John Mark Karr’s Domestic Problem

The big news out of Georgia this weekend is that John Mark Karr, the bogus confessor in the JonBenet Ramsey case, was arrested after a domestic dispute at his father’s home in Sandy Springs.

What’s surprising here isn’t that Karr, a wandering dramaturge who gained international notoriety for his claim that he killed the 6-year-old beauty queen, is now living with his elderly father. Going on and on about your gooey fantasies involving young girls would make it a little difficult to keep a job as a grade school teacher. (For more about what Karr told his confession collaborator, CU professor Michael Tracey, see our feature “Made For Each Other.”)

And it isn’t surprising that Karr’s dad, 86, would decide to call 911 after listening to Karr and his girlfriend “fighting,” and then deny that his son seriously interfered with his ability to make the call or battered him in some way. “I’m too tough for a little whippersnapper kid to hurt me,” Wexford Karr said of his 42-year-old offspring.

And no, it isn’t particularly shocking to read that Karr’s girlfriend, Brooke Simmons, would defend her much-misunderstood whippersnapper, calling him “mild-mannered,” “nurturing,” and “not a creep.”

What’s alarming here is that Simmons is 22 years old. Almost half Karr’s age. Not 13, like his first wife, or 16, like his second, but a very mature 22.

Isn’t she a little long in the tooth for him? — Alan Prendergast