John Karr Arrested for the Murder of JonBenet Ramsey

| | Comments (1)

Okay, my home town is in the national news again. Let's see if I can add some local angle to the story that you can't get from CNN.com.

Obviously the JonBenet Ramsey case was in the local paper for many months in 1997. A sizable amount of suspicion fell on her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. They attended an Episcopal Church in town, and some of the horrible fascination with the crime centered around the idea that these respectable church-going people might have a dark side.

The homicide case of Mary and Matthew Winkler in Selmer, Tennessee is a blunt reminder that church-going folk can also commit terrible crimes, but I never considered the Ramseys as likely suspects. That scenario was just too complicated, requiring an elaborate pattern of deception on the part of the dead girl's parents. Naw!

When I thought about the case at all, I preferred the intruder theory. The most obvious clue was that the amount of money demanded for the ransom ($118,000) matched the bonus that John Ramsey had just received from Access Graphics. Who would know that amount? Some disgruntled employee, that's who. So find the disgruntled employee! What's the problem? But the police didn't seem to key in on that aspect of the crime. I don't deserve any credit here because I never figured out all the angles to the theory.

The Ramsey house itself has attracted some unwanted attention. The Boulder Daily Camera has carried several stories of fights breaking out on the street in front, usually between people wanting to take pictures and people wanting to protect what little privacy the family had left. The neighborhood itself is in an area of steep financial gradient between the low-priced student rentals near the University, and the high-priced mansions on small lots up next to the open space and mountain parks. Lots of people flow through the area.

I've ridden my bicycle by the house a few times, taking care not to appear too interested. They've done some landscaping – planting trees in the front yard, and other touches. The place looks different now than it did on that Christmas evening in 1996.

The Rocky Mountain News on August 17 published a short item “Under suspicion” on page 31A detailing the other suspects in the case. If you want get creeped out, consider these:

A man who showed up at a memorial service for JonBenet a year after her death. The man has a criminal history, including the sexual assault of a 7-year-old girl in Oregon. Around the time of the slaying, he was getting food and picking up mail at a church near the Ramsey home. When arrested on an unrelated charge in December, officials found a stun gun and a poem about JonBenet in his backpack.

A man living in a suburb east of Boulder who an informant said had a basement shrine to JonBenet. The shrine included a candy cane similar to the candy canes in the Ramsey's front yard at the time of the killing. The tipster also said the man owned stun guns.

A man once arrested in Oceanside, Calif., for a crime against a child. The man lived six blocks from JonBenet's home but disappeared soon after her death.

We locals would like to think that the arrest and apparent confession of John Karr means that the case is solved, that justice has been done at last. Karr could also be some wacko who wanted to attract a bunch of attention, so he did some research and made up a cruel story with himself at the center. The evidence will come out in the weeks and months ahead, so we'll just have to wait and see.

One final note: I'm sure thankful that my own daughter is leading a normal life: reading mystery stories, learning to dance and play soccer, sleeping in on Saturday mornings, looking at algae through her microscope, braiding her hair, and – just living. That's what little girls should be doing. If she complains about having to eat her whole dinner, I don't mind so much. Because sometimes I think, what if she were suddenly taken from me? Or brutally assaulted and murdered like JonBenet was? I know I would long to hear her complain about dinner just one more time.

1 Comments

I couldn't turn the TV on yesterday without getting updates from reporters flying on the same plane with John Karr, the suspect being extradicted from Thailand. They were shocked, shocked he was given a metal knife for his meal. They were horrified, horrified, that he got champaigne in Business class. Who cares?

This is what our press is devoting scarce resources to?

Another interesting angle is how the straight cable news is treating the guy as guilty, while the cable pundits are agog that the DA would extradict this guy because they have so little. I wonder what the pundits would be saying if the DA didn't follow up on somebody who confessed to a murder.

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Carl Drews published on August 18, 2006 3:17 PM.

Lausanne Day 3 (or It's Good To Be The King) was the previous entry in this blog.

Lausanne Day 4 (Or We Discover France) is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

LINKS


St. Louis Blogs:

J Bowen
Christopher Johnson
Charles Austin
Archpundit
Random Observations
Brian J Noggle
Shelley Powers
Gateway Pundit
Listless Lawyer
Jim Durbin
Timothy Birdnow
Diane Meyer
Marijean Jaggers
Scott Ginsberg
Steve Boriss
St. Louis Bloggers
St. Louis Blogs . Org
Randall Sherman
Urban Review STL

Missouri Blogs:

John Combest
Blue Girl, Red State
Another Rovian Conspiracy
The News Buckit
The Source
Fired Up! Missouri
Susan "Farmgirl"

Favorite Blogs:

James Lileks
Glenn Reynolds
Rich Galen
Megan McCardle
Scrapple Face
In The Agora
The Brothers Judd
Geitner Simmons
Cronaca
Science Blog
Winds of Change
Da Goddess
Justin Katz
Fran Mason
Phil Carter
Greg Costikyan
Tom McMahon
Kevin Aylward
Rand Simberg
Michael Totten
Belmont Club
News Busters
Mark Ciocco
David Weinberger
Tom Maguire
Jon Henke & McQ (plus Dale!)
Kevin Murphy The Other
Craig Henry
Brian Tiemann
Crooked Timber
Charles Johnson
Powerline
Busy Mom
Jason Van Steenwyk
Jenne
INDC Journal
Eamonn Fitzgerald
John Little
King of Fools
Perish the Thought
Patterico
Jeff Harrell
Michael Yon
Ed Driscoll
George Roper
Jeff Goldstein
Mark A. R. Kleiman
David Opderbeck
Libertas
Bob Somerby
Ben Witherington
Creative Bits
Mark Daniels
Michael Spencer
Think Sink
The Brussels Journal
A J Strata
S K Murphy
Joe Carter
John Hawkins
Bridget
Back Talk
Joe Sherlock
Mark Perry
Daniel Dilger

Pundits

Charles Le Kraut Martel
Victor Davis Hanson
Mark Steyn
Thomas Sowell
Malcolm Gladwell
Robert Cringely
John Carroll
Paul Graham
David Nicklaus

My Interests

The Paralyzed Veterans of America
The American Anti-Slavery Group
Wayside Gardens
The Alliance for the Separation of
School and State

MacSurfer Daily News
Urban Legends
Diablo II Net (Unofficial)
The Word Detective
HotAIR
UN Documentation Center
Cub Scout Pack 787
Baloo's Bugle (Cub Scouts)
Wounded Warrior Project
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Defense Industry Daily