Suspect: I Killed JonBenet by Accident
An American man was arrested in Thailand Wednesday as a suspect in the death of JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old Boulder, Colo., girl killed in 1996.Â
Former schoolteacher John Mark Karr, 41, who is already wanted in California for possession of child pornography, said at a press conference in Bangkok on Thursday, “I was with JonBenet when she died.”
Visibly nervous and stuttering as he spoke, Karr added, “Her death was an accident.”
Karr admitted to the killing after he was arrested Wednesday at his downtown Bangkok apartment, Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of Thailand’s immigration police, told the Associated Press. Suwat said Karr insisted his crime was not first-degree murder but that JonBenet had died during a kidnapping attempt gone awry.
“He said it was second-degree murder. He said it was unintentional. He said he was in love with the child, she was a pageant queen,” Suwat said.
After his news conference, an expressionless Karr declined to tell reporters what his connection was to the Ramsey family or how long he had known JonBenet. Yet asked if he were innocent of the crime, Karr said, “No.” He also said, as police escorted him past reporters, “I loved JonBenet, and she died accidentally.”
Within the next week, Karr will be extradited to Colorado, where he will face a variety of charges, including first-degree murder, first- and second-degree kidnapping and child sexual assault, Ann Hurst, Department of Homeland Security attaché at the American Embassy in Bangkok, said at a press conference. Hurst said Karr has been “very cooperative” with authorities and that he’s shown a “variety of emotions.”
An attorney for the Ramsey family said Wednesday that Karr once lived near the family in Conyers, Ga.
JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family’s home in Boulder, Colo., on Dec. 26, 1996. For years, her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, remained under what Boulder authorities termed an “umbrella of suspicious,” although the Ramseys insisted they were innocent.
Patsy Ramsey died of cancer in June. But John Ramsey said in a statement Wednesday that she “was aware that authorities were close to making an arrest in the case, and had she lived to see this day, would no doubt have been as pleased as I am with today’s development almost 10 years after our daughter’s murder.”
He added, in comments broadcast on Thursday’s Today show, “what police did is beyond impressive.”