By Marilyn Bardsley  

(Continured)

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Five years later in 2006, Boulder authorities are aware that University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey has been engaging in a multi-year email correspondence with John Mark Karr who called himself "Daxis."  Before her death from ovarian cancer in June, Patsy Ramsey was visited by Boulder County DA Mary Lacy. Patsy Ramsey went to her grave with the expectation that finally a suspect in the murder of her daughter was being investigated.

But was it really being investigated? During the two months after Lacy's commitment to the dying mother of JonBenet what was really accomplished? The obvious issues in vetting whether John Mark Karr was a suspect were whether he was ever in Boulder at the time of JonBenet's death and whether his DNA matched the forensic evidence in the case. However, it appears as though neither of these two obvious investigative activities were initiated, which is why Lacy and company were caught flatfooted when the identity of Karr was leaked to the media.

According to published reports, no efforts were made to determine whether Karr was at home with family around Christmas, 1996 when JonBenet was murdered, nor was any DNA gathered. Perhaps Lacy had not read about another high-profile case when DNA was gathered surreptitiously in the notorious BTK/Dennis Rader investigation. Not long ago in Wichita, authorities got a secret warrant for DNA of Dennis Rader's daughter from a pap test. Boulder authorities could have gotten a warrant for a DNA sample from Karr's children or even more likely could have persuaded Karr's ex-wife to get a voluntary sample from the children.

To make matters worse, when authorities went over to Bangkok to bring Karr back to the U.S. and when Karr finally agreed to provide a DNA sample, investigators did not have the kit to take a DNA sample, according to the Denver Post.

As details begin to flow from this fiasco and calls for accountability become increasingly shrill from a strident media that had doubts about the suspect all along, Boulder authorities are likely to be looked at as "Keystone Cops."

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Marilyn Bardsley

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