08/23/06 Reports

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by RiverRat, Aug 23, 2006.

  1. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/county_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2423_4937937,00.html

    DNA may lead to dead end
    By Vanessa Miller, Camera Staff Writer
    August 23, 2006

    DNA swiped from John Mark Karr after his arrest last week in connection with the JonBenet Ramsey murder might be irrelevant, in part because "something got screwed up" when samples were taken from the crime scene in 1996, a former investigator on the case said.

    Bill Wise, former first assistant with the Boulder County District Attorney's Office, said that although DNA "absolutely could be one of the biggest things in the case," it could also be nothing.

    Some of the DNA taken from the 6-year-old pageant queen's fingernails and underwear was "degraded," Wise said. He said the tool used to take samples wasn't clean.

    "It had foreign DNA on it," he said.

    The other "minuscule" sample, which is probably blood, was mixed with JonBenet's DNA, he said. That leaves investigators with the daunting task of trying to match a partial DNA strand with a sample from John Karr.

    "The amount of DNA is small enough that it could exclude someone. But it could not go so far for the inclusion," Wise said.

    Partial strands might narrow possible matches down to one person in every 100,000, he said.

    "The beauty of DNA is that if you have enough of it, you can say there is only one person in the solar system with that DNA," he said. "But if there's not very much of it, you can't take it down that far."

    It shouldn't take long for investigators to know if they have an approximate match, Wise said. A sample can be tested in 48 hours.

    Investigators from Bangkok swabbed Karr's mouth for DNA, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Karr was to be given another DNA test upon returning to the United States, the official said last week.

    But two California attorneys, who are advising Karr, told CNN's Larry King on his talk show Tuesday that no DNA has been taken from the 41-year-old schoolteacher.

    Colorado Bureau of Investigation officials were in meetings all day Tuesday and didn't comment about whether Karr's DNA has been submitted to their department. Denver police wouldn't confirm or deny whether their office is holding a sample from Karr or from the scene nearly a decade ago.

    Atlanta police officers and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation didn't comment about Karr's DNA testing Tuesday.

    If investigators can't land what analysts have called a "600-pound gorilla" by confirming a DNA match, they might still be able to convict Karr using other physical evidence, Wise said.
     
  2. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/23/ramsey.arrest/index.html?section=cnn_latest

    (CNN) -- John Mark Karr, the man facing charges in the slaying of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey 10 years ago, told an officer in Thailand last week that he had sex with the girl before she died but added "there was no penetration," a Thai official said Wednesday

    "Karr then said, 'There are so many ways to have sex,' then he went quiet," Thai Immigration chief Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul told CNN.

    Karr's disclosure to the officer on duty was the only time the suspect mentioned sex involving the 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant during the four days he was held in Thai custody, Suwat said.

    The family members Harris is representing said they would have remembered if Karr was not with his family because Karr was not well-off, Harris said. The family would have remembered if he had taken a plane trip somewhere.

    Harris said later Tuesday he would turn over to Boulder police a photograph taken at Christmas of 1996, showing Karr's three sons and another child. Karr is not seen in the photograph. The attorney said family members asserted that if Karr's three children were there, then Karr was as well.

    Karr's second ex-wife, Lara Knutson, told a San Francisco television station last week that he was with her and the children during the entire 1996 Christmas season in Alabama.

    However, according to Knutson's attorney, Michael Rains, "Lara has not located a photograph which places Mr. Karr either at their home in Hamilton, Alabama, or in any other location on or about Christmas Day 1996
     
  3. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Sto...-4FA3-B6FF-48715BB4D8A5}&dist=rss&siteid=mktw

    JonBenet coverage makes me feel ashamed
    Commentary: It's no wonder that the public hates journalists

    NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- I'm ashamed to be a journalist. Yes, again.
    Like little kids who continually put their hands in a flame and get burned every time, my profession just never learns from its mistakes. We have an unfortunate habit of hyping the wrong stories. Over and over. And when it comes to assessing the effect that our foolishness has on our craft's reputation, it's practically a fatal flaw.

    The most recent shining, hideous example of our collective disgraceful judgment is the coverage of the flake who claims he killed JonBenet Ramsey a decade ago. When the young Colorado girl was found dead 10 years ago during the notoriously slow Christmas news season, the saga had all the ingredients of a great pulp-nonfiction media sensation: a little (white) girl's mysterious death, suspicion centering on her parents and the utter inability of law enforcement figures to solve the case. (I suspect that there wouldn't have been a comparable media storm, if a little girl of color had been found dead.)

    Here we go all over again. Yes, I'm sorry to say it: the circus is back in town.
    No wonder people hate the media. I do, too, sometimes. We drop the ball again and again and yet we act baffled and indignant when those polls come out saying that in the public's view, journalists are one cut above, say, sanitation workers. We feel hurt when the public tells us that it hates and distrusts our profession.

    Then we blow it all over again with a story like the JonBenet example. How did the media bungle this story? Let me count the ways:
    When a kook named John Mark Karr stepped out from under a rock and insisted he was the little girl's true killer, reporters acted as if his strange confession had to be a slam-dunk. Where was the natural skepticism toward someone who so desperately wants to be famous?

    Of course, it's nothing new for news organizations to believe people at face value. Just as the media blindly trust the words of politicians and CEOs who issue self-serving press releases, we initially believed Karr. He offered such dubious testimony -- his own ex-wife asserted that he couldn't have done it because he was allegedly in Alabama at the time of the murder -- that he might as well have copped to killing JFK instead of JonBenet.

    Television networks constantly presented the grotesque footage of JonBenet as a toddler cavorting around like a pint-sized Madonna. Maybe it wasn't quite "kiddie-porn," as some horrified pundits claimed. But it was close enough.
    Worst of all, the media relentlessly played up the importance of this pathetic story at the expense of following the real news of the day, in Iraq and the Middle East.

    Then again, I should remember that this is a major story because of two dead giveaways. a) Even from the grave, JonBenet obviously continues to have star power because the media can identify her merely by her first name and everyone knows her and b) likewise, the media promptly began calling the self-professed killer with his first, middle and last names.
    Yes, it's a delicious, made-to-order story of murder and intrigue. Still, just this once, can't we let JonBenet rest in peace? Please?
     
  4. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    Thanks, RR. These are great articles.
     
  5. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    Thanks - I am just trying to cover articles that stray from the AP repetativeness!
     
  6. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    YES! Baggett of "Handwriting U." Disqualified As Expert Witness!

    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4937378,00.html

    WRITING ANALYST WAS DISQUALIFIED
    Judge challenged expertise of man linking note to Karr

    Print By Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News
    August 23, 2006

    A handwriting analyst who said he is 99.9 percent certain that John Mark Karr wrote the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note was disqualified as an expert witness earlier this year by a federal judge who challenged his expertise.

    Georgia Federal District Court Judge Clay Land wrote that analyst Curtis Baggett was not certified by several industry groups, had not undergone proficiency tests and had not authored texts in the field of handwriting analysis.


    In comparison to another expert witness, Land said Baggett's qualifications "are clearly paltry."

    Baggett responded Tuesday that he has testified in more than 2,500 cases and was successfully disqualified in only about four. He said he has never been disqualified when he has appeared at trial.

    A document examiner studying at Handwriting University, a training company that Baggett and his son run, says sniping is not unusual in the field.

    [snip]

    In 2004, a federal magistrate in Maine also challenged Baggett's credentials and excluded his testimony in a civil case there.

    Baggett said he was staking a large part of his reputation on his judgment that Karr wrote the ransom note.

    He said there were at least 12 points of similarity between the ransom note and the yearbook entry.

    Texas document examiner Linda James, however, said that while there are similarities between the yearbook writing and the ransom note, more evidence is needed.

    "There are too many other things to consider," she said.

    She also said Baggett had considered similarities, but not dissimilarities.


    [snip]
    ---------------------------------

    Woo Hoo! :jumpie: The truth is finally starting to come out!

    And if Baggett is "staking a large part of his reputation on his judgment that Karr wrote the ransom note," then HE JUST SENT HIS REPUTATION TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET!!!!

    Oh, this is sweet.
     
  7. Show Me

    Show Me FFJ Senior Member

    Hah! Another Tracey like expert bites the dust...

    What a poor spinster to do when all their experts end up disqualified?
     
  8. Why_Nut

    Why_Nut FFJ Senior Member

    For what it is worth, John Ramsey is on the move again, flying out of Charlevoix at about 9:30 Eastern time. That, or presumably someone authorized to fly his plane. The aircraft is headed towards a Knoxville, Tennessee airport.
     
  9. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    I have been amazed that these two shills have been on every so-called "NEWS" program since the yearbook showed up. It has been mind-boggling. If they wanted to be fair, they'd have shown their analysis of Patsy's writing as well. I think we all know that Patsy has PLENTY of similarities in her exemplars.

    I have thought that since Wood went on LKL and threatened Wendy Murphy, the shows suddenly had changed their song and bent over backwards to find people who would imply that Karr is the intruder.
     
  10. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    Maybe he wants to become a country singer.
     
  11. Barbara

    Barbara FFJ Senior Member

    Maybe he's headed to Graceland

    Elvis has left the building!
     
  12. Why_Nut

    Why_Nut FFJ Senior Member

    Under the circumstances, maybe the Thomas Nelson publishers want to make friends with him again for another book (hoping that this time it will not hurt the company financially as DOI did).
     
  13. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    Wow Why-Nut - talk about up to the minute reporting!
     
  14. Shadow

    Shadow FFJ Senior Content Moderator

    "...journalists are one cut above, say, sanitation workers."

    Wrong example!! Sanitation workers are mostly good people. Should have used politicians, DA's and/or lawyers...

    3,000 people were killed in Iraq last month, and when the media can drag itself away from JonBenet, they are still debating a "civil war." Credibility??? What's that?
     
  15. Why_Nut

    Why_Nut FFJ Senior Member

    Really. Now the plane has diverted from Knoxille and is headed to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge.
     
  16. South

    South Member

    Is John going to Dollywood?
     
  17. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    Back where Patsy spent her last days???
     
  18. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    Where else can he find a bigger boobs than Smit and Karr?
     
  19. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    I was thinking about Woody's backtracking on the DNA Monday night on LKL.

    After years of us hearing/reading EVERY SINGLE DAY that the DNA is the KEY to solving this murder case...now...not so much, Wood says.

    Hello?

    Now we have MORE CONFLICTING REPORTS that they took Karr's DNA in Bangkok; no, they didn't; they should have gotten it while following him around; they took it in CA; no, they didn't.

    As absurd as this all is, as impossibly incompetent all of it is...Wood is the one source who originally told us the DNA had been taken in Bangkok.

    Then he's on LKL Monday saying...not so important.

    I think maybe that original swab of DNA came back...no match.

    Well, we'll see.
     
  20. South

    South Member

    :laffbig:
     
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