Suspect arrested in JonBenet Ramsey case (Ramsey Tip Led To Arrest!)

Yahoo ^ | 8/16/06

[Mr. Brightside]

Suspect arrested in JonBenet Ramsey case

By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer

34 minutes ago

BOULDER, Colo. - A former schoolteacher was arrested Wednesday in Thailand in the slaying of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey — a surprise breakthrough in a lurid, decade-old murder mystery that had cast a cloud of suspicion over her parents.

Federal officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, identified the suspect as John Mark Karr, a 42-year-old American, and one law enforcement official told The Associated Press that Boulder police had tracked him down online.

The Ramsey family's attorney in Atlanta pronounced the arrest vindication for 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," Lin 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."

The attorney said the Ramseys learned about the suspect a 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.

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 for several years before moving to Colorado in 1991.

A source close to the investigation said Karr confessed to elements of the crime. Also, 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.

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

Karr was being held in Bangkok on unrelated sex charges, authorities said. CBS reported he will be brought back to the United States this weekend.

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.

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."

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

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."

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.

Lawrence Schiller, author of the 1999 book "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town" about the case, said Wednesday he understood the man had been on a list of sexual offenders who were suspects for a long time.

"There are a lot of facts about her actual death that the public does not know." Schiller said. "If he did confess to some facts of the murder, to reveal those facts of the case, that would finish the puzzle."

Among the facts he said were not generally known was the murder weapon and what the killer did with it.

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.

Bob Grant, a former Adams County district attorney who worked on the case, said there was never enough evidence to convince him that any potential suspect could be successfully prosecuted.

"I wasn't convinced it was an inside job, nor was I convinced it was an outside job," he said. "All the outside suspects were cleared after exhaustive investigation, and there were a whole lot of outside suspects."

[Fitzcarraldo]

Son of Speck?

[Toddsterpatriot]

Do you see a resemblance? First thing I thought was, Speck!

[hunter112]

It's just like getting your little boy started in little league down here.

It's sick. It teaches girls that you are only what you look like, not who you are inside. That's a hard enough thing to deal with when a girl is 18, it's impossible to process when you're six.

It needs to disappear. It's sexist, materialistic, and shallow. At least baseball has the potential to teach kids how to cooperate in team sports.

[mzbzybee]

I am too. But, they acted very suspicious from the beginning. I have no problem that they hired lawyers, I would too, but I would fully cooperate with the authorities period. They did not.

[MayflowerMadam]

My theory: I thought that an intruder came in while they were at the party and waited for everyone to go to bed. Then he took and killed JonBenet. Patsy found the body and assumed that one of the sons, or husband, had done it, so wrote the kidnap letter to throw suspicion away from her family to try to protect them while they all were still asleep. (But one of the polygraphs allegedly showed she knew nothing about who wrote the letter. Oh, well...)

[Dixie Yooper]

"It's sick. It teaches girls that you are only what you look like, not who you are inside. That's a hard enough thing to deal with when a girl is 18, it's impossible to process when you're six."

Does you wife and daughters were burkas or are you more into the Amish or strict Mennonite apparel?
Child molesters are predators/hunters. They don't care how you dress up your kids or where you take them. Look at the sick religious creep that kidnapped the Mormon girl out in Utah a few years ago. He was doing gardening at her house, broke in during the middle of the night and abducted her right our of her bed in front of her sister. He dressed her and his girl fiend up in burka like robes. I guess he also had a problem with the way American girls and women dress.

[cyborg]

Okay well... I've already explained myself further down this thread. I'm not going to keep repeating myself so have a nice day.

[cyborg]

Don't know and now I'm tired of this thread. I'm not answering anymore replies to my post if people don't bother to read the whole thread. Bye.

[cyborg]

I suppose. I wish I had the critical thinking skills I have now but that's life. Have a nice day.

[Cecily]

Don't sweat it. People here on their high horses demanding apologies from those who suspected the Ramseys (for many good reasons, I might add) already have this Karr person tried and convicted, and the story isn't even 24 hours old. Pot meet kettle?

[hunter112]

Does you wife and daughters were burkas or are you more into the Amish or strict Mennonite apparel?

OK, so it's either burkas or Britney Spears, there's no middle ground for you?

Yes, I know all about child molesters, my ex married one, and I went to court twelve years ago to get custody of my two younger kids while she was contemplating doing this. I've studied it up one side, and down the other. While I think teaching a pre-school child to shake her booty like a stripper might just increase the exposure that a little girl has to predators, it always gives these children a perverse sense of reality.

It focuses the child's attention on her looks, and not her personality, or her willingness to study, or the value of all human beings. It turns otherwise decent girls into materialistic spoiled b!tches, who believe that acting a certain way for men is the way to get what you want. It inspires the less-than-picture-perfect others to emulate them with eating disorders, and self-esteem issues. They teach boys that what a girl looks like on his arm is way more important than her morals, values, brains, and disposition.

Even if all the child predators were killed (a great idea, in my estimation) there'd still be more than enough reason to get rid of child beauty pageants for the harm they do to our kids.

[Dixie Yooper]

"It turns otherwise decent girls into materialistic spoiled b!tches, who believe that acting a certain way for men is the way to get what you want"

There's plenty of middle ground, your the one who slammed it hard to the wall. As far as your comment above, I grew up in an rural area where there were no beauty pageants, but somehow the girls that were destined to, learned how to act like scum and rise to the top of the swamp. Some were poor, some were rich, several were in between. The only thing they all had in common were bad manners and parents that didn't spend the right kind of time with them.
I am sorry to hear about your problems that you have gone though and hope all is back on track now.

[jhw61]

shaking her bottom...much can be said about any school cheerleading squads!

[Conservative Texan Mom]

Patsy Ramsey was a former beauty pageant queen. I can't remember which state.

A few years back there was an interesting interview that Barbara Walters did with the Ramseys. Something that came to light was that Patsy started JonBenet in the pageants following the recovery of stage four ovarian cancer. Her husband commented that he felt she did that because she was uncertain of how much time she had left to raise her daughter and wanted to share something that had been special to her with her daughter. Patsy said that that was true. Pageants had been a very wonderful experience to her, and she didn't know if her cancer would return soon. I can completely understand her thinking. pageants aren't my thing, but if I felt that I might only have five years or so left with my children, I would want to share significant experiences with them. It's amazing that Patsy lived as long as she did following that type of cancer. Certainly she never imagined that this choice might expose her daughter to harm, if that is even how the perp came to know of JonBenet.

[subterfuge]

You are mistaken.

Okay. I guess I'll have to take you at your word on that.