Breaking News Archive - 20th - 26th Aug

[Buzz Mills]

Crime Profiler: Karr’s Murder Confession Fake?

Did he or didn't he kill JonBenet Ramsey?

Chances are you've debated this with someone lately. After all, why would John Mark Karr confess to the horrible murder if he didn't do it?

But now, his walk - his talk - his looks - his eating; whatever Karr is doing, now people are watching. They’re watching for some clue as to whether his shocking confession is really the truth.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) profiler Larry Ruby isn't sure.

"Whether he did it or not, I really can’t tell you,” says Ruby. “It just doesn’t seem right."

Ruby has investigated several cases in Florida where people confessed to crimes they didn't commit. He says hard evidence -- like the DNA test investigators are waiting for in the Ramsey case -- is the only way to know for sure.

Ruby says high profile cases often attract false confessions. It happened early on in the JonBenet murder investigation and in the OJ Simpson case. Those people were eventually ruled out. The mind set in cases like these is often -- if you can't be famous, be infamous.

"He’s caught up in this, it may even be a life he’s taken on,” says Ruby. “I can see him talking like that because that’s what he likes. And not necessarily that he’s talking about JonBenet, but he likes young girls."

Karr has been married twice to two young teens. And in 2001, he was being investigated in California on a child charge. However, Ruby says there's something that doesn't seem to fit.

"It’s just an extremely high risk crime for someone to do that, and he doesn’t look like a brave person,” he says. "From seeing him on TV in this dazed state, I don’t see him as being capable, but I don’t know what he was like 10 years ago.”

And we may never know. However, crime fighting technology, like DNA tests, should provide investigators the information they need to finally close the case.

http://www.fox30online.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=CC594D84-E33A-4CBA-AC92-1C503608645C

 

[Hyatt]

I've been a long time believer in the Ramsey's guilt, but the only thing that has me thinking Karr could possibly be involved is that I can't believe the Boulder DA would put herself on the line like this without solid evidence, beyond his kooky confession. Apparently, she is very well respected and there are a bunch of people who feel she would not have gone to such lengths to apprehend him if she didn't have reason to believe he was the one.

Karen

Well, Lin Wood and John Ramsey really really really trust her.

So I've heard.

 

[aspidistra]

Quote: "It’s just an extremely high risk crime for someone to do that, and he doesn’t look like a brave person,” he says. "From seeing him on TV in this dazed state, I don’t see him as being capable, but I don’t know what he was like 10 years ago.”
On the contrary, if you look at the way he's lived his life since fleeing charges in 2001, you can see he is not a passive wimp. He wasn't shy about applying all over the world for teaching jobs and when fired, starting all over again and living in many different countries that most people wouldn't even care to go to let alone live there. He's determined, he's precise, and as for not being capable? It was stated that he threw chairs in the classroom when he was angry, and wouldn't allow the children to use the restroom; that he drugged and hurt his child bride. This is not Caspar Milquetoast. That is just one side of him. I have seen enough psychologists talking about how pedophiles become so obsessed that they get the courage to actually go and snatch the child. Even if they were thought of as meek individuals.

 

[Hyatt]

To be honest I was only trying to help. But if people think that it's too much of a problem that's fine.

Your suggestion makes sense to me, MrsMush. It would be more efficient for people who don't have time to plod through a lot of other stuff. However, even though, one tends to think that media links are the places to go for FACTS, the media has thus far been way in left field reagarding this case since so much wrong information has been put out there. In such a case, it's sometimes good to have someone correct them.

JMO

 

[Anita Richman]

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20060825/capt.274b7b0b10bb44d381eb74797a5e3559.jonbenet_ramsey_corb102.jpg?x=238&y=345&sig=inkhGNA2t1KV8BJQDcAJ4Q--

Sorry, I was just trying to put the photo right on the post. For some reason it won't work. :doh: Thanks Buzz!

Scandi9

Scandi, I hope that isn't the "intriguing" Seth Tomin you described earlier.

If it is...you are FIRED from describing ANYBODY for the rest of your natural life. (Seriously!)

 

[Louisa]

aspidistra, I think you've done a really good analysis of Karr's family and of Karr himself on this thread. I keep going back and forth about him myself, one minute thinking he may be the guy, the next thinking maybe he'll only link us to someone else who is the one at best.

But something Craig Silverman said tonight really struck me. Silverman pointed out that Karr could conceivably have left Atlanta at 2pm eastern time and been in Boulder at 5pm mountain time, with the time differential. And it got me thinking about how Karr's family isn't so definitive about exactly where he was on Christmas of '96.

Suppose the scenario was something like this: Karr was with part of the family for Christmas morning (wife, kids) but then left that part of the family using visiting some other part of the family by himself as an excuse. That kind of thing can happen on a holiday, especially if there are factions of a family that don't get along or if little kids don't want to make a trip to visit Uncle Joe after a hectic Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Isn't it possible that he "disappeared" himself after "spending Christmas" with the family insofar as the family remembers it? Maybe they had a midday meal and he was out of there . . . whether he said he was going visiting or to work or whatever.

Just a thought, not necessarily saying I know or believe that's what happened. But it would explain how his family could be accurate in their memory and still allow him to get out of dodge to be in Boulder later on Christmas afternoon and night.

 

[Wrinkles]

Hello Anita,

You wrote:
"Scandi, I hope that isn't the "intriguing" Seth Tomin you described earlier.
If it is...you are FIRED from describing ANYBODY for the rest of your natural life. (Seriously!)"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Now now Anita...just because we have different taste

Wrinkles

 

[LaMer]

aspidistra, I think you've done a really good analysis of Karr's family and of Karr himself on this thread. I keep going back and forth about him myself, one minute thinking he may be the guy, the next thinking maybe he'll only link us to someone else who is the one at best.

But something Craig Silverman said tonight really struck me. Silverman pointed out that Karr could conceivably have left Atlanta at 2pm eastern time and been in Boulder at 5pm mountain time, with the time differential. And it got me thinking about how Karr's family isn't so definitive about exactly where he was on Christmas of '96.

Suppose the scenario was something like this: Karr was with part of the family for Christmas morning (wife, kids) but then left that part of the family using visiting some other part of the family by himself as an excuse. That kind of thing can happen on a holiday, especially if there are factions of a family that don't get along or if little kids don't want to make a trip to visit Uncle Joe after a hectic Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Isn't it possible that he "disappeared" himself after "spending Christmas" with the family insofar as the family remembers it? Maybe they had a midday meal and he was out of there . . . whether he said he was going visiting or to work or whatever.

Just a thought, not necessarily saying I know or believe that's what happened. But it would explain how his family could be accurate in their memory and still allow him to get out of dodge to be in Boulder later on Christmas afternoon and night.

Louisa, what about JMK's claim he attended the party at the Ramsey's house on the 23rd? Gone, home, gone? He would have been flying back and forth the country for several day! Ha lots of air miles!

O welll it's late, LOL maybe I'm brain dead, but I don't see it!

 

[Louisa]

Louisa, what about JMK's claim he attended the party at the Ramsey's house on the 23rd? Gone, home, gone? He would have been flying back and forth the country for several day! Ha lots of air miles!

O welll it's late, LOL maybe I'm brain dead, but I don't see it!

LaMer, you're right about those air miles. Forgot he'd claimed he'd been there on the 23rd when Silverman said Karr could have flown in leaving Atlanta at 2 pm. Karr's got so many fantasies going, it's hard to keep 'em straight, lol. The scenario I outlined wouldn't necessarily be negated if the party scenario were all fantasy and the murder weren't. Like I said, I was just throwing it out as a possibility based on what Silverman said, something to chew on till we find out what Mary Lacy actually has on him.

 

[Details]

His profile NOW does fit the killer, but it didn't in December, 1996. He's come a long way (since then).

Maybe the only distance he's come is out of the closet... So many pedophiles have secret lives that are never ever discovered except by mute dead children, for years, even decades. All we can hear about is the side he showed.

 

[Anita Richman]

I agree. But I still think this is not the guy. I have a gut feeling he was obsessed with JBR after her murder. The same way he was with Polly Klass. I hope I am wrong because JBR case needs to be closed.

JDB, I am "with you" on the "gut feeling"/intuitive thing. I do NOT think this is "the guy". I will definately be floored if there is ANYTHING that proves that he DID IT. (Although I would be lying if I said I wasn't ELATED when I heard the first reports of his "arrest.) I guess we will just wait and see!

You are a good guy, JDB. I hope we are both wrong!

 

[aspidistra]

Maybe the only distance he's come is out of the closet... So many pedophiles have secret lives that are never ever discovered except by mute dead children, for years, even decades. All we can hear about is the side he showed.

Karr told Wendy Hutchens he and his brother were on vacation in Colorado. If that is true, he was there for several days,not flying back and forth. Someone is lying, either Karr, or his family. We will eventually find out who.

Not to belabor the point, but something will turn up: hotel, credit card, gasoline credit card, phone records...something will turn up.

He's got to be placed in Boulder on both Dec 23 and Dec 25, or he didn't do it, or is lying about part of it at least. That wouldn't surprise me, but it just doesn't ring true. A family lying either because they forgot, didn't really care about him, or are trying to protect him... that is more likely than Karr making it all up. I admit though that he could be delusional and making it all up. That is possible.

I just don't think a person as sick as he is mentally would make it all up; he would do something about his urges to hurt children...not just talk about them in the third person as a hobby...Wendy said she would vomit after hearing him talk; she was so sickened by his thoughts; her taped phone calls with him did get him arrested for child on his computer. He was in jail for 6 months and he fled, and started jet hopping around the world (always taking jobs that kept him close to little children) to elude arrest in the US. That doesn't sound like a person who never did anything but fantasize and have a few pictures on his computer.

 

[Anita Richman]

Hey Look!! It's Seth Temin:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060825/480/274b7b0b10bb44d381eb74797a5e3559http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060825/480/274b7b0b10bb44d381eb74797a5e3559

ACK! I can't BELIEVE I fell for your bait!! All my girlish fantasies were squashed in that moment...(perhaps I can find an attorney who will try and retrain those hopes--in the form of cold hard cash.)


By the way, Buzz, I have invited Mrs. Buzz to my potentially lucrative "Silver Jewelry Party". YOU WILL GO DOWN!:furious:

 

[Buzz Mills]

When Photos, Memories Are A Little Hazy
For Karr Family, the Past Can Be Tough to Pin Down

So you've maybe got a famous murderer in the family. Or you were married to one. He's extradited, he's very much in the news, and he's just as creepy as you remember him. You'd like to smack him upside the haid. You'd also like to prove to the world what a complete, dweeb-faced liar he is.

To do that, however, the world needs for you to please go into your spare closets and basements and look for old Christmas photos of him, specifically from Dec. 26, 1996, to prove he wasn't in Boulder, Colo., with the dying JonBenet Ramsey, as John Mark Karr claims he was. The 41-year-old confessionalist will appear in court Monday in Boulder, and he still has yet to have his odd I-am-responsible-for-her-death story completely blown apart by that most efficient means of truth-telling: the family fact-check.

Karr's second wife, Lara Knutson, is convinced that there was a never a Christmas in the '90s where she wasn't with him, and about this her lawyer is quite emphatic. Implied in this is how stuck she was with him, too. She is still reportedly rooting through old paperwork and/or pictures, looking for miserable, but helpful, proof.

Imagine how that feels -- the world drums its fingers while you try to locate old stuff that demonstrates that one Christmas really can be different from all the others.

Christmas 1996. Not 1993, not 1994, not 1997.

One thing about life is you can always count on your family to call you on your BS. If they won't, then the people you went to high school with will gladly chime in. (One of Karr's former classmates has already produced the yearbook he signed, with its eerie similarities to the ransom note the Ramseys said was left in their house on the day they found JonBenet dead.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501376.html

 

[Anita Richman]

Hello Anita,

You wrote:
"Scandi, I hope that isn't the "intriguing" Seth Tomin you described earlier.
If it is...you are FIRED from describing ANYBODY for the rest of your natural life. (Seriously!)"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Now now Anita...just because we have different taste

Wrinkles

Holy Mary, Mother of God..."Wrinkles"...are you implying that the photo linked is of "Seth Tomin", defender of John Mark Karr?

Whew. I think I have been rendered asexual in one fell swoop. Thank you not, Wrinkles, my non-friend!:doh:

 

[scandi]

Anita, He did look a bit different in the golden light of dusk, but I assure you he will be very handsome when he is older.


Scandi

 

[Hyatt]

In one of the above-linked articles it says that Karr wants to be defended by a public attorney. So does this mean that he HAS NOT hired Harmon and VanZandt? I'm getting confused.


And this guy who's fighting DNA is he with the prosecution?

Just call me clueless in Seattle.

 

[magpie]

When Photos, Memories Are A Little Hazy
For Karr Family, the Past Can Be Tough to Pin Down

So you've maybe got a famous murderer in the family. Or you were married to one. He's extradited, he's very much in the news, and he's just as creepy as you remember him. You'd like to smack him upside the haid. You'd also like to prove to the world what a complete, dweeb-faced liar he is.

To do that, however, the world needs for you to please go into your spare closets and basements and look for old Christmas photos of him, specifically from Dec. 26, 1996, to prove he wasn't in Boulder, Colo., with the dying JonBenet Ramsey, as John Mark Karr claims he was. The 41-year-old confessionalist will appear in court Monday in Boulder, and he still has yet to have his odd I-am-responsible-for-her-death story completely blown apart by that most efficient means of truth-telling: the family fact-check.

Karr's second wife, Lara Knutson, is convinced that there was a never a Christmas in the '90s where she wasn't with him, and about this her lawyer is quite emphatic. Implied in this is how stuck she was with him, too. She is still reportedly rooting through old paperwork and/or pictures, looking for miserable, but helpful, proof.

Imagine how that feels -- the world drums its fingers while you try to locate old stuff that demonstrates that one Christmas really can be different from all the others.

Christmas 1996. Not 1993, not 1994, not 1997.

One thing about life is you can always count on your family to call you on your BS. If they won't, then the people you went to high school with will gladly chime in. (One of Karr's former classmates has already produced the yearbook he signed, with its eerie similarities to the ransom note the Ramseys said was left in their house on the day they found JonBenet dead.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501376.html

This has been my favorite thread of the week, and this article is my favorite article! Thanks for finding this Buzz.

You've definitely got to read the entire article, it's a must-read!

What do you want to bet the author was thinking of "You might be a Redneck IF...." when he wrote this?

 

[scandi]

Holy Mary, Mother of God..."Wrinkles"...are you implying that the photo linked is of "Seth Tomin", defender of John Mark Karr?

Whew. I think I have been rendered asexual in one fell swoop. Thank you not, Wrinkles, my non-friend!:doh:

Rendered asexual - My God, that is a classic Anita.

He looks like a well bred soccer player that loves riding horses on the beach and might have a Marc Chegal hanging over his fireplace. I think he is - Baa Haa Haa Haa Maybe I'm just a little horn toad and he looked good with the light shining thru his hair. LOL

Thank goodness we don't all have the same taste in men or we'd have a hard time choosing who we wanted to be with - fighting like beautiful hens over their, uh, uh roosters. LOL Oh, I'm going to bed, and sorry for the OT

 

[aspidistra]

I must be losing it, or under the influence of a glass of chardonnay. The National Enquirer videos of him at a friend's house, with the kids, were really cute, and HE WAS cute.

I have researched, but still don't fully understand why Wendy Hutchens spent this kind of time and effort trying to get JMK to talk on tape. It's no wonder that the killing of the No.CA. 12-year-old black girl by the side of the road didn't fit JMK, and he was removed from suspicion.

The 5-counts of kiddie on his computer seems very weak, after all that effort and expense.

It's very difficult to discern from Wendy Hutchens' pyschological profile of JMK how much was her impression or "arm chair" analysis, and how much was his fantasy at the time vs. what actually happened.

On some levels, he's kind of endearing ... and I guess that's the scary part.

Yes he charmed the two lady lawyers, we heard how "unique" and "intelligent" and "misunderstood" he was. I was touched by aspects of him that seemed endearing too, for a few minutes I thought it must be all a mistake...he couldn't be violent.... But I still remember Ted Bundy, who was handsome, and charming, and even fooled Ann Rule, the famous crime writer, who was a friend of his. He did things to women that were too horrible to write down here, worse than what was done to JBR. The difference is that JBR was only 6 years old; but the crimes were as horrendous and evil. How many other dangerous men were described as "such a nice man, I can't believe it" by neighbours. But with this guy Karr, we are getting many more people saying they knew there was something wrong with him. So if we get the charming vibe from him, look longer and you see the flash of the killer eyes right after. That is what is scary to me, it is in the eyes (not to mention the creepy voice on the tape discussing garottes and loving little girls, which a jury will probably not be allowed to hear).