Continued from page 4

Could This Be JonBenét's Killer?

Originally posted Thursday August 24, 2006 12:00 PM EDT

As a father Karr "exercised very strong authority over his family," says Dale Jenkins, his pastor in Hamilton, Ala. "His boys had to walk the line. They were very well-behaved." According to Jenkins, Karr delivered his sons John, Damon and Seven Exodus in his home with no doctor present. Photo by: Courtesy Karr Family / ZUMA

A lax screening process for foreign teachers apparently wasn't the only thing that drew Karr to Thailand. Earlier this year he visited the Pruksa Laser Center to have his beard and sideburn hair removed. "He told me he was on medication to prepare for a sex change," says the Center's Dr. Setthakarn Attakonpan. "He said, 'Don't take all of the hair – leave what a woman would have.' "

It was while he was out of the U.S. that Karr began his anonymous correspondence with journalism professor Michael Tracey, whom he knew to be a strong advocate of the theory that an intruder killed JonBenét. According to the Rocky Mountain News, in one e-mail about JonBenét, Karr wrote, "I love you and shall forever love you. If there is to be a life for me after this one, I pray that it will be with you."

Earlier this year Tracey grew alarmed enough by something in an e-mail to contact the Boulder D.A.'s office. Police then fooled Karr into thinking he was exchanging e-mails with Patsy Ramsey. On Aug. 16, just a day after Karr began teaching at the New Sathorn International School in Bangkok, Thai police, acting on behalf of U.S. federal officials, picked him up in his apartment. During his interrogation U.S. investigators brought up the Ramsey case, and Karr quickly confessed. According to Thai police, Karr admitted to having sex with JonBenét, but later insinuated he may have just kissed her.

On Aug. 20 U.S. officials whisked Karr out of Bangkok on a commercial flight; during the 15-hour trip to Los Angeles, Karr ate the standard business-class meal of prawns and pâté and even sipped champagne. But once in L.A. he was locked in a 6-by-9-ft. cell, where he awaited extradition to Colorado and formal charges in JonBenét's murder.

Ten years ago the Ramseys themselves were under an "umbrella of suspicion," as one law enforcement official put it, for the murder of JonBenét. Investigators made them the chief suspects after they quickly hired lawyers, refused police interviews for four months and even engaged a publicist. Many saw their evasiveness as evidence they were involved, and they have never been officially cleared as suspects.

But in 2003 Mary Lacy said, "the weight of the evidence is more consistent with the theory that an intruder murdered JonBenét." John Ramsey, in a statement, urged that Karr be spared "the type of media speculation that my wife and I were subjected to for so many years" until forensic tests are done. "John isn't getting all revved up about the arrest," says his friend Barney Way in Charlevoix, Mich. "He's keeping level-headed, as always."