BOULDER, Colo. -- The murder case against John Mark Karr collapsed this afternoon when he was exonerated by a DNA test, but the man who was once the leading suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey tragedy will be returned to California to face child pornography charges, officials said.

In a fast-moving series of events throughout the afternoon, Boulder Dist. Atty. Mary T. Lacy, who had sought Karr's departure from Thailand and extradition from California, dropped all charges against the former teacher.

At a news conference in Thailand about 10 days ago, Karr, 41, told an international audience that he was present when Ramsay, a 6-year-old beauty pageant queen, was killed a decade ago.

"Because no evidence has developed, other than his own repeated admissions, to place Mr. Karr at the scene of the crime and, in particular, because his DNA does not match that found in the victim's blood in her underwear, the People would not be able to establish that Mr. Karr committed this crime despite his repeated insistence that he did," according to the motion to quash the arrest warrant.

Shortly after that decision, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said that Karr had been released from Colorado custody but was being held in the county jail for California authorities.

Karr is wanted in Sonoma County on an arrest warrant after he was charged with five counts of possessing child pornography in 2001, but fled.

Sonoma County Dist. Atty. Stephan Passalacqua said in a statement this afternoon: "We filed this case against Mr. Karr in 2001 and the same merits in proceeding with the case then still exist today."

The California charges stem from an investigation of the 1997 murder of 12-year-old Georgia Moses in Petaluma. Karr was investigated in that case but is no longer considered a "viable suspect," according to the Sonoma County sheriff's office.

Passalacqua said in the statement that Karr's appearance in California is not expected until the first or second week of September.

Soon after Karr made his statements in Thailand there were suspicions that he was a self-aggrandizing publicity seeker and not the killer of the little girl whose over-dressed blond image has paraded across tabloid papers and cable stations.

Karr's family insisted that he was with them in Georgia and Alabama when the girl was killed during the Christmas holidays of 1996.

In the court papers, Lacy said authorities found no evidence that Karr was in Boulder at the time of the slaying.

Lacy, in the papers, said Karr emerged as a suspect in April after he spent several years exchanging e-mails and later telephone calls with a Colorado professor. Karr, who used the alias Daxis, reportedly admitted responsibility for killing Ramsey.

According to court papers, Karr claimed to have killed Ramsey during sex and then tasted her blood. But officials at the Denver crime lab conducted DNA tests Friday and Ramsay's DNA failed to match the evidence.

"If Mr. Karr's account of his sexual involvement with the victim were accurate, it would have been highly likely that his saliva would have been mixed with the blood in the underwear," Lacy said in the court papers.

Defense attorney Seth Temin expressed outrage that Karr was even arrested.

"We're deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption he did anything wrong," Temin said.

The prosecution has always said it acted because it felt it had to because Karr had just taken a job as a second-grade teacher in Thailand.

Karr in Thailand had described an interest in several girls "in much the same terms that he had described his interest in JonBenet," Lacy wrote.

In her papers, Lacy stated that Karr had a "personal involvement with at least one of the girls he had previously identified as the target of his personal and sexual interest."

Lacy announced that she would hold a "panel discussion" with selected reporters Tuesday to discuss the case.

When reporters asked why the district attorney would not face the full press to answer questions, a court officer said: "You should be grateful that she is willing to do that."

From Thailand, Karr was lodged in the Los Angeles County Jail. Karr waived his rights last week and was sent to Boulder.

It was not known when he would be returned to California.



SOURCE

The turn of events in this case deeply distresses me.