Very weird Karr stuff

Yes, I know that the John Mark Karr story has rapidly turned into silly-season material. Face it: We're hooked.

Karr, we learn, was in Thailand to change his sex. (Yet he likes girls. Did he intend to become a lesbian?) Dr. Thep Vechavisit claims that Karr was one of his patients. According to this site, "Doctor Thep Vechavisit has no licence to practise, but makes cosmetic operations at Pratunam Polyclinic." So. A wanna-be female who may also be a wanna-be killer goes to a wanna-be doctor...

Even stranger: The late psychic Dorothy Allison provided a sketch of Jon Benet Ramsey's killer in 1997. The sketch, we now see, bears a remarkable resemblance to John Mark Karr. Hmm...but does it resemble the way Karr looked then?

For a somewhat-skeptical take on Allison (by crime author Katherine Ramsland), go here. For the very-skeptical viewpoint (by Joe Nickell, one of the few CSICOP types who does actual research instead of just snorting harrumph harrumph), go here.

Since the Karr business butts up against the Polly Klaas case, I suppose now would be a good time to get a story on the record which might otherwise go unwritten. This tale may place the Allison matter in some perspective.

As I noted in an earlier post, a friend of mine -- call him Arthur -- was acquainted with Polly's grandfather. Arthur worked with the ad-hoc citizens' group which tried to help find Polly in the two months between the kidnapping and the recovery of the body.

Somehow, Arthur ended up dealing (always by telephone) with one of the many psychics who claimed to have info on the case.

The psychic -- call him Bernie -- insisted that he had never visited Northern California. Yet he pinpointed an unused road not on any current map. He gave accurate, detailed descriptions of structures and geographical features found along a rural trail known only to few locals. Bernie insisted that something important would happen at a specific location along this trail on Halloween, which happened to fall within that two-month "search" period.

Arthur and a small group of other Polly-hunters spent that entire night in this remote locale. And they saw...nothing.

In the end, nothing Bernie said had any discernable relation to the case.

After the captrue of Richard Davis, Bernie became increasingly manic and impossible to deal with -- so much so that my friend Arthur, normally tolerant and unflappable, found himself close to losing his temper.

I still have no idea if psychics have ever proven helpful in detective work. The little-seen film Man on a Swing, with Cliff Robertson and Joel Grey, does a good job of capturing the difficulties of dealing with such claimants.