The governor has ridiculed her, former colleagues have criticized her, and constituents have demanded that she be run out of town.
But Boulder County District Atty. Mary Lacy on Tuesday defended her decision to arrest John Mark Karr on suspicion of killing 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey–a move based solely on his repeated confessions to a journalism professor he had contacted by e-mail and phone.
Those confessions were lurid, but not always accurate or telling. For instance, Karr claimed to have suspended JonBenet by her wrists as he slowly choked her for his sexual pleasure, but the autopsy noted no marks on the girl’s wrists.
Still, Lacy said, she deemed him credible, in part because he was truthful when discussing other aspects of his life and in part because she mistakenly believed he had disclosed information only the killer would know. Those details turned out to be in the publicly available autopsy report.
The case against Karr collapsed Saturday when tests showed he was not the source of unidentified DNA found mixed with a drop of JonBenet’s blood at the crime scene. Lacy held that information quiet for two days while she contacted JonBenet’s father, John Ramsey, and the University of Colorado professor who had corresponded with Karr. On Monday, she dropped the case against Karr.
At a brief hearing here Tuesday, Karr, 41, sat silently in a blue jumpsuit as a judge ruled that he would be extradited to California within two weeks to face misdemeanor child pornography charges dating to 2001.
Since Karr’s arrest in Thailand two weeks ago–which Lacy followed with a news conference in Boulder–critics have suggested she could have found quieter ways to investigate the suspect in the 1996 slaying.
Lacy estimated the total public cost of the investigation, including Karr’s plane ticket back to the U.S., at $13,000.
Colorado Gov. Bill Owens on Monday had called the tab “extravagant” and an incredible waste; he said Lacy should be held accountable.
Addressing the criticisms, Lacy said she thought Owens would have a different view if he understood why her office had to act.
As for why she moved so quickly to arrest Karr, Lacy suggested her hand was forced. Once she shared Karr’s e-mails with Thai authorities, the government designated him “an undesirable person” and would have expelled him within days, she said. What’s more, Karr had begun to lavish attention on a 5-year-old girl.
