Posted on 08/20/2006 12:43:56 PM PDT by BulletBobCo
I've had enough. So I will just come right out and say what others in this business apparently will not: Mary Lacy, that's not your boy.
John Mark Karr as much killed JonBenet Ramsey as Mickey Mouse did. This is a fool's errand you're on, and it won't end pretty.
If you haven't noticed, the guy is a lunatic.
OK, my upbringing tells me that it is a lousy thing to say about anyone. So let me put it this way: He is the saddest of all sad cases, a delusional, completely whacked out, early-teen-girl-marrying sociopath who writes bad poetry to long-dead little girls.
Perhaps that's better.
What I'm saying is no different than anyone capable of reading a newspaper or watching a television is saying.
On CNN this morning, I swore the two anchors were going to fall over laughing after they ran for the 35th-something time the audio of John Mark Karr making his wild, "It was an accident" claim.
Most journalists in this town and across the globe have been falling over themselves trying not to - in the words of Mrs. Lacy - "rush to judgment" on this fool, all the while rupturing an intestine to keep from laughing.
Not me. I can barely get up off the floor.
I watched on TV Thursday as Mary Lacy stood on a big stage, flanked on each side by a line of stiff, grim-faced G-men and cops, solemnly speaking of the "exigent circumstances" that necessitated the man's arrest in Bangkok.
On the other channel is yet more footage of John Mark Karr, staggering, half-leaning and vacant-eyed, in to his press conference, looking like a poor Pee-wee Herman impersonator.
"I'm so sorry for what happened to JonBenet," he said.
Please.
Even the Bangkok police, notorious for arresting people whether they need arresting or not, reportedly figured it out early, that this Pee-wee was whack-o.
Even they knew John Mark Karr couldn't have picked up JonBenet from school on the day he says he killed her, it being Christmas and all.
Maybe I'm wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I've fingered the wrong killer in this case. I still maintain I've got it at least half right.
Remember Tom Koby, the Boulder police chief at the time of the murder? He once went on TV and into the newspapers declaring he was about to hunt the killer down, that he or she wouldn't get away with it.
Call me cynical, but I don't think he had John Mark Karr in his cross hairs at the time.
Just for fun, let's say Mary Lacy has it right. Think of it.
It would make John Mark Karr the dumbest smart murderer who ever lived.
He somehow sneaked into what was then 755 15th St. in Boulder, figured out in which bedroom his "love," JonBenet was sleeping, got her downstairs unnoticed, fed her pineapple, drugged and sexually assaulted her before smashing her in the head and garroting her to death.
According to his account, such deliberation was done all "by accident."
Yet he is not done. He sits down and writes a ransom note. Maybe he did it before the pineapple thing. No matter. He scratches out a first draft. It isn't good enough.
He sits down and crafts a second one. He drops it and skedaddles.
It is a clean getaway, not a trace of John Mark Karr left behind. What's more, the coroner finds not a trace of either semen on or drugs in the girl.
Perfect crime.
And then what, 10 years later he comes clean? In Bangkok?
I'm not even waiting for the DNA tests to come back. I know the guy didn't do it.
How do I know?
Her name is Lara Knutson, the divorced wife of John Mark Karr and the mother of his children.
On Friday, she publicly said the guy was with her and the kids in Alabama on Christmas Day 1996, that they hardly had anything, much less money for a trip to Colorado.
Now, ex-wives will say and do a lot of things, but trust me, the last thing they'd ever do is risk jail time to provide your sorry backside with a phony alibi.
If I'm wrong, that is just dandy with me. DAs and cops on murder cases always tell you to just wait, that there are things they know that they just can't talk about right now.
They said the same thing in Boulder 10 years ago.
So go for it, Mary Lacy.
Being wrong again this time, though, does come with a heavy price.
On television the day of the arrest, you might remember, JonBenet Ramsey's relatives exulted over the news.
I felt sorry for them, fearful - if not certain - that once again because of blind overeagerness or sheer incompetence, Boulder authorities will disappoint them, scraping that unbearably painful 10-year-old wound.
The little girl's memory and the loved ones who survive her deserve knowing and peace, not this.
That the first time John Mark Karr ever steps foot in Boulder County will be the day Mary Lacy flies him in, well, that is simply sad and embarrassing. Not funny at all.
Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303-954-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.
>>>The only fact that isn't subject to poor journalism (and that I will believe) is whether the DNA from the suspect matches that taken from the crime scene and which does not match any other known person. Otherwise this is just bad reporting compounded by ill-founded conjecture.>>>
You are correct. I remember the first night, all the 'experts' and talking heads were saying how this guy is a fraud because he couldn't have drugged her and there was no school at Christmas. Next day when the Tai police recanted or corrected that, there was no "oops, my bad", it was "well, his wife says he was home with her". Ohh, ex-wife says he was home, let him go. Sheesh.
>>>She does have a motive to remember in his favor--her children. How many women want their children to live with the stigma of having their father known as a notorious child molester/murderer?>>>
Motive such as protecting her own butt? He had a website from 1996 that he used to ask sexual questions to youngsters on. She posted on there frequently as well. I cannot believe she was as ignorant to this man and his rantings until he was arrested in 2001. He was losing it long before that.
Leni
How do you know it was her and not him pretending to be her? I know Lara extremely well, and I cannot imagine her participating in this.
>>>I read that the ex-wife has backtracked a little, now stating she isn't sure if he was or wasn't with her and the kids that particular Christmas day.>>>
REALLY???
>>>She posted on there frequently as well.
How do you know it was her and not him pretending to be her? I know Lara extremely well, and I cannot imagine her participating in this.>>>
You can't be sure I suppose and that is how alot of pedophiles would give it validity. But if she was THAT controlled by him... Believe me, what a woman shows to the world isn't always what she shows in her private world.
This has been handled very well by the DA, the judges and even the defense attorneys.
The important part of the media's role was getting Karr's face on every station and every newspaper across the country. The more Karr is exposed, the more likely to "catch'm" at his own game.
Karr is of the same mindframe as Scott Peterson.
The U.S. asked Thailand for for his extradition and received approval for his return to the U.S.
My point was that if he didn't do the Benet murder, he should be sent back to Thailand to finish out his jail sentence there.
The jails there are unlike the Country Club prisons in the U.S.
Ask anyone who got caught sneaking illegal drugs in the country there.
I think Karr got tired of the foreign prison and "confessed" so that he could live in a "Club Fed" here.
The U.S. asked Thailand for for his extradition and received approval for his return to the U.S.
My point was that if he didn't do the Benet murder, he should be sent back to Thailand to finish out his jail sentence there.
The jails there are unlike the Country Club prisons in the U.S.
Ask anyone who got caught sneaking illegal drugs in the country there.
I think Karr got tired of the foreign prison and "confessed" so that he could live in a "Club Fed" here.
No he wasn't. He had just started a new teaching job there and was arrested at the request of the U.S.
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