Sources: Arrest made in JonBenet Ramsey case

[GODDESS6]

john mark karr...they just released his name~ they also just said his dna matches the dna on jonbent ~

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

I sure did. It was craziness!

I'll never forget seeing Patsy Ramsey at the Bluebird Theatre for a Nina Storey concert either. She was intriguing.

I feel like calling up that bastard detective, although I can't remember his name, that wrote that book about John and Patsy and went on national television and basically called them murderers. He should apologize to them in front of the whole world. If he had his way, they'd be in prison right now.
Nina Storey at the Bluebird? Haha...good times. The closest brush I ever had with the Ramsey case was Pasta Jay. Remember that dude? Turns out, he was right. This whole thing is kind of mindblowing.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by Livia

Wild! It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. Who IS this guy? And who was he to the Ramsey family? Just some random intruder/pedophile stalker or someone they knew?

I don't know yet how he was connected to the family but the news is reporting that his DNA matches the DNA found in...I think it was her underwear? They are reporting him to be a second grade teacher from Conyers, GA byt the name of Jon (John?) Karr. Lord have mercy.

[gldstwmn]

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sec...cal&id=4468925

Ramsey Suspect's Bay Area TiesTaught In Petaluma School District
By Carolyn Tyler
Aug. 16 - KGO - An American citizen who once lived in the North Bay is now in custody in Thailand in connection with the murder of JonBenet Ramsey.

41-year-old John Karr and his then-wife, Laura, once lived in Petaluma. She told us they were married back in 1989 and lived in Alabama until the year 2000 when they moved to Petaluma.

Karr taught in the Petaluma School District as a substitute schoolteacher from December of 2000 until April of 2001. The district says they had no complaints about him. Karr also spent time as a teacher in Napa during the same period.

In the year 2001, Karr was charged with five counts of possessing child pornography. His teaching credential in Petaluma was suspended, then revoked for violating the education code.

He is still wanted in California. A warrant is still out for his arrest for failure to appear on those charges.

Laura Karr filed for divorce after her husband was charged in 2001. She says her husband did a lot of research on the JonBenet Ramsey case and also on Petaluma's own Polly Klaas.

She tells us she's devastated and embarassed by these murder charges, but she does not believe that her husband did it. She says that during Christmas season of 1996 when JonBenet Ramsey was strangled and beaten to death in Colorado, they were living in Alabama at the time and she was with him the entire Christmas season.

[irishgrl]

and she was with him the entire Christmas season.

so they took a holiday trip to Colorado.....

arrgh...I feel sorry for that wife, but she may be in denial. I sure hope those two didnt have kids because if they did, chances are they are pretty messed up kids too...

[SuzeQuze]

I was also consumed by this case and thought the parents might have had something to do with it but was never fully convinced. Although I was convinced they were really strange. But there was a detective pretty close to the case that insisted they were innocent and that things had been really botched up. I was leaning toward their guilt until I heard his side.

There were people in and out of that house during the initial stages of JonBenet's disappearance not really doing their job. They finally found her body in the basement after various officers had been in and out of the residence. No one had searched it. The whole thing was a mess. I hope the family can get closure now. What an awful tragedy. I guess Mr. Ramsey will never get over it but I hope he can get past it.

[SteveMacD]

Personalized letter to John at the murder scene.

The suspect is in Thailand, and had connections with the sex trade.

The suspect was arrested shortly after Patsy's death.

Does it smell like obstruction of justice to anybody else?

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

Personalized letter to John at the murder scene.

The suspect is in Thailand, and had connections with the sex trade.

The suspect was arrested shortly after Patsy's death.

Does it smell like obstruction of justice to anybody else?

We'll find out. At this point I'm leaning toward no involvement from the parents. This case has been something else.

[David]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

I was also consumed by this case and thought the parents might have had something to do with it but was never fully convinced. Although I was convinced they were really strange.

I'm happy that innocent individuals may be cleared of these charges. I always like seeing genuine justice served. But I haven't changed my mind about these parents being rotten parents, dolling up their young daughter like that & parading her around in stupid, stressful pageants.

[Gypsy-Rhiannon]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/17/ra...est/index.html

(CNN) -- In a shocking twist to an already bizarre and riveting mystery, Thai police on Thursday said the man arrested in connection with the 1996 slaying of little JonBenet Ramsey has confessed to the crime.

Nearly a decade after the body of the child beauty queen was found in the basement of her family's sprawling Colorado home -- setting off a media sensation and years of speculation regarding her killer -- authorities on Wednesday had announced they had arrested a suspect halfway around the world.

A law enforcement official identified the suspect as John Mark Karr, 41, a former schoolteacher and an American citizen. A U.S. government source in Bangkok, Thailand, said Karr was arrested there Wednesday and was in Thai police custody.

Karr was arrested at his apartment in Bangkok, said Thai Immigration police Maj. Akkrapong Sunthornvipak. He spent Wednesday night at Bangkok's Immigration Detention Center.

Lt. Gen. Suwat Thamrongrisakul, chief of Thai immigration, said Thai police have a three-count U.S. arrest warrant charging Karr with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and sexual child abuse. While not directly tying Karr's arrest to the Ramsey case, he said all of the alleged crimes took place in the United States in 1996 -- the same year JonBenet was killed.

Suwat said Thursday that Karr had confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey.

According to Suwat, Karr's visa has been revoked and he is being interrogated by Thai and U.S. authorities. (Watch how DNA evidence could be key in the case -- 4:50)

The arrest was made after a tip from a U.S. agency working closely with Thai officials, Akkrapong said. Karr was undergoing questioning Thursday by Thai police "to find the ground for extraditing him," he said. There was no evidence Karr had committed a crime in Thailand, he said.

Mary Lacy, the district attorney in Boulder, Colorado, said in a written statement the suspect was arrested "following several months of a focused and complex investigation." Lacy's statement did not identify the suspect. (Watch how the investigation was a "complex" one -- 1:51)

Law enforcement officials said the suspect will be brought back to the United States. The investigation was being led by the Boulder County District Attorney's Office, along with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the officials said.

Two law enforcement sources told CNN the man was under investigation for an unrelated sex crime when information led to his arrest in the Ramsey case.

Law enforcement officials said the suspect was not known to investigators at the time. A warrant for his arrest was issued Tuesday night.
A horrific slaying

The arrest will likely dispel the cloud of suspicion that has hung over JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, ever since the girl's death on Dec. 26, 1996 in their Boulder home. (Watch John Ramsey react to news of the arrest -- 2:17)

It was John Ramsey who found his 6-year-old daughter's body. Earlier that morning, the girl had been reported missing, and Patsy Ramsey reported finding a three-page ransom letter demanding $118,000 on a staircase in the home.

Autopsy results showed JonBenet had received a massive blow to the head and was strangled with a rope that the killer tightened by twisting an attached paint brush handle.

The Ramseys maintained an intruder killed their daughter, but they remained the subject of suspicion and speculation in the case, which provided years of fodder for news networks and tabloids. Though no one was ever named as a suspect, at one point the Boulder police said the Ramseys were under "an umbrella of suspicion."
Officials: Online communications were key to probe

Karr confessed to some elements of the crime, law enforcement officials earlier told CNN, and had been communicating off and on with someone in Boulder who was working with law enforcement on the case. Earlier, CNN affiliate KUSA had reported that the elements the suspect had confessed to were unknown to the public.

Karr's online communications were a key part of the probe, the officials said.

The arrest came too late for Patsy Ramsey, who died in June of ovarian cancer at age 49. However, John Ramsey said he and his wife knew investigators were pursuing a suspect prior to her death.

"The investigation of the individual arrested today in connection with JonBenet's death was discussed with Patsy and me by the Boulder district attorney's office prior to Patsy's death in June," he said in a written statement. "So 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." (Read the full statement)

John Ramsey told KUSA on Wednesday, "I was notified this morning that an arrest had been made. I'm just absolutely impressed with the effort that went into accomplishing this by the Boulder DA's office and the other agencies that were involved. ... It's just beyond impressive what they accomplished."

But Ramsey also added a note of caution.

"Based on what happened to us, I don't think it's proper that we speculate or discuss the case," John Ramsey told KUSA. "It's important that justice be allowed to run its course and do its job."

"We have, in a sense, turned the justice process over to the media," he said. "I think it's gotten out of control."

Pam Paugh, Patsy Ramsey's sister, said, "I don't feel that I need to stand here and say to the world, 'I told you so.' We are a family that has lived on the truth, and the truth as we knew it was that neither John nor Patsy, Burke (JonBenet's older brother) nor any other family member had ever laid a hand on JonBenet." (Watch JonBenet's aunt react to the arrest -- 4:36)

Lacy's office has scheduled a news conference on Thursday.
Suspect's brother: 'Whole thing is ridiculous'

Ramsey attorney Lin Wood of Atlanta said Karr "has some background" in Conyers, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, and at one point was a schoolteacher.

Karr's father and brother still live in metro Atlanta, in the suburb of Sandy Springs, but were not home Wednesday night. However, Karr's brother, Nate, told CNN: "This whole thing is ridiculous."

Asked by KUSA whether he knew the suspect, John Ramsey said, "I really can't comment on that. To my knowledge, no, I didn't, but I don't know enough yet (to say for sure)."

The Ramseys also lived in the Atlanta area before they moved to Boulder. The day after JonBenet was buried in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, the Ramseys gave CNN an exclusive interview. "There is a killer on the loose," a tearful Patsy Ramsey said in that interview. "I don't know who it is. I don't know if it is a he or a she, but if I were a resident of Boulder, I would tell my friends to keep your babies close to you. There's someone out there."

Patsy Ramsey was laid to rest beside her daughter in Marietta. On Wednesday, a family friend taped a note to her grave. It read, "Dear Patsy, justice has come for you and John. Rest in peace."

Wood said he regretted "that Patsy's not here to be able to speak to you herself and express her feelings to you. I am confident she would urge the media to refrain from speculating about this individual, despite his arrest."

Speaking of John Ramsey, Wood said: "I know that he feels some sense of relief.

"I know that he feels that this is a major step, potentially, in the final resolution to the case. We may be, and I say may be, one step closer to the final resolution of the case. But again, I would urge that Mr. Karr be given the presumption of innocence."

A statement issued by another Ramsey attorney, Hal Haddon, said: "It is our hope that this arrest will bring some closure to the Ramsey family after a 10-year ordeal."

In 2003, a federal judge dismissed a libel-slander lawsuit against the Ramseys and said evidence suggested an intruder had killed JonBenet. The lawsuit had been filed by a freelance journalist whom the Ramseys had described as a suspect in a book they had written.

The Boulder County District Attorney's Office concurred with the judge's opinion the following month, saying there was little evidence against the couple.

Asked about the worst part of the whole ordeal, John Ramsey said, "The hardest part was losing a child, by far."

[Kelly]

I hope there is truly a DNA match. I never thought Patsy was involved....esp after watching that retired homicide investigators story on Dateline. (I cannot remember his name but he showed how the intruder could have climbed in through the grated windows and stood on a suitcase etc)
Steve Thomas was the name of that creep investigator from Boulder who helped botch the case from day one. He was so unprofessional and had tunnel vision. His lack of experience did not help matters either. A bootprint found by the body, foreign DNA in her underpants, residue under her fingernails and the visciousness of the homicide all pointed away from the parents. I am so glad they finally have a suspect and Patsy was aware of this before she died. Poor woman suffered needlessly at the hands of the media and skeptics.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by David

I'm happy that innocent individuals may be cleared of these charges. I always like seeing genuine justice served. But I haven't changed my mind about these parents being rotten parents, dolling up their young daughter like that & parading her around in stupid, stressful pageants.

Oh me neither, those pageants are so inappropriate. I think the child enjoyed them though but she was so innocent not realizing she was being sexualized so young. It's just terrible.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by David

I'm happy that innocent individuals may be cleared of these charges. I always like seeing genuine justice served. But I haven't changed my mind about these parents being rotten parents, dolling up their young daughter like that & parading her around in stupid, stressful pageants.

Oh me neither, those pageants are so inappropriate. I think the child enjoyed them though but she was so innocent not realizing she was being sexualized so young. It's just terrible.

[Livia]

This is wild...the sketch looks like him!

http://extras.denverpost.com/news/jon060400.htm

Ramseys post vision of killer

By Jeffrey Leib
Denver Post Staff Writer

June 4 - John and Patsy Ramsey have posted on their Web site a composite sketch based on a psychic's vision of their daughter's killer.

"Have you seen this man? This man may have been in the Boulder area in December 1996," reads a statement under the sketch at www.ramseyfamily.com.

The drawing shows a man with high cheekbones, tight lips and a receding hairline.

"We firmly believe that this most horrible of killers will be caught based on information provided by people who care about right and wrong," the Web site says.

"Please help, so another innocent child will not be a victim and another family will not suffer unbearable grief."

Their 6-year-old daughter, JonBene�t, was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her parents' Boulder home Dec. 26, 1996.

On Saturday, Boulder police chief Mark Beckner declined to comment on the composite sketch.

Psychic Dorothy Allison reportedly came up with her vision of a suspect in the Ramsey murder during a television appearance about two years ago.

For decades, she had offered her services to police departments around the country. Allison, who lived in New Jersey, died in December. She was 74.

In early 1992, Allison was contacted to assist in the search for Heather Dawn Church, a 13year-old who had been abducted from her home in Black Forest, near Colorado Springs, and murdered.

Even before Church's body was found, Allison called in with information that later proved to be accurate about the suspect who eventually was charged with the girl's murder, according to police investigators. But they said Allison's information was not used during the investigation.

"In 30 years, I've never had accurate information from a psychic," a veteran law enforcement officer told The Denver Post in 1995. "But the information by Dorothy Allison was right on the money." Neither the Ramseys nor their publicists could be reached for comment. Ironically, lawyers for the couple criticized former Boulder police detective Linda Arndt last year for substituting her "psychic impressions" for solid evidence during an appearance on a network television show, after Arndt had left the police force.

Arndt was the first Boulder detective at the Ramsey house on Dec. 26, 1996.

That day, Arndt told John Ramsey and a family friend to search the house. In her television interview last September, Arndt said when she saw Ramsey carrying the body of his daughter up from the basement, "my mind exploded. saw black with thousands of lights and everything I noted that morning that stuck out instantly made sense."

Attorneys for the Ramseys reacted quickly to Arndt's comments. "Her psychic impressions and "thousands of lights' are no substitute for evidence and do nothing to advance the search for JonBene�t Ramsey's killer," they said.

[Gypsy-Rhiannon]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/16/ra...est/index.html

Authorities have made an arrest in the JonBenet Ramsey case, law enforcement sources told CNN on Wedesday.

An investigator with the Boulder County, Colorado, District Attorney's office traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, and is bringing a suspect back to the United States, CNN's Denver affiliate KUSA reported.

The suspect was arrested Wednesday morning and has confessed to certain elements of the crime that are unknown to the general public, KUSA reported.

Prosecutors have not confirmed the identity of the suspect, but expect to hold a press conference later today.

JonBenet's beaten and strangled body was found in the basement of the family home in Boulder, Colorado, the day after Christmas in 1996. She was 6.

A grand jury investigation into the death of the child beauty pageant winner ended without charges in 1999.

The investigation focused a spotlight on the child's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. Patsy Ramsey died in June.

The Ramseys said an intruder committed the crime, but they remained the subject of suspicion and speculation.

"The Ramseys left Colorado and had a house in Charlevoix, Michigan, where John Ramsey unsuccessfully ran for office in 2004, and in Atlanta, Georgia.

I wondered why no-one was replying to the thread I started! Didn't know there was another thread