THAILAND: JonBenet suspect leaves Thai cell for flight to US

Thai police escorted American schoolteacher John Mark Karr to Bangkok airport on Sunday (August 20) for deportation to the United States to face charges in connection with the 1996 murder of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. Dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and tie, 41 year old Karr looked composed as he was taken from his cell in Bangkok's immigration department to a police van for the drive to the airport. He was due to board a Thai Airways flight direct to Los Angeles departing at 1210 GMT. He was then expected to be flown to Boulder, Colorado, for questioning after telling reporters in Bangkok he was with the six-year-old girl when she died at Christmas a decade ago but that her death was an accident. Karr is to face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault. JonBenet was found in the basement of her Boulder home, strangled with a garrote made from a stick and cord, her skull fractured. Her father discovered the body hours after the girl's mother stumbled on three-page letter claiming she had been kidnapped for a USD118,000 ransom. Karr, arrested in the Thai capital on Wednesday (August 16), said he loved JonBenet and answered "no" when asked whether he was an innocent man. But he did not say how she died. Thai police said Karr was in fair spirits on Sunday. Immigration Police chief Lieutenant-General Suwat Tumroungsiskul said Karr had asked for deep fried chicken and pizza over the weekend which had been delivered to his cell, where he had been under 24 hour suicide watch. The arrest was a surprise development in the case which has drawn intense media coverage focusing on JonBenet's success in child beauty pageants, her family's wealth and mysterious details of the murder, including the bizarre ransom note. Police nabbed Karr a day after he began teaching second grade students at a school in Bangkok, Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy told reporters. She suggested that the arrest came sooner than she would have liked and the investigation still had some way to go. Casting doubt on Karr's story, his ex-wife Lara told KGO-TV in San Francisco Karr was with her in Alabama the entire Christmas season that year and did not believe he could have been involved in JonBenet's murder.

ITN Source | August 20, 2006

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