Suspect in Ramsey case calls her death 'an accident'

An American expatriate school teacher said publicly today he was with JonBenet Ramsey when she died in what he called “an accident", a stunning admission after a decade without answers in the six-year-old’s murder.

John Mark Karr, 41, was arrested yesterday, a day after he began teaching second grade in Bangkok, District Attorney Mary Lacy told reporters in Colorado. JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado, on December 26, 1996.

Karr told investigators he drugged and had sex with the child beauty queen before accidentally killing her, said a senior Thai police officer, who was briefed about the interview.

“I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet,” Karr told The Associated Press after he appeared at a news conference.

He will be taken within the week to Colorado, where he will face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault, Ann Hurst of the Department of Homeland Security told reporters in Bangkok.

“I was with JonBenet when she died,” Karr told reporters afterwards, visibly nervous and stuttering. “Her death was an accident.”

Asked if he was innocent of the crime, Karr said: “No.”

No evidence against Karr has been made public beyond his own admission. US and Thai officials did not directly answer a question at the news conference about whether there was DNA evidence connecting him to the crime.

Lacy, the lead investigator in Boulder County, suggested that the arrest may have been forced by other circumstances, including the need for public safety and fear the suspect might flee. She noted that he had started teaching in the Thai capital on Tuesday.

“There are circumstances that exist in any case that mandate an arrest before an investigation is complete,” Lacy said.

Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of Thailand’s immigration police, said he was told Karr claimed he had drugged the child and had sex with her. Karr said he then realised he had “accidentally” killed her, according to the general. Suwat did not say who briefed him on the questioning conducted by US law enforcement officials.

An autopsy on Ramsey said a blood screening showed no drugs or alcohol in her body, which had a one centimetre area of vaginal abrasion. Searches initially showed that there was semen on JonBenet’s body but further examinations conducted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation revealed there was none.

Karr was given a mouth-swab DNA test in Bangkok and has been questioned for the last two days, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The results of that test were not immediately known.

Karr will be given another DNA test when he returns to the US in the next several days, the official said, and will be escorted by agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Homeland Security Department.

A spokesman for the US Embassy in Bangkok said it had no information about Karr’s alleged actions or what he said to questioners. US and Colorado law enforcement officials were unavailable for comment.

Lin Wood, the Ramsey family’s longtime attorney in Atlanta, said Karr had sent numerous emails in recent months making statements about the murder to a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Wood said those emails were key in linking Karr to the killing. When asked if authorities could tell whether Karr had firsthand knowledge of the murder or had just picked up information from news accounts, Wood said: “There is information about the murder that has never been publicly disclosed.”

Karr’s ex-wife, Lara Karr, was quoted by KGO-TV in California that she was with her former husband in Alabama at the time of JonBenet’s killing and she does not believe he was involved in the murder.

Lara Karr, who lived with her husband in Northern California, said her ex-husband spent a lot of time studying the cases of Ramsey and Polly Klaas, who was abducted from her Petaluma, California, home and killed in 1993.

As Karr was escorted to his guesthouse in Thailand to pick up his belongings, he told the AP: “I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet. It’s very important for me that everyone knows that I love her very much, that her death was unintentional, that it was an accident.”

Asked what happened when JonBenet died, he said: “It would take several hours to describe that. It’s a very involved series of events that would involve a lot of time. It’s very painful for me to talk about it.”

He told the AP he made “several efforts to communicate with Patricia before she passed away,” referring to JonBenet’s mother, “and it is my understanding that she did read my letters.”

Wood said that Karr had tried to correspond with Patsy Ramsey in the months before the woman’s death from ovarian cancer. Wood said Ramsey did not reply, but handed that information over to investigators who used it to link Karr to the case.

Wood said he did not know the contents of the correspondence, which he said was in the form of emails or letters.

Karr today refused to say what his connection was to the Ramsey family. An attorney for the Ramsey family said yesterday that Karr once lived near the family in Conyers, Georgia.

Suwat said Karr insisted that JonBenet died during a kidnapping attempt that went awry.

“He said it was second-degree murder. He said it was unintentional,” Suwat said. “He said he loved this child, that he was in love with her. He said she was very pretty, a pageant queen. She was the school star, she was very cute and sweet.”

Suwat quoted Karr as saying he tried to kidnap JonBenet for a 118,000 dollars (£62,000) ransom but that his plan went awry and he strangled her.

Patsy Ramsey reported finding a ransom note in the house demanding 118,000 dollars for her daughter.

Images of the blonde girl competing in child beauty pageants helped propel the case into one of the highest-profile mysteries in the US.

DNA was found beneath JonBenet’s fingernails and inside her underwear, but Wood said two years ago that detectives were unable to match it to anyone in an FBI database.

Wood said Karr went to elaborate attempts to conceal his identity in emails to the university professor, going so far as to use a computer server in Canada.

A University of Colorado spokesman, Barrie Hartman, said journalism professor Michael Tracey communicated with Karr over several months and contacted police. The university spokesman said he didn’t know what prompted Tracey to become suspicious of Karr.

Tracey produced a documentary in 2004 called Who Killed JonBenet? A woman who answered the phone at a number under his name said he didn’t live there anymore; his office phone mailbox was full.

Investigators said at one point that JonBenet’s parents were under an “umbrella of suspicion” in the killing, and some news accounts cast suspicion on JonBenet’s older brother, Burke. But the Ramseys insisted an intruder killed their daughter, and no one was ever charged.

Over the years, some experts suggested that investigators had botched the case so thoroughly that it might never be solved. The Ramseys moved back to Atlanta after their daughter’s killing.

“It’s been a very long 10 years, and I’m just sorry Patsy isn’t here for me to hug her neck,” Wood said.

“John and Patsy lived their lives knowing they were innocent, trying to raise a son despite the furore around them,” he told MSNBC.

The Ramseys learned that police were investigating Karr at least a month before Patsy Ramsey’s death, the family said.

In a statement, John Ramsey said that if his wife had lived to see Karr’s arrest, she “would no doubt have been as pleased as I am with today’s development almost 10 years after our daughter’s murder.”

Bob Raines, principal at Wilson Elementary School outside Petaluma, said he twice hired Karr as a substitute in second- and fourth-grade classes in 2001. After observing him, Raines said he concluded Karr hadn’t been trained, had poor skills keeping classes focused and was ineffective.

A couple months later, Sonoma County sheriff’s officials sent a letter to school officials saying Karr had been arrested, said Carl Wong, the county school superintendent.

County Chief Deputy District Attorney Joan Risse confirmed the child pornography charges and arrest warrant against a John Mark Karr, though she cautioned that she didn’t know if he was the same person held Bangkok. State records show Karr lost his teaching credential in 2002.

In Bangkok, police said Karr had been living in a dormitory-style guesthouse called The Blooms in a neighbourhood of massage parlours and travel agents that cater to expatriate residents and sex tourists.

Suwat said US authorities informed Thai police on August 11 that an arrest warrant had been issued for Karr on charges of premeditated murder. The warrant was sent to Thai police yesterday.

“Through investigation we were able to determine where his residence was and the Thais arrested him,” Hurst said. “He did not resist. He did express surprise.”

The US Homeland Security official said Karr had left the US several years ago and had not returned.

Suwat said Karr arrived in Bangkok on June 6 from Malaysia to look for a teaching job. It was not clear whether he had gotten a job, the police officer said.

Karr’s visa has been revoked for being an “undesirable person” after the accusations against him, and US authorities were expected to take him to the US in the next few days, Suwat said.

Karr lost any legal protection in Thailand after the revocation, leaving Thai authorities free to hand him over to the US.