JonBenet: True Confession; I.E.D.s Increasing
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Good evening again from Boulder, Colorado. From the scene of the JonBenet Ramsey murder. This is the place where people are trying to make sense of a stranger with a troubled past who may or may not be telling the truth about his role in what happened here that night.</s>ANNOUNCER: The suspect speaking out.</s>JOHN MARK KARR, JONBENET MURDER SUSPECT: Her death was, was an accident.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was this in the basement?</s>KARR: Yes.</s>ANNOUNCER: Who is John Mark Karr and that did he tell police about the murder of JonBenet? A 10-year-old ransom note.</s>PATSY RAMSEY, MOTHER OF JONBENET: Well, I hardly read it and I ran back upstairs and pushed open her bedroom door and she was gone.</s>ANNOUNCER: Tonight, the clues that note may contain about John Mark Karr. And Mideast cease-fire day four. The peace holding. But Hezbollah still the wild card. U.N. troops on the way. Are they up to the task? This is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360, "JonBenet: True Confession?" In for Anderson tonight, Tom Foreman in Boulder, Colorado, and Rick Sanchez in New York.</s>RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Tom, I've certainly been hearing you intimate this tonight. But what a difference a day makes. First the case is cold. Then a suspect is named. Then reports of a confession. Now what, Tom?</s>FOREMAN: Rick, the air here tonight is simply full of doubt. Last night so much celebration with people feeling like it was moving forward again. Now people are saying what do you make of this man who has said that he was in the basement with her, who has said he loved her, who says he accidentally killed her? It is very difficult to sort all of this out. The statements don't seem to quite match up with the facts from what we know so far. People are trying to figure that out and we're looking at the background. And with that, CNN's Dan Simon.</s>DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Controlling and child obsessed. Just a few of the accusations leveled at John Karr by his former wife, a woman he married 17 years ago. When she was 16, he was 24. CNN obtained these court documents from their 2001 divorce. In a sworn declaration, Karr's wife Lara said he was booted from a substitute teaching job in the late '90s. The reason, she claims one school told him quote, "he has a tendency to be too affectionate with children." That didn't stop Karr from getting another substitute teaching job a few years later here in northern California.</s>CHARLES WONG, SUPERINTENDENT, SONOMA COUNTY SCHOOLS: Absolutely.</s>SIMON (voice-over): Charles Wong was the head of one of the school districts where Karr occasionally filled in for absent teachers and says he saw no reason to raise a red flag.</s>WONG: No one goes into a classroom, comes on a campus until they've been cleared on both counts. On the professional qualification credentialing side, background criminal check, fingerprint. That side has to be cleared.</s>SIMON: This young Alabama woman, a former Girl Scout, remembers him when he was her neighbor.</s>ERIKA SCHOLZ, FORMER NEIGHBOR: He never striked me as anything like who I wasn't comfortable. Like, he's never, of course, never invited me into his house to have like coffee or tea or anything, but he was just a great guy.</s>SIMON: Karr's teaching days in California ended in 2001 when he got arrested for possessing child pornography. Sheriff deputies busted him for allegedly having pictures of children engaged in sexual conduct on his computer. Karr pleaded not guilty and was freed on bail. But according to California authorities, he skipped town and never stood trial. He may have fled the country, but Karr's ex-wife obtained a restraining order against him that prevented him from getting within 100 feet of her and their three sons. Even so, Karr's ex may be able to provide an alibi. She told a San Francisco television station that they were together in Alabama during the Christmas holidays in 1996 when JonBenet was murdered.</s>MIKE RAINS, ATTORNEY FOR LARA KARR: She sincerely believes there was no Christmas anytime between approximately 1989 when they were married and the year 2000 when her husband was not with her and her family at Christmas time. She has no recollection of him ever being away.</s>SIMON: The woman's attorney told reporters that Colorado investigators have yet to speak with her. And she wants to make herself available to them.</s>SIMON (on camera): The man you saw there, Mike Rains, he is a prominent San Francisco attorney. He actually represents Barry Bozz (ph). And what he has told this woman is basically to go look at your photo albums, go back to the year 1996 and see if there are any pictures of you and John Karr off in Alabama where she says the two were at the time JonBenet was murdered -- Tom.</s>FOREMAN: Do you are any idea how these two hooked up, this attorney and this woman? Did she go seeking help? And if so, why?</s>SIMON: Well, as you can imagine, she is pretty intimidated by all of these cameras parked out in front of her house, which is right behind me. So, she hired a lawyer, and she hired a very seasoned one. And what he has basically told her is to take a deep breath. Let's go talk to the Boulder investigators. Let's tell them what you think. Let's tell them what you know. And he has placed that call and says he hasn't heard from them yet, but he's hoping to connect with them in the next day or two -- Tom.</s>FOREMAN: Is there any sense of surprise that you sense from him or on her behalf that they weren't talked to before or that they haven't been reached yet?</s>SIMON: Yes, I mean the sense I got is that they were a bit puzzled that they were at least never consulted about this particular case. And as we've heard all day long, she says they weren't even in Colorado when this murder occurred. So, they desperately want to talk to the Boulder investigators. And he's hoping again that will take place hopefully soon -- Tom.</s>FOREMAN: Fascinating work, Dan Simon. Thank you so much. We appreciate all of that. There's so many questions about whether or not this person killed JonBenet Ramsey. He says he cared about her, but if so, what would drive him to do something as horrible as what happened in this house? And how can you explain his strange statements being made right now? Our Randi Kaye takes a look inside the mind of a killer.</s>RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Why would John Mark Karr, if he is JonBenet Ramsey's killer, be talking about it? Renowned Criminologist James Alan Fox sees big question marks emerging in what Karr says.</s>JAMES ALAN FOX, CRIMINOLOGIST: I think you have to take this confession with a whole shaker of salt. That there is some question marks that emerge from hearing his story about I was there, it was an accident. This may be someone who just wants to be part of this big case.</s>KAYE: But, Fox says, if Karr is the killer, like most, he wants attention. He wants the world to know it.</s>FOX: One real possibility is that this man wanted attention and that he reached out to a professor at the University of Colorado, telling little tidbits about the crime, to intensify his celebrity. Or to make himself into a celebrity. And look, we're all talking about him today.</s>KAYE: Fox says it's a myth killers want to get caught. But he says the death of JonBenet's mother Patsy Ramsey may have inspired Karr to come forward. Karr told the Associated Press he sent letters to Patsy Ramsey telling her he is sorry.</s>KARR: It is very important for me that everyone knows that I love her very much. And that her death was unintentional and it was an accident and I made several efforts to communicate with Patricia before she passed away and it is my understanding that she did read my letters and she was aware of me before she passed away.</s>FOX: Well, there are killers whose level of remorse is such that they cry, they apologize, they write letters to the families, expressing remorse.</s>KAYE: What makes this case unique, according to Fox, is the young victim's public image. Fox says that while the Ramseys may have thought it totally innocent to enter their daughter in beauty pageants, there is a small segment of society for whom it might have triggered fantasies. The question still to be answered, did such fantasies lead Karr to kill or just to fantasize about it? Randi Kaye, CNN, Atlanta.</s>FOREMAN: We're going to return to our round table now. Jeffrey Toobin our legal analyst; Craig Silverman, former prosecutor down in Denver and Lawrence Schiller who is an author and who wrote a terrific book called, "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town," about all this. Lawrence Schiller, you raised a very interesting question here. If the negotiation was to get this man back in the United States, why not act upon the existing charges out in California against him?</s>LAWRENCE SCHILLER, AUTHOR, "PERFECT MURDER, PERFECT TOWN": Well, you know, that's the big question because police have lots of ways of holding people for 72 hours, 56 hours, five days. You know, here they seem to have charged him in Colorado, probable cause for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. He's on bail. He jumped bail in California. He disappeared for five years. They could have held him. They could have brought him back quietly. None of us would have known about it. They -- something might have leaked. They could have done DNA, they could have done everything. What caused a knee jerk reaction for the Boulder district attorney to go in and say this is the guy? She's got to have something that we don't know about, maybe we shouldn't know about. It's got to be presented properly to a grand jury. A grand jury has got to say there is probable cause. And then the D.A. has to file charges.</s>FOREMAN: Craig Silverman, let me ask you this. Do you believe that? Because certainly in this case many times we in the media and the public have thought that things were developing and in the end, it was an empty box. There was nothing developing there. Do you think they have something or do you think they jumped the gun?</s>CRAIG SILVERMAN, FORMER DENVER CHIEF DEPUTY D.A.: I still think they have something. Larry makes a great point. Why not let him be locked up in Sonoma County, do this quietly? Larry is a smart guy, but there are smart people in the D.A.'s office as well. They surely had to think of it. They don't want that kind of egg on their face because if they release him now, or if they don't charge him, it will be humiliating. I would correct Lawrence on one point. While Alex Hunter went it a grand jury, I would expect Mary Lacy to simply sign a complaint and information, then he will have a probable cause preliminary hearing within 30 days of his first advisement.</s>SCHILLER: Craig, I disagree. I don't think she's going to want to try this case at a preliminary hearing in court where a defense attorney can cross-examine all her witnesses. I think she'll still go to a grand jury.</s>SILVERMAN: No, you don't have to put on all the witnesses, Larry. You could can do it almost entirely based on hearsay. So all you have to do is put on the confession. That's more than enough right there to get it bound over for trial.</s>SCHILLER: You're probably right, yes.</s>FOREMAN: Jeffrey Toobin, let me ask you, sitting in the middle of all of this. Look, this is a 10-year-old case. You're talking about potential statements made in Thailand, you're talking about old evidence, you have questions about the chain of evidence, you have so many things that are up in the air on this. I can't imagine that any step right now is wholly wrong or wholly right.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It is very hard to know what it do. Especially when you consider what the district attorney said today at the news conference. Because she really suggested -- it was sort of a ridiculous news conference, frankly, because she said so little.</s>FOREMAN: Well, she called a news conference to say that she had...</s>TOOBIN: To say she couldn't say anything.</s>FOREMAN: ... nothing to talk about.</s>TOOBIN: But she did suggest about the timing. Why now? And she did suggest that there had been quite a rush, that they were concerned about public safety, further assaults by Karr and flight. And it was clear that they had not completed their investigation. I mean, after all, this whole issue of his ex-wife, if his ex-wife finds a snapshot of him opening presents with his kids on December 25th, 1996, unless there is DNA evidence in this case, this case is over. He's going to get acquitted or won't even be charged. So, you know, this is -- was obviously a rush job on her part and she has got a long way to go to bring a case of this complexity and tell a jury we have it beyond a reasonable doubt.</s>FOREMAN: Craig, I would think as a prosecutor, I would think that on a case this big that's been around this long, that about the last thing you would want on earth is any publicity about what you're doing until you have your ducks in a row.</s>SILVERMAN: And she has kept it so quiet. The news just exploded. Again, you have to wonder why not lock him up in Sonoma County? Why not do this quietly. The only logical explanation is they have something pretty darn incriminating and we know it has to be more than the confession. Frankly, the confession today that we heard on television was delusional. When he said it was an accident, when he said he picked her up at school, when he said she was drugged, all things we know to be false.</s>SCHILLER: Right. Craig, you know, something else happened two months ago which startled me. When Mary Lacy showed up at Patsy Ramsey's funeral, she's an elected public official. To show up at that funeral, something had to be going on. She was paying respect as if she knew she was ready to bring down the gauntlet on somebody. And she wanted to be there to show.</s>FOREMAN: I appreciate your comment on that. That did raise some eyebrows. People did have questions about that. Lawrence Schiller, Jeffrey Toobin, Craig Silverman, thanks for joining us and all of your thoughts on all of this. We will have more. Confessions aren't as clear cut as you might think they are. Here's the raw data on that. According to the Innocence Project, 15 to 20 percent of defendants who were wrongfully convicted actually confessed to something that they did not do. And in one of the most famous crimes in American history, the Charles Lindbergh baby kidnapping, more than 200 people came forward to say that they abducted the child. Much more on all of these developments when we come back. In a moment, we're going to take a look at the ransom note. What role might it have played in building a case against John Karr. This is 360.