I think I just threw up a little in my mouth

It's Thursday, that means it's me once more. I thought about staying off the blog but then I heard about the big story of, well, the rest of the week, if not longer:

CNN) -- An American arrested in Thailand said Thursday he was with child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey when she died in her parents' basement in 1996 and called her death "an accident."

"I was with JonBenet when she died," suspect John Mark Karr, 41, told reporters Thursday in Bangkok. "I loved JonBenet, and she died accidentally."

Asked by a reporter if he was an innocent man, Karr replied, "No."

There's video included in that link, too. And it gets worse:

John Mark Karr displayed a deep fascination with JonBenet Ramsey long before he was arrested in her death.

Karr, who told reporters Thursday that he was “with JonBenet when she died” but that “her death was an accident,” began teaching children in Georgia and Alabama before he became a substitute in Petaluma, a bucolic wine country town where he lived until 2001 with his wife and three sons.

Lara Karr of Petaluma, who divorced Karr in 2001, told KGO-TV in San Francisco that he often spent time reading up on the cases of Ramsey and Petaluma resident Polly Klaas, who was abducted and slain in 1993.

His father told The Denver Post that while Karr was in college as an adult, a professor encouraged him to write a book about the Ramsey case after being impressed with a school paper.
“He researched everything he could about her,” Wexford Karr said.

I could keep posting links all day with more information (like the fact that Karr fled California in 2001 and taught children in Germany, the Netherlands, Honduras and eventually, Thailand)  but I think the point's pretty clear: in hindsight, it's so unbelievably obvious that an intruder did it. And that's where the throwing up part begins.

 

Ten years ago the case was everywhere, and chatter was insistent to the point of being intrusive. But the JonBenet Ramsey case was probably the first big murder case that played out not only in the mainstream and tabloid media, but online. Thousands of people congregated on message board and USENET groups to discuss, speculate and indict.

I should know. I was one of them.

I wish I could say that I always thought an intruder did it, but the ransom note, the collective stomping on Patsy & John Ramsey had an effect. I know I entertained theories of whether JonBenet's older brother, Burke, was responsible. Then, a few years later, when a partial DNA sample was found on JonBenet and it didn't match either of the parents, that was interesting. And I sort of forgot about it, because time passed, I wasn't a chattering college student any longer, and life went on.

Now it's all flooded back. And I can't help but think we haven't learned a damn thing. Because if anything, media saturation has only worsened. Guilty parties are still arrested in far greater quantities, but innocent people might be even more subjected to witch-hunt-like mentality.

In five years or so, there's going to be an amazing, amazing book on what really happened. And the sociological effects. But that's not going to help any of the surviving Ramseys. Not by a longshot.

Comments

[Stephen Blackmoore]

In the midst of the JonBenet Ramsey case, the Onion did a parody with the headline, "Ugly Girl Killed: Nation Unshaken By Not So Tragic Death"

If anything I think we haven't learned is that they're all tragedies. Not just the lurid ones about pretty girls with picture-perfect smiles.

[Clair Lamb]

Good point, Stephen. And the other point that's worth making is that we rushed to judgment ten years ago because -- while, ultimately, the Ramseys were not murderers -- it seemed clear that her mother, at least, had put JonBenet in harm's way by turning her into an object of desire.

The details of this confession are getting weirder and weirder -- I wonder whether this is going to be the guy after all.

[Brian]

I really wonder if this guys is just doing this for attention or if he is doing it to avoid going to prison in Thailand. Claiming to be the killer of JonBenet would certainly help him get out of Thailand. It fact, it has already!

I have my doubts this is the killer. Sadly.

[Sarah]

Fair points about the veracity, but so far, it sounded like the arrest came after several months of investigation, and the Ramseys were tipped off about it - even before Patsy's death two months ago.

Too early to tell at this point but I wonder if the partial DNA print was consistent with Karr's, and it was just a matter of tracking his whereabouts, since he was overseas and hopping from country to country. We'll see.

[Jeff]

And his ex-wife is now stating he was actually in Alabama with her during the time of the murder...

As Brian said above, I'm doubting this is the guy.

[ed]

Without taking away from the awfulness of this case:

I hate to quibble with semantics, but a real-life tragedy is typically described as a disastrous event destroying many lives. The Onion parody in question speaks to how this nation frequently applies the word "tragedy" to nearly every component of life.

"I lost my keys. What a tragedy!"

"Premature ejaculation! Tragedy!"

Et al.

This speaks to a dormant American impulse to obsess over events that are sad but, for the most part, fairly typical.

The Department of Justice reports that there were 37,000 child murder victims between 1976 and 1994.
What of these children? Why aren't we wallowing in media coverage for them? Because these kids weren't beauty paegant queens? Because they're not white? Because they're not upper middle class? What of the parents of THESE children?

The real question that nobody is answering here is why JonBenet Ramsey's life is worth more than these other children. When you frame things this way, can we really toss around the word "tragedy" when it applies so selectively?

It's worth noting that the original definition of the word orginates from the Greek: a song sung after the sacrifice of a goat. Whenever people throw the word "tragedy" around in a non-narrative context, I wonder if the goat being sacrificed is the spectrum of our perspective. Child murder remains one of the great taboos in our culture and yet we occlude our gaze away from the fact that it DOES happen far more frequently than we realize. And even our culture is prohibited from pursuing it (see Charles Willeford's GRIMHAVEN).

[Rob Gregory Browne]

Why do I get the feeling this guy is lying?

I could be wrong. Probably am. But something doesn't compute here.

[Alafair]

If he did do it, then the wacko on-air confession was brilliant, because, absent additional evidence, his eagerness to confess while avoiding details leaves me among the dubious.

[Lorra Laven]

So this guy has researched the subject extensively and also been advised to write a book about it?

Do I smell a publicity stunt?

[thebizofknowledge]

I stumbled across your blog while I was in the process of doing some online research. The problem with this suspect is that he seems so unbalanced he may just be confessing so he can feel more involved in the case, since what he's said so far does not square with the actual facts of the case. We'll have to wait and see if the physical evidence ties him to the scene or not.

[Doug Cummings]

The name Richard Jewell comes to mind as I see this Karr fella paraded in front of the cameras. Remember Jewell? The Olympic Park bombing case? Sure, Karr's "confession" may be genuine. It also may be the result of some not-so gentle persuasion by cops in a country that isn't exactly known as a bastion of civil rights. It's also possible he's a wannabe. I've covered hundreds of murder cases in thirty years as a crime reporter. I've seen plenty of insecure guys who think admitting to a murder is the only way they'll ever get into the spotlight. I'm waiting to pass judgement until I hear the results of DNA tests and writing examplars. And I'm keeping in mind the old cop truism that those close to a victim are the first suspects and often the most viable. Karr may have "insider" information known "only to the police" but I also remember plenty of times where I was close enough to the detectives working a homicide that they shared their holdbacks with me. Let's not warm up the electric chair for Mr. Karr quite yet.

[ro713ck]

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