Thursday, August 17, 2006

Quick note on the Jon Benet Ramsey case (UPDATES 1 & 2...and now 3)

I don't want to top dr. elsewhere's great piece on Wilson/Plame, but I do feel obligated to direct your attention to this story on John Mark Karr, the schoolteacher arrested in the Jon Benet Ramsey murder case. (Note that the press uses all three names, a homicidal tradition since 1963.) An ABC newsperson spoke to the suspect's former wife, who confirms that he downloaded child porn. However:
Laura Karr also tells us she's devastated and embarrassed by these murder charges, but she does not believe that her husband did it. She says that during Christmas season of 1996 when JonBenet Ramsey was strangled and beaten to death in Colorado, they were living in Alabama at the time and she was with him the entire Christmas season.
(Emphasis added.) A guy in Alabama can't just slip away to Colorado for a few hours. The cops must know about this alibi. What explanation, I wonder, do they have?

I'm also intrigued by Karr's fascination with the Polly Klaas kidnapping. He even lived in Klaas' hometown of Petaluma, albeit long after the event. A friend of mine knew Polly's grandfather, which prompted my botched attempt to research a book on the crime. That research left me at least semi-persuaded that Richard Allen Davis hid (and continues to hide) the names of accomplices.

Few now recall that there was a rash of child kidnappings in that area at that time. When I visited the abandoned house where Davis lived, I found, in the carcass of an old Toyota Corona, a collection of local newspapers which had covered those crimes. The walls of the house were covered with ultra-bizarre graffiti, including a large outline drawing of an owl on the front door. Lord knows what that was supposed to mean.

UPDATE: Ah, the perils of writing about news as it happens! Karr, it is now said, has confessed. Turns out he may have met the Ramseys when they all lived in or around Conyers, Gerogia -- a strange burg otherwise famed for Marian apparitions. "Eat, drink and see Mary" is the town motto. And what of the former wife's alibi? We shall see...

UPDATE 2: Karr has confessed on camera, but the story grows more mysterious, especially if we follow the money. Schoolteachers are notoriously ill-paid. How did this guy afford his extensive, expensive Asian travels? His wife has offered an alibi. One may fairly presume that any hole in that alibi must be quite small, chronologically speaking. How would he afford round-trip plane fare to Colorado? Did he book well in advance? If it was planned well in advance, why choose to visit Colorado during the snowy season? He was in the sex trade in Thailand -- was he in the trade ten years ago? In other words, was he working for someone else?

Then we have this odd note from Mary Lacy, Boulder DA:
She said Karr, who had traveled extensively across the world, may also be connected to a prior case in Santa Rosa County, Calif. She did not provide further details.
Karr's ex told a reporter that he "researched" both the Ramsey case and the Polly Klaas case, which took place in Santa Rosa County.

Incidentally, a commenter says that the ex's interview is being scrubbed from various news sites.

UPDATE 3: So far, we have seen no evidence beyond that claims made by Karr himself. I would remind everyone that Marvin Pancoast, now doing time for the murder of Vicky Morgan, once made a false confession to the Manson family murders.

Various news reports have said that Karr knew things about the murder scene that never were made public. Other reports allege that he corresponded with Patsy Ramsey. Apparently, he also communicated with University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey, who has an expert knowledge of the case. Could Karr have learned the "incriminating" details from those sources...?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe I'm just tired from my nightly toil at the retail version of Auschwitz, but Joseph--you...you...were going to write a book on the Polly Klass' murder? Get on it, man! The world may be ending, but that's no excuse! (Do you know what kind of market exists for true crime reads?--You could take or leave the donate button.)

Joseph Cannon said...

Jen, there were two books on the case. The second book -- the "conspiracy" version -- was by Frank Spiering, and I understand that it did not do well. That reception may have owed something to the fact that Spiering had acquired a rep lower than Hell's sub-cellar after he wrote the world's worst books about Jack the Ripper and Lizzy Borden. At any rate, I have lost all of my notes and all the interesting ephemera I scooped up from the house on the res where Davis lived.

Never did figure out the meaning of that owl on the door. There's an Owl cafe -- a rather Twin Peakish eatery -- not far from the spot in Cloverdale where the body was found. All during that day, my mind kept going back to that line from Twin Peaks: "The owls are not what they seem..."

Anonymous said...

I lived near there at the time. A very hush-hush story I was told is that Davis and Polly's father Mark had been friends (it seems to me that Mark Klass supposedly had been a drug supplier for Davis, but I'm not positive of that). The Sonoma County sheriff's Dep't, according to this story, knew of the connection; they kept it out of the news with the understanding that in return for the favor, Mark Klass would spearhead the Polly Klass foundation and speak out for toughening CA's criminal penalties. Which, as I recall, is exactly what happened.

Long time ago. There was always something that bothered me about how Davis picked Polly. And with Jon Benet, it bothers me how Karr followed up on a girl he knew when she was only two, who lived now at least a thousand miles away, and how he got into the Ramsey home.

sunny said...

Take a screenshot of that abc story, Joseph. That "Alabama alibi" is disappearing from some news stories, most notably aol news, this morning.

xymphora makes a good point, ie, if he was arrested on child porn charges in 2001, why was his DNA not matched to the crime at the time?

Read the whole thing.

sunny said...

Joseph, check this out, apropos of the California comment:

Here.

Scroll down a ways to "The JonBenet Ramsey Case: Emerging Child Sex-Ring Allegations,
Political Connections and a Suspect"

Three weeks ago," Calhoun recalled, "a 37-year-old woman from San Luis Obispo, California came forward with information to Boulder Attorney Lee Hill. She alleged that she came from a family of inter-generational child abuse victims, and had been abused since the age of three by a powerful group of pedophiles, some of whom were associates of the Ramsey family.

Anonymous said...

Joseph -

Based on circumstantial evidence -- namely, that one of his sons seemingly also goes by 'John Mark Karr' -- I'm guessing the suspect prefers the triple-barrelled version of his name, rather than being the victim of Oswaldification. (Besides, didn't the practice actually begin in 1865? :) )

However, methinks I smell a psych Masters' thesis around here, somewhere: Are men attracted to 'high throw-weight' names somehow predisposed towards anti-social behavior? Does anyone know if John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Allen Davis, Henry Lee Lucas, Joseph Paul Franklin, or John Allen Muhammed -- or Sara Jane Moore, for that matter :) -- really preferred the tripartite monikers they so infamously wear?

Anonymous said...

Karr looks so skinny that the first thing I think of is whether or not he's got AIDS.

.R.S.E.

Anonymous said...

sofla said:

I believe the Owl figure said to be prominent and worshipped (?) at the Bohemian Grove ceremonies represents an old death and/or war god named Moloch, no?

As to pedophiliac and or satanic ritual abuse people being mysteriously funded and running around without known means of income to finance such travels and related expenses, that seems to show up whenever these people are part of high level networks which are behind their activities.

It's also common with assassins or purported assassins, with the LHO travels apparently beyond his financial resources, same with MLK Jr's purported assassin's trips abroad before the deed and after, and even Arthur Bremer (who doesn't get the obligatory three name treatment since G. Wallace lived after the attempt).

Anonymous said...

it occurs to one, that one might want to use one's full name if one is a newspaper, so that one lessens one's confusion of one's similar/same name being identified with one's infamy being one and the same...

one of one's reasons for using one's full name in one's reports about one...

art guerrilla

aka ann archy

eof

Anonymous said...

A minor correction to your post:

Santa Rosa is a city in Sonoma County, Ca. Petaluma is also in Sonoma County. This in just North of San Francisco, North of Marin County and West of Napa County.

Anonymous said...

If anyone knows anyone that would be interested in writing a book on John Mark Karr, I can provide you invaluable information. I knew JMK from 86-89 and knew Lara well. There are things about this man that the world does not know about....