twisted desires do the rest...

 

These Pageants are SICK, end of story and nothing excuses them as far as I'm concerned and it is sod all like going to the beach or the mall.... <_<

Agree, they are an abhorrent practice and should be banned beyond any doubt at all, they are xmas come early for Gary Glitter type people and hold no place in a civilised society

Agree, they are an abhorrent practice and should be banned beyond any doubt at all, they are xmas come early for Gary Glitter type people and hold no place in a civilised society

 

Absolutely not. It is a disgusting, mysoginistic piece of sh!t that objectifies and puts little girls 'on show' like pieces of meat before they've even hit puberty ffs... <_< . I mean, Christ, adult Beauty Pageants are bad enough, but at least the proper, grown-up women who take part in them are adults and make informed decisions before entering into these things, a child cannnot give their consent and are under the care of their parents who are supposed to make informed and wise decisions on their behalf.....

Mate, have you actually seen footage of these things...? Little kids dressed up and made up like 'little adults', it's really quite disturbing and distasteful, and I question the judgement of anyone who lets their kids enter into these things... And how do you know that the next door neighbour, the 'kindly uncle', the 'nice family friend' isn't a wolf in sheep's clothing...? THE VAST MAJORITY of child abuse occurs in the family home, the VAST MAJORITY of these abusers are known to the child and the child's family...

 

And these 'pageants' are videotaped, quite often by outside, professional crews and who knows who gets to see them..? There is a high liklihood that the killer saw JonBenet either in one of these pageants or saw a tape of one of these pageants and let his own sick and twisted desires do the rest...

 

These Pageants are SICK, end of story and nothing excuses them as far as I'm concerned and it is sod all like going to the beach or the mall.... <_<

 

Totally agree. It's disturbing to see children, about aged 5, face full of make up being entered into these things. And I've seen it recently, on those shows like 'Showbiz Mums and Dads', half the time the parents are living their dreams through their kids, disgraceful. At that age children should be playing, having a normal childhood. NOT in pageants where they are too young to know what's going on anyway, I've seen footage, the mum telling the girl 'act your age and get out there' when the girl was actually about 4 years old.

I hate those sorts of parents. <_<

I've seen footage, the mum telling the girl 'act your age and get out there' when the girl was actually about 4 years old.

I hate those sorts of parents. <_<

 

 

These people want fukkin' shooting if you ask me.... <_< How DARE these people live their lives through their kids just because they're frustrated in some way; kids are supposed to be kids ffs... They should be out in the park, playing football, riding their bikes, going to the swimming baths, not ruddy well taking part in 'Kiddie Talent Contests'... You remember that awful character David Walliams played in "Little Britain"...? Hit the nail totally on the head with that one didn't they....? Disgusting, pathetic people, I'd put their kids into care if it were up to me, I really would....

These people want fukkin' shooting if you ask me.... <_< How DARE these people live their lives through their kids just because they're frustrated in some way; kids are supposed to be kids ffs... They should be out in the park, playing football, riding their bikes, going to the swimming baths, not ruddy well taking part in 'Kiddie Talent Contests'... You remember that awful character David Walliams played in "Little Britain"...? Hit the nail totally on the head with that one didn't they....? Disgusting, pathetic people, I'd put their kids into care if it were up to me, I really would....

 

Yes, exactly!

It makes it ten times more likely the kid will be abducted. Always being in the spotlight. There's so many nutters out there.

9 times of 10 the parent's are probably too old and fat to fulfill their own dreams in life and decide their child will for them.

That is actually happening in my family right now, my little cousin who's 5 has already been doing serious football training for ages now. Brainwashed from a young age so that's all they know. If the kid wanted to do football at least wait until he's old enough to decide for gods sake, he might have found he wanted to learn an instrument or something else, but won't ever get the chance.

As for this supposition that these 'Kiddie Pageants' are only the enjoyment of 'proud parents' and family friends, well, I can burst that little bubble right now...

 

...The first time I remember seeing footage of these 'contests' was on a programme that Channel 4 did in the early/mid-90s about American Public Access TV and the sort of random weirdness that was broadcast (I cant remember the name of the actual prog), and these contests were shown on American Public Access channels, so they were in the Public Domain for any sicko or perv to watch...

And how do you know that the next door neighbour, the 'kindly uncle', the 'nice family friend' isn't a wolf in sheep's clothing...? THE VAST MAJORITY of child abuse occurs in the family home, the VAST MAJORITY of these abusers are known to the child and the child's family...

 

These Pageants are SICK, end of story and nothing excuses them as far as I'm concerned and it is sod all like going to the beach or the mall.... <_<

It's like going to the beach because perverts can watch children get changed and wander round in bathing costumes.

It's like going to the mall because there are huge numbers of strangers, and it's easy to lose your kids, so then it's harder to 'protect them' as you said in your previous post was the parents' duty.

 

I would not force, or even vaguely encourage, my future children to take part in pageants because I don't like them. I think the children get a horrid view that winning is all that matters - and that good looks and a fake smile mean something.

I agree with you that beauty pageants are not a good thing. They are horribly tacky and it's not good for the children's psyche to lose.

 

It's your belief that it puts children in immediate danger that I disagree with.

Parents have to live their lives, and if they avoid anything where a pervert could see your child or possible abductors will be present at(including the beach and the mall), then they're left with very few choices.

The child then gets escorted to school and back, gets to do nothing unsupervised by their parents, and gets a very limited life.

Can they even visit a friend's house? What if their friend's Dad is a 'wolf in sheep's clothing', as you put it?

 

You say they should be in the swimming baths (where they'll get changed in a public dressing room, where they'll be visible in swimming costumes) or in the park (large open space - slightly vulnerable).

If you believe that paedophiles and abductors are everywhere, then these options are not safe either.

Edited August 17, 200618 yr by Tim