The father and brothers of John Mark Karr, the man arrested on suspicion of killing JonBenet Ramsey in Colorado the day after Christmas a decade ago, do not recall him ever missing Christmas dinner in Atlanta or traveling to Colorado after the holiday, a lawyer for the family said Monday.
Attorney Gary Harris said that the suspect’s father, Wexford Karr, found a photograph indicating that his son was part of the family’s 1996 Christmas gathering, the day before the child beauty queen was found strangled in her home in Boulder.
The Christmas Day photograph does not include John Karr but shows his three sons, who, Harris said, never attended the holiday dinner without their parents. Although the photo is undated, the lawyer said the family is certain it was taken in 1996, because an infant pictured in it, Karr’s nephew, was 2 weeks old that Christmas.
The account of Karr’s father and two brothers deepens the uncertainty of whether the 41-year-old teacher was responsible for the killing. Last week, Karr told reporters after his arrest in Thailand that he had been with the 6-year-old when she died.
A former wife of Karr who was married to him in 1996 also has said she remembers him being with her and his family during Christmas that year. An attorney for Lara Knutson, who lives in Northern California and was married to Karr for a dozen years until 2001, said she has “a great deal of contempt” for her ex-husband but wants to give investigators accurate information. Harris, the attorney for Karr’s father and brothers, said they have had little contact with her since the divorce, though they remain in touch with her teen-age sons by phone.
In an interview, Harris, of Clayton, Ga., said Boulder County investigators were in Georgia Monday and had interviewed Karr’s father, 85, and half brother, Nathaniel Karr, 34, on Sunday night. “I don’t think they have the right guy,” Harris said, based on his conversations with the family.
The matching recollections from different parts of Karr’s family emerged Monday as the suspect spent his first known day back in the United States in five years being held as a fugitive in a windowless cell in the Los Angeles County jail. Escorted by representatives of the Boulder County district attorney and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Karr arrived Sunday night on a flight from Bangkok. He has not been charged with any crime related to JonBenet’s death.
Karr is scheduled to appear Tuesday morning in Los Angeles County Court for a hearing to determine how rapidly he will be transferred to Boulder. It was unclear Monday whether Karr plans to waive or contest his extradition to Colorado. A spokeswoman for the Boulder County district attorney said that if he waives extradition, sheriff’s deputies from Boulder will have 10 days to retrieve him.
Reached Monday at his father’s home in Atlanta, Nathaniel Karr said the family hopes to arrange to see his brother. “We don’t even know how to do that yet,” he said. Harris, who said he has known the family for two decades, said that, until John Karr’s arrest last week, “they thought he was dead. They really did.”
Karr was last known to have been in the United States in 2001. That spring, he was arrested on child pornography charges in Sonoma County, Calif., where he and his family had recently moved. He spent five months in jail and, shortly after his release, skipped a pretrial court appearance. He did not contact anyone in his family after that.
Harris said that none of Karr’s relatives remembers him ever missing Christmas celebrations before he disappeared five years ago. Moreover, he said, they do not think Karr has ever been in Boulder or ever took a trip right after Christmas. “If he had flown to Colorado or somewhere at that time, they would have remembered it,” Harris said. “I mean, he wasn’t a world-class traveler.
“These people are not well-off financially,” he said, adding that it would have been “a big deal” for him to take a trip by plane.
Harris said that Karr’s father and brothers “are frantically looking for” other photographs from their 1996 Christmas gathering.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
