DISTURBED - DID TV JUMP THE GUN ON JONBENET STORY?

DID TV JUMP THE GUN ON JONBENET STORY?

New developments in the case of John Mark Karr have raised questions about whether TV news coverage may have been too quick in assuming that Karr was the killer of JonBenet Ramsey. Early reports had indicated that Karr had confessed to drugging the six-year-old before he "accidentally" killed her. However, reports pointed out, an autopsy showed no trace of drugs in her body. Moreover, Karr's ex-wife said on San Francisco's KGO-TV Thursday that her husband was with her and their children for Christmas 1996, when JonBenet was murdered and that in fact he had never missed spending Christmas with the family from 1989 to 2000. Also on Thursday, Mark Klaas, the father of murdered Polly Klaas, while saying that he was disturbed by reports that Karr had shown interest in his daughter's case and had corresponded with her killer, nevertheless called Karr "a deeply disturbed individual" and implied that Karr may have been delusional when he confessed to killing JonBenet. "I am very skeptical this guy did it," Klaas said. Meanwhile, the case has boosted ratings for each of the cable news networks, in particular, MSNBC, which broke the news of Karr's arrest and devoted most of its programming schedule to it.

18/08/2006