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Child porn charges against Karr dropped in Calif.

Officials lack evidence for trial; judge orders immediate release

Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 6, 2006 at midnight

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John Mark Karr is a free man.

Just over six weeks after Karr was cleared of any involvement in the JonBenet Ramsey murder, child pornography charges against him in California were dismissed Thursday, when prosecutors said they lacked sufficient evidence to take his case to trial.

Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Rene Chouteau ordered Karr, 41, released immediately. That brings an abrupt conclusion to Karr's whirlwind course through the American justice system after he was apprehended in Bangkok, Thailand, on Aug. 15 for investigation of first-degree murder in JonBenet's unsolved 1996 slaying.

Karr was dropped as a suspect in the Ramsey case Aug. 28 after his DNA did not match genetic material recovered from the Ramsey crime scene.

He was extradited from Boulder to California on the 5-year-old child pornography charges Sept. 12.

The misdemeanor pornography case collapsed rapidly, as Sonoma County investigators admitted they had lost critical computer evidence seized from Karr in April 2001 when he was working as a substitute teacher in Sonoma and Napa counties.

Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy, whose office spent $23,656.63 investigating and pursuing Karr as a Ramsey suspect, had nothing to say Thursday about Karr going free.

Gary Harris, an attorney and longtime Karr family representative based in Clayton, Ga., was not surprised by Thursday's development. He said it confirms his conviction from the beginning that Karr was an innocent man.

For months, Karr engaged in an e-mail and phone dialogue with University of Colorado media studies professor Michael Tracey in which he made repeated and detailed confessions of having killed JonBenet.

And when he was in custody in Thailand, Karr did not back off his claims that he was present when JonBenet died.

Harris did not know what Karr's immediate plans are but said, "I would imagine he's going to be coming back to Atlanta for at least some time. But tell me, what is this guy going to do now for a living after all this?"

He probably won't be returning to teaching, which is what he was doing in Thailand when he was arrested eight weeks ago.

Karr, who moved to California from Alabama with his then-wife and three sons, first came to the attention of Sonoma County officials after an informant told authorities about alarming e-mails he had been sending her.

Investigators looked at Karr in connection with the unsolved 1997 murder in Sonoma County of 12-year-old Georgia Moses, but he was never charged in that case, either.

Authorities said sexually explicit pictures of children were found during a search of a computer recovered from Karr's Petaluma home, and his subsequent arrest in 2001 led school officials to strip him of his teaching certification. Karr's marriage ended in divorce later that year.

After spending several months in jail in Sonoma County, Karr fled California. His whereabouts since 2001 were unknown to authorities until his arrest in Bangkok in the Ramsey case.

Sonoma County prosecutors conceded that even if Karr had been convicted in the now-dismissed California case, he likely would not have faced additional jail time - but would have been forced to register as a sex offender.

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