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Karr lawyer: Case kaput

Rocky Mountain News

Published August 28, 2006 at midnight

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Prosecutors will not file any charges against John Mark Karr, according to Karr’s public defender Seth Temin, who spoke briefly to reporters this afternoon as he left the Boulder County Jail where he informed his client of the developments.

"The charges against Mr. Karr have been dropped by the DA," Temin said. "We are deeply distressed that they brought this man from Thailand with no forensic evidence and no other evidence to suggest his guilt. There will be no hearing today."

The revelation came within an hour of news that DNA tests failed to show a link between the man who claimed he killed JonBenet Ramsey accidentally and DNA found on the little girl’s body.

9News was the first to report, based on two unnamed sources close to the investigation, that the DNA comparisons came back negative. News4 has also reported the lack of a match.

Karr’s public defender had filed a series of motions seeking information on all DNA evidence taken so far and had sought to block additional sampling and testing.

The news came just hours before Karr, 41, was to have his appearance for an initial advisement in Boulder District Court. He has been held without bail in Boulder since being brought there Thursday, from Thailand, by way of Los Angeles.

Lou Smit, who has worked on the case for District Attorney Mary Lacy's office in both an official capacity and as a volunteer, said he had not been told about their being no link between Karr's DNA and the samples found in the Ramsey case.

Smit, along with Colorado Springs private investigator Ollie Gray, had helped develop information concerning Karr, originally supplied to them by University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey, that was passed on to Lacy, helping to trigger Karr's Aug. 16 arrest in Bangkok.

Told of reports that charges will not be filed, Smit said, "Well, I think that would be fine. That would mean that Mary Lacy has completed her investigation and done what she said she was going to do."

As for where this leaves the long-beleaguered investigation, Smit said, "We're just right back to where we were, looking for an intruder. There's an intruder out there, I truly believe, and we have to go back to looking for him.

"We’ll just start over again."

JonBenet Ramsey was found slain in her parents' Boulder home Dec. 26, 1996.