J-Prof in Colorado Played Key Role in JonBenet Arrest

By: E&P Staff A University of Colorado journalism professor from Great Britain played a key role in yesterday's arrest of a suspect in the decade-old JonBenet Ramsey killing.

Law enforcement officials in Boulder began to focus on the arrested man, John Mark Karr, based on his e-mail exchanges with a journalism professor at the University of Colorado named Michael Tracey.

Karr, 41, will be taken within the week to Colorado, where he will face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault, Ann Hurst of the Department of Homeland Security told a news conference in Bangkok. Karr's ex-wife, however, has said that she was with him and in Alabama at the time of the murder, and a false confession by him is possible.

A law-enforcement source confirmed that Karr had been communicating periodically with somebody in Boulder who had been following the case and cooperating with law-enforcement officials.

A University of Colorado spokesman, Barrie Hartman, said journalism professor Tracey communicated with Karr over several months and contacted police. The university spokesman said he didn't know what prompted Tracey to become suspicious of Karr.

Tracey produced a documentary in 2004 called "Who Killed JonBenet?" and two earlier films on the case. He discounted the Ramseys' role in the slaying, favoring instead what was known as the "intruder theory." The New York Times in 1998 quoted him saying: ''The fundamental constitutional right of presumption of innocence has not been granted the Ramseys.''

The Denver Post reported Thursday, "Several weeks ago, the e-mails became so disturbing to Tracey that he went to the Boulder district attorney. Authorities traced Karr to Thailand using his e-mail address, Hartman said. Tracey could not be reached for comment."

Tracey, 63, once said he was toiling in academic obscurity until he wrote an op-ed piece for the Boulder Daily Camera critical of the media's handling of the case. A Ramsey attorney, Bryan Morgan contacted him, leading to interviews with John and Patsy Ramsey and his first film.

The Daily Camera in 2001 quoted Tracey after the release of one of his films: "I find this an extraordinarily disappointing society. In my own tiny way, I really want to say things are badly out of whack in this culture."

A June 25, 2006, article on the Ramsey case in the British daily The Guardian included a few passages on Tracey:

"I meet Michael Tracey in a place he refers to as his 'downtown office' - a bar called the Hungry Toad, which is owned by a Brit and is the only place in Boulder where you can buy a pint of bitter.... He arrives with a manila envelope and tells me knowingly that he feels very close to solving the case. He can't say why, but he tells me that the DNA from JonBenet's underpants has now been tested accurately enough to be logged in the FBI system. Which means that anyone in any part of the country who has committed any crime for which a DNA sample is taken will automatically be cross-checked. Any day now, the FBI may find a match....

"JonBenet's death gripped America, Tracey suggests, because it had everything going for it: 'Sex, sleaze, the rich father, the American dream gone bad... It was a combination of voyeurism, resentment, anger, irrationality, a cultural viciousness. It was Greek - a lot of people focused on it as a kind of catharsis.'

"Where is the catharsis, I ask, if the case is unsolved? 'It's in the hate. Hate the Ramseys, you feel better. This was pretty close to a conspiracy.'"

Tracey's profile at a university site reveals that he is "an internationally recognized researcher and scholar, came to CU in 1988 from England, where he was head of the Broadcasting Research Unit in London, Britain's leading think tank dealing with media issues. He has served as special adviser to the BBC's Community Programmes Unit, consultant to a variety of organizations and honorary visiting research fellow at the University of Bradford. From 1994 to 1999 he was Visiting Professor and Chair of International Communications at the University of Salford in England. From 1991 to 1998 he was a Trustee of the International Institute of Communications....

"He has published extensively in eight books, academic journals, conference papers and popular media. He has also given countless talks and lectures in many countries on the politics, organization and economics of public service broadcasting. Since 1998 he has become a documentary film maker, including producing three documentaries about the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. He is currently researching and writing two books dealing with aspects of what he terms 'the injustice of the American justice system.'"

Karr's ex-wife said today that he had become an expert on the Ramsey case but was with her in Alabama when the murder happened.