By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer 38 minutes ago

BOULDER, Colo. - A former schoolteacher was arrested Wednesday in Thailand in the slaying of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey ? a surprise breakthrough in a lurid, decade-old murder mystery that had cast a cloud of suspicion over her parents.

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Federal officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, identified the suspect as John Mark Karr, a 42-year-old American, and one law enforcement official told The Associated Press that Boulder police had tracked him down online.

The Ramsey family's attorney in Atlanta pronounced the arrest vindication for JonBenet's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. Patsy Ramsey died of ovarian cancer on June 24.

"John and Patsy lived their lives knowing they were innocent, trying to raise a son despite the furor around them," Lin Wood said. "The story of this family is a story of courage, and story of an American injustice and tragedy that ultimately people will have to look back on and hopefully learn from."

The attorney said the Ramseys learned about the suspect a least a month before Patsy Ramsey's death. "It's been a very long 10 years, and I'm just sorry Patsy isn't here for me to hug her neck," Wood said.

Karr was a teacher who once lived in Conyers, Ga., according to Wood. The attorney said the Ramseys gave police information about Karr before he was identified as a suspect.

Wood would not say how the Ramseys knew Karr. But JonBenet was born in Atlanta in 1990, and the Ramseys lived in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody for several years before moving to Colorado in 1991.

A source close to the investigation said Karr confessed to elements of the crime. Also, a law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that Karr had been communicating periodically with somebody in Boulder who had been following the case and cooperating with law enforcement officials.

District Attorney Mary Lacy said the arrest followed several months of work, but she said no details would be released until Thursday.

Karr was being held in Bangkok on unrelated sex charges, authorities said. CBS reported he will be brought back to the United States this weekend.

JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family's home in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996. Patsy Ramsey reported finding a ransom note in the house demanding $118,000 for her daughter.

The image of blonde-haired little JonBenet in a cowgirl costume and other beauty pageant outfits has haunted TV talk shows ever since, helping feed myriad theories about her killer, and the case became one of the most sensational unsolved murder cases in the nation.

Over the years, some experts suggested that investigators had botched the case so thoroughly that it might never be solved.

Investigators at one point said JonBenet's parents were under an "umbrella of suspicion" in the slaying. And some news accounts cast suspicion on JonBenet's older brother. But the Ramseys insisted an intruder killed their daughter, and no one was ever charged.

In the months after the slaying, Patsy Ramsey went before the cameras, vigorously defending herself and her husband, chastising the media and blasting local law enforcement as incompetent.

In a statement Wednesday, John Ramsey said: "Patsy was aware that authorities were close to making an arrest in the case, and had she lived to see this day, would no doubt have been as pleased as I am with today's development almost 10 years after our daughter's murder."

The Ramseys moved back to Atlanta after their daughter's slaying.

Wood lashed out at the frenzy that long surrounded the case, and he accused the media of "the most obscene false accusations." "I think the public's mind was so poisoned against this family that no one was able for too many years to look at the evidence," he said.

Patsy Ramsey's sister, Pam Paugh, of Roswell, Ga., said the family was celebrating the news of the arrest. "We are elated. We are elated. If this is, in fact, the killer, then we have a very heinous killer off the streets to never harm another child," Paugh said.

Lib Waters of Marietta, Ga., visited the gravesites of Patsy and JonBenet Ramsey in the Atlanta suburb immediately after hearing news reports about the arrest.

Waters, who described herself as a longtime friend of the Ramsey family, taped a piece of notebook paper to JonBenet Ramsey's headstone that read: "Dearest Patsy, Justice has come for you and Jon. Rest in peace."

In 2003, a federal judge in Atlanta concluded that the evidence she reviewed suggested an intruder killed JonBenet. That opinion came with the judge's decision to dismiss a libel and slander lawsuit against the Ramseys by a freelance journalist, whom the Ramseys had named as a suspect in their daughter's murder. The Boulder district attorney at the time said she agreed with the judge's declaration.

"Today is additional vindication of the family," Wood said.

Wood said he and the Ramseys "have been totally amazed and impressed with the professionalism of law enforcement" under Lacy's direction. Lacy became district attorney in 2001.

Lawrence Schiller, author of the 1999 book "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town" about the case, said Wednesday he understood the man had been on a list of sexual offenders who were suspects for a long time.

"There are a lot of facts about her actual death that the public does not know." Schiller said. "If he did confess to some facts of the murder, to reveal those facts of the case, that would finish the puzzle."

Among the facts he said were not generally known was the murder weapon and what the killer did with it.

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060817/ap_on_re_us/jonbenet_ramsey

Ya good, i did not read all but i saw in the news here so it's going to be a good thing if it's him 10 years now,

they should have a change of venue to thailand and imprison him there.

I read about this one earlier and I was wondering who was going to brig it up. The DA in Colorado was going on about all the hard detective work that led to this Amerian suspect already in jail in Thailand... but do you suppose that faced with doing at least 8-10 years in the Bangkok Hilton for these yet to be named sex crimes that he decided he would rather do life in a 'cushy' US prison?

"Get the Feds on the phone! I've got a confession to make."

i_love_som_tam ~~~~ i agree better yet give him a sex change before putting him in the prison

Wait a sec.........

Does anybody but me find it odd that people who think the Ramseys were innocent and were hit with lies jump to the conclusion that the man they arrested is the REAL killer? Isn't that what the media and people that thought the Ramseys were guilty did before them?

You've got a point , that he is only a suspect and he has not yet been convicted. But in the case of the Ramseys in the years following the murder, that was mostly the media and one investigator that was hypothesizing that they could have done it, and the DA never had enough evidence against the Ramseys' to bring any charges. But the DA is charging this suspect, and there's alot of physical evidence including DNA that was never made public, and if a detective was able to match some of that to this suspect then this is alot stronger case than the one against the Ramseys. They had a sperm from the crime scene... I wonder if they used some evidence gathering techniques inThailand that would not be possible in the US? Ha ha!

Yeh this is huge news in the US...many people always thought it was the dad..poor guy if they find out he had nothing ever to do with it.It did always seem strange, anyone who followed the case from the start knows what im taking about, but i hope they finally solve it.

When are they gonna finally going to find the killer of OJ's wife?

Thanks for bringing this news to my attention. I remember the case, it was not internationally so famous as in US, BUT it made it to the news anyway...So I was surprised to see that an arrest has been made. All I could think of was that I remembered they suspected the parents making evidence up or something like that, they were suspects of their own daughters killing. (Oh, and that time it baffled me to hear that in USA they have BEAUTY competitions for little children, I was ready to throw up)

Most recent news, Karr confessed to the Thai police and gave details of the killing that was not known to the public. Such as the murder weapon and its where-a-bouts. Not to be to quick to join the bandwagon, it appears it is rightous arrest, however it should be easy to prove concidering all they have to do is test his DNA and match it with the DNA left at the scene.

Lingbaah, Karr was under arrest, but was not in jail or prison, he was holding a parole card, and the police were holding his passport. That is why when contacted by the Feds, they went to his appartment and rearrested him.

condotown; OJ was the killer... we all know it.... but anyways.. ON TOPIC did anyone notice how they trash talked Thailand as being like a place for prostitution and child abuse... like... way to bash the place he was hiding... and they also went into talking about how many child molesters and creeps end up coming to Thailand to get away..... I hate the Media..

By the way.. the reason they were even LOOKING for this guy.. was because they found blood under her finger nail and it belonged to this teacher... he has not been to the US in 7-8 years.. dodging it with every chance.. i know i should push things before the courts decide... but alot of the stuff was already figured out... they just needed to find the GUY... now they did... gonna put it before a Judge and see what the outcome is

-- ditto --

>_<

His schol is oly 2 blocks from my office. Safe me !!