JonBenet Suspect Ran Day Care From His Home POSTED: 11:20 am EDT August 24, 2006 UPDATED: 11:50 am EDT August 24, 2006 The suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey killing once ran a day-care center out of his house. Alabama officials said John Karr opened the facility in June of 1997, six months after JonBenet was found dead in her Colorado home. According to the Alabama Department of Human Resources, a local sheriff did a background check on Karr before he got the day-care center license. No problems turned up on the check, and officials said they never got any complaints before the two-year license expired in 1999. Karr operated the facility out of his home in a rural section of northwest Alabama. Karr lived with his late grandparents in the same home after being sent to Hamilton by his father, who also grew up in Alabama but moved to Atlanta. Karr has said he was with 6-year-old JonBenet when she was killed in the basement of her home in Boulder, Colo., in December 1996, but he called her death an accident. Karr was living with his ex-wife in Hamilton at the time of the slaying. Karr remains in a Los Angeles jail, awaiting transport to Colorado. Landlord: Karr Said He Was 'Like A Wolf' Sexually A Canadian man said he leased a room in Costa Rica to Karr , but kicked him out after shortly after he moved in. John Hall told The Associated Press that he rented the room to Karr in 2004 through an Internet posting. Hall, 42, teaches at a private university in the capital of San Jose. Hall said he asked Karr to leave after about five weeks because he said "rude and inappropriate things" to Hall's wife and stepdaughters, who were 16 and 20 years old at the time. Karr, who was an English teacher at the time, allegedly bragged to Hall's family he preferred girls to women and said, "Sexually, I am like a wolf." After kicking Karr out, Hall remained suspicious enough to do a computer search to see if he was a sex predator, but could not find anything. Karr Fascinated With Case California detectives are saying they noted Karr's "apparent fascination" with the JonBenet Ramsey murder five years ago and told authorities in Colorado about it. The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department sid they had Karr under investigation in a child pornography case in 2001. In a statement, it said investigators obtained correspondence in which Karr wrote about Ramsey's murderer. It went on to say Karr "seemed to be wondering" about the child beauty queen's murder and "placing himself in the killer's role." However sheriff's officials who questioned Karr five years ago said in a statement released Wednesday that he didn't appear to have any special knowledge of JonBenet's murder that would pin him to the crime. But they said he did show an apparent fascination with the Ramsey murder, which the Sonoma County investigators shared with authorities in Colorado. The Sonoma sheriff's department questioned Karr as part of a 2001 child pornography investigation. Officials wrote in the statement that they uncovered no indication that "John Karr possessed secret knowledge that only the murderer of JonBenet Ramsey would know." Lawyers More Enthusiastic Than Experienced The two San Jose, Calif., attorneys now representing Karr in the murder investigation don't have long or illustrious careers but have expressed a passion for defending him. Patience Van Zandt briefly represented Karr in 2001 on child pornography charges while working as a Sonoma County public defender. She said she feels a personal connection to Karr and was "horrified" when she saw him on TV after his arrest in Thailand a week ago. Van Zandt's partner, Jamie Harmon, only met Karr two days ago when she visited him at the Los Angeles County Jail. According to a San Jose Mercury News report earlier this year, she has been cited by judges three times for giving clients poor legal advice. The lawyers said the earliest Karr could be returned to Boulder is next week, adding that prosecutors there have not been cooperating with them. http://www.nbc4i.com/news/9730458/detail.html

Karr Being Processed In Colorado Jail POSTED: 11:20 am EDT August 24, 2006 UPDATED: 10:18 pm EDT August 24, 2006 John Karr is being processed at a jail in Boulder, Colo. The suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey case will then be locked in an 8-foot-by-10-foot cell away from the other 490 inmates. He was flown in a state police plane from Los Angeles, where he had been in custody since his arrival from Thailand over the weekend. Karr, taken on the plane in handcuffs and shackles, waived extradition in a brief court hearing earlier this week, clearing the way for his transfer. Boulder prosecutors have refused to detail any evidence they might have against Karr. They said the case is still in its "very early stages." Meanwhile, more details emerged Thursday about Karr's past. The suspect apparently once ran a day-care center out of his house in rural northwest Alabama, officials there said. Alabama officials said John Karr opened the facility in June of 1997 -- six months after JonBenet was found dead in her Colorado home. According to the Alabama Department of Human Resources, a local sheriff did a background check on Karr before he got the day-care center license. No problems turned up on the check, and officials said they never got any complaints before the two-year license expired in 1999. Karr lived with his late grandparents in the same home after being sent to Hamilton, Ala., by his father, who also grew up in Alabama but moved to Atlanta. Karr has said he was with JonBenet when she was killed in the basement of her home in Boulder, Colo., in December 1996, but he called her death an accident. He was living with his ex-wife in Hamilton at the time of the slaying. Landlord: Karr Said He Was 'Like A Wolf' Sexually A Canadian man said he leased a room in Costa Rica to Karr but kicked him out after shortly after he moved in. John Hall told The Associated Press that he rented the room to Karr in 2004 through an Internet posting. Hall, 42, teaches at a private university in the capital of San Jose. Hall said he asked Karr to leave after about five weeks because he said "rude and inappropriate things" to Hall's wife and stepdaughters, who were 16 and 20 years old at the time. Karr, who was an English teacher while living in Costa Rica, allegedly bragged to Hall's family he preferred girls to women and said: "Sexually, I am like a wolf." After kicking Karr out, Hall remained suspicious enough to do a computer search to see if he was a sex predator but could not find anything. Karr Fascinated With Case California detectives are saying they noted Karr's "apparent fascination" with the JonBenet Ramsey murder five years ago and told authorities in Colorado about it. The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said they had Karr under investigation in a child pornography case in 2001. In a statement, the department said investigators obtained correspondence in which Karr wrote about Ramsey's murderer. The statement went on to say Karr "seemed to be wondering" about the child beauty queen's murder and "placing himself in the killer's role." Sheriff's officials who questioned Karr five years ago said in the statement that he didn't appear to have any special knowledge of JonBenet's murder that would pin him to the crime. However, they said he did show an apparent fascination with the Ramsey murder, which the Sonoma County investigators shared with authorities in Colorado. The Sonoma sheriff's department questioned Karr as part of a 2001 child pornography investigation. Officials wrote in the statement that they uncovered no indication that "John Karr possessed secret knowledge that only the murderer of JonBenet Ramsey would know." Lawyers More Enthusiastic Than Experienced The two San Jose, Calif., attorneys now representing Karr in the murder investigation don't have long or illustrious careers but have expressed a passion for defending him. Patience Van Zandt briefly represented Karr in 2001 on child pornography charges while working as a Sonoma County public defender. She said she feels a personal connection to Karr and was "horrified" when she saw him on TV after his arrest in Thailand a week ago. Van Zandt's partner, Jamie Harmon, only met Karr two days ago when she visited him at the Los Angeles County Jail. According to a San Jose Mercury News report earlier this year, she has been cited by judges three times for giving clients poor legal advice. The lawyers said prosecutors in Boulder had not been cooperating with them in getting Karr returned to Colorado. http://www.wftv.com/news/9730458/detail.html

Karr court appearance set for Monday By Staff and wire reports August 25, 2006 John Mark Karr will make his first court appearance at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Boulder County sheriff Commander Bruce Haas said today. Karr, 41, was booked into the Boulder County Jail on Thursday evening. He met last night with a public defender, but it’s clear now how long that meeting lasted. His attorneys from California may or may not meet with Karr today, Haas said. Also today, the public defender took the unusual step of asking a judge to seal Karr’s handwritten application for a public-funded lawyer. Some commentators have suggested that Karr’s handwriting in a school yearbook resembles the writing on a ransom note found in the Ramsey home; others have said the writings bear no resemblance. Without referring specifically to this speculation, deputy public defender Seth Temin told the court in a filing that he "is without sufficient knowledge about all the facts of the case to be able to evaluate the prejudice that may be associated with the release of any of the defendant’s handwriting." http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4944773,00.html

The Ramsey case: a primer STORY TOOLS By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News August 26, 2006 The crime Six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was found strangled in the basement of her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996. Since then, the murder has grown into one of the country's most notorious unsolved crimes, with competing suspicions focused on family members or an intruder. • 911 call: Patsy Ramsey calls 911 at 5:52 a.m. after discovering a handwritten ransom note demanding $118,000. • Securing the home: Police fail to secure the home as a crime scene and thoroughly search it themselves. Police tell John Ramsey to look through the home. • Crime scene: The crime scene is further compromised when Ramsey family friends arrive at the house and walk through it. • Body found: About seven hours later, John Ramsey, accompanied by family friend Fleet White, discovers JonBenet's body in the basement. She is found with duct tape over her mouth and a cord around her neck. • Body moved: JonBenet's body is moved twice, first by John Ramsey and then by Boulder Detective Linda Arndt, who then covers the body with a sweatshirt. All this occurs before the coroner's office can examine it. • Interviewing parents: Police fail to separate the parents and interview them individually. Instead they talk to them together throughout the day at the house, a failure of what critics say is conventional police procedure. The investigation The investigation was challenged from the start, with the poor handling of the crime scene. Over time, the focus of the investigation appeared to narrow on the Ramseys, while some wondered if more attention shouldn't be paid to the possibility of an intruder. • No help: Boulder police refuse help from the Denver Police Department. Several Boulder police officials with major roles investigating the case had never before handled a homicide. • Ramsey attorneys: Within five days of JonBenet's death, John and Patsy Ramsey hire attorneys to represent them. • First interviews: In April 1997, police conduct first formal interviews with John and Patsy Ramsey. • Detectives removed: Two detectives, including the first to arrive at the Ramsey home, are removed from the case in May. • Under the umbrella: In December 1997, Boulder police commander Mark Beckner says John and Patsy Ramsey are under an "umbrella of suspicion." • More questioning: The Ramseys are questioned again by police in June 1998. JonBenet's brother, Burke, 9 years old at the time of her death, is interviewed for six hours. He's later cleared of any involvement in the crime. • Grand jury: A grand jury is convened to investigate the case by District Attorney Alex Hunter. The inquiry lasts just more than a year. Afterward, Hunter announces no indictments will be issued. • Smit resigns: Early into the grand jury investigation, retired Colorado Springs homicide detective Lou Smit - brought aboard by Hunter to help investigate the case - resigns. He believes Boulder authorities are on the wrong track, and states his belief the Ramseys are innocent. • The intruder theory: In December 2002 newly elected District Attorney Mary Keenan (now Lacy) takes control of the case from the Boulder Police Department. Keenan, known to prefer the intruder view, promises a fresh look. The clues The JonBenet case is chock-full of clues, or apparent clues, from a strange ransom note presumably written by the killer, to a grotesque murder weapon, to DNA evidence found on JonBenet's body and clothes. • DNA samples: Investigators recover a DNA sample of an unknown Caucasian male from JonBenet's underwear. The Ramsey family attorney believes it's the DNA from the killer. Michael Kane, who led the grand jury investigation for the DA, suggests it could have come from someone handling the underwear at the point of manufacture. • The ransom note: A three-page ransom note discovered by Patsy Ramsey contains several bizarre statements, including a claim that the kidnappers are part of a "small foreign faction." The ransom amount of $118,000 matches John Ramsey's 1996 bonus from his company. Also puzzling is the sign-off of the writer, "SBTC," the meaning of which investigators have never settled on. • Stun gun theory: Mysterious marks are found on JonBenet's face and back. Police suggest the marks were somehow made by a button or snap. Smit believes the marks were from a stun gun used by an intruder who killed the little girl. • Items used from house: A notepad in the home was used to write the ransom note. The duct tape on JonBenet's mouth and a piece of the broken paintbrush used to fashion the garrote were never found, suggesting the killer took them from the home. • The suitcase: A hard-sided suitcase is discovered below an open basement window. Those promoting the idea of an intruder say it could have been used by someone to get a boost from the floor out the window. • Layout of the house: The size of the Ramsey house - a basement and three stories - suggests the killer knew the layout well enough to navigate from JonBenet's second-floor bedroom to the wine cellar. Police think this points to an inside job. But intruder theorists believe the killer spent time in the house before the death, while the Ramseys were away at a Christmas party. • Handwriting analysis: Analysis of the handwriting in the ransom note results in disagreement about whether Patsy Ramsey could have written it. Police say she couldn't be eliminated as a suspect. Similarly, experts disagree about whether the latest suspect, John Mark Karr, wrote the note. The suspects Boulder investigators focused much of their attention on the Ramsey family. Friends and neighbors also were looked at as possible suspects. Others say ample evidence suggests an intruder committed the crime. • Ramseys behavior: Some Boulder police think John and Patsy acted oddly on the day JonBenet's body was discovered. They say the couple didn't comfort each other. They wondered why John was off by himself and why Patsy covered her face and peeked through her fingers. Police also point to the Ramseys' resistance to formal police interviews until four months after the murder as highly suspicious. A Ramsey spokesman blasts the police analysis of the couple's behavior, asking just how parents were supposed to act in such a situation. • Top suspects: Two months after the crime, the spokesman says the Ramseys believe they are top suspects in the case, citing public comments from the police and district attorney. • Pointing to Patsy: Some analysts believe the ransom note and physical injuries to JonBenet are part of a staged event. Former Boulder Detective Steve Thomas advanced the idea in his book that Patsy Ramsey accidentally killed JonBenet in a rage, then tried to disguise her death as a kidnapping and strangulation. • The Ramseys' list: An assortment of Ramsey associates, house workers and friends are investigated and eliminated as suspects. The Ramseys themselves put forth a list of possible suspects. But police critics complain investigators did not aggressively pursue possible alternative suspects. • Smit changes his mind: Smit, the retired Colorado Springs homicide detective, initially thinks the Ramseys are involved. But he changes his mind, saying significant evidence suggests an intruder committed the crime. Since then, Smit's intruder theory has received national publicity and gained a major following among those interested in the case. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4946532,00.html

Ramsey suspect's DNA at Denver lab written by: Paula Woodward 9Wants to Know Reporter updated by Jeffrey Wolf Web Producer and Jessica Roe Executive Producer Created: 8/25/2006 3:10 PM MST - Updated: 8/25/2006 10:23 PM MST BOULDER - 9NEWS DNA taken from John Mark Karr's is now at the Denver Police Department Crime Lab. The DNA evidence was taken in Boulder and sent to the Denver Police lab Friday. By Friday afternoon, Karr's public defender Seth Temin filed a motion to stop the testing until Karr has had a hearing before a judge. As of Friday evening, a judge had not yet ruled on the motion. The motion said that if a DNA sample has been obtained from Karr, "it was not obtained pursuant to applicable law, the constitutions or by valid consent." The DNA evidence is expected to be compared against foreign DNA left on JonBenet Ramsey's body when she was murdered in December 1996. Karr was taken into custody in Bangkok, Thailand last week in connection with the murder. The analysis takes anywhere from two to three days because several tests are conducted on it. 9News confirmed that both saliva and hair samples were taken from Karr. The little girl was covered in a blanket when her body was found. Foreign hair fibers were found on that blanket and they did not match any of the Ramsey family or approximately 100 people. There is also a partial palm print plus a shoe print that will be analyzed. There is no indication as to who will do that analysis. Karr, 41, arrived in Colorado Thursday afternoon after being extradited from California. He was brought to Colorado on a probable cause warrant and could face charges including first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault on a child. After spending four hours with his client at the Boulder County Jail Friday, Temin emerged and told the media, "My team is the Colorado State Public Defender's office. There will be no other attorneys that are not part of the public defender's system on this case." No reaction as of yet from the California attorneys, Patience Van Zandt and Jamie Harmon, who announced Wednesday that "they" were his lawyers. Thursday, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said that after his arrival, Karr had his fingerprints taken and a mug shot photographed. Karr also spoke with a psychiatrist at the jail and a member of the Boulder County Public Defender's office as part of his psychiatric evaluation. Karr is scheduled to appear in Boulder County court Monday at 4:30 p.m. for an advisement. http://kusa.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=472b7d4c-0abe-421a-013f-bf2f838eabbc&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

Judge issues gag order in Ramsey case John Mark Karr kept from other inmates; to appear Monday Friday, August 25, 2006; Posted: 10:19 p.m. EDT (02:19 GMT) BOULDER, Colorado (CNN) -- John Mark Karr, the suspect in the 1996 slaying of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, is scheduled to have his first court appearance Monday, Colorado District Court announced Friday. Karr will appear before Judge Roxanne Bailin at 4:30 p.m. (6:30 p.m. ET). Bailin on Friday issued a gag order, which applies to all attorneys and law enforcement officials involved in the case. While the principals can discuss some aspects of the case, they are not allowed to say anything that could jeopardize Karr receiving a fair trial The order is necessary because of "the intense interest of the media in this matter and the amount of publicity that has resulted," Bailin wrote. "The court is concerned that the extensive participant and public comment will disrupt the processes by which a fair trial may be preserved." The 41-year-old suspect is being held in Boulder County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder, first- and second-degree kidnapping, and sexual assault. No formal charges have been filed yet by Boulder prosecutors. Documents list Karr's birthplace as Conyers, Georgia, and his occupation as "teacher." On Thursday, Deputy State Public Defender Seth Temin said Karr qualifies as an indigent, and he will be defending him. Temin formally informed the court of the move in a filing Friday. Temin also filed a motion Friday asking the court to order any samples of Karr's handwriting to be sealed. "Counsel is without sufficient knowledge about all the facts of the case to be able to evaluate the prejudice that may be associated with release of any of the defendant's handwriting," Temin said in the written request. A handwritten ransom note from the Ramsey house could be part of a murder case. Bailin has ordered the Colorado State Public Defender's office not to release the arrest warrant application. The judge gave Temin until noon (2 p.m. ET) Monday to file a response on that issue. Karr was brought back to the United States from Bangkok, Thailand. He arrived in Colorado Thursday evening from California, where he skipped bail in 2001 after being charged in Sonoma County with five misdemeanor counts of possessing child pornography. Karr appeared at a brief hearing in Los Angeles and waived extradition to Colorado. (Watch Patsy Ramsey's sister reveal what the family will do if Karr isn't guilty -- 4:11) Karr was arrested August 16 in Thailand in connection with the decade-old case. He told reporters in Thailand he was with JonBenet the night she died, and that her death was an accident. The child's beaten and strangled body was found December 26, 1996, in the basement of her family's Boulder home. Autopsy results showed she had suffered a blow to the head and been strangled with a garrote tightened with a paintbrush handle. Several media outlets have filed a motion to unseal Karr's arrest warrant and supporting affidavit. In its response to the motion, the district attorney's office repeated several times that the investigation of Karr "is in its very early stages." Prosecutors agreed the arrest warrant should be unsealed but said that unsealing the supporting affidavit could taint the ongoing investigation, including interviews not yet conducted. "It is crucial that people we interview provide information that is as accurate as possible, unaffected by influences other than their own resources and their best recollections," the documents said. After Karr's statements in Thailand, questions have surfaced as to whether the slight, soft-spoken man could have been involved in the grisly killing. Earlier this year, Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado, alerted authorities to e-mails he had been receiving from a person now believed to be Karr. Tracey, who has produced a documentary about the Ramsey case, said there was something in the e-mails "that made me decide I had to try and do something." But he would not say just what prompted him to contact prosecutors. A law enforcement official told CNN that Karr's e-mails to Tracey were initially innocuous but that the professor contacted authorities when they became "weird." The communications were eventually tracked to Thailand. Tracey told CNN Thursday he also learned Karr's name five days before the arrest. http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/25/ramsey.arrest/index.html

Aug 27, 11:44 AM EDT Prosecuting JonBenet suspect may not hinge on DNA By JON SARCHE Associated Press Writer BOULDER, Colo. (AP) -- The best-case scenario for prosecutors would be slam-dunk DNA evidence tying John Mark Karr to the battered and strangled body of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. Without it, experts say, it's still possible - but much more difficult - to build a strong murder case against the 41-year-old globe-trotting teacher who has said he was there when the girl died 10 years ago, but stopped short of an outright confession. Karr's first court appearance is scheduled for Monday, an advisement hearing expected to last only a few minutes. One of District Attorney Mary Lacy's strengths could be Karr himself, who chose not to fight extradition to Colorado after telling reporters he was there when JonBenet was killed. Authorities in Sonoma County, Calif., who arrested Karr for possession of child pornography in 2001, said he had made "uncertain allusions to placing himself in the killer's role" in talking about JonBenet and Polly Klaas, slain in 1993 in Petaluma, Calif. "From everything I've seen this guy wants to come back to Boulder," said former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman. "The only question is whether he's coming to Boulder for the first time. I suspect Mary Lacy has some evidence that it's not his first visit." JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were initial targets of an investigation that included a grand jury's decision not to indict anyone. Patsy Ramsey died in June after learning authorities had turned their attention to Karr, who was living in Thailand when he was detained earlier this month. In a court filing, prosecutors said they have evidence that has not been disclosed despite 10 years of public scrutiny of the case. Investigators have said DNA from a white male was found in blood spots in JonBenet's underwear, but a Ramsey family attorney said two years ago it didn't match any of the 1.5 million samples in an FBI database at the time. Other physical evidence includes a ransom note, a boot print found outside the Ramsey house and some indications an intruder could have entered through a basement window. But mistakes were made early in the investigation. John Ramsey and others were allowed to roam the house - the crime scene - before his daughter's body was found. Friends of the family came to the home, called by the Ramseys after they found the ransom note. All of this could come back to haunt prosecutors, experts said. "You need to overcome a lot of things; in order to convict Karr or anyone else, you need to overcome the evidence that seemingly could be interpreted as pointing at the Ramseys and the severely compromised crime scene," said Scott Robinson, a Denver attorney familiar with the case. "If Karr's DNA is linked to the scene, it's all over but the verdict. "But if in fact there is no DNA match, a defense attorney could argue that the confession means nothing." Prosecutors can overcome police mistakes with solid work, said Bob Grant, a former district attorney who served as an adviser on the case in the 1990s. "I've never seen a case in trial where the defense didn't find something to attack the investigation about in terms of technical investigative techniques, and I've never seen an investigation that was perfect," Grant said. "If there's DNA able to be matched to him, then the mistakes are of little or no consequence." After Karr was detained in Bangkok, Lacy told a news conference that sometimes it becomes necessary to make an arrest before an investigation is complete and that much work remained in the Karr investigation. Since then, prosecutors have asked a judge to keep the arrest warrant affidavit sealed for at least two weeks while they work on a case still in its "very early stages." "The press conference was not to announce `We got our man,' it was a press conference to manage expectations of the public," said Norm Early, a former Denver district attorney. He and other experts said Lacy deserves the benefit of the doubt and time to develop her case. "I presume competence on the part of prosecutors, but that presumption has been put to the test by the Boulder DA's office in this case in the past," Silverman said. "I just can't believe they would have done something without something that made them sit up straight in their chairs and say `Oh my God, send a guy to Thailand.'" http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/J/JONBENET_RAMSEY_COOL-?SITE=COFOR2&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Aug 28, 2006 4:55 am US/Mountain JonBenet Suspect Karr Faces First Court Appearance By Jon Sarche, AP Writer (AP) BOULDER, Colo. John Mark Karr, the schoolteacher suspected in the 1996 slaying of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, met with two attorneys ahead of his first appearance in a Boulder courtroom. Deputy public defender Seth Temin and Steve Jacobson, a retired public defender, spent about three hours at the jail Sunday, declining to answer questions as they left. Karr was expected to be in court Monday for a hearing expected to last only a few minutes, with Karr advised of his rights and any charges against him. Temin has been aggressive in his short time on the case, winning approval of a gag order and making sure prosecutors and anyone else comes through him to talk with Karr. Jacobson is considered a DNA specialist, and DNA could be one of the major issues should Karr go to trial. Temin has already challenged any DNA that may have been taken from Karr as illegally obtained. In a court filing, prosecutors said they have evidence that has not been disclosed despite a decade of public scrutiny of the case. The best-case scenario for prosecutors would be slam-dunk DNA evidence linking Karr to the Ramsey's former home, where JonBenet's beaten and strangled body was found by her father on Dec. 26, 1996. Without it, experts say, it's much more difficult to build a strong murder case against the 41-year-old Karr, who has said he was there when the girl died but stopped short of an outright confession. "In this day and age of shows like 'CSI' jurors not only want forensic evidence before they will convict a person, they demand it," said Robert Hirschhorn, a jury consultant based in Dallas. Forensics expert Henry Lee and former prosecutor Bob Grant, both involved in the Ramsey investigation, have said some of the DNA collected at the scene was mixed or contaminated. Investigators have said DNA was found in blood spots on JonBenet's underwear, but a Ramsey family attorney said two years ago it didn't match any of the 1.5 million samples in an FBI database at the time. Other DNA recovered under the girl's fingernails is degraded, Grant said. Other physical evidence includes a ransom note, the garrote used to strangle the girl, a boot print found outside the Ramsey house and some indications an intruder could have entered through a basement window. JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were initial targets of a grand jury investigation that ended with no indictments. Patsy Ramsey died in June after learning authorities had turned their attention to Karr, who was living in Thailand when he was detained earlier this month. Scott Robinson, a Denver attorney familiar with the case, said prosecutors may end up attacking the police investigation for the alleged contamination of the DNA evidence. Prosecutors can overcome police mistakes with solid work, said Grant, a former Adams County district attorney who served as an adviser on the case in the 1990s. "I've never seen a case in trial where the defense didn't find something to attack the investigation about in terms of technical investigative techniques, and I've never seen an investigation that was perfect," Grant said. "If there's DNA able to be matched to him, then the mistakes are of little or no consequence." Associated Press photographer Paul Sakuma and writer Robert Weller contributed to this report. http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/local_story_240065450.html

Karr's Confession Collapses John Mark Karr had been the prime suspect in the killing of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. (APTN) (CBS/AP) Prosecutors have decided not to bring charges against JonBenet Ramsey slaying suspect John Mark Karr, because his DNA failed to match genetic material on the 6-year-old girl's body, CBS News Denver affiliate KCNC reports. "The warrant on Mr. Karr has been dropped by the district attorney," public defender Seth Temin said outside the jail where Karr is being held. "They are not proceeding with the case." Prosecutors have not confirmed that yet. KCNC's Rick Sallinger reports that hair and saliva taken from Karr in Boulder after his arrival last week were tested over the weekend at the Denver police crime lab and that he was ruled out as the source of the DNA taken from the crime scene. Karr was scheduled to be in court Monday afternoon for a hearing expected to last only a few minutes — long enough for the judge to advise him of his rights and charges against him. Sallinger reports that Karr was given a mouth-swab test while in Thailand. That and possible other samples were tested over the weekend inside the Denver Police Department's Crime lab. Karr was scheduled to make his first Colorado court appearance late Monday afternoon. The schoolteacher's arrest in Thailand a week and a half ago was seen as a surprise break in the decade-old murder mystery that had cast suspicion over JonBenet's parents. But inconsistencies in Karr's account immediately raised suspicions that he might be an obsessed follower of the case who confessed to a crime he didn't commit. Among other things, Karr's relatives insisted that he was with them, celebrating Christmas in Georgia and Alabama, around the time the child beauty queen was found strangled and beaten at her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996. They said that if Karr had not been with his family at Christmas, they would have certainly remembered it. In an interview with the media in Thailand, Karr said that he was with JonBenet when she died and that her death was an accident. Asked if he was innocent, he said no. In an interview Monday, Gary Harris, who had been spokesman for the Karr family, did not directly confirm the KUSA report. But he said: "I knew it wouldn't match." Karr has been "obsessed with this case for a long time. He may have some personality problems, but he's not a killer," Harris said. "He obsesses. He wanted to be a rock star one time. ... He's a dreamer. He's the kind of guy who wants to be famous. Earlier Monday, an attorney for Karr demanded that the state turn over all evidence related to DNA in the 1996 case Monday, just a few hours ahead of Karr first Colorado court appearance. Among other things, Seth Temin's court filing asked for a clear description of any biological evidence, including how much is left and how it is being stored. "Eventually in this case, a court will have to analyze the admissibility of DNA evidence and its alleged statistical results," the public defender wrote. "It appears that more than one laboratory handled or had custody of samples subjected to testing in this case and more than one expert has evaluated the samples and testing results." Temin has already challenged the results of any DNA testing involving his client, saying it was illegally obtained. Prosecutors have not confirmed if they performed DNA testing on Karr. Temin and Steve Jacobson, a retired public defender, spent about three hours at the jail Sunday and declined to answer questions as they left. Temin has been aggressive in his short time on the case, winning approval of a gag order and making sure prosecutors and anyone else comes through him before talking with Karr. He also joined prosecutors in opposing media requests to unseal the arrest affidavit, using capital letters to spell out his contention that releasing the details would violate Karr's right to a fair trial. Jacobson is considered a DNA specialist, and DNA was thought to have been slated as one of the major issues should Karr have gone to trial. Jacobson's name wasn't listed on Monday's court filing, but it focused on the rules and procedures of DNA testing, right down to definitions of false positives and "multi-probe genotypes." The best-case scenario for prosecutors would have been slam-dunk DNA evidence linking Karr to the Ramsey's former home, where JonBenet's beaten and strangled body was found by her father on Dec. 26, 1996. Without it, experts say, it's much more difficult to build a strong murder case against the 41-year-old Karr, who has said he was there when the girl died but stopped short of an outright confession. "In this day and age of shows like 'CSI' jurors not only want forensic evidence before they will convict a person, they demand it," said Robert Hirschhorn, a jury consultant based in Dallas. Investigators have said DNA was found in blood spots on JonBenet's underwear, but a Ramsey family attorney said two years ago it didn't match any of the 1.5 million samples in an FBI database at the time. Other DNA recovered under the girl's fingernails is degraded, Grant said. Other physical evidence includes a ransom note, the garrote used to strangle the girl, a boot print found outside the Ramsey house and some indications an intruder could have entered through a basement window. JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were initial targets of a grand jury investigation that ended with no indictments. Patsy Ramsey died in June after learning authorities had turned their attention to Karr, who was living in Thailand when he was detained earlier this month. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/28/national/main1941420.shtml?source=RSS&attr=HOME_1941420

DA Speaks Out On Ramsey Case Collapse DNA Did Not Match JonBenet Case Evidence POSTED: 7:48 am EDT August 29, 2006 UPDATED: 12:20 pm EDT August 29, 2006 Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy, the prosecutor who ordered the arrest of John Mark Karr in the slaying of John Benet Ramsey, defended her handling of the investigation Monday, even as she receives what she says are "a lot" of angry phone calls from citizens. The decision not to charge Karr came after DNA tests failed to link him to the 6-year-old child beauty queen's 1996 killing. Lacy went before reporters a day after the charges were dropped against Karr when his DNA didn't match evidence found on the slain girl a decade ago. One angry caller wanted to know why DNA wasn't taken surreptitiously from Karr while he was still in Thailand, she said. She responded that a sample was, in fact, taken, but that it wasn't good enough to be matched against the other evidence. Lacy said she is accountable for all decisions made by her department and that it has been a "very difficult few days for all of us." Prosecutors said Karr repeatedly insisted that he sexually assaulted and strangled the child. But court papers said the state "would not be able to establish" its case. That's because no DNA connected Karr to the crime scene. Karr, a 41-year-old schoolteacher fascinated with JonBenet and Polly Klaas, who was murdered in 1993 in Petaluma, Calif., said after his arrest in Thailand earlier this month that he was with JonBenet at the time of her death. He called her death an accident. In court papers, prosecutors suggested Karr had a twisted fascination with the girl and confessed to a crime he didn't commit. Defense attorney Seth Temin expressed outrage that Karr was even arrested. "We're deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption that he did anything wrong," said Temin. Karr is 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 is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Lacy defended the decision to arrest Karr, saying he might have otherwise fled and may have been targeting children in Thailand as well. In an earlier court filing, prosecutors said they had evidence that has not been disclosed despite a decade of public scrutiny of the case. That evidence was never explained. Investigators have said DNA was found in blood spots on JonBenet's underwear, but a Ramsey family attorney said two years ago it didn't match any of the 1.5 million samples in an FBI database at the time. Other physical evidence includes an alleged ransom note, a boot print found outside the Ramsey house and some indications an intruder could have entered through a basement window. But mistakes were made early in the investigation. John Ramsey was allowed to roam the house before finding his daughter's body. Friends of the family came to the home, called by the Ramseys after they found the ransom note. "I've never seen a case in trial where the defense didn't find something to attack the investigation about in terms of technical investigative techniques, and I've never seen an investigation that was perfect," said Bob Grant, a former district attorney who served as an adviser on the case in the 1990s. "If there's DNA able to be matched to him, then the mistakes are of little or no consequence." After Karr was detained in Bangkok, Lacy told a news conference that sometimes it becomes necessary to make an arrest before an investigation is complete and that much work remained in the Karr investigation. Karr Wanted In California A California district attorney said the child pornography case filed against Karr five years ago is still alive, so he wants Karr returned. Authorities in Sonoma County, Calif., said Karr had made "uncertain allusions to placing himself in the killer's role" in talking about JonBenet and 12-year-old Polly Klaas. Karr pleaded not guilty to five misdemeanor counts of child porn possession in Sonoma County in 2001. After several months in jail awaiting trial, Karr was freed under orders to remain in the area. He then disappeared. His extradition hearing is set for Tuesday afternoon in Boulder. But Sonoma County officials said he probably won't return until the first or second week in September. If convicted, Karr could face up to a year in prison on each count and would have to register as a sex offender. He also faces a misdemeanor charge for leaving. Ramsey, Karr Families React Disappointment and vindication were the reactions of the families affected by the latest turn in the Ramsey case. Karr family spokesman Gary Harris said he was not surprised that prosecutors dropped their case against Karr. Karr has "personality problems, but he's not a killer," Harris said, adding that Karr "wanted to be a rock star at one time." Relatives of Ramsey are expressing disappointment. But the girl's aunt, Pamela Paugh, said she believes the justice system worked. One way or another, Paugh said Karr needs a lot of help. She said she wasn't terribly shocked to learn that Karr's public confession didn't hold up. "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," she said. Attorney Lin Wood said JonBenet's father still has great confidence in the district attorney. JonBenet's parents, John and the late Patsy Ramsey, were initial targets of a grand jury investigation that ended with no indictments. Patsy Ramsey died in June, not long after learning authorities had turned their attention to Karr. Professor Recalls Leading Authorities To Karr The man whose contact with Karr prompted authorities to consider him a suspect in the Ramsey case said he could barely tolerate Karr's graphic details of the death. University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey told The Associated Press that Karr described how he supposedly had sex with the child and accidentally killed her. "I cannot get the image out of my head," Tracey said. Investigators said e-mail and phone calls between Karr and Tracey over four years are what prompted them to bring Karr to Boulder from Thailand. The case against Karr disintegrated Monday. Tracey, who has produced documentaries on the case, said Karr's claims could not be ignored. As a father, Tracey said he felt an obligation to alert authorities. http://www.wftv.com/news/9753280/detail.html

Boulder police in cross hairs Former investigator: Leads were ignored in JonBenet murder By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News August 31, 2006 A former Boulder deputy district attorney caught up in the JonBenet Ramsey case in its earliest phase said he was prohibited from chasing leads that pointed to an intruder committing the crime. In a situation he described as unique in his legal career, Lawrence "Trip" DeMuth said he and his team of investigators in the Boulder District Attorney's Office were restricted from conducting any investigative work on their own, and that their suggestions for pursuing intruder-related leads were routinely ignored. "We were restricted to reading police reports, from which we developed a lot of intruder leads," DeMuth said. "And then we were prohibited from pursuing those leads." DeMuth, speaking publicly for the first time about his frustrations during his 21 months investigating the case, wouldn't put the blame on one person, but noted that the DA's office was serving in an advisory role to the Boulder Police Department. "So the role that we were assuming was allowing the police to decide what direction the investigation followed," DeMuth said. DeMuth is the latest to uncork pent-up frustrations from the decade-old case that has left scars throughout Boulder County's legal and law enforcement community. Former Boulder Detective Steve Thomas, who takes a view opposite of DeMuth's, gave interviews for the first time in several years after the case against John Mark Karr collapsed Monday. Even Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner, who has long been reluctant to discuss the case in detail, gave a lengthy phone interview Wednesday in response to DeMuth's assertions that police were interested only in John and Patsy Ramsey as possible suspects in their daughter's murder. Beckner called the notion that police didn't look hard at other suspects an "urban myth." DeMuth "should be a little bit careful about how hard he pushes that," Beckner said, noting that he can document that Boulder police looked into more than 160 potential suspects, and that, in many cases, their investigation included blood, hair and fingerprint samples. "So, to say we only looked in one direction and no one else was investigated is simply not the case." But DeMuth insisted that the Boulder department's "myopic" focus on the Ramseys prevented its officers from following the evidence wherever it led, and left them pursuing other leads only half-heartedly, or ignoring them altogether. "The vast majority of our leads were not pursued by anyone," DeMuth said, adding he's in a position to know "because I saw the police reports. I saw what was pursued." His team was assembled to look at different scenarios, a standard procedure for prosecutors who must find all the holes a defense team could exploit during a trial. But the police, who would normally be cooperative, resisted his efforts, DeMuth said. He said the lack of collaboration on the case between DA investigators and police detectives "was inconsistent with every other homicide investigation I worked on between 1990 and 2000," including others involving Boulder police. DeMuth's boss at the time, former Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter, couldn't be reached for comment. Beckner didn't deny that the DA was prevented from following leads, but said the two departments share responsibility for the friction that developed between them. "They were out there doing things . . . that we didn't even know they were doing until after the fact," Beckner said of DeMuth's team. "He has to share in that role of not working together." Beckner said there were times when DeMuth's team, including former Colorado Springs homicide detective Lou Smit, who was brought out of retirement to help out on the case, wouldn't give up on suspects even after forensic evidence and an alibi cleared them. "You've got to be able to put someone at the house," Beckner said. "That the fact that they're a weirdo or a strange character doesn't make them the killer of JonBenet. "You've got to be able to put them at the crime scene, and if you don't have any evidence to do that" then what can you do? But DeMuth said police needed to look deeper, and that he believes suspects were cleared too readily. There are probably early leads in the case that should be re-examined, he said. "If you talk to somebody for five minutes and conclude they had nothing to do with the intruder case, that's not really looking at somebody," he said. "I can't say 100, 140 or 75 (suspects were investigated). I'm just saying it's really easy to make a comment that you looked at 140 people." DeMuth went partially public in 2001, when he said he believed it was more likely that an intruder killed 6-year-old JonBenet, strangling her in the basement of her three-story Boulder home. At the time, he went on NBC's Today show to speak in support of Smit, who went public with the evidence he said supported the intruder theory. But until now, DeMuth hasn't described the frustrations of working the case inside the district attorney's office, where he, along with Boulder County sheriff's Detective Steve Ainsworth and Smit, came to see the evidence differently from the way the Boulder police saw it. It seemed possible that supporters of the intruder theory had been vindicated with the arrest of Karr earlier this month in Thailand. But their bubble burst with Boulder DA Mary Lacy's stunning announcement Monday that Karr's DNA didn't match the DNA recovered at the crime scene, and that Karr wouldn't be charged. Smit has largely stayed out of the media spotlight in the past few years as Lacy's office has taken over the case from the police. He declined to be interviewed for this story. But, told of DeMuth's complaints Wednesday, Smit said he was presenting an accurate picture of events. DeMuth didn't hold back. He said the police department's investigation violated the most basic tenets of police work: to follow the evidence wherever it leads, not "investigating to support a result you want to see happen." "You have your suspicions and your beliefs, you're pursuing them, you're chasing down every lead, and all the sudden you trip over something that causes you to take a left turn . . . that's good police work." DeMuth said the police department often withheld police reports about the case, blaming slow typists. That changed, he said, when Smit joined the DA's team. The police, believing Smit would back their views, started turning over material much faster, DeMuth said. "Lou comes on and I've got boxes of typed reports and photographs," DeMuth recalled. Then, "as soon as the cops got wind of the fact that Lou thought someone else did it, the typists got real slow again. "If that's not a clear signal that the police department was results-driven and myopic, I don't know what is. "Do they want to follow the evidence wherever it goes, or are they trying to control the outcome of the investigation?" hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5048 http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4958237,00.html

Without Karr, the mystery remains in JonBenet Ramsey case Posted 9/3/2006 11:07 AM ET BOULDER, Colo (AP) — Cynthia Nye doesn't stock true crime books at the High Crimes Mystery Bookshop she runs on Boulder's Pearl Street Mall. Not even books about JonBenet Ramsey's 1996 murder, the hometown mystery that won't go away. Nye said her customers just don't consider a real-life tragedy entertainment. "It's easy to read about a fictional person being killed, or a mystery serial killer, because you know the bad guy is going to get his justice," she said. "There is so little resolution in real life." For 10 years, that has been the case in the slaying of 6-year-old JonBenet, found strangled and bludgeoned in the basement of her family's home on the day after Christmas 1996. With one-time suspect John Mark Karr unmasked as a fraud and the national media gone from Boulder, investigators are left again without a prime suspect and their ears ringing with criticism of the case's latest twists and turns. District Attorney Mary Lacy conceded she has no hidden trump card to confirm the claims of any other would-be confessor simply because case details authorities normally keep secret has been fodder for books, news reports and Internet chatter over the years. "As far as we can tell, there is no physical evidence in this case that has not been in the public domain," Lacy told reporters after DNA evidence cleared Karr. "The ability of our office or any law enforcement to connect this crime to a person based on something they know about it that no one else knows was gone a long time ago." Like a mystery novel from Nye's downtown store, the puzzle pieces may be there, experts say. But like true crime stories, there is no guarantee they will fit together. Max Houck, director of West Virginia University's Forensic Science Research Center and co-founder of the Institute for Cold Case Evaluation, said it's hard to imagine working a case so public that authorities can't eliminate confessors by holding back some details. "If you, as an investigator, know something that only the killer would know, you have a hole card," he said. "But we're in an era where more and more is known about any public case that happens to hit the public's imagination, or at least the media's examination." Houck could name few cases so scrutinized that every detail was out there: the Kennedy assassination, the Rosenberg spy case, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Lacy, through a spokeswoman, declined an interview request. But in a news conference, she said she relied solely on phone calls and hundreds of pages of e-mails Karr swapped with University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey to make the case for arresting Karr in Thailand last month and bringing him to Colorado. Karr, a 41-year-old former teacher, gave graphic accounts of the crime scene, detailed enough to convince the D.A.'s office he was for real. Plus, he gave personal details that authorities were able to confirm, suggesting he might be telling the truth. The case collapsed when his DNA failed to match evidence from the crime scene. Richard Lavinthal, a former Justice Department spokesman and a public relations consultant for the legal field, criticized Lacy for admitting there was nothing left to separate suspects from pretenders. "What District Attorney Lacy did was, in effect, announce to the world she has now made the case impossible to solve, unless through some fortuitous action there is someone out there who gets arrested and his DNA gets into a data bank and ends up matching the DNA from the case," Lavinthal said. "It's as if she put up a giant billboard that says 'Attention, the Ramsey case can never be solved.'" And arresting Karr could hurt the investigation, said William Fleisher, a founder of a cold case investigative association called the Vidocq Society. "It would be awful hard (to solve) unless the actual perpetrator came forth, bares his soul and provides real, corroborative evidence," he said. The case remains an ugly chapter for the wealthy university town, as much a part city's lore as it's famed liberalism and scenic beauty. Never mind the atmosphere the city cultivates, from street musicians dotting a pedestrian mall to classical music piped into a spotless public restroom; JonBenet is what many think of when they think of Boulder. Expressing frustration with the media and that seemingly endless association of JonBenet and Boulder, a motorist driving past reporters over the past week yelled: "Go home! You're not wanted here!" Still, public fascination with the case is easy to understand, said Michael Radelet, a criminologist and chairman of the University of Colorado's sociology department. The Ramsey family never fit in around here and some were eager to blame the girl's family, criticizing her role in beauty pageants and even the family's conservative politics, he said. People who don't fit in with the power structure in any society often become targets, Radelet said, pointing to how white society often blamed blacks for crimes in the rural South decades ago. Society is sometimes eager to pin crimes on the easiest targets. "John Karr was an easy target. The guy is ... a loner," Radelet said. "Patsy Ramsey is a type of easy target. She's new rich, an outsider from Atlanta, Republican and a beauty queen. In Boulder, that's the same as being poor, uneducated and black in Birmingham in 1930 ... In that sense, John Karr and Patsy Ramsey are two sides of the same coin." Radelet is a member of Families of Homicide Victims & Missing Persons, a group dedicated to solving some of the 1,200 unsolved homicides on the Colorado books. He said he would like JonBenet's killer to be found, but hopes the Karr episode will encourage investigators to focus on solving other crimes. No chance. Lacy said she would press on in the JonBenet case. Houck said the challenge is for investigators to keep arranging the pieces until they fit. Technology is evolving, and sometimes items that seem unconnected fit into a pattern. Lou Smit, a renowned cold case investigator who has worked on the Ramsey case, won't talk specifically about it any more. But he said he remains a believer "that any cold case can be solved." Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-09-03-ramsey-case_x.htm

Report: Prosecutor seeking more money to investigate decade-old Ramsey case Posted: 12/24/2006 17:00:26 BOULDER, Colo. (AP) -- A Colorado prosecutor wants more money to investigate the JonBenet Ramsey case. The Boulder Daily Camera reports that District Attorney Mary Lacey has asked county commissioners for 40-thousand dollars to hire another investigator. That report comes as the tenth anniversary of the little girl's murder approaches. The 1996 case appeared to blow wide open in August with the arrest in Thailand of John Mark Karr, a sometime teacher obsessed with the little girl's slaying. Karr made bizarre, detailed confessions but was later freed because of a lack of hard evidence. JonBenet's father, John Ramsey, has said in recent interviews he still believes the case will be solved. http://www.abc15.com/news/morenews/index.asp?did=32055