Departing suspect stays silent

Neatly dressed Karr refuses to speak to media on way out

Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News

Monday, August 21, 2006

BANGKOK, Thailand - John Mark Karr spent his last hours on Thai soil munching on KFC, staring sullenly at a gaggle of reporters and being serenaded with a Bee Gees tune by his foreign captor.

Karr stayed stone-faced Sunday as he was led to a van that would whisk him to a commercial airliner to begin his journey back to the United States for additional investigation.

Shortly before his departure, Karr indicated that "he doesn't want to talk to reporters because they want to portray him as a murderer," said Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of the Thai immigration police.

Karr's silence was a reversal from his stunning willingness to talk three days earlier. Then, just after his arrest, the 41-year-old teacher told reporters at a news conference that he was present at the death of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in her parents' basement in 1996, but that it was an accident.

He also professed his love for the child beauty queen, who was found dead Dec. 26 nearly 10 years ago after someone split open her skull and strangled her with a garrote.

Thailand revoked Karr's visa Thursday and jailed him pending deportation after Boulder issued a warrant for him for investigation of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault on a child. The warrant remains under seal.

Neatly dressed in a dark red, short-sleeved dress shirt and gray tie, Karr ignored the crowd of 100 reporters who gathered Sunday to watch him walk from the Thai Immigration Detention Center to a van that would take him to the Bangkok airport. He was surrounded by 20 Thai police, who allowed no one close, but gave photographers ample room to record Karr's departure.

At the airport, the Thais hustled Karr into a private room. There, two American officials took over the escort.

Karr sat and waited at the gate with them for his nonstop flight to Los Angeles, again under the glare of media cameras, as well as gawking fellow passengers. The Associated Press reported that he chatted amiably with some of the people waiting to board the plane.

Karr was not handcuffed because he was not being extradited. Technically, the Thais sent him out of the country and the Americans picked him up.

The strange tale of a man who twice married teens younger than 15, then fled California to avoid prosecution on child pornography charges, took an even weirder twist Sunday.

Sex-change doctor speaks

A surgeon in Bangkok who specializes in sex-change operations told The Associated Press that Karr was one of his patients.

Dr. Thep Vechwijit said Karr had a consultation at his clinic but declined to provide additional details.

The Pratunam Polyclinic, which co-sponsors a popular transsexual beauty contest, specializes in sex- change operations, the AP reported.

According to ads in the English-language Bangkok Post, breast implants cost $1,125, liposuction costs $625 and sex-change surgery is $1,625.

Thep told The Associated Press that most of his patients have been living as women - dressing and taking hormones - for years before undergoing surgery.

Karr said in e-mails to a University of Colorado professor, obtained by the Rocky Mountain News last week, that his mother tended to raise him as a girl.

In the two months before his arrest, Karr lived like a footloose, college-aged global backpacker, finding shelter along the back streets of Bangkok in a cheap concrete room barely large enough to move around the double bed.

The Blooms Residence guesthouse keeps no record of its guests and insists on cash, but Karr apparently paid $175 a month for barren, but decent, accommodations.

Down a long, dorm-like hall, plastic hollow-core doors open into tiny rooms that contain a small wardrobe, a television and a double bed, which has only a fitted bottom sheet and two pillows.

In a room like the one where Karr stayed on the ninth floor, the window air conditioner clanks and whirs, drowning out neighbors' noise. Drapes, made out of gray plastic shower curtains, cover a sliding glass door, which opens onto a balcony too narrow for sitting.

But despite the fact that the Blooms also rents rooms for three hours for $8, it's a respectable guesthouse in a warren of alleys packed with family apartments, guesthouses catering to backpackers and rows of the inhabitants' small motorcycles.

There is no din of traffic and no sign of the adult and child prostitution that has made Bangkok a magnet for travelers in search of sex.

Thailand not investigating

Other than the bizarre news conference last week, Karr behaved fairly normally during his time in custody, officials here said.

According to Suwat, the American appeared more nervous as the time of departure approached. The general quoted Karr as saying he wanted to go back home and that he missed his children. Karr hasn't seen his three sons in five years.

Suwat also said he does not know of any crimes that Karr had committed in Thailand and there is no ongoing investigation of his activities here.

Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy implied during a news conference Thursday that Karr had been arrested earlier than planned, either because he might escape surveillance or commit another crime.

She said Karr reported for a new job teaching second grade at a school in Bangkok the day before he was arrested.

Teachers who speak native English are in short supply among Bangkok's dozens of international schools.

Suwat said Karr told him he'd been in and out of Thailand for months, seeking a teaching job. Two Bangkok schools, a Catholic one for girls and a Christian one for girls, told local media they rejected Karr after tryouts last winter and spring because he was too strict with small children.

One school told reporters here that some of his e-mails had contained pornography, which Karr blamed on a hacker.

Suwat said Karr told him he'd spent the last five years in various countries in Southeast Asia, earning money through teaching jobs. That timing fits with Karr's disappearance from the United States in 2001, after he was arrested in California for possession of child pornography.

Suwat told the AP that the jail ordered KFC for Karr before his flight home because he requested some American food.

"We treat him well since he is a high-profile suspect," the general said.

Suwat also said he'd discussed music with Karr, who claimed to play guitar.

"I asked what songs he liked and he said he liked Chopin," Suwat said.

Then Suwat again amazed reporters by saying he'd sung a song to the inmate.

Asked what song, Suwat broke into a shaky, "It's only words, and words are all I have, to take your heart away."

"That's a Bee Gees song!" responded a journalist.

"Yes!" said a delighted Suwat.

A song while waiting

Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of the Thai immigration police, told reporters he sang a song for John Mark Karr to pass the time while Karr awaited his flight to the U.S. The song was Words, from the 1968 album Best Of Bee Gees, originally written for the 1967 movie The Mini-Affair.

• The lyrics of Words

Smile an everlasting smile, a smile can bring you near to me.

Don't ever let me find you down, cause that would bring a tear to me.

This world has lost its glory, let's start a brand new story now, my love.

Right now, there'll be no other time and I can show you how, my love.

Talk in everlasting words, and dedicate them all to me.

And I will give you all my life, I'm here if you should call to me.

You think that I don't even mean a single word I say.

It's only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.

www.lyricsfreak.com; www.songfacts.com

imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438