[Vision2020] Ramsey charges dropped

[Mark Solomon]

The New York Times


August 29, 2006
Dropped Charges Setback for Ramsey Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:18 a.m. ET

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) -- The lack of a DNA match between John Mark Karr 
and evidence from the killing of JonBenet Ramsey set prosecutors back 
nearly 10 years, but they promised to continue searching for the 
6-year-old beauty queen's killer.

''This case is not closed,'' said District Attorney Mary Lacy, who 
planned to further explain her decision at a news conference Tuesday.

JonBenet's aunt, Pamela Paugh, said Tuesday that she wasn't terribly 
shocked to learn that Karr's public confession to being with JonBenet 
when she died didn't hold up.

''I think one of two things is going on: Either he is quite 
disturbed, and in that respect needs a lot of help and care, or he 
has perpetrated quite the fraud on the American public and the 
victims' families, and he needs help and a lot of care,'' Paugh told 
CBS' ''The Early Show.''

''For us, this isn't a story that ebbs and flows -- this is real 
life. So we have to maintain a certain amount of calmness through 
anything that happens. Otherwise you can be on a rollercoaster every 
week of your life.''

JonBenet's father found the little girl's body in the basement of 
their Boulder home on the day after Christmas 1996. For years, 
suspicion has focused on either an intruder or the girl's parents, 
John and Patsy Ramsey.

Karr, a 41-year-old schoolteacher fascinated with JonBenet and Polly 
Klaas, a murdered California girl, said after his arrest in Thailand 
earlier this month that he was with JonBenet at the time of her 
slaying, which he called an accident.

But Lacy said DNA tests did not put Karr at the crime scene.

Prosecutors suggested in court papers that Karr was just a man with a 
twisted obsession who confessed to a crime he didn't commit. Karr had 
made graphic claims in a series of e-mails about JonBenet's killing, 
describing sexual acts with her, her death and writing at one point 
that he envisioned Johnny Depp playing him in a movie about how he 
killed JonBenet. He wrote that the movie would make $1 billion.

Karr was being held at the Boulder jail until he can be sent to 
Sonoma County, Calif., to face misdemeanor child pornography charges 
dating to 2001. An extradition hearing was scheduled for Tuesday 
afternoon.

Karr was never formally charged in the slaying. In court papers, Lacy 
defended the decision to arrest him and bring him back to the United 
States for further investigation, saying he might have otherwise fled 
and may have been targeting children in Thailand.

Lacy said Karr emerged as a suspect in April after he spent several 
years exchanging e-mails and 11 telephone calls with a University of 
Colorado journalism professor who had produced documentaries on the 
case.

The District Attorney's office released explicit details of 
statements Karr had made in those exchanges with professor Michael 
Tracey, who had alerted authorities. Karr told the professor he 
accidentally killed JonBenet during sex and tasted her blood after he 
injured her, prosecutors said.

''Are you asking me why I killed JonBenet? I don't see it that way,'' 
Karr wrote in a May 22 e-mail. ''Her and I were engaging in a 
romantic and very sexual interaction. It went bad and it was my 
fault.''

But the claims were lies, prosecutors said. The Denver crime lab 
conducted DNA tests Friday on a cheek swab taken from Karr and were 
unable to connect him to the crime.

''This information is critical because ... if Mr. Karr's account of 
his sexual involvement with the victim were accurate, it would have 
been highly likely that his saliva would have been mixed with the 
blood in the underwear,'' Lacy said in court papers.

She also said authorities found no evidence Karr was in Boulder at 
the time of the slaying. She said Karr's family provided ''strong 
circumstantial support'' for their belief that he was with them in 
Georgia, celebrating the holidays.

Defense attorney Seth Temin said Karr never should have been arrested.

When Karr was arrested in Thailand, Ramsey family attorney Lin Wood 
pronounced it a vindication for JonBenet's parents. Patsy Ramsey died 
of cancer in June.

On Monday, the attorney said: ''From day one, John Ramsey publicly 
stated that he did not want the public or the media to jump to 
judgment. He did not want the public or the media to engage in 
speculation, that he wanted the justice system to take its course.''

Nate Karr, John Karr's brother, said he was elated his brother would 
not be charged. ''We're just going to be celebrating with family,'' 
he said.

But Scott Robinson, a Denver attorney who has followed the case from 
the beginning, said Karr may be charged with lying about his role.

''Seems to me there should be some criminal consequences,'' he said. 
''He has cost the taxpayers an enormous amount of money.''

The district attorney defended the handling of the case, saying there 
was no way to take a cheek swab from Karr without alerting him that 
he was under investigation.

Also, Karr was about to start a teaching job in Thailand, and in his 
correspondence began to describe an interest in several girls ''in 
much the same terms that he had described his interest in JonBenet,'' 
Lacy said in court papers.

In a July 19 e-mail, Karr described feeling excited because two 
5-year-olds were ''flashing their hot little bellybuttons at me'' and 
later said a ''naked little foot felt so sexy in my hand,'' 
prosecutors said. Karr's arrest was less than a month later.

------

Associated Press writers Jon Sarche in Boulder, Dan Elliott, P. 
Solomon Banda and Sandy Shore in Denver, Harry R. Weber in Atlanta 
and Scott Lindlaw in San Francisco contributed to this report.

------

On the Net:

D.A. filing: http://www.courts.state.co.us/docs/06CR1244MQUASH1.pdf
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