Local informant taped, logged odd conversations with Karr in 2001
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060818/NEWS/60818016/1033/NEWS01
Detail suspect's fixation with Klaas, young girls
By KATY HILLENMEYER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Five years before he confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey, John Karr exchanged phone conversations and e-mails detailing his fixation with the 6-year-old’s 1996 slaying and the 1993 murder of Petaluma’s Polly Klaas, according to a Sonoma County woman who became a police informant.
Wendy Hutchens, 49, said she has detailed phone logs, e-mails and tape recordings of phone conversations with Karr in 2001, weeks before he was arrested on five misdemeanor child pornography charges.
Asked to comment Friday on Hutchens’ reliability and truthfulness, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Lt. Dave Edmonds said: “I’m not going to make any characterizations about any involved parties.”
He declined to discuss the role Hutchens may have played in their investigations, saying “we won’t discuss the inner workings of any case.”
Boulder investigators, the FBI and authorities in Napa County would not comment on the investigation and would not verify Hutchens’ claims that she has 20 hours of taped phone conversations with Karr prior to his arrest on misdemeanor child pornography charges.
Hutchens said she made the tapes at the request of FBI and Sonoma County investigators.
They paint a picture of a man eager to meet Klaas’s convicted killer, Richard Allen Davis; who was attracted to young female murder victims; and claimed to connect with them supernaturally.
In one late-night phone conversation, a soft-spoken man with a southern accent describes the circumstances surrounding JonBenet’s strangulation:
“She was in a lot of pain before she died and suffered and was tortured. There is physical evidence of that. What a shame. It’s shameful. That person did that to the most beautiful girl in the world.”
Excerpts of the tape, played for a Press Democrat reporter by Hutchens, do not contain a confession by Karr. But the rambling conversations with Hutchens reveal a man obsessed with young girls, claiming a deep “spiritual connection” with Klaas and other deceased children like her.
“How would that person apologize for such an atrocity?,” the caller identified as Karr says, referring to JonBenet’s killer. “Would that person say, ‘I strangled your daughter and it was so accidental and I was so afraid?’”
Hutchens’ name appears in a judge’s order granting Karr’s supervised release after he was charged with possession of child pornography in 2001, after he served six months in jail. He violated terms of release and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Karr was ordered to stay away from Hutchens by the judge.
Today, the 49-year-old Hutchens said she wonders why John and Patsy Ramsey remained the focus of suspicion so many years after their daughter’s strangulation death, when in 2001 she alerted local detectives and the FBI to Karr’s obsessions.
“Five years ago he was sitting in jail (in Sonoma County). It just breaks my heart,” the former Petaluma woman said. “I felt so bad for the Ramseys. If there was a possibility that he did it, I wanted them to investigate him.”
Karr was arrested in Thailand earlier this week. In his only public statements, made after he was in custody, Karr said: “I was with JonBenet when she died. ... Her death was an accident.”
I agree.Very interesting story and it makes one wonder.Where I live,there are three prisons within 10 miles from my home.They are always looking for guards,as many are let go for a number of reasons.One female guard was let go after being caught bent over with her pants down in front of a male inmates cell.You can guess what was going on.Some of the guards look like they should be incarcerated themselves.There are some good ones,but the amount of drugs and whatnot,could only be done with the help of some of the guards.One can of smokeless tobacco can bring an unreal amount of money on the inside.Temptation is always there.As per Goering,one would think the Gov.would put their best people on duty to watch him.With such a high profile prisoner,it would seem to make sense.Someone was sleeping at the switch.Regards,xarmydog