The Daily Camera Ramsey Archive

August 30, 2006



Paul Aiken



Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy defends her decision to arrest John Mark Karr during a news conference Tuesday in the Boulder County Justice Center.

Under fire for arresting John Mark Karr without physical evidence linking him to the killing of JonBenet Ramsey, Boulder County's district attorney said she would do it again. Mary Lacy defended her actions during a marathon news conference Tuesday, a day after dropping the case against Karr because his DNA didn't match spots of blood at the crime scene.

FJohn Mark Karr requested Tuesday that he be set free in Boulder instead of being extradited to California, where he faces five charges of child pornography dating to 2001. But a Boulder County district judge denied Karr's requests for release or even a normal extradition proceeding.

August 29, 2006

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy dropped her case Monday against John Mark Karr  who 11 days earlier was arrested for the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey  because his DNA didn't link him to the crime. Karr was a couple of hours away from his first appearance in Boulder court when Lacy publicly cleared him of participating in the nearly decade-old homicide.

August 28, 2006

As John Karr's court proceedings begin today, questions have surfaced about whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in a notoriously liberal town. No one in Boulder County has ever been sentenced to death.

August 27, 2006

There was the bizarre, rambling ransom note and the crudely fashioned garrote. The fractured skull. Drops of blood containing DNA. It's not that there was necessarily a shortage of evidence in the JonBenet Ramsey homicide nearly 10 years ago. But  in addition to actions taken in the early hours of the investigation that contaminated the crime scene  one problem that plagues investigators to this day is that the evidence that was intact was conflicting, experts say.

August 26, 2006

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy did not have DNA evidence connecting John Mark Karr to JonBenet Ramsey's slaying when she had him arrested in Thailand on Aug. 16, a source close to the investigation told the Daily Camera on Friday.

August 25, 2006

John Mark Karr arrived in Boulder on Thursday, turning up the pressure on prosecutors to develop a case against a man whose name they learned only two weeks ago.

August 24, 2006

Formal charges against the teacher accused of murdering JonBenet Ramsey won't be filed until at least early next week, John Mark Karr's attorney said Wednesday night. But he could be in Boulder as early as today after waiving his right earlier this week to fight extradition from California.

Four letters that an Alabama couple say John Mark Karr scrawled at the bottom of notes to their daughter could spell out another clue in the decade-old JonBenet Ramsey murder. Karr signed "S.B.T.C" at the end of mail he sent Quientana Ray, whom he married when she was 13, according to her parents, Melissa and Larry Shotts.

August 23, 2006



Associated Press



John Mark Karr appears at an extradition hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday. Karr waived extradition and will be taken to Boulder.

John Mark Karr, who spent Tuesday night in a Los Angeles jail cell awaiting his trip to Boulder, is anxious to arrive in Colorado and face charges he murdered JonBenet Ramsey, one of his attorneys said. The Boulder County Sheriff's Office, which is charged with his transport, has declined to give details. But an L.A. court official said someone from Boulder is expected to arrive there today.

DNA swiped from John Mark Karr after his arrest last week in connection with the JonBenet Ramsey murder might be irrelevant, in part because "something got screwed up" when samples were taken from the crime scene in 1996, a former investigator on the case said.

August 22, 2006



Sammy Dallal



Scott Anderson, a freelance sound engineer working for Court TV, takes a moment for himself at the Boulder County Justice Center on Monday. Anderson is a member of the national and international media that have converged on Boulder since John Mark Karr confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey.

JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr will make a court appearance in Los Angeles this morning that could send him to Boulder as soon as tonight. Depending on whether he fights extradition or is released to the Boulder County Sheriff's Office immediately, Karr could be having dinner along with all the other 500 or so inmates housed in Boulder's jail.

August 21, 2006



Associated Press



John Mark Karr sits next to a window in a plane at the Bankok airport on his way to Los Angeles on Sunday. Karr will face kidnapping, murder and sexual assault charges in the JonBenet Ramsey case.

LOS ANGELES  John Mark Karr, the suspect in the killing of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, arrived late Sunday after a 15-hour flight from Thailand on which he exchanged what he described as "small talk" with law enforcement escorts, including Mark Spray, an investigator with the Boulder County District Attorney's office.

August 20, 2006



Paul Aiken



A wilted flower sits in the rain Saturday outside the Boulder home where 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was killed nearly 10 years ago.

The prime suspect in the decade-old JonBenet Ramsey murder is on his way back to America. But officials in Boulder, where the 6-year-old beauty queen was brutally slain nearly a decade ago, say John Mark Karr won't arrive here for at least a few more days.

August 19, 2006

When a Daily Camera columnist met John Mark Karr in Paris in 2002, the man who would later become the prime suspect in the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey seemed perfectly normal. Until he learned the columnist, Mike Sandrock, hailed from Boulder and worked for the Camera.

August 18, 2006

More questions were raised than answered Thursday after Boulder County's district attorney and authorities around the globe addressed the arrest of John Mark Karr in connection with JonBenet Ramsey's 1996 death.



Cliff Grassmick



CU professor Michael Tracey talks to the media baout the JonBenet homicide case Thursday.

August 17, 2006



John Mark Karr / AP

A 41-year-old schoolteacher living in Bangkok, Thailand, was arrested there Wednesday in connection with the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey. Sources close to the investigation confirmed Wednesday that Karr was being escorted back to the United States to face charges related to the death of 6-year-old JonBenet.

June 30, 2006

ROSWELL, Ga.  As hundreds of people filed arm-in-arm into the sanctuary of a white Georgia church Thursday morning, pictures of the woman they were there to celebrate flashed in a slideshow behind the pulpit.

June 29, 2006

MARIETTA, Ga.  John Ramsey took a break from shaking hands Wednesday evening to wrap his arm around his son, Burke.

June 26, 2006

Patsy Ramsey fought off ovarian cancer for nearly a decade hoping to live to see the killer of her 6-year-old daughter, JonBenet, brought to justice, friends and family say.

June 25, 2006



Patsy Ramsey / AP

Patsy Ramsey, who lost a 13-year battle with ovarian cancer early Saturday, fought so hard for so long because she wanted to see the person who killed her 6-year-old daughter captured, her attorney said.

May 15, 2006

A small pair of delicate, porcelain shoes sits on a shelf in Michael Tracey's office. They're a muse for the University of Colorado professor as he writes his new book on the JonBenet Ramsey homicide.

February 2, 2006

John and Patsy Ramsey met Wednesday afternoon with Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy, whose office is investigating the unsolved killing of their daughter, JonBenet.

January 8, 2005

A Denver district judge has dismissed a $16 million defamation lawsuit against the Fox News Network filed by the parents of slain Boulder 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey.

December 21, 2004

It may seem like the JonBenet Ramsey case is close to being solved because of a weekend media blitz on the subject, but the man handling the investigation said there`s been no breakthrough in the 8-year-old case.

December 19, 2004

A CBS report in Saturday night`s "48 Hours Mystery" said DNA evidence points to an intruder -- and not John or Patsy Ramsey -- as having committed the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996. She was found beaten and strangled in her parents` Boulder basement.

December 10, 2004

DENVER - The state appeals court on Thursday upheld a judge`s decision not to force prosecutors to file criminal libel charges against the Daily Camera in the JonBenet Ramsey case.

August 5, 2004

CHARLEVOIX, Mich. - In the end, John Ramsey`s quest for the state House may have been damaged more by questions about his residency than the unsolved killing of his daughter, JonBenet.

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