by professorpan » Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:16 pm
Looks more and more like a hoax by a deluded, JonBenet obsessed pedophile:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4192717?source=rss">www.denverpost.com/ci_4192717?source=rss</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Shocked dad had thought son was dead<br>By Kirk Mitchell <br>Denver Post Staff Writer<br><br>John Mark Karr's arrest in Thailand after he had vanished for several years was a mixed blessing for his 85-year-old father.<br><br>"I thought someone had killed him," Wexford Karr said Wednesday afternoon while sobbing during a telephone interview from his home in Atlanta. "This is such a surprise that he is alive."<br><br>But learning his son was alive came with the news that his son, who is 41, was arrested in the Dec. 26, 1996, slaying of JonBenét Ramsey, he said.<br><br>John Karr had disappeared after his release from jail in 2001. Karr, who relatives said had long spoken of a fascination with the Ramsey case, told his father at the time that he was being held for investigation of murdering the girl.<br><br>In truth, John Karr was being held while awaiting trial for five counts of child pornography, said Sgt. Rob Giordano, spokesman for the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department. When he finally was released on bond, he disappeared and was convicted in absentia.<br><br>Wexford Karr had never heard that his son had been arrested on any previous criminal charges. But a Colorado state official said John Karr has an extensive criminal record for sexual assaults across the South, including Tennessee.<br><br>John Karr's father said his son didn't go to college as a youth because he didn't have enough money to send him. John and his wife, Lara, had three sons in three years, his father said. The oldest boy is about 14, he said.<br><br>It wasn't until all three children were born that John Karr went to college, majoring in education. He graduated with honors, Wexford Karr said.<br><br>"He is just an exemplary son," he said.<br><br>His son's troubles can be traced back to a decision while he was still in college to write a school paper about the JonBenét Ramsey case several years ago, Wexford Karr said.<br><br>John Karr's college professor was so impressed with the paper that he encouraged him to write a book about JonBenét's case, his father said.<br><br>"He researched everything he could about her," Wexford Karr said.<br><br>John Karr spoke with JonBenét's grandparents, but her parents refused to speak with him, Wexford Karr said. John Ramsey told 9News on Wednesday that he does not believe the family knew Karr.<br><br>When Wexford Karr asked his son about what he uncovered for his book, John was quiet.<br><br>"He wouldn't talk about it," he said.<br><br>The research continued when John Karr moved his family to Petaluma, Calif., and he told his father he had taken a job at a Catholic girls school in San Francisco.<br><br>While teaching at the school, John joined the Catholic Church, his father said.<br><br>Karr applied with a school district in Sonoma County, Calif., to be a substitute teacher in their K-12 system and received a state teaching permit in January 2001, said Superintendent Carl Wong.<br><br>In April 2001, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department alerted school officials that John Karr had been arrested on a "non-school-related incident," Wong said.<br><br>"Based on the serious nature of that, we issued a notice of personnel action in June 2001, and he was never again employed in any capacity in the K-12 public school system," he said.<br><br>Asked whether students, teachers or parents ever had a complaints about Karr, Wong said, "None whatsoever."<br><br>After John Karr's arrest, Lara Karr filed for divorce.<br><br>"She said the name Karr has destroyed her life," Wexford Karr said.<br><br>The divorce prohibited John Karr from seeing his three sons.<br><br>"He loved those boys," Wexford Karr said. "They meant everything to him."<br><br>He said his son never lived in Colorado and had nothing to do with the crime.<br><br>"We are taking no stock in it because it's not his nature," Wexford Karr said. "This JonBenét Ramsey has destroyed my life as an old man. I thought my son was dead. I couldn't take it." <p></p><i></i>
