Obsession can fuel confession

John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 29, 2006 at midnight

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When people confess to a crime they did not commit, it's usually to put an end to coercive interrogation, several experts said Monday.

But there is a smaller group of people who become so obsessed about the smallest details of a case, they convince themselves that they committed the crime.

While John Mark Karr appears to fall into the latter category, several professors who study this intersection of law and psychology said they would need to know more about Karr before drawing a conclusion.

Elizabeth Loftus, of the Center for Law and Psychology at the University of California at Irvine, wonders what obscure facts Karr claimed to know about the murder of JonBenet Ramsey that led authorities to see him as a suspect. And where did he get those facts?

"You can get people to believe they did some incredible things they didn't do," said Loftus, who has studied cases involving people reporting false memories.

Tom Haney, a former Denver homicide detective who once interrogated JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, said he doubts there are any obscure facts left that haven't been disclosed.

"I've run into people who have had no connection with law enforcement who have extremely detailed knowledge, who are just so fascinated with the whole case," he said.

People lie to police all the time, said Haney, a former division chief for investigations. But usually they are either confessing to a lesser crime or trying to divert police attention from a relative or spouse.

It's very rare for someone to confess to a murder they didn't commit, said Haney.

Others say false confessions are not as rare as people might think.

The Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardoza Law School in New York City, uses DNA evidence to appeal criminal convictions. Since the clinic opened in 1992, it has helped exonerate 183 defendants.

Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for the project, estimated that 20 percent of those cases involved false confessions.

The majority of those confessions were coerced, he said. A smaller number involved defendants with low IQs or mental health problems.

But one local expert said the Karr case seemed to illustrate a different kind of false confession.

"You see it happen in copycat crimes," said Mark Pogrebin, director of the graduate criminal justice program at the University of Colorado-Denver.

People who falsely confess, he said, usually have "very little self-esteem." They feel like they've never been recognized for anything.

"They are looking for something in their lives, something that will put them in the limelight," Pogrebin said.

1996

• Dec. 26: Patsy Ramsey calls police at 5:52 a.m. to say she had found a ransom note demanding $118,000 for the return of her 6-year-old daughter, JonBenet. Seven hours later, JonBenet's body is found in the basement of the family home by her father, John Ramsey.

• Dec. 31: Ramsey family hires attorney, publicist and investigators as suspicion focuses on them.

1997

• April 30: Detectives have first formal interview with John and Patsy Ramsey.

• May 1: John and Patsy Ramsey meet with a hand-picked panel of reporters from seven media outlets for about 30 minutes. They insist they didn't murder their daughter and vow to find her killer.

• May 14: Two detectives, including the first to arrive at the Ramsey home, are removed from the case.

• Aug. 14: The autopsy report is unsealed by the Boulder County coroner.

• Sept. 3: The full text of the ransom note is published for the first time.

• Oct. 10: Boulder Police Chief Tom Koby removes John Eller as lead detective on the case and puts Cmdr. Mark Beckner in charge.

• Nov. 19: New York attorney Darnay Hoffman files a civil action in Boulder District Court to compel the district attorney's office to file criminal charges.

• Dec. 20: Beckner says John and Patsy Ramsey are under an "umbrella of suspicion."

1998

• June 23-25: The Ramseys are questioned again by police, their first interviews in more than a year. JonBenet's brother Burke, 9 at the time of her death, is interviewed for six hours.

• Sept. 15: A grand jury convenes to investigate.

• Sept. 28: Veteran investigator Lou Smit, hired by the Boulder district attorney as a special investigator, resigns. His letter, which states his belief in the Ramseys' innocence, is published in Newsweek.

1999

• Oct. 13: The grand jury concludes its work and District Attorney Alex Hunter says no indictments will be issued, citing a lack of sufficient evidence. Members of the grand jury issue no statement and are not permitted to speak about their investigation.

2000

• April 10: Time magazine reports that Boulder detectives bugged JonBenet's grave in hopes of getting the killer's confession.

2002

• Dec. 20: Newly elected District Attorney Mary Keenan (now Mary Lacy) takes over the investigation from Boulder police and promises a fresh look at the case.

2003

• March 31: A federal judge in Atlanta concludes that the weight of the evidence is more consistent with the intruder theory than with the theory that Patsy Ramsey killed JonBenet. Lacy later issues a statement agreeing with the judge.

2004

• June 4: The Ramseys' attorney says DNA found in JonBenet's underwear did not match any samples in an FBI database of convicted violent offenders.

2006

• June 24: Patsy Ramsey dies at age 49 following a long battle with ovarian cancer.

• Aug. 16: A suspect, teacher John Mark Karr, is arrested in Thailand and tells reporters he was "with JonBenet when she died," but that "her death was an accident."

• Thursday: Karr arrives in Colorado.

• Monday: Lacy's office quashes arrest warrant, saying Karr's DNA does not match the sample found in the murdered girl's underwear and prosecutors had developed no evidence against Karr, other than his own claims.

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