Posted on 08/25/2006 5:52:05 AM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Brother: Karr didn't kill JonBenet
By JON SARCHE and CHASE SQUIRES, Associated Press Writers
39 minutes ago
BOULDER, Colo. - John Mark Karr's brother insisted Friday that Karr did not kill JonBenet Ramsey. "Absolutely not. Emphatically. Without a doubt," Nate Karr said in a television interview.
Karr told ABC's "Good Morning America" he was certain his brother spent Christmas 1996, when JonBenet was slain, with his family.
"Well I can say almost without question that from the time that John had children he has never missed a Christmas with his family, and that's any Christmas," said Karr, who appeared on the show with his father, Wexford Karr.
"If he was away from his family during Christmas it would have been a family scandal," Nate Karr said.
The brother said he was uncertain where the family spent the holiday when the 6-year-old child beauty queen was slain in her Boulder, Colo., home.
"To the best of our recollection, he was either with us in Atlanta or with (his ex-wife) Lara," Nate Karr said. "It's not as easy as you might think to remember 10 years ago."
Addressing his brother, Nate Karr said: "We love you and we support you 100 percent. ... Help's on the way."
John Mark Karr, meanwhile, spent his first night in an 8-by-10-foot jail cell in Colorado, away from other inmates for his own safety.
Nine days after his arrest in Thailand, the 41-year-old former schoolteacher now awaits a court appearance that could come as early as next week.
Karr arrived in Colorado Thursday, flying in from Los Angeles on a state police plane to face charges in a homicide case prosecutors acknowledged is in its infancy.
Formal charges were pending and the date of Karr's first court appearance could be announced Friday, the district attorney's office said.
His first few hours at the jail were to include physical and mental evaluations, and he was isolated from the other 480 inmates, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said.
"Anybody that's in jail in our population that faces these kinds of charges, charges against children, faces some danger," Pelle said.
Questions about Karr's involvement in the case have arisen since he told reporters following his arrest in Thailand that he was with JonBenet at the time of her death but that it was an accident.
Boulder County prosecutors have refused to detail any evidence they might have, but in a court filing this week said investigators didn't learn of Karr's name until Aug. 11, five days before his arrest. They said he was arrested in part because they feared he might get tipped off and vanish.
The court filing conflicts with the Sonoma County, Calif., sheriff, who said his office alerted Boulder authorities about Karr in 2001 after he was arrested on child pornography charges. The sheriff and Boulder prosecutors declined to comment on the apparent discrepancy.
Karr has professed love for JonBenet in e-mails with a Colorado professor, and told a California woman he believes the girl was tortured before she was strangled.
Sonoma County sheriff's Lt. Dave Edmonds said Karr expressed an "apparent fascination" with 1993 murder victim Polly Klaas and JonBenet, and "presented ideas about what the murderers of Polly Klaas and JonBenet Ramsey must have thought and felt."
But there was no confession, Edmonds said, or anything else to suggest Karr played a role in JonBenet's slaying.
The Boulder arrest warrant and supporting affidavit remain sealed and the district attorney is fighting media requests to open them. Prosecutors said in the court filing Wednesday the affidavit contains evidence never before disclosed publicly.
Former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman speculated that investigators may already have DNA evidence that they believe links Karr to JonBenet's death.
He said prosecutors may have obtained and tested DNA from a letter Karr reportedly sent through the mail, and that may have persuaded Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy to send an investigator to Thailand to surreptitiously collect more samples.
Nate Karr told ABC his brother may have become obsessed with the case because he wanted to write a book about it. Because he lost the ability to see his sons and wife five years ago, "maybe he felt lost," the brother said. "And maybe that was the only reality he had left."
After JonBenet's father, John Ramsey, found her body in the family's basement on Dec. 26, 1996, police collected DNA from blood spots in her underwear and from under her fingernails.
Investigators have said some of the DNA was too degraded to use as evidence, but some was of sufficient quality to submit to the FBI in 2003. The sample did not match any of the 1.5 million samples in the agency's database, according to the Ramsey family attorney.
Other evidence includes a ransom note, a mysterious boot print found outside the house, marks on JonBenet's body that some say could have been made by a stun gun; and signs that someone may have entered the house through a basement window.
Dozens of attorneys have come forward offering to represent Karr. The county public defenders' office has asked to meet with Karr, the sheriff said. It was not known whether such a meeting had taken place Thursday.
Now THAT would be a story.
One might also mistakenly believe it was an individual of African-American heritage.
I'm convinced!
I just don't think we are getting enough coverage of this case. And what we are getting is wrong. Why just yesterday they reported that Karr when to the men's room to take a leak, but it was later learned he was taking a dump.
I think Karr is either nuttier than a Christmas Cheese Ball or he's a damned evil genius..............
Those are possibilities. And it's entirely possible that his brother's a liar, too.
If the Boulder DA has DNA evidence then the family better come up with something better than "He never missed a Christmas" and a picture of his kids.
This guy Karr needs to be locked up and the case needs to be solved. Just lock him up and declare the case solved. Everyone except the news hacks should be satisfied.
The way the man seems to relish cameras and the publicity, and the way the feds have stupidly lavished it upon him, I think Karr's a demented fool using the incident to bring himself infamy.
Someone ought to beat a denial out of him.
True, but brothers are not always reliable. If I had to rely on my brother for an alibi, he'd let me fry...........just for the show.........
I think this is a huge scam on Karr's part. I think the Thai police were getting ready to pop him for diddling kids over there and he wanted out of the country before the Thai jails got hold of him.
I also think the jackals in the media are being scammed and will never admit it when they are shown to be wrong.
I have a similar suspicion about my brother.
If he's truly demented, he actually believes he did it, irrespective of facts or truth. When he is presented with, say a fact that he was in Atlanta at the time, he'll just ignore it or say you're mistaken, or someone lied to you. I grew up with a sociopathic brother, and this guy fits his profile to a "T"..............
Everyone except the news hacks should be satisfied.
And several thousand FReepers.
My brother was diagnosed as a sociopath at 13. The psychs just told us something we already knew. My brother is a compulsive liar. He will tell a lie, even when the truth would be of more benefit to him. If he tells you the sky is blue, you better go check...........
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