The charges against John Mark Karr have been dropped in the JonBenet Ramsey case after it was revealed that DNA tests on Saturday returned a no match. In my opinion District Attorney Mary Lacy should be instantly fired for negligence and grand standing in this case. To bring charges against someone simply on a confession with no supporting evidence and a seeming lack of an investigation is unforgivable and anyone's confidence in her should be shattered. A simple check of possible locations of John Mark Karr during the days of the murder would have shown that he had multiple alibi's in Georgia. Instead DA Lacy chose to hold a press briefing where she congratulated everyone on the case -- that never came to fruition -- and took her place in the spotlight.
The web exploded with speculation over the last week and there were apologies ahead of time to the Ramsey family for even suspecting them as John Mark Karr came forward. Will those same people now turn back and accuse the family or will they write them off as potential suspects altogether?
I personally still hold the parents in suspicion even with this recent twist in the case. Without a conviction there is no crime solved and the suspicion in my opinion should remain intact on all of those that were previously suspected.
It is amazing to me how gullible people are in this world. Not only the media made a full 180 degree turn in this case from the Ramsey's to this obviously weird guy, but people all across the world all of the sudden became the best friends of John and Patsy Ramsey. You all should be ashamed of yourselves at being fooled so easily.
What should be done now with John Mark Karr? Well, he faces misdemeanor child pornography charges in California, but will he now sue? I believe he has cause. While I think he is probably a pervert -- nothing has been proven yet -- arresting and pulling a man halfway around the world on suspicions of a crime with no evidence may be just cause for a lawsuit. If so District Attorney Mary Lacy has just cost the taxpayers an enormous amount of money due to her incompetence.
Misdemeanor charges are not severe enough for extradition from the other side of the world, even though they are very nasty and disgusting charges. John Mark Karr is now being held for extradition back to California after briefly being released.
CNN
DNA tests completed Saturday confirmed that Karr "was not the source of the DNA found on the underwear of JonBenet Ramsey" -- disproving his claim that he was sexually involved with the child and killed her by accident.
Karr's family also provided "strong circumstantial" evidence he was with them in Georgia at the time of the crime, court papers stated.
You can read the report by DA Lacy here (PDF file)
There's a reason we have "beyond a reasonable doubt" in the justice system and it is just for these types of cases, where the public at large goes crazy on a witch hunt without any proof.
*Shakes head in disbelief*
As I said when he was first arrested, I suspect that he had an ulterior motive for his confession. My guess at the time was that with Karr facing "sex crimes" charges in Thailand that John Mark Karr didn't want to end up in a Thai prison. My thoughts on that have wavered a little with time and I now think he also suffers some mental condition, but it's still a possibility.
So, we all had to put up with the constant wall-to-wall annoying coverage of this event for the past two weeks because of the media's trigger finger on convicting someone before the evidence is clear. The media has really been out of control lately with almost constant focus on one news item at a time for nearly 45 minutes of every hour. If it's not the Lebanon-Israel conflict it's the one-year anniversary of Katrina or the John Mark Karr confession or some off the cuff comment by a politician that someone has an axe to grind with. They're all important stories, but so are other things going on.
The media needs to wake the hell up and start covering all the news and stop their total focus on one issue as if anyone cares so much about it that they want to watch the same details of the story repeated over and over every hour for weeks on end. There are literally hundreds of other stories going on that directly affect people and they are being ignored.
Other Commentary:
La Shawn Barber
Hyscience
Ace of Spades
Outside The Beltway
Say Anything
Dean's World
Florida Masochist
Right Voices
