While most seem to be railing on the media for jumping all over what is now an apparently false confession by John Mark Karr in the JonBenet Ramsey case, Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune says that the media doesn’t owe anyone an apology, and reminds people how we got into this mess in the first place:

True, the media went overboard with the rerunning of the kiddie pageant photos and videos that made the story such a sensation from the start. But, no matter what readers and viewers claim about being repulsed, bored or ambivalent, the media make their money by responding to what the public is interested in, as well as what’s in the public interest.

Let’s not forget, it was also the media that reported complications such as Karr’s ex-wife saying the guy was nowhere near Boulder, Colo., on the night of the crime and how DNA tests would be needed to sew up the case. Read the rest… (registration required)

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If you have not heard already, the Boulder, CO prosecutor has decided to not press charges against John Mark Karr because his DNA didn’t match that found at the murder scene of Jon Benet Ramsey. Even if John Mark Karr didn’t kill Jon Benet, he’s a gi-normous freak of nature. I would say clever, because he nabbed a free vacation from hell, back to Sunny California and then onto beautiful Boulder, Colorado (too bad it’s not quite skiing season yet, he could have taken in a few slopes in between fantasizing about little girls).

I’ll admit, I pretty much fell for it at first. He seemed just freaky enough, yet there was somethin’ shifty within his shifty eyes. He just seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing and then you throw in his desire to have a sex change, this guy was obviously craving some negative attention.

So, great. The only person (or persons) jerkier than John Mark Karr are the Boulder prosecutors. And, to be even jerkier than the freak that went to Thailand and turned out to be so incredibly creepy that the police of pedophile paradise thought him to be too slim shady is sayin’ somethin’!

(Hmm…what can I confess to to get a free trip, half-way around the world and travel in business class? I hear Aruba is nice this time of year.)

So now John Mark Karr is sitting pretty in the United States when he should have been locked up in Thailand. The poor Ramsey family. I’m still convinced they didn’t do it, but they definitely are victims of some bad-ass karma, which is the understatement of the century.

From the New York Times:

Ramsey Suspect Won’t Be Charged in Killing 
 
By KIRK JOHNSON and MARIA NEWMAN
Published: August 28, 2006
BOULDER, Colo., Aug. 28 — The district attorney’s office in Boulder, Colo., decided today not to file criminal charges against John Mark Karr in the killing of the child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey because his DNA did not match the evidence found at the scene of her death 10 years ago.

Mr. Karr had been scheduled to make his first court appearance in Boulder this afternoon after he was arrested in Thailand on Aug. 16 and extradited last week to Colorado, by way of Los Angeles. He had not been charged in the killing.

That hearing was canceled, and the Boulder County district attorney, Mary Lacy, said this afternoon that the case against Mr. Karr had been dropped “because no evidence has developed other than his own repeated admission 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.” Read the rest…

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Ironic, and I’ll tell you why…

Several months after JonBenet Ramsey’s mother is laid to rest and her soul reunited with her daughter, Patsy Ramsey may finally be vindicated. Now, I am a skeptical and rather cynical person on a good day and usually highly suspect of people I believe to have committed a crime, but I have always believed Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey were innocent. It was something about their demeanor and most of all their sarcasm on that infamous Larry King interview with the Ramseys where they mocked the investigators who continued to consider them as suspects. To this day, there was always of veil of uncertainty in the media and the public. No motive existed. The silly ransom note of $113,000. The fact that the parents didn’t find the child until 6 hours later only to be lying dead in their own basement. All of this easily explained in a way that any parent in a devastating crisis would probably be able to contend with – there is no normal way to act when your child is missing.

I sincerely hope that the suspect that has been arrested today is indeed the killer and that the Ramseys will get the truth they so deserve. The public doesn’t even prosecute and try convicted pedophiles or serial child killers (like Andrea Yates) the way they have mistreated this family. Anyone who has ever convicted this family without proof should be ashamed of themselves.

The killer has not been convicted yet in a court of law, but whether or not this current individual, now in custody, is the murderer or not, it still presents a situation where the story has more to it that anybody knows right now.

From the www.nytimes.com:

Suspect Is Arrested in JonBenet Ramsey Case

By DAVID STOUT

Published: August 16, 2006

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — A suspect has been arrested in Thailand in the killing of JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old beauty queen whose slaying in her parents’ Colorado home nearly a decade ago shocked the nation and for a time cast a cloud on the family, federal officials said today.

The suspect was arrested on Tuesday night in Bangkok by members of the Boulder County, Colorado, district attorney’s office, United States immigration officers and the Royal Thai Police, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the immigration and customs enforcement agency of the Department of Homeland Security.

An American security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the man arrested is a United States citizen, and that the arrest resulted from “several months of fairly complex investigation.”

Federal officials familiar with the case said the man was already being held in Bangkok on unrelated sex charges, The Associated Press reported. CBS News reported that the suspect is a 41-year-old elementary-school teacher.

The Boulder County district attorney’s office declined to give details, pending a news briefing. There were early reports that the briefing would be held today, then subsequent reports that it would be held on Thursday. CBS said the suspect would be brought to the United States this weekend.

There were several unanswered questions this afternoon as news of the arrest began to spread, including exactly what charges will be lodged against the suspect and what led investigators to him after all this time. JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family home in Boulder the day after Christmas in 1996.

Early speculation centered on the parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and even on a brother of the victim. But John Douglas, a noted F.B.I. crime-profiler, said in an interview on CNN this afternoon that he had never suspected anyone in the family. Read the rest…

[TAGS]JonBenet, JonBenet Ramsey,Jon Bene, Patsy Ramsey, John Ramsey, Boulder, CO[/TAGS]

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