The Karr Media Madness
by Pamela LeaveyThe media had a field day with John Mark Karr. For weeks the story of the professed confessor to the unsolved Jon Benet Ramsey murder was on every cable news station, in every newspaper and it was all hype — all the time. John Mark Karr was cleared today — his DNA did not match.
Prosecutors abruptly dropped their case Monday against John Mark Karr in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, saying DNA tests failed to put him at the crime scene despite his insistence he strangled the 6-year-old beauty queen.
Just a week and a half after Karr’s arrest in Thailand was seen as a remarkable break in the sensational, decade-old case, prosecutors suggested in court papers that he was just a man with a twisted fascination with JonBenet who confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.
The guy is obviously a complete publicity seeking nutcase with some serious issues. Scott Robinson, a Denver attorney who has followed the case from the beginning, said he thought Karr “may be charged with lying about his role in the case.”
“Seems to me there should be some criminal consequences,” he said. “He has cost the taxpayers an enormous amount of money.”
Let’s start with charging him for his first class flight from Thailand that included champagne and prawns. Meanwhile, as Steve Soto of the Left Coaster says, “Cable news will have to actually cover the issues again, unless Larry King, MSNBC, Greta, and Nancy Grace can tie Karr into the Natalie Holloway disappearance.”
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Heard today that a HSA official was in Thailand at the announcement of Karr’s confession.
Seems as though BushCo needed a diversion. Thanks to the work Professor Tracey* was doing with the authorities on Karr’s emails, they jumped on it – and the media went wild.
It surfaced the same day as Judge Taylor’s verdict on the NSA case – and swamped that in media coverage. Also has run long enough to cut down on repetitive comments that the Katrina anniversary was approaching.
Now I expect Karr will get some sweet deal for the charges California has pending against him.
I also expect the media will have no remorse at the amount of time they wasted on this.
*Tracey does excellent work – has been the liberal side of a Rocky Mountain News feature “Talking Back to the News’ which is a column that he and his conservative counterpart use to critique the media. The page also carries letters on the subject and past columns.
It’s a diversion, all right, but it’s surely giving the Bush administration much too much credit to presume they could have pulled this off.
Now I’m all the more sure what’s happened is that his false confession was designed to get himself extradited out of a Thai prison. Even for a pedophile, I assume that an American prison would be much safer than one in Thailand.
But as Colorado has no charges to file, and I believe California waived the child pornography charges they had against him, seems to me the best outcome would be to ship him right back (though this would require Thai authorities to ask for him back, and who knows if they would).
At least you can be sure the media wouldn’t cover his return flight with quite so much zeal.
I agree it was in his interest to do the confession – knowing the DNA tests would clear him and he could just be a lunatic.
I don’t think California completely waived their charges – the states usually defer to where ever the worst charges are. After that, if there is any point in prosecuting the lesser charges, they can be extradited back. Karr waived his right to appeal the extradition.
No, the Bush Administration is far more capable of pulling this off than people realize. True there’s a lot of incompetence – helps to disguise the method to the madness.
WWB
Why would Thailand “take him back” — sadly the guy is a U.S. citizen.
I don’t care how high profile the case was, wining and dining the guy on a first class flight reeked of something in my opinion.