From observer to a key player in JonBenet case

BOULDER, Colo. — As the JonBenet Ramsey slaying investigation unfolded in his adopted hometown, University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey became convinced of two things: This would allow him to examine what's wrong with American journalism. And someone needed to come to the defense of the girl's parents, who were considered suspects.

After producing three TV documentaries on the subject, the British-born academic finds himself not only an observer of the case but a key player.

For four years, he carried on an e-mail correspondence with John Mark Karr, who was arrested last week in connection with the 1996 slaying of the 6-year-old girl.

It wasn't until May that the e-mail messages concerned Tracey enough to go to investigators. At that point, they began hunting in earnest for Karr, 41, who had not revealed his identity in the correspondence. Last week, they found the teacher in Bangkok, Thailand.

Tracey said he was disturbed by the mistakes made by Boulder police. In an interview Friday, he picked up a stack of crime-scene photos he keeps on his desk, pointing out injuries to JonBenet that contradicted the police theories implicating her mother, father or brother.

Tracey said he had studied the case as part of an academic effort to show his students and ultimately the U.S. public that the story — however tragic and gruesome — was really an overplayed news item.

"I don't regard JonBenet's murder as an important story," said Tracey, 58. "It raises questions about what the role of journalism is in a democratic culture."

Some of the e-mail messages were published in the Rocky Mountain News. The printed excerpts do not incriminate Karr in the slaying, but they do give an insight into Karr's troubled personality.

In one message, Karr, using an alias, wrote, "Sometimes little girls are closer to me than with their parents or any other person in their lives. When I refer to myself as JonBenet's closest, maybe now you understand."

In another, he said he identified with Michael Jackson's attachment to children and, just like the singer, compared himself to Peter Pan.

"I am trapped in a world that does not understand," Karr wrote, "I can understand people like Michael Jackson and feel sympathy when he suffers as he has. ... I do think that he is sexually attracted to certain children but could never divulge this."

In another e-mail, he bemoaned the loss of his job, wife and contact with his three sons after a 2001 child-porn arrest in Petaluma, Calif.: "I lost every friend, contact and family member as a result of this investigation. Some of my closest little girls were questioned by the authorities which broke my heart into pieces. I will never have contact with anyone in my past ever again."

Oliver Gray, one of the investigators who has long probed the case on behalf of the Ramseys, said he has seen many of the e-mail messages and does not believe any highly incriminating e-mail would be released before Karr is charged.

For his part, Tracey is refusing to discuss the contents of the e-mail messages because he said Karr deserves fair treatment, not a trial in the media. "The more serious the crime, the more you need these kinds of protections," Tracey said.

Experts agreed that Tracey's involvement in the case makes for another bizarre twist in the decade-long story.

Anthony Leffert, a Denver attorney and former federal prosecutor, said it is "very unusual" for the course of a criminal investigation to be altered by the work of an unofficial sleuth, especially one who is openly partial to people who had, at one time at least, been suspects in the case.

But he said investigators are obliged to check all information that seems valid, regardless of the source.

He also said that if the case goes to trial — and Karr's attorney argues that his confession was false — the defense could use the source of the information to undermine the prosecution's case.

Scott Robinson, a Denver defense attorney and legal analyst, disagreed. "I don't think Tracey's role is something the defense could effectively use," he said.

"To use an analogy, he's a little like an electrical wire; he passes a current from point A to point B. But as far as we know he didn't change the content of the letters. ... He's just a courier unless they can show there's some mistake that took place along the way, something that he changed or withheld, some kind of hanky-panky."

Karen Steinhauser, a University of Denver adjunct professor and former prosecutor, said the Boulder District Attorney's Office needs to be careful about Tracey's biases.

"This all gets initiated through these e-mails from [a person] trying to put forward the theory that there was an intruder," she said.

But ever since the days not long after the slaying, the investigation has been a battle fought by those who believe the crime was committed by an intruder and others who blame the family.

At one point, prosecutors were ready to indict John Ramsey but pulled back when they realized their lack of DNA evidence against him would doom the prosecution, Tracey said.

Meanwhile, CNN reported Friday that a source close to the case said Karr has given graphic details of the crime scene that are unknown to the public.

That would contradict the assertion of Trip Demuth, the former lead investigator in the case for the Boulder D.A.'s office

"Everything in this case has been released in one form or another to the public," Demuth said. "So there are no hidden smoking guns."

Material from the New York Daily News is included in this report.