Arrested Man Wanted for Questioning in JonBenet Ramsey Case

Aug. 16, 2006 — -- John Mark Karr, 41-year-old former schoolteacher who is wanted for questioning in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, is under arrest in Bangkok, Thailand, on unrelated sex charges, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

Ramsey, a 6-year-old child beauty pageant winner, was found strangled and beaten to death in the basement of her family's Boulder, Colo., home on Dec. 26, 1996, in a case that shocked the nation and cast suspicion on the girl's parents who fought to prove their innocence.

The man under arrest was charged in 2001 with possession of child pornography in Sonoma County, Calif., and is also wanted in that state for failing to appear in court, sources told ABC News.

The arrest came early today, according to the Boulder County District Attorney's Office.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials, along with the Boulder County police, helped identify and locate the suspect, sources told ABC News.

JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, first found a handwritten ransom note on the back staircase of the home where her daughter was later found murdered almost a decade ago. It demanded $118,000 -- the exact amount the little girl's father, John Ramsey, had received as a corporate bonus -- if the family ever wanted to see JonBenet again. Eight hours later, Patsy Ramsey found her badly beaten daughter's body in the basement.

From the beginning, the focus of suspicion was directed squarely at her father, a software millionaire, and his wife, a former beauty queen.

The Ramseys refused to take lie-detector tests and would only agree to be interviewed by police together.

Yet the Ramseys were steadfast in defending their innocence.

"Let me assure you, I did not kill JonBenet," Patsy Ramsey said then.

The Ramseys offered a reward of $100,000 to the person who captured their daughter's killer. They also wrote a memoir, "The Death of Innocence," and filed libel suits against several news outlets. Three years after the murder, investigators officially cleared the Ramseys.

"Our family name has been destroyed," John Ramsey said. "We want the killer of our daughter found."

But never-ending speculation in the tabloid press, and numerous books, continued to feed the nation's interest.

"It is our hope that this arrest will bring some closure to the Ramsey family after a 10-year ordeal," Haddon said today. "We respect the legal process and will have no further comment about the case or the evidence until that process is concluded."

The District Attorney's Office in Boulder said it would hold a news conference Thursday regarding the arrest. Boulder police did not immediately comment on the case.

When the case broke, an army of more than 150 journalists descended on the college town at the foot of the Colorado Rocky Mountains and pursued the story vigorously for months.

The Boulder Police Department was criticized as "inept" by some and accused of "bungling" the case by others.

All the while, the Ramseys maintained their innocence. In an interview with Barbara Walters, both Patsy Ramsey and her husband, John, were asked point blank if they'd murdered their daughter. Both emphatically denied it.

Patsy Ramsey, who died earlier this summer after a long battle with ovarian cancer, seemed to be the focus of much of the media attention. As a former beauty queen, she had encouraged her daughter to enter child beauty pageants. Some who wrote about JonBenet's death suggested that Patsy had become jealous of her 6-year-old daughter's success.

Now, Valerie Cordova, a spokeswoman for the family, said the Ramseys are relieved that finally some closure may be on the horizon.

ABC News' Bill Redeker contributed to this report.