THAILAND/US: Thai authorities hope to deport the American accused of the 1996 murder of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey to the US this weekend, officials said yesterday, as questions surfaced over the schoolteacher's story.
DNA testing will decide whether John Mark Karr (41), the man arrested in Bangkok in connection with the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey, was involved in the six-year-old's death or whether he is a fantasist.
As prosecutors awaited Mr Karr's return to the US from Thailand, doubts surfaced about the bizarre nature of his confession and remarks he made to Thai police during questioning.
Mr Karr told reporters he was with six-year-old JonBenet when she died, but that her death at Christmas a decade ago was an accident.
Casting doubt on his story, his ex-wife Lara told KGO-TV in San Francisco he was with her in Alabama the entire Christmas season that year and did not believe he could have been involved in JonBenet's murder.
And Thai police denied US media reports that Mr Karr had said he had drugged JonBenet, despite no evidence of drugs being found in her body. They also denied he said he had picked her up from school, which was closed for the Christmas holiday.
"Karr did not tell interrogators he drugged the girl," Thai immigration police chief, Lieut-Gen Suwat Tumroungsiskul, told Reuters. "He said he had sex with her and her death was accidental." Watching cable television reports from his Bangkok cell, Mr Karr expressed displeasure at the media coverage of the case.
"He said he did not drug her. He said he wants the world to know the truth. He asked for another press conference," said a police interrogator who had been with Mr Karr in his cell.
It was not clear whether his request would be granted. Thai officials said they were more interested in getting Mr Karr out of the country.
The complex portrait that began to emerge on Thursday of John Mark Karr suggested he was a troubled schoolteacher with a record that included child pornography charges, but no clear links to the victim or even to Colorado, the state where the crime occurred.
But DNA was found beneath the girl's fingernails and on her clothing that came from a Caucasian white male. Authorities have never said whether the DNA matched anyone on an FBI database. A DNA mouth swab test was carried out on Mr Karr in Bangkok.
The results are unknown. "DNA is the big ticket, the 600lb gorilla in this case," former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman said. "If his DNA doesn't match, that's a huge problem for the prosecution. If it's a match, then it's game, set and match for the state."
The Boulder district attorney, Mary Lacy, has declined to comment on what evidence her investigators have implicating Mr Karr. "Do not jump to conclusions, do not rush to judgment, do not speculate," she said.
She also indicated that "public safety" concerns and fear that he might flee had prompted her to have Mr Karr arrested before her investigation was complete.
Many investigators and lawyers who have been following the case for a decade said that while they were hopeful the authorities had the right person, they were sceptical of Mr Karr's confession.
"At this point, I haven't heard anything very reassuring that we have the right person," said Trip DeMuth, former senior deputy district attorney for Boulder County who was on the Ramsey case from the start until 2000, when he left the office.
Mr Silverman said that if the case goes to court, Mr Karr's confession could prove to be "next to nothing".
"This confession seemed delusional," he said. Under Colorado law, he said, prosecutors cannot obtain a valid conviction without evidence that corroborates a confession. In addition, he said, the confession seems illogical.
He noted that while Mr Karr said JonBenet's death was an accident, her brutal death in her parent's basement could hardly qualify as such.
It all started with a phone call. JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, dialled 911 from her family's Boulder home at about 6am on December 26th, 1996. She reported that her six-year-old daughter had been kidnapped. She also said she found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for the girl's return.
Later that day, John Ramsey, JonBenet's father, reported finding his daughter's body in the basement, wrapped in a sheet. Her mouth had been taped. A garrote was around her throat.
In the decade since, critics have attacked investigators for bungling the investigation, including the handling of key evidence.
Law enforcement officials said they began focusing on Mr Karr only in the last several months.
In May prosecutors were given hundreds of e-mails from a person now believed to be Mr Karr by Colorado University journalism professor Michael Tracey, who has produced three documentaries on the Ramsey case and has argued strongly that police erred in blaming the Ramsey parents for the murder.
Since his arrest, one of Mr Karr's early statements to investigators appears to contradict official findings. He told investigators he drugged and sexually assaulted JonBenet, according to an Associated Press interview with Thai police. But JonBenet's autopsy did not reveal the presence of drugs.
Equally puzzling is how he came to "love" JonBenet Ramsey - or even know her at all. The Karrs and the Ramseys lived in Georgia in the late 1980s.
The Ramseys moved to Boulder in 1991, a year after JonBenet was born. So far, no records have emerged to suggest that John Karr ever lived in Colorado. After the arrest, Mr Karr's brother, Nate Karr, told Fox News that his brother had never even visited Boulder.
Mr Karr's ex-wife, who left him in a bitter split in 2001, has also provided him with an alibi for the day of the killing. Lara Karr told a TV news station that her husband was with her in Alabama at the time.
Over the years, a number of Boulder investigators have disagreed with each other's take on the case - including lingering suspicions among some that the Ramsey family was complicit in the killing. Some investigators have even quit or retired in frustration or disgust.
But Lin Wood, the Ramseys' lawyer, says he is convinced Ms Lacy had built a substantial case against Karr. "I . . . know a prosecutor does not make an arrest simply because there's probable cause for the arrest, but when he or she has evidence to prove the case with a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt."