The arrival of a new district attorney in Boulder has some people expecting that the 12-year-old murder of JonBenet Ramsey will get a "fresh look." But what exactly does that mean?
This mind-bending report in the Boulder Daily Camera suggests a new look means another look at John Mark Karr (pictured), the prolific false confessor who was arrested for the crime in 2006, at great expense, then immediately discredited. Private investigator Ollie Gray seems to think Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy ignored important evidence in releasing Karr.
New DA Stan Garnett has his work cut out for him, thanks to Lacy's recent exoneration of John and Patsy Ramsey in their child's death, based on dubious "touch DNA" evidence. But revisiting the Karr fiasco isn't a smart move. For more on the overwhelming case that Karr isn't the guy, as well as Ollie Gray's connections to ethically challenged University of Colorado journalism prof Michael Tracey and the cabal of Ramsey defenders who have strained credulity time and again in serving up alternate suspects, see our JonBenet Ramsey Archive, particularly the 2006 feature "Made for Each Other."
Lacy received a scathing farewell from one of her most vocal critics on a blogger's online talk show a few days ago. Tricia Griffith, who runs Forums for Justice, an online gathering of amateur sleuths, has been a key figure in exposing the ways Tracey and others promoted Karr's confession. She socked it to the DA on a recent podcast of the Levi Page Show; jump to the last fifteen minutes of the file for the fireworks.
Griffith told Page her group may be going to court soon to get some of the still-buried Ramsey materials open to the public. There may not be much new light to be shed on the case after all these years, but that sounds like a more promising direction than another round of theatrics and misdirection with Karr. --Alan Prendergast
