Nearly a decade after it happened, a 41-year-old man has been arrested for the murder of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey:
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.”
To some folks, perhaps, this ten-year-old case is old news, hardly notable in the face of recent, more global events…. but not for me, because in a very real sense, JonBenet Ramsey’s tragic story helped Polimom raise Adorable Child (AC).
It was her murder that I thought of when a stranger approached Polimom in the produce section of the grocery story in 1997, asking if he could take AC’s picture, and it was JonBenet’s face I saw when people started encouraging me to submit AC’s photos to various agencies for media promotion.
This beautiful little girl’s killing affected Polimom deeply, and her story underpins the very strong opinions I now hold regarding brutal crimes against children; Polimom has an oddly personal interest in seeing her death resolved.
Unfortunately, there’s something about John Karr’s statements to the press that makes me think the story is going to get much uglier before it’s put to rest at last:
“I was with JonBenet when she died,” Karr told reporters afterward, visibly nervous and stuttering as he spoke. “Her death was an accident.”
Asked if he was innocent of the crime, Karr said: “No.”
That whole “with [her] when she died” thing is bothering me a lot.
Update: There’s something strange here:
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.
[snip]
An autopsy on Ramsey said a blood screening showed no drugs or alcohol in her body, which had a 1 centimeter 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.
Lots of things wrong with this picture at this point…
Methinks there is a lot more to this story, some of which we will never know.
I’m intrigued today by the ex-wife’s statements that she was with him, halfway across the country, when the murder occurred. Now, she could have gotten her dates confused. Or she could be right, making this guy a special class of weirdo who feels jolly when bragging about having a relationship with (and oh yes ‘accidentally’ brutally beating) a 6-year-old.
Anyway, once he has a lawyer, they will undoubtedly argue that he was not offered his Miranda rights before confessing to the Thai authorities, and thus the alleged confession must be tossed out. Furthermore, the defense shrinks will say he is either innocent by reason of being out of his gourd, or just too loony to aid in his own defense.
I’m holding out for DNA analysis.
I have to agree, Smukke. DNA testing is crucial, particularly given the strangeness of the entire situation.
Its kind of hard to toss a press conference.
Yep yep. When I heard the bragging, I immediately thought abotu the Texas serial killers oh maybe 20 years ago who ‘confessed’ to all kinds of killings across the USA, and the cops were so glad to ‘clear’ those cases that they didn’t bother to notice that in order to actually *do* all those murders, those kooks would have had to somehow drive from California to Georgia in 2 hours.
One alternative from my fiction-loving brain: He didn’t actually DO the killing but knows who did. For example, he called some Colorado prison pal and offered to pay the guy $x for pictures of the girl, not wanting/expecting the girl to DIE as part of this thing. The PLAN was as he laid out in his confession: pick her up at school, drug her, etc., but the guy who did the deed had a different plan. This, our pal Mr. Karr might still feel guilty about his role in what happened — thus, the ‘confession’ — and may be delusional enough to believe that he actually followed his plan.
I know, I should write fiction. Too bad I can never come up with an ENDING for anything. I always want everybody to ive happily ever after.
Actually, for a great bit of fiction on this subject, “Lost Boys” by Orson Scott Card is a good (if slightly disturbing) read.