UPDATE: A New Rush to Judgment in Ramsey Case?

By: E&P Staff Is the press going overboard in its coverage of the latest twist in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case -- and suggesting, too early, that the suspect suddenly in custody, John Karr, is guilty?

An Associated Press dispatch late Thursday afternoon raised questions which it said "led some to wonder whether Karr was the answer to the long-unsolved slaying or a disturbed wannabe trying to insert himself into a high-profile case."

The New York Times later on Thursday observed that "by day?s end, it remained unclear whether Mr. Karr?s confession was genuine or the product of a troubled, attention-seeking man who had already exhibited a fervent fascination in the sexual abuse of children in general, and in the death of JonBenet Ramsey in particular."

It all seemed so much simpler earlier in the day. The front page headline in New York's Daily News read: "SOLVED." The main arrest story in Denver's Rocky Mountain News opened starkly: "The decade-long search for JonBenet Ramsey's killer came to a startling end in Thailand on Wednesday."

The same paper, in a headline for an editorial, declared, "Arrest is warning against rush to judgment." It didn't mean now. It meant the wide belief in the past that one of the girl's parents may have killed her. Now the same might soon be said about the early media coverage of the Karr arrest.

The Boston Herald editorial was titled: "A tragedy nears an end." The Denver Post carried a headline: "Family's years of fear, anger come to an end." But a few hours later another headline there read: "Cracks in confession fuel skepticism."

Investigators in Thailand told the Associated Press on Thursday that Karr has made several dubious statements to them, including claims that he picked JonBenet up from school the day she was killed and that he drugged her. Actually, she was on Christmas vacation at the time, and there was no evidence of drugs in her body during the autopsy.

Then, on Friday, the same Thai officials, again speaking to AP, changed their account of what Karr had said to them.

In any event, much of the media at first downplayed assertions by Karr's ex-wife that he was with her in Alabama at the time of the murder.

Boston University journalism professor Fred Bayles, a longtime national writer for The Associated Press and USA Today -- among other subjects, he covered the O.J. Simpson murder probe -- told E&P today: "The latest chapter in the JonBenet case offers a journalistic cautionary for both the past and the future.

?For now, there are questions about the suspect?s claim he was with the girl when she died. His ex-wife has said he was in Alabama at the time of the killing and that, also, he was apparently obsessed with this case and another one in California. The media might be better served to hold off on the breathless rush to pronouncements in this case, as we?ve seen in the past.

?Everyone is going to look pretty foolish if there is no solid evidence, such as DNA, to back up his claims of involvement.

?It was this same rush to judgment that in the past made this case even more of a tragedy for the Ramsey family ... the focus of so-called journalists whose careers, and egos, were devoted to implicating them. I?m wondering how those people will feel if Karr is convicted."

Indeed, after many in the media had already passed judgment, the district attorney in the Ramsey slaying, Mary Lacy, said Thursday there is "much more work" to be done in the case against the suspect, and she warned the public not to "jump to conclusions."

?It?s a wacky confession full of holes,? said Craig Silverman, a legal analyst in Colorado who has watched the case closely for years.

Looking at the larger picture, Bayles comments that "the larger question for the media is how and why cases like these take on such a lurid life of their own? Is the public really that interested or are certain elements of the media driving the interest? Indeed, this case became a cottage industry for various aspects of the media, not just confined to cable television and the tabloids.

?Some of the reasons are obvious. If there had not been the endless tape loop of this cute little girl performing in various beauty pageants made up as a woman/child, this story probably would not have been a media obsession initially driven by the broadcast media."

Scott Robinson, legal analyst for a Denver TV station, said Thursday, ?In this particular case when you have an uncorroborated confession, I think it?s good to be cynical and to be skeptical. The suspect seems to be ducking questions about his connection to the Ramsey family? how the little girl came to be in the basement with him in the first place....

?This is either the break that we have all been waiting for, or the biggest hoax that?s ever been perpetrated in the JonBenet Ramsey case, a case that has had its share of wacky people involved in it.?