Six year old JonBenet Ramsey's killer arrested in Bangkok

[Aunty]

School teacher, 41, is questioned and arrested in Thailand

As reported by CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/16/ramse ... index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/16/ramsey.arrest/index.html)

[catawampuscat]

this duplicate thread belong in Gay Thailand?? I don't think so!!

[Smiles]

" ... this duplicate thread belong in Gay Thailand?? I don't think so!!... "

" ... arrested in Thailand ... " makes it so Swamp Cat ~ duplicate or not. If you wish to moderate a Board ... start your own. Or go back to your infantile boot licking on The Bog.

You may think Hedda is "funny", but I can guarantee you that Hedda thinks you are a fool. (And most here agree)

Cheers ...

PS ... Anyone feel like starting a Poll on whether or not CatSwampus is the most stupid and despicable prick ever to darken the hallways of this Den of Iniquity ( AKA ... Sawatdee Forum )

really hope hes the right one!! then zap him!

[yaraboy]

I have held back for too long. Smiles you are so boring forever interjecting with your judgements.You are not alone but do manage to stand out . Posters I respect are the ones who provide information and answer questions

[Smiles]

Sorry you feel that way YaraBoy.
Participation on this Board (in particular) has it's costs. I say what I feel and as long as it doesn't violate the Board guidelines, then that's life in the big city. We are all free to do that and encouraged ....
I've committed greater sins in this life than being a mouthpiece, believe me.

Cheers ...

Didn't I see that bloke at Niddy's Nook sipping a Bloody Mary?

[Aunty]

My apologies to travelerjim I think it was who posted this story first, I did check but I just didn't see his post.

I think this has everything to do with Thailand. This man already appears to be in trouble for sex crimes in Thailand, and sadly of course, there are far too many foreign pedophiles who travel to places like Thailand to have sex with exploited children there. This only happens really because law enforcement in Thailand is corrupt, arbitrary, and all to often ineffective. Thailand sadly can be a bit of a favoured destination for the world's rat-bags, so yes this very much is a Thai story as it falls right into many of the more seedy cliche's about Thailand's dark side.

Importantly though, this accused pedophile murderer is a male heterosexual and the victim is a little girl. That's important because it highlights that the sexual abuse of children is not a property of sexuality - often falsely assumed to be what homosexuality is all about - it's sexuality neutral. It's a property of sick adults. And I cannot think of a better place to say that it's heterosexual men who fuck and kill kids, than on a gay board that is no doubt read by a lot of str8 people who are far from balanced or kind in their views of homosexuals.

Here's a further link that helps to explain why this is indeed a Thai story.

Child Sex Trafficking Thrives in Thailand

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,208800,00.html

Last I heard, there are no sex crime charges against him in Thailand. There was a mention of a visa issue though.
Yes, it is a Thailand story. Thailand is getting unfairly trashed yet again.

... Fox News this morning. They were stating how awful it was for the parents for the last ten years to have been under the 'umbrella' of suspicion in the death of the child, suspicions led by the media. The mother has died recently I am led to believe. Then of course they went on to talk about how good it will be for the family that this child killer will now be locked up and any suspicions about family involvement removed. As usual, Fox has a very short term memory, it is the first to convict someone alleged of a crime and the first to critcise other media outlets for the same thing.

[TrongpaiExpat]

This horrible event was overshadowed by one of the worst examples of US tabloid journalism. It was big news because the family was rich, good looking, and white. It helped to have some cute footage of the victim when she was alive too. The family hires a high profile attorney who just adds to the media circus, going on TV at every opportunity.

If the little girl was black, poor and not good looking, the press would have ignored the murder.

No one has tried to do more damage to Monty than you Boygeorge. For you to comment on someone else (Cat) is totally retarted. You are about the most twisted and preverted person here. And you have absolutely no respect on this or any forum.

the sensational stories at the time that practically crucified this poor family really were a disgrace. There wasn't a single family member spared including the youngest boy.

Incidentally, there are already stories emanating throughout the west proclaiming this man has confessed which apparently are coming from Thai officials..I'd treat that with grain of salt as well. However odious this crime was. .an.accused still is entitled to proper legal process..innocent until proved guilty without gutter rag speculation.

With all due respect my dearest Aunty..that really should have been alleged killer..just as I am an alleged lady !

[bucknaway]

Other commentators on Fox said as much about that. Many admitted to saying they thought the parents were guilty. But remember there is a difference from reporters and news commentators.


... Fox News this morning. They were stating how awful it was for the parents for the last ten years to have been under the 'umbrella' of suspicion in the death of the child, suspicions led by the media. The mother has died recently I am led to believe. Then of course they went on to talk about how good it will be for the family that this child killer will now be locked up and any suspicions about family involvement removed. As usual, Fox has a very short term memory, it is the first to convict someone alleged of a crime and the first to critcise other media outlets for the same thing.

[Aunty]

With all due respect my dearest Aunty..that really should have been alleged killer..just as I am an alleged lady !

Yes you are absolutely right Pearl, he is an alleged killer. The accused is always presumed innocent, etc., etc., etc., well at least under the British system he is. I was going to put alleged in the title but wasn't sure it would fit (how big can the title be, anyone know?) so I thought I'd go for the salacious over the strictly correct! You know, somewhat like your good self when she finds herself in the company of wealthy gentlemen, and wealthy gentlemen callers :geek:

[Dboy]

"In the run-up to Karr's arrest, U.S. authorities had rented rooms at The Blooms, the budget hotel where Karr was staying in a central Bangkok neighborhood of massage parlors and travel agencies catering to expatriates and sex tourists."

Sounds pretty acurate to me.

[Bob]

Given the guy's statements to the journalists yesterday ("I was there when she died but it was an accident"), I'd guess the guy is mentally imbalanced (who the hell would ever say that given what happened to the kid?). Unless they can link this guy up with other physical evidence (the shoeprint or the DNA), they won't convict him of anything. Given how crazy his statements were - and the press comments that he had been regularly emailing some guy in Boulder who has or is supposedly writing a book (and which would explain some of his knowledge)- there is an odor of a false confession here.

[Dboy]

^----

He mentioned details of the crime and crime scene that were never made public. He has been a teacher of very young children, all over the world. He's a creepy-looking fuckup. He will be convicted. And afterward he will end up in "pound me in the ass" prison, where he rightfully belongs...innocent until proven guilty of course blah blah blah :-)

What they've ALWAYS failed to discuss in this case is the freaky psycho child beauty queen scene that she was involved in. It's is a truely sickening hobby. There must be pedo freaks all over that business. If she'd been a spelling bee competitor she'd still be alive...so in a way in my opinion her parents are still responsible for what happened to her.

Dboy

He has an alibi.
He claimed he drugged her, yet there were no drugs in the autopsy.
If he is convicted, he will probably be executed, so no worries on the butt action.

From what I just read, Karr's ex wife Lara Karr said in an interview today that they were married and living in Alabama and spent christmas together the year JonBonet was killed. DNA evidence will likely be the key to this case. DNA was found under JonBonet's fingernails and inside her underwear.

[Dboy]

Yeah thats where he messed up. He really doesn't have a bargaining chip now since he apparently confessed. Execution is legal in Colorado, although there are things happening in colorado right now which might help him get life instead. Either way he's looking at serving 10+ years before they kill him.

There was a study published last month concerning sentencing bias in Colorado. Among the findings were that the death penalty was most likely to be sought for homicides with white female victims. They also determined that the probability of death being sought was 4.2 times higher for those who killed whites than for those who killed blacks.

Or he could always try the "bat-shit crazy" defense. Wouldn't be hard to pull that off given what he looks like. I mean, he buttons his polo shirts all the way to the top button for christs sake.

Dboy

[Bob]

he buttons his polo shirts all the way to the top button for christs sake.
Dboy


Well, that surely ought to be enough for execution or at least 30-40 years.....

As noted in the other posts, the case is flying apart. The ex-wife (who reportedly hates his guts) providing an alibi (he was 1,500 miles away), the prosecutor today announcing the arrest was made before the investigation was complete, etc. I wouldn't bet the ranch on this one, boys.

As to mentioning details of the crime that weren't made public, just what were those details? So far, based on published
reports, he said he drugged her and had sex with her (which details, by the way, are absolutely false according to the autopsy).

The jury will be required to presume him innocent at the start of his trial (if it ever comes to that). At the moment, I presume he's a nut case who has confessed to a crime he didn't commit.

... seems a little weird. From the perverse beginnings of child beauty contests, where the kids are made to look like hookers, to the kidnapping and ransom note when the child was already dead in the basement of the family home, from the 'break in' where there was no evidence of forced entry and no footprints in the snow outside the house, to Karr's confession of 'accidental death', where the wife and even the estranged brother claim that he was at home with his own family on the night of the child's death. The brother also stated yesterday that Karr had been researching a book several years ago on child murderer's and had made contacts with those concerned in the case - who knows if he paid someone to get 'secret' info'. I wouldn't be surprised to see a retraction before too long with claims of either mental illness, intimdiation to confess or simply false confession from some sad attention seeker.

Just a note for those who clamour for the death penalty. Over 110 people in US prisons, found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, have since been found innocent and released (after spending many years going through the ordeal of trial, appeal after appeal and a hard life in prison). There are likely many more who are actually executed when innocent. Don't be so quick to call for someone's death when all the facts are not in.

[Dboy]

Why oh why couldn't this guy have been caught somewhere else, like working in Pat Robertson's office or something?

Dboy

When these stories first break, there is all kinds of misinformation bandied about the airwaves. In their rush to be the first with some news items, many media sources release information without thoroughly checking the source. When this first broke, one report claimed that Karr was under suspicion in Bangkok of having sex with an under aged girl.
I have not heard any more on that but, if this was the case, in light of today's revelations, he might have confessed in order to get back to the states to escape being incarcerated in a Thai prison.
On the other hand, a possible explanation for the conflict between his testimony and the evidence is that he is hedging his bets. If he could get tried but create enough reasonable doubt as to his guilt, he could be acquitted and never be tried again. He has apparently been studying the case thoroughly and, even if he is not guilty, would know some things that he could get incorrect on purpose.
It is a puzzlement.

How long before they use this case to bash sex tourism in Thailand as well as elsewhere? Before during or after the court case?

haven`t seen much about "why" he was in thailand yet but i think the religious zealots will have a field day with this - sincerely hope not. We all know it goes on but we all know that 99% of gay men are repulsed by paedohilia of any kind. Please dont let them use this as a stick to bash law abiding folk!

You have to wonder what the press thinks of expats living in Thailand. This was a description of the apartment that Karr was living at:

"John Mark Karr was shacked up at a seedy flophouse in a rundown section of Bangkok popular with the lowest class of sex tourists. Karr, a former used-car salesman who had two child brides, lived in a spare, ninth-floor room at the Blooms Hotel, a dingy establishment that rents rooms for as short a time as three hours - for only $8 - and offers monthly stays that start at a rate of $170."

My BF used to live at the Blooms. Although his aparment was tiny, the facility was fairly new and very clean, hardly a "Dingy FLop house".

[Doug]

How long had he been in Thailand? What was his visa status? Was he here illegally or was he doing visa runs? Why did he first come to Thailand? Some reports say he jumped bail in the usa. How did he use his time in BKK?

Could it be he is just another farang who came to Thailand for whatever reason then when the money ran out and boredom set in, he began to be come unhinged. No money to live here, no money to get home, slowly going ting-tong, a history of obsession with the Jon Benet case....he sought a solution to all these problems. Now he has celebrity, a free trip home and a case against him that is nothing but loop-holes. Write a book and make a fortune.

Just a thought.

If he can avoid prison, he will indeed be a very rich man. I doubt this is a plot though. He is clearly quite mad.

He is clearly quite mad.

He most certainly appears to be.

He wears his trousers up to his armpits and probably also wears socks with sandals. :bounce:

my dear Aunty..they may be wealthy when they call upon me, indeed I insist upon it..but gentleman they aint.

"He mentioned details of the crime and crime scene that were never made public."..these statements were supposedly made to a film maker he has been emailing for a few years..but the film maker seems to be backpeddalling at great speed.

" He really doesn't have a bargaining chip now since he apparently confessed"..au contraire DBoy ( are you sure you dont want plunge the needle in yourself ?)

A former Boulder prosecutor involved in the case earlier on has said that any confession that is inaccurate on details is a huge problem..and because of the police leaking about so many suspects..like the family..they have made it extremely difficult to secure a conviction if there is the slightest doubt.

I think we are in for a media circus extradonaire..which will end in tears.

Besides..be real..doesn't this chap look like he may bat for the other team ??

JonBennet indeed..I reckon it was her frocks he had his eye on.

[wowpow]

Bangkok Post

Bangkok (dpa) - The ability of the alleged killer of toddler beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey to roam the world teaching young children should be a "shocking wake-up" to the world, Carmen Madrinan, executive director, of the Ecpat network against the sexual exploitation of children, said Friday. John Mark Karr, a 41-year-old American, had recently taught at three schools in Thailand for brief periods, said Thai investigators. After fleeing charges in California of possessing child pornography Karr appears to have fled the United States to lead a peripatetic life as a schoolteacher and private tutor.

"I'm appalled that he was able to travel the world going from one group of young girls to another. There was no check on his activities at all. No system of international alerts or anything," said Madrinan, who heads the non-government organization End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes (Ecpat).

She complained that governments act quickly when it is a question of international terrorism or financial fraud, but not when the welfare of children is at stake.
Karr posted his resume on internet sites in the US for teachers seeking work where he claimed he taught children from "high-profile families" at prestigious institutions around the US.

In December 2001 he failed to appear at a Sonoma, California, court on charges of possessing child pornography. He appears to have fled overseas and not returned to the United States.

His various resumes subsequently list teaching jobs in Asia, Europe and Latin America. He claims to have taught English to 6-12 year olds in Seoul, worked as a volunteer teacher in the Netherlands and to have been a private tutor in Germany. He also lists Honduras and Costa Rica as places where he held teaching positions.

Karr appears to have followed the classic "career path" of some committed to the pursuit of children, said the Bangkok-based Madrinan.

"There is no check on him so he is able to build up a semi-respectable resume that may provide him with even more opportunities to indulge in his obsession with children," Madrinan said. Although there has been much talk about cracking down on child abuse there is in practice no system for sending out international alerts when a known abuser travels to another country, she added.

The demand for native-language English teachers in a world of globalised commerce has provided an easy, no-questions-asked, way for adults to live and work in poorer countries where children may be more vulnerable than at home, she said.

The director of Thailand's immigration police, General Suwat Tumrongsiskul, said this week that greater efforts would be made to remove dangerous foreigners, including checks on hundreds of foreign teachers. "We won't put up with this. We don't want these people here," he said.

Yet without a proper database of offenders, child rights groups doubt that much can or will be done by the authorities. "Right now schools and parents must simply stay alert and watch out for strange behaviour in a teacher and requests for inappropriate intimacy," said a Scandinavian diplomat in Bangkok who requested anonymity.

Karr himself appears to have acquired a reputation for being odd and for upsetting pupils, which is why at least one Thai school quickly sacked him, the diplomat said.

How long had he been in Thailand? What was his visa status? Was he here illegally or was he doing visa runs? Why did he first come to Thailand? Some reports say he jumped bail in the usa. How did he use his time in BKK?
Could it be he is just another farang who came to Thailand for whatever reason then when the money ran out and boredom set in, he began to be come unhinged. No money to live here, no money to get home, slowly going ting-tong, a history of obsession with the Jon Benet case....he sought a solution to all these problems. Now he has celebrity, a free trip home and a case against him that is nothing but loop-holes. Write a book and make a fortune.
Just a thought.


In every publicised murder case people come forth claiming they did it. Some confess hoping police will give them doughnuts and coffee. The more highly publicised, the more nuts come out of the trees. More than 240 claimed they kidnapped the Lindgurgh baby. And that's why critical information is held back from the media sluts. Simply because someone confessed doesn't mean they will be charged.

Yes, it was a sting. He's wanted on a porn charge in California. US authorities sent him something by mail. Media sluts say it was a photograph, naturally they would say it was, implying he thought it was pornography. He went to the post office, on his, very suspicious, 21-speed bike, to collect it and was followed to the hotel by police. Media sluts make an issue that this apartment hotel will rent a room for eight hours, the tv was small and the room is small. It looked like a typical, large, Thai room, to me, but saying that doesn't add to the sleeze element the media sluts strive for.
At least one person, I think an FBI agent, suggested he may have confessed to, "Get out of jail free," no time in a Thai jail.
Another said, by his "body language" he is lying. He's too calm, for one thing, and looked away when asked questions. But he looked up and to the right which is supposed to indicate someone telling the truth, down and\or left indicates lying. Another said he too thinks Karr's lying but this one says, "He looks like been drugged," all this from 8,000 miles, or more, away. All in all, it sounds like Jimmy Durante used to say, "Everybody wants to get into de act!"
His wife, who hates him, claims he's a control freak, and his brother, not on speaking terms, both say he was never away from home at Christmas during the years of their marriage, including the time of the murder.
He was twice married. His wives were 13 and 16 when he married them.
His teaching credentials are a resume mostly of lies.
He obtained his degree on line. Not worth a fart in a hail storm.

He said he raped her. She was not raped.
They said he had information not available to the public; now they are back-peddling on that. He's read everything he could find and has spoken with people envolved with the case to the extent, there goes "unavailable" information. He supposedly said he sent e-mail to Patsy Ramsey but there is no existing record of it if he did.
One media slut reported the DNA collected fron JonBenet "may have become degraded with time." Why should it have? Test were run. These tests cleared the Ramsey family and other suspects. Why shouldn't the results of those tests still be available? They are but the media sluts have to put any spin possible on it.

He has also collected extentive information on at least two other child murders. The media sluts say the father of one victim is "Outraged." He sounded concerned, but, "outraged?" No way!
It sounds like what we have here is an obsessive-compulsive personality feeding and satisfying his dark cravings vicariously, through reading and looking at pictures, who has gotten in so deep into the fantasy he may believe he actually killed her. And now he's caught up in a media slut feeding frenzy. They've even drug out the OJ case, for christ sake!

in the NGO department are coming out of the woodwork..the ones who have worked so tirelessly ( not) in eliminating poverty amongst children in the third world. These people really need psychiatric treatment themselves..dedicated to supposedly tracking pedos around the world but apparently oblivious to it when it's happening amongst the locals and roaming carefree amongst starving Asian kids obsessively seeking out farang violaters. There is absolutely no connection of course to the donations and government grants these people recieve that provides them with a nice lifstyle in the countries they claim to care about.

They add to the confusion to what is now turning out to be a bizarre case of, as Sirius says, may be a donut and coffee wacko situation.

More egg on the faces as well for the so-called "expert" investigators who claimed they had been tracking this man for months but it seems were only allerted to him in the past week by the Uni professor he was emailing with more and more bizarre emails.

Again back to the former Boulder prosecutor who was first involved in this case and warned the hotheads of law enforcement to bide their tongues and time investigating this terrible crime. But no , everyone of them claimed their five minutes of fame and have probably tainted all evidence and even worse, now turned the spotlight back upon this poor Ramsay family, Jon Bennet's father being the only one who is asking for calm while the media goes on a frenzy.

Is it any wonder the OJ Simpson case has been revived..the same media garbage and the same type of incompetant law enforcers who care little about law and order but hog the limelight again appear to be letting down the victim's family. The law is an ass.

As usual, anything the Thai authorities claim should be treated as nonsense, they themselves even backpeddaling at a furious rate and claiming nil knowledge of the man and eager to get him out of their hands asap.

All you need do is look at the interviews, at the people around Mr. Karr, all trying to get their mugs on television.
And the media sluts are reviving the crap about JonBenet & kiddie beauty contests. In small towns people don't worry about child molesters, or didn't then. Now the media has three sex criminals on every block.
Mrs. Ramsey was a Miss Virgina, the daughter was a ringer for her. The family didn't need the money, didn't push her into it for the money. The kid was a natural ham and a natural performer. She loved dressing up, what kid doesn't? I had my space invaders suit. I'll bet you had a Dale Evans or Theda Bara outfit. This is all more media slut hypocrisy to fill ten more seconds of air-time but what about the media sluts (I refuse to call them whores. I know too many honest whores and would not dream of insulting them.) isn't hypocrisy?
The story was run four times a day the last three days. It's died down for now but wait until his return, OJ all over again.
I turned it off and watched something funny. Die, Mommy, Die. Some of us never get tired of dressing up. See?

By the way, thought you were eloping with Smiles. Did he leave you waiting at the church?

JonBenet suspect a patient at Thai sex-change center

By Mathew Scott and Adam Lisberg
New York Daily News

BANGKOK, Thailand тАФ The man who confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey had another bizarre secret up his sleeve in the months before his arrest: he was visiting a surgical center that specializes in sex-change operations.

Staff at the Pratunam Clinic, Thailand's top transgender center, said Saturday that John Mark Karr, 41, was a patient but wouldn't say how close he was to getting "sexual-reassignment" surgery.

"Yes, he had treatment here," a representative said. "He was our patient. He came a number of times. But we cannot give out details on his treatment as we are ethically bound to keep these things private."

The disclosure came a day after it was discovered that Karr sought cosmetic surgeons' help changing his face in Bangkok. In his nine months there, he made 12 phone calls from his hotel room, nine to plastic surgeons.

Two calls were to the Pratunam Clinic, which specializes in putting men under the knife to become "ladyboys," as they are called locally, and sponsors the annual World's Most Beautiful Transsexual competition. It charges $1,600 for the surgery, which could cost $25,000 in the West.

Karr, a divorced father of three, was arrested in Bangkok last week in connection with JonBenet's 1996 slaying, telling police and reporters that he accidentally killed the girl in an assault motivated by his obsessive love for her. Doubts have been since raised about the confession.

He was to be flown back to the United States today on a Thai Airways flight scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles tonight, an airline official said. He will eventually be returned to Boulder, Colo., where he will face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault in connection with JonBenet's killing, officials said.

Colorado authorities tracked him down after reading four years' worth of e-mail messages between Karr and Michael Tracey, 58, a University of Colorado journalism professor who has produced documentaries about JonBenet's slaying тАФ and who tried to draw out more details about Karr through their hundreds of messages.

"You told me once that your mother tended to raise you as a girl," Tracey wrote in one exchange obtained by the Rocky Mountain News. "This must have had a powerful effect on your developing sexuality тАФ confusion maybe?"

Karr wrote back under an alias: "Michael, I will not discuss my sexuality as if it is a psychological disorder."

The e-mail exchanges began four years ago, after Karr met a Boulder writer when they were both staying in the same hostel above a Paris bookstore. The e-mail immediately revealed his fixation on JonBenet's mysterious death.

"Until he started talking about the Ramseys, he seemed perfectly normal," Michael Sandrock, 48, said Saturday outside his Boulder home, remembering his 2002 encounter with Karr.

"I didn't get the feeling that he might have done it. I just thought he was obsessed about it," Sandrock said. "I thought he was just someone who was fanatic about the case. But when I saw he got arrested, I wasn't surprised."

Karr, who identified himself only as "John," said he had been to Boulder in the past and had come to Paris from Amsterdam.

When he learned Sandrock was a sportswriter for the Boulder Daily Camera and was a friend of Tracey, he wouldn't stop talking about the case until Sandrock left a few days later, mentioning Boulder landmarks, obscure pieces of evidence, even the names of reporters on the story.

"I'm really not interested in the case, and when I told John Karr that, he was kind of surprised," Sandrock said. "I said, 'I think the parents did it.' He kind of just smiled and said, 'The parents. Heh.' "

Sandrock put Karr and Tracey in touch by e-mail, starting their four-year exchange.

Investigators working for the Ramseys used routing information attached to the messages to track Karr to the Paris area this year, and they briefly considered tracking him down there to surreptitiously obtain a DNA sample from him.

"We had traced this guy back to France, and we were getting to the point where getting DNA was a possibility," investigator John San Agustin said.

The Boulder County district attorney got involved in the case before they could travel to France, though, setting last week's arrest in motion.

Meanwhile, the arrest has unleashed an onslaught of unwelcome attention on the Ramseys that has incensed the slain girl's father, a longtime family lawyer said Saturday.

Her father was hounded by camera crews Friday as he took his son to college at Purdue University, attorney Lin Wood said.

"He cannot go back to his home in Michigan because it is surrounded by the media," Wood said. "Last night, I've never heard him so angry."