by sunny » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:56 pm
Reposted from JonBenet thread:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/speak_out/article/0,2777,DRMN_23970_5001281,00.html">www.rockymountainnews.com...81,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Speakout: Karr a modern-day Elephant Man<br> By Gary Harris <br>September 18, 2006<br><br>Before succumbing to the high farce being perpetrated against John Mark Karr by the Boulder-Sonoma axis, News readers might want to consider the following facts: <br>Before Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy initially lined up Karr for death row in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, there was no hint he had ever abused a child - by all accounts, he was a loving father to his three sons. Karr has no history of drug abuse, crime or violence. He is an animal rescuer and has a keen sense of humor. Though highly intelligent, Karr can be argumentative and temperamental and cannot keep a job. <br><br>Behavioral scientists tell us that psychopaths and pedophiles do not wait until age 37 to manifest their demons; instead they begin setting fires, torturing animals, peeping into windows, molesting children and exhibiting violent propensities early on. Karr has never exhibited any of these traits. <br><br>The murder of JonBenet Ramsey at Christmastime 1996 mesmerized Karr and, while living in Hamilton, Alabama, he began obsessively compiling information for a book about her which his father, Wex Karr, had suggested he write. <br><br>In July 2000, Karr sold his meager possessions, loaded his wife and three sons into their beat-up van and set out for California where, in the spring of 2001, Karr met Wendy Hutchens, longtime friend of Richard Allen Davis, the infamous murderer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas. Karr wanted to interview Davis to gain insight into the psyche of a child murderer. Hutchens gave Karr an entree to Davis and he interviewed him in prison. <br><br>At some point early on in their relationship, Hutchens apparently became persuaded of Karr's involvement in the Ramsey case, contacted law enforcement officials and began taping her conversations with him. (<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Although a purported 10 hours of recordings were made, we have to wonder why less than 1 percent of the tapes have been aired.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->) At the beginning of one of the tapes we have heard, Hutchens asks Karr to profile JonBenet's killer: How did he kill her? What was going through his mind? (In one of Karr's instant messages to University of Colorado communications professor Michael Tracey, he explains how Hutchens persisted in her requests to entrap him into playing the role of JonBenet's killer.) <br><br>Karr relented and Hutchens eventually turned the tapes over to those she had contacted at the FBI and Sonoma County Sheriff's Department, laying claim to the $100,000 reward being offered by the Ramsey camp. <br><br>If the tapes incriminated Karr in JonBenet's murder, why did Hutchens fail to collect a dime? If the tapes did not implicate Karr in the crime, they certainly could not have formed the basis for the issuance of a valid search warrant. <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Nevertheless, Sonoma proceeded to raid Karr's home in April 2001, seize his computer and charge him with possession of five photos depicting "child pornography" despite the fact they had been deleted and buried in the unallocated space on the computer, thus rendering the photos inaccessible to Karr. It took a highly trained computer expert using sophisticated software techniques to recover the photos before Sonoma could view them.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>Can we not presume that Sonoma has determined the name(s) and age(s) of the depicted "child" or "children" during the five years since Karr's arrest? If not, Karr's acquittal under the California statute in question is a certainty. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Moreover, why has Sonoma refused to release the police report, warrant affidavit, etc., to the public as required under California law?</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Karr remained in jail for six months under a $100,000 bond - unprecedented in the history of the American criminal justice system.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Violent felons are routinely released on much lower bonds every day in America. The purpose of a bond is not to keep the defendant in jail while awaiting trial, but rather to ensure his presence at trial. Given the lack of any criminal record, Karr should have been released on his own recognizance. We can only try to imagine the hostile treatment he received while incarcerated; it is little wonder he ran as soon as he was released. <br><br>Meanwhile, Sonoma says it gave the Hutchens tapes to Boulder in 2001, but Mary Lacy proclaimed to the world on Aug. 29, 2006, that she had never heard of Karr or the Hutchens tapes until August 2006. It strains credulity to believe that Sonoma and the FBI procured tapes that ostensibly deal with one of the most famous unsolved murder cases in American history, but simply failed to notify Boulder. Either Sonoma or Boulder is lying and fully engaged in a giant cover-up of their incompetence. <br><br>John Karr's life has been destroyed. He can never work again. He will probably never be allowed to see his children again. Karr has been turned into a modern-day Elephant Man to be stared at, cursed, physically attacked, and vilified for the rest of his life. <br><br>Gary Harris has practiced law in Georgia for 39 years and lives with his wife in the northeast Georgia mountains. Although he has represented various Karr family members in civil matters over last 20 years, the opinions expressed herein are solely his own. <br> <p></p><i></i>
