Now what? Two weeks after law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C., announced the first big break in the unsolved 10-year-old murder of JonBenét Ramsey, the case against the extremely weird John Mark Karr is toast.
Forget a trial. This one didn’t even make it to the charging stage.
Karr’s public defender, Seth Temin, said Monday that the warrant on his client has been dropped.
“They are not proceeding with the case,” he said.
Since lab analysis revealed that Karr’s DNA isn’t a match with that left on the murder scene, it means that all along, he was probably just a warped guy with a sudden craving to see his hairless face round-the-clock on CNN for a couple of weeks.
He was tanned, rested and ready for his close-up.
The FBI, law enforcement officials in Thailand and the Boulder district attorney fell for the scam and popped for drinks and dinner in business class on his flight back to the states. They used the state plane to ferry him from Los Angeles to Colorado. They had his e-mails to University of Colorado-Boulder journalism professor Michael Tracey and his goofy confession.
They hinted that secret evidence linking him to the crime was solid.
Then on Monday they had nothing.
Man, it stinks to be Mary Lacy.
Ridiculing Boulder – long a popular local sport – has gone international.
Even the governor joined the fun.
“Unfortunately, the hysterics surrounding John Mark Karr served only to distract Boulder officials from doing their job, which should be solving the murder of JonBenét Ramsey,” he said in a press release.
“I find it incredible that Boulder authorities wasted thousands of taxpayer dollars to bring Karr to Colorado given such a lack of evidence. Mary Lacy should be held accountable for the most extravagant and expensive DNA test in Colorado history.”
So now Karr likely will return to California to face the old child pornography charges. And I’m betting this time he’ll be buying his own drinks.
For some, this means the Ramseys will be back under the umbrella of suspicion, Tracey will have to rewrite his book proposal and Boulder police will have to put this embarrassing case file back on ice.
But for all those news consumers out there who have griped about the wretched media circus surrounding the JonBenét story, there is an upside.
Show’s over.
It’s back to all that important stuff the media was criticized for ignoring.
Back to coverage of the war in Iraq, where five U.S. soldiers were killed in bomb attacks over the weekend, where 2,500 Marines face another involuntary tour of duty, and where even the president has admitted that no end to the fighting is in sight.
Back to news about the November elections, in which Republican lieutenant governor candidate Janet Rowland’s apology for comparing gay marriage to bestiality is sure to remain a hot topic and voters will have to try to distinguish fact from distortions in the relentless attack ads coming in the race for the 7th Congressional District. And Sen. George Allen will be trying desperately to pull his campaign for the Republican nomination for president out of the caca he created with his macaca slur.
It’s back to the threat of hurricanes and the continuing tragedy in New Orleans, still crippled by Katrina. Back to the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Back to the housing slump, the stalemate over illegal immigration, the homeless, the high-school dropouts, the uninsured, the unemployed, the underpaid and global warming.
All those folks who viewed the media with contempt over the obsession with JonBenét can resume reading newspapers without fear. War, politics, natural disasters, social issues, the economy – they’re all back on Page 1 where they belong.
Right below the Broncos teaser.
Welcome back.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com
