Questions Surround JonBenet Suspect

Prosecutors became interested in Karr through a series of e-mails he sent to a University of Colorado journalism professor who has made documentaries about JonBenet's killing. The professor, Michael Tracey, said he had been corresponding with Karr -- who used an assumed name in the e-mail exchange -- for "about four years" before he mentioned the correspondence to the prosecutor's office. In an interview, Tracey would not say why he alerted prosecutors.

According to one source close to the investigation, Boulder County prosecutors asked federal investigators to help identify the e-mails' author by his pseudonym. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett in Atlanta and Police Chief Ed Williams of Roswell, Ga., said they also provided help -- including an agent and police sergeant specializing in computer crime investigative resources -- to the effort to identify and locate Karr.

Working with the FBI, Lacy said, she learned about 10 days ago that he was in Bangkok and sent an investigator there.

Yesterday, Karr, a slim, youthful-looking man, appeared nervous and spoke slowly, almost dazed, as he was peppered with reporters' questions when he appeared in a Thai immigration detention center. "I loved JonBenet very much," he said. "Her death was an accident." Asked whether he is innocent, he shook his head and replied, "No."

He also said that he had "contacted the Ramsey family, especially before Patricia passed away, and I conveyed to her many things, among them, that I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet."

Karr was born in Georgia and went to live with his grandparents in Hamilton, Ala., when he was in elementary school. He graduated from Hamilton High School in 1983.

The next year, when Karr was 19, he married a 13-year-old girl from Hamilton, Quientana Shotts, county court records show. Shotts filed for divorce a year later, complaining that she was "fearful for her life and safety." In a response filed with the court, Karr contested her age, saying she was in fact 14.

He was 24 when he married his second wife, Lara, who was 16 and pregnant with twins at the time. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the babies died at birth less than four months later; they were named Angel and Innocence.

The résumés Karr posted on the Internet describe a globetrotting child educator and caretaker. He said he held teaching jobs in Costa Rica, Honduras, Germany, the Netherlands and Korea. In one résumé he posted on the Job 4 Teacher International Recruiting Web site, he said he cared for three German children: "I awoke the children in the morning and gave them breakfast. I helped the children get ready for school and escorted them to the bus. At days end, I made sure the children had their evening bath, then put them to bed and read to them before they went to sleep."

From 1996 to 2001, his résumés said, he taught at some of the most prestigious schools in the United States. But according to wire service reports, he was removed in 1996 -- the year of JonBenet's death -- from the substitute-teacher list in Marion County in Alabama after complaints from parents. From 1996 to 1998, he also studied elementary education at Bevill State Community College in Alabama. He left in 1998 without a degree.

Marion County Probate Judge Annette Haney remembers seeing Karr around town with his wife, a "young-looking blond girl he usually had by the hand." Karr was selling used autos at the time and would often come to the courthouse to handle vehicle registrations with Haney.

"He drove around town in a fancy little red car," she said. "Out here in the country, you don't see a Jaguar or the types of cars he drove." She said he never held a job for long.