Links to JonBenet Are Unclear

The complex portrait that began to emerge Thursday of John Mark Karr, the American arrested this week in the 1996 slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, suggested he was a troubled schoolteacher with a record that included child pornography charges but no clear links to the victim or even to Colorado, the state where the crime occurred.

A calm, neatly dressed Karr, appearing at a news conference at a Bangkok, Thailand, detention facility, told reporters he was with the 6-year-old girl when she died.

“I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet,” he said. “It’s very important for me that everyone knows that I love her very much, that her death was unintentional, that it was an accident.”

Asked whether he was innocent, Karr replied: “No.”

But Boulder Dist. Atty. Mary T. Lacy declined to comment on what evidence her investigators had implicating Karr. “Do not jump to conclusions, do not rush to judgment, do not speculate,” she said. She also indicated that public safety concerns and fear that he might flee had prompted her to have Karr arrested before her investigation was complete.

Many investigators and lawyers who have been following the case for a decade said that although they hoped authorities had the right person, they were skeptical of Karr’s confession.

“At this point, I haven’t heard anything very reassuring that we have the right person,” said Trip DeMuth, former senior deputy district attorney for Boulder County who was on the Ramsey case from the start until 2000, when he left the office. “It is disconcerting. I am hoping that they based the arrest on corroborating evidence.”

Craig Silverman, former chief deputy district attorney in Denver, said that if the case goes to court, Karr’s confession could prove to be “next to nothing.”

“This confession seemed delusional,” he said.

Silverman said that under Colorado law, prosecutors could not obtain a valid conviction without evidence that corroborates a confession. In addition, he said the confession seemed illogical. He said that although Karr called JonBenet’s death an accident, her brutal slaying could hardly qualify as such.

Whatever it was, the crime exploded into one of the most notorious mysteries of the last quarter-century, fueled by mainstream and tabloid interest and coverage from 24-hour news channels.

It started with a phone call. JonBenet’s mother, Patsy Ramsey, dialed 911 from her family’s Boulder home about 6 a.m. on Dec. 26, 1996. She reported that her 6-year-old daughter had been kidnapped. She also said she found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for the girl’s return -- the amount of the bonus that had recently been awarded to her father, John Ramsey.

Later that day, John Ramsey reported finding his daughter’s body in the basement, wrapped in a sheet. Her mouth had been taped. A garrote was around her throat.

In the decade since, critics have accused investigators of bungling the investigation, including the handling of key evidence. A grand jury met for 13 months, but it did not return an indictment in the case when it concluded its work in 1999.

Homing In on Karr

Law enforcement officials said they began focusing on Karr only in the last several months.

In May, prosecutors were given hundreds of e-mails from a person now believed to be Karr that had been sent to Michael Tracey, a University of Colorado journalism professor. Tracey has produced three documentaries on the Ramsey case and has argued that police erred in suspecting the Ramseys in their daughter’s death.

Tracey said in an interview that he had been communicating with Karr for four years and in May went to prosecutors with the e-mails. He declined to discuss any specifics, but he said he believed that prosecutors were able to confirm that they came from Karr.

Patsy Ramsey was also the intended recipient of e-mails whose sender is now believed to be Karr, according to L. Lin Wood, the Ramseys’ Atlanta-based attorney. But the notes were diverted to investigators in Boulder.

In one e-mail, the writer said he wanted to set up a meeting with the mother, according to Wood. Investigators asked whether she was game, and Patsy Ramsey said she would do so if it would help the investigation, Wood said. But the 49-year-old died in June of ovarian cancer before any such plan was set up.

Since Karr’s arrest, one of his early statements to investigators appears to contradict official findings. He told investigators he drugged and sexually assaulted JonBenet, according to an Associated Press interview with Thai police. But her autopsy did not reveal the presence of drugs.

Equally puzzling is how he came to “love” the girl -- or even know her at all. The Karrs and the Ramseys lived in Georgia in the late 1980s. The Ramseys moved to Boulder in 1991, a year after JonBenet was born. It is unclear where the Karrs were living then. So far, no records suggest that John M. Karr ever lived in Colorado. JonBenet’s father has said he doesn’t think he knows Karr.

Karr’s ex-wife, who divorced him in 2001, has also provided him with an alibi for the day of the slaying. Lara Karr told a TV news station that he was with her in Alabama at the time.

Lacy, the Boulder district attorney, refused to discuss the details of the case in a news conference Thursday. Over the years, a number of Boulder investigators have disagreed with one another’s take on the case -- including lingering suspicions among some that the Ramsey family was complicit in the killings. Some investigators have even quit or retired in frustration or disgust.

Lacy seemed to take that into account when she repeatedly said at the news conference that Karr was innocent until proved guilty.

But Wood, the Ramsey family’s attorney, said he was convinced Lacy had built a substantial case against Karr.

“I give this gentleman the presumption of innocence,” Wood said. “I also know a prosecutor does not make an arrest simply because there’s probable cause for the arrest -- but when he or she has evidence to prove the case with a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Details From His Past

The questions about the potential case against Karr were raised even as details emerged about his past.

Karr grew up in Alabama and Georgia. A resume posted on a teacher job search website shows he was running a small business before he graduated from high school.

In 1984, a year after his graduation, Karr married a 13-year-old in Marion County, Ala., according to the Associated Press. That marriage was annulled after less than a year.

His second marriage was to Lara Marie Karr in 1989. She was 16.

John Karr was “very controlling of me,” Lara Karr said years later in their divorce papers.

She was pregnant when they married. Karr, eight years older, told her it was the best way to get married without parental permission, she said, then later pushed her to cut all ties with family members. The couple eventually had three boys.

Karr became interested in teaching. In 1996, he received a substitute teacher’s license in Alabama and began working in Marion County.

In a prepared statement, the county school superintendent said he took Karr off the substitute roster shortly after he began after receiving complaints about his conduct in and outside the classroom.

In 2000, Karr received a degree from a distance-learning college. The next year, the family was living in Petaluma, Calif., and Karr was working as a substitute teacher in Sonoma and Napa counties.

A Brush With the Law

In early 2001, authorities launched an investigation after suspicious e-mails containing the names of schoolchildren came to light. That April, investigators searched Karr’s residence and seized a computer holding photographs and videos of children engaged in sex acts. He was arrested and charged with five counts of possessing child pornography.

During questioning by a sheriff’s detective, Karr offered a list of excuses, including that he was researching a book on Richard Allen Davis, the convicted killer of Polly Klaas. Karr said he kept a maroon binder at home that contained Klaas’ death certificate and a letter from Davis.

Karr also said he was using the e-mails to win the confidence of a sex offender and “dupe her into a full confession.”

Karr won release from jail Oct. 5, 2001, on a slate of conditions, including prohibitions on contacting his one named victim, using computers or the Internet, and visiting parks, theaters, beaches and other spots frequented by children.

Two days later, his wife was told by a neighbor that Karr had asked for her number, and wanted to see his boys and collect his belongings and car. Lara Karr got a court-ordered restraining order and no-visitation judgment, cutting off all ties between Karr and his sons.

“I’m concerned for the well being of my sons,” Lara Karr said in court papers, noting that one district attorney official told her that her husband’s acts were so egregious that he should be considered “a threat to all children.”

In court papers, Lara Karr recalled that he had prior difficulties during his tenure as a substitute teacher while working in the South. She said John Karr had been told by a school in 1997 or 1998 that he wouldn’t be asked to come back as a substitute because “he had a tendency to be too affectionate with the children.”

John Karr’s trial was set for January 2002, but he failed to report as required to authorities in December 2001, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Road to Bangkok

Karr traveled Europe, Asia and Central America, teaching as a private tutor and at schools, eventually ending up in Bangkok, where he started a job this week teaching at a private school.

After the arrest, Karr’s brother, Nate, told Fox News that his brother had never visited Boulder. He also said that investigators may have become suspicious because his brother was researching a book on child sex crimes.

On Thursday, Sylvia Ross, a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher from Petaluma, recalled her experiences with Karr. She recalled talking endlessly with him, disarmed by his soft, Southern accent.

After his arrest in 2001, Lara Karr had told Ross that police had confiscated his computer. But the neighbor still was stunned by the arrest in Bangkok. “I was in shock because I had known someone who may have done such a horrible thing,” Ross said. “What kind of society can hide these horrible people?”

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Vartabedian reported from Boulder, Fausset from Denver and Romney from Sonoma County. Times staff writers Eric Bailey and researchers Jenny Jarvie and Lynn Marshall contributed to this report.