By Adam Geller

(AP) — As investigators puzzle the life and mind of John Mark Karr, who confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey, they must unravel an elaborate narrative woven in part by Karr, much of it constructed around a chilling yearning to be close to children.

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Karr is a man who, while wanted as a fugitive on child pornography charges, sought to impress prospective employers with a long record claiming accomplishment preparing young lives "for a successful future."

He is a man who twice married teenagers—one just 13. Both would later claim they had been coerced.

And he is a man who years ago confided to family members that he was deeply troubled by JonBenet's murder.

One of Karr's former wives, Lara Knutson, told KGO-TV in California that her ex-husband spent a lot of time studying the cases of Ramsey and Polly Klaas, who was abducted from her Petaluma, Calif., home and slain in 1993.

It's difficult to know how much to believe of the life that Karr, who is 41, says he has led. But in his own words, much seems real.

"I awoke the children in the morning and gave them breakfast," Karr wrote in one online resume, recounting life as a private teacher and caregiver of three girls in Germany, aged 7, 11 and 12. "At day's end, I made sure the children had their evening bath, then put them to bed and read to them before they went to sleep."

Karr, who arrived in Thailand earlier this year looking for work as a teacher, claims to have spent years skipping from job to job, country to country, nearly always working with children.

School officials in Alabama and California confirmed that he worked in both states as a substitute teacher in the latter half of the 1990s and in 2001.

Karr is remembered in his hometown of Hamilton, Ala., as a smart kid who played in the high school band.

"You couldn't help but like John. He always had something going on," said Marion County School Supt. Bravell Jackson.

As an adult, Karr wrote in one online resume that he worked for years in real estate and restored old homes.

His work in schools appears to have begun in 1996, the year of JonBenet's murder.

According to the resume, that was the start of a five-year stint teaching in "some of the most prestigious schools in the United States."

1st teen bride

In 1984, when Karr was 19, he married Quientana Shotts, who was 13 at the time, records show.

Shotts filed for an annulment the following year, complaining that she was "fearful for her life and safety."

In 1989, Karr remarried, this time to Knutson. She was 16 at the time. Their twin daughters, named Angel and Innocence, died the day they were born on Sept. 1, 1989.

Karr and his wife later had three other children.

Karr's sole Alabama teaching experience was as a substitute in 1996.

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