NRO: Karr none

Check out my National Review Online column today about the creepy perv that the Boulder D.A. fell for hook, line and sinker. (Note: Perhaps O.J. should check out John Mark Karr now to make sure he isn't the "real killer.")

"I have a confession to make: I am the Zodiac killer, that elusive serial murderer who haunted the Bay Area back in the days of peace, love, and dope. Granted, I wasn't yet born when the Zodiac was killing and sending creepy letters in the late 1960s, but the local authorities may be so overjoyed to put the cold case to bed that they may accept my confession anyway, perhaps arranging an extradition circus and booking a free trans-Pacific flight with jumbo prawns and bubbly if I first flee to Asia. Cross-checking the DNA from the backs of stamps and edges of envelopes on those old Zodiac letters? An afterthought.

I’m not very convincing, right? Such is the case with John Mark Karr, the creepy pervert who overnight became the elusive sensational killer of little beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey — even though his description of the crime didn’t match the forensic evidence; the guy who snuffed out her young life in the family's Boulder home — even though it wasn't substantiated whether he’d even set foot in the state of Colorado. After a ridiculous two-week-long media circus, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens is livid, the Boulder district attorney’s office is trying to backpedal at full speed, and the world — and Boulder D.A. Mary Lacy, apparently – knows more than it ever needed to about this voluntary false confessor.

False confessions are nothing new, and don’t have to arise from any sort of interrogation or even having been fingered as a suspect. After Charles Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped in 1932, more than 200 people 'confessed' to the crime. Before Karr, others had confessed to the Ramsey murder shortly after her 1996 death. The murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1994 brought their own flock of voluntary false confessors as O. J. continues to search for the 'real killers.' Even convicted killers may try to prove themselves the biggest, baddest, and most notorious by falsely beefing up their own resumes — one-eyed drifter Henry Lee Lucas (basis of the 1986 movie Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) confessed to between 350 and 3,000 murders, depending on whom you talk to, and most were deemed to be baloney. ..."

Read the whole thing!

Comments

[Ned]

This just shows how easy it is to manipulate the drive-by media. Just like all the false stories that came out of Katrina coverage this fed the press what they wanted, and in turn they ate it, and then spewed it out. Didn't the police chief in New Orleans just say that he fed false news to the media? Maybe the DA wanted to gin up intrest and get some more fame. Might be a book in the future.

[Lewis B. Sckolnick]

Bri just bought the last rites to the Lacy book.

[Robert L. Barninger]

I could not have said it better myself. A free Colorado vaction for a fame junkie. Speaking of the actual case, I'll bet the TV actors from CSI could have handled the evidence better. No wonder they'll never get it right.

[Patrick Henry]

Mary Lacy, the Boulder DA, may not be the most photogenic, but she did the right thing in the Karr case, by making sure she had good DNA evidence. Had she relied on samples taken by the Thai police, the conclusion would have been subject to chain-of-custody and other challenges.

Karr, the nutjob, should be made to pay for his first-class trip home.