BOULDER, Colo. - John Mark
Karr's brother insisted Friday that Karr did not kill JonBenet Ramsey.
"Absolutely not. Emphatically. Without a doubt," Nate Karr said in a television
interview.
Karr told ABC's "Good Morning America" he was certain his brother spent
Christmas 1996, when JonBenet was slain, with his family.
In this photo released by the Boulder County
Sheriff's Office, John Mark Karr is shown, Thursday, Aug. 24, 3006 in
Boulder, Colo. Karr arrived Thursday in the city where 6-year-old JonBenet
Ramsey was slain to face charges in a homicide case prosecutors
acknowledged is still in its 'very early stages.' [AP]
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"Well I can say almost without question that from the time that John had
children he has never missed a Christmas with his family, and that's any
Christmas," said Karr, who appeared on the show with his father, Wexford Karr.
"If he was away from his family during Christmas it would have been a family
scandal," Nate Karr said.
The brother said he was uncertain where the family spent the holiday when the
6-year-old child beauty queen was slain in her Boulder, Colo., home.
"To the best of our recollection, he was either with us in Atlanta or with
(his ex-wife) Lara," Nate Karr said. "It's not as easy as you might think to
remember 10 years ago."
Addressing his brother, Nate Karr said: "We love you and we support you 100
percent. ... Help's on the way."
John Mark Karr, meanwhile, spent his first night in an 8-by-10-foot jail cell
in Colorado, away from other inmates for his own safety.
Nine days after his arrest in Thailand, the 41-year-old former schoolteacher
now awaits a court appearance that could come as early as next week.
Karr arrived in Colorado Thursday, flying in from Los Angeles on a state
police plane to face charges in a homicide case prosecutors acknowledged is in
its infancy.
Formal charges were pending and the date of Karr's first court appearance
could be announced Friday, the district attorney's office said.
His first few hours at the jail were to include physical and mental
evaluations, and he was isolated from the other 480 inmates, Boulder County
Sheriff Joe Pelle said.
"Anybody that's in jail in our population that faces these kinds of charges,
charges against children, faces some danger," Pelle said.
Questions about Karr's involvement in the case have arisen since he told
reporters following his arrest in Thailand that he was with JonBenet at the time
of her death but that it was an accident.
Boulder County prosecutors have refused to detail any evidence they might
have, but in a court filing this week said investigators didn't learn of Karr's
name until Aug. 11, five days before his arrest. They said he was arrested in
part because they feared he might get tipped off and vanish.
The court filing conflicts with the Sonoma County, Calif., sheriff, who said
his office alerted Boulder authorities about Karr in 2001 after he was arrested
on child pornography charges. The sheriff and Boulder prosecutors declined to
comment on the apparent discrepancy.
Karr has professed love for JonBenet in e-mails with a Colorado professor,
and told a California woman he believes the girl was tortured before she was
strangled.
Sonoma County sheriff's Lt. Dave Edmonds said Karr expressed an "apparent
fascination" with 1993 murder victim Polly Klaas and JonBenet, and "presented
ideas about what the murderers of Polly Klaas and JonBenet Ramsey must have
thought and felt."
But there was no confession, Edmonds said, or anything else to suggest Karr
played a role in JonBenet's slaying.
The Boulder arrest warrant and supporting affidavit remain sealed and the
district attorney is fighting media requests to open them. Prosecutors said in
the court filing Wednesday the affidavit contains evidence never before
disclosed publicly.
Former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman speculated that investigators may
already have DNA evidence that they believe links Karr to JonBenet's death.
He said prosecutors may have obtained and tested DNA from a letter Karr
reportedly sent through the mail, and that may have persuaded Boulder County
District Attorney Mary Lacy to send an investigator to Thailand to
surreptitiously collect more samples.
Nate Karr told ABC his brother may have become obsessed with the case because
he wanted to write a book about it. Because he lost the ability to see his sons
and wife five years ago, "maybe he felt lost," the brother said. "And maybe that
was the only reality he had left."
After JonBenet's father, John Ramsey, found her body in the family's basement
on Dec. 26, 1996, police collected DNA from blood spots in her underwear and
from under her fingernails.
Investigators have said some of the DNA was too degraded to use as evidence,
but some was of sufficient quality to submit to the
FBI in 2003. The
sample did not match any of the 1.5 million samples in the agency's database,
according to the Ramsey family attorney.
Other evidence includes a ransom note, a mysterious boot print found outside
the house, marks on JonBenet's body that some say could have been made by a stun
gun; and signs that someone may have entered the house through a basement
window.
Dozens of attorneys have come forward offering to represent Karr. The county
public defenders' office has asked to meet with Karr, the sheriff said. It was
not known whether such a meeting had taken place Thursday.