An Eerie Ode to JonBenet Ramsey

Aug. 18, 2006 — -- A series of e-mails believed to have been exchanged between John Mark Karr and University of Colorado professor Michael Tracey offer an eerie insight into the mind of the 41-year-old Karr.

Karr confessed Thursday to accidentally killing 6-year-old beauty pageant queen JonBenet Ramsey in 1996.

In one e-mail, Karr asked Tracey to visit the Ramseys' house in Boulder, Colo., and read aloud an ode he called "JonBenet, My Love."

"JonBenet, my love, my life. I love you and shall forever love you. I pray that you can hear my voice calling out to you from my darkness -- this darkness that now separates us," it read, in part.

In others, he described his paranoia after being the target of what he described as a federal investigation for "child murder and molestation."

Below are excerpts from e-mails obtained Thursday by the Rocky Mountain News. (For more on Karr's e-mail exchange with Tracey, visit the Rocky Mountain News here.)

"I am tortured mostly because of my present situation. I appreciate that you would refer to my childhood. It was unique."

"I will tell you that 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. He made an attempt when he talked of sleeping with little boys but was completely misunderstood. I think he made an assertion and quickly had to back down. On the other hand, his comments might have had nothing to do with having the type of sex one might equate with the sense of the term, sex."

"Again, I was talking about you in reference to more intensity. The investigation was Federal. It involved four states. Knowing now that you have my photo, I am not keen on telling you of the specific states. 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. I lost my identity when this happened. This was the easy part. The worst was yet to come."

"I 'want' to tell you much though I cannot due to the fact that it has been revealed to me that you now know what I look like. This is a blow to our conversations and to my sharing. Had I known this earlier, I would have shared less — I am sure of it. With that said, I still responded to your mail in full."

"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."

"I am interested in telling you anything that does not cost me everything as it did in the past."