DA defends decision

[Nomad]

DA defends decision to bring Karr to U.S. Updated: 08/29/2006 02:34:38 PM



Listen to Karr's phone conversations about JonBenet (GRAPHIC CONTENT)

Interactive timeline of JonBenet Ramsey case

Read the document filed Monday in the case






BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - The prosecutor in the JonBenet Ramsey case acknowledged Tuesday that some people want her "tarred and feathered" for pursuing John Mark Karr's now-debunked claims, but she said separating fact from fantasy was difficult because so much of the evidence is public knowledge.

A day after the case against Karr was dropped, District Attorney Mary Lacy and her team defended their decision to bring Karr to Colorado from halfway around the world on a flight that included glasses of champagne.

Lacy said she wouldn't change a thing about how she approached the investigation, except perhaps making a stronger effort to keep details from the media. She said Karr's graphic, detailed claims and his growing fascination with at least one girl in Thailand forced her hand.

"We felt we could not ignore this, we had to follow it. We also had ... there was a real public safety concern here directed at a particular child," she said. Lacy added that a forensic psychologist "advised that this person was dangerous, this person was escalating."

She said it is difficult to be sure about any suspect's claims because every bit of physical evidence in the case has been disclosed to the public over the past 10 years. Lacy said some 200 people have been investigated in the case over the years.

"This guy confessed on numerous occasions in great detail," said Peter Maguire, a deputy district attorney. "He confessed in e-mails, he confessed in telephone conversations ... he admitted it to a police officer. This was a bizarre crime and the person who committed this crime acted in a bizarre way."

JonBenet's father found the little girl's body in the basement of their Boulder home on the day after Christmas 1996. For years, suspicion has focused on either an intruder or the girl's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. Patsy Ramsey died of cancer in June.

Karr, who in e-mails and telephone conversations expressed a fascination with JonBenet and Polly Klaas, a murdered California girl, said after his arrest in Thailand this month that he was with JonBenet at the time of her slaying.

However, DNA tests did not match Karr to material found on the girl's body.

Karr remained in custody until he can be sent to Sonoma County, Calif., to face misdemeanor child pornography charges dating to 2001. An extradition hearing was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

If convicted in Sonoma County, Karr could face a maximum of one year in prison and $2,500 on each count, said Don Steier, a California defense attorney who has been involved in high-profile sex crimes cases.

Lacy has been sharply criticized by the governor and others for arresting Karr. She acknowledged that and told reporters she has received calls from people calling for her to be "tarred and feathered" and "run out of town." Republican Gov. Bill Owens said Lacy, a Democrat, "should be held accountable for the most extravagant and expensive DNA test in Colorado history."

"The decisions were mine," said Lacy, estimating the Karr investigation cost at least $9,300. "The responsibility is mine and I should be held accountable for all decisions in this case."

Lacy, whose statement was briefly interrupted by a courthouse fire alarm, said investigators surreptitiously took DNA samples from Karr at several locations in Thailand before he was detained.

"We couldn't get his consent because he didn't know he was under investigation and we couldn't alert him at that time," she said.

Karr's father and brother, Wexford and Nate Karr, went to the Boulder jail on Tuesday, but left without commenting.

JonBenet's aunt, Pamela Paugh, said Tuesday that she wasn't terribly shocked to learn that Karr's public confession didn't hold up.

"I think one of two things is going on: 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," Paugh told CBS' "The Early Show."

Karr emerged as a suspect in April after he spent several years exchanging e-mails and 11 telephone calls with a University of Colorado journalism professor who had produced documentaries on the case.

The district attorney's office released explicit details of statements Karr had made in those exchanges with professor Michael Tracey, who alerted authorities. Karr told the professor he accidentally killed JonBenet during sex and tasted her blood after he injured her, prosecutors said.

"Are you asking me why I killed JonBenet? I don't see it that way," Karr wrote in a May 22 e-mail. "Her and I were engaging in a romantic and very sexual interaction. It went bad and it was my fault."

At one point in the message exchange, he wrote that he envisioned Johnny Depp playing him in a movie, which he said would make $1 billion.

When Karr was arrested in Thailand, Ramsey family attorney Lin Wood pronounced it a vindication for JonBenet's parents.

On Monday, Wood said: "From day one, John Ramsey publicly stated that he did not want the public or the media to jump to judgment. He did not want the public or the media to engage in speculation, that he wanted the justice system to take its course."

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Associated Press writers Jon Sarche in Boulder, Dan Elliott, P. Solomon Banda and Sandy Shore in Denver, Harry R. Weber in Atlanta and Scott Lindlaw in San Francisco contributed to

[K.Snyder]

two words -

Evil Circus

[Marie5656]

I think the DA's office had to do what they had to do, even with a shaky case against the man.

This is not the first time someone has been arrested and released due to a lack of evidence, and , sadly, it will not be the last. I think the fact that this was a high profile case, and with the victim being a child, well it just makes it all the worse.

On the news tonight there was speculation that now they may never find her killer. That may be true. 10 years..I think the case is just too cold.

[zinkyusa]

Diuretic wrote: Two words - Fox News*.

*a collective name for the yellow press that drive moral panics.


Yep, made a big deal of it of course. Still the DA had to at least do the DNA testing..

[K.Snyder]

I still dont understand how anyone could act on such a lack of evidence, especially on a case thats what...9 years cold?...

Complete desperation.

[K.Snyder]

Diuretic wrote: Can you imagine the headlines if the DA had refused to consider prosecution?


Not any more than I cant imagine why all those sickos aspire to confess to famous crimes, purely for the attention.