JonBenet murder suspect taken to airport for US flight

The suspect in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey arrived at Bangkok’s international airport today for a flight to the US where he will face charges in relation to the death of the six-year-old beauty queen.

Escorted by Thai police officers, John Mark Karr was whisked into the immigration and customs zone at Don Muang International Airport after arriving in a white van from an immigration jail in Bangkok.

The 41-year-old school teacher wore a red shirt and tie and said nothing as he left the immigration jail.

Karr, escorted by at least two US officials, is scheduled to fly to Los Angeles aboard a Thai Airways International flight which departs Bangkok at 7.10pm (1.10pm Irish time).

As he prepared to leave Thailand, where he was arrested on Wednesday, staff at a Bangkok clinic specialising in sex-change operations said Karr had sought treatment there.

“He was one of my patients,” said Dr Thep Vechwijit at Pratunam Polyclinic, but declined to provide details of the treatment.

A worker at the clinic said Karr had consulted the doctor about a sex-change operation.

Thep has received considerable local publicity for his male-to-female operations and the clinic is one of the sponsors of an annual beauty pageant for transsexuals in the seaside resort of Pattaya.

Bangkok is regarded as a major global centre for sex change operations, which cost a fraction of the price charged in Western countries.

Karr is to end his journey in Boulder, Colorado, where he faces charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault in connection with the 1996 killing.

Police said Karr appeared nervous ahead of his deportation.

“Generally he is fine, but a little bit nervous as the time of his departure approaches,” said immigration police chief Lt Gen Suwat Tumrongsiskul. “We treat him well since he is a high-profile suspect.

Yesterday Karr wanted to eat American food “so we ordered from Kentucky Fried Chicken for him, but this morning he had the standard breakfast” of Thai food, Suwat said.

The case has sparked concern in Thailand over whether foreign teachers hired by Thai schools are adequately checked to weed out criminals and deviants.

Karr, once detained on charges of possessing child pornography, in recent years apparently travelled to Europe, Central America and Asia to search for teaching jobs. He was arrested a day after he began teaching children in Bangkok, US prosecutors said.

Thai Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang said he has ordered his ministry to look into the problem.

Chaturon said it has been too easy for unqualified foreigners to get teaching jobs, in part because those with proper qualifications are too expensive for many institutions, the state Thai News Agency reported.

US officials, the only ones to have actually interrogated Karr, have been silent about what he told them, citing his right to privacy and legal procedures, while secondhand accounts by Thai officials have been vague and contradictory.

When Karr spoke to reporters on Thursday, he said he was alone with JonBenet when she died in the basement of her home on December 26, 1996, but that her death was an accident.

“I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet,” Karr said. “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.”

Although Karr took responsibility for the girl’s death, his statements have been sketchy, and with little public evidence linking him to the crime. Some experts have speculated that he is either lying or delusional.

“Many high-publicity crimes have these people coming out of the woodwork,” said Elizabeth Loftus, director of the Center for Psychology and Law at the University of California-Irvine.

More than 200 people confessed to the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s infant son. The 1947 “Black Dahlia” murder – the slaying of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, who was found sliced in half in a vacant Los Angeles lot – also attracted numerous spurious confessions.

Lawyers for the Ramsey family said on Friday that a number of people have already confessed to the killing of JonBenet, none of them with enough credibility to attract the attention of law enforcement.