A dramatic breakthrough in the star...

A dramatic breakthrough in the star-crossed investigation into the brutal kill cruelly of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey came Wednesday with the arrest in Bangkok, Thailand, of a man who has allegedly granted to the slaying that captivated the world for its tragedy and intrigue.

The arrest of 41-year-old former teacher John Mark Karr take rises just less than two month after the death from ovarian cancer of JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey.

Friends and sources stop up to the Ramsey family identified the suspect in custody as Karr, who had been residing in the Atlanta area, where the Ramseys one time lived.

A source conclude to the family said Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy's office had been focusing onward Karr for at least several month and that Patsy Ramsey, who died June 24 was made aware of the Karr lead.

onward Feb. 1, during Patsy Ramsey's last trip to Colorado, Patsy and John Ramsey met in Boulder with Lacy at her office to discuss the status of the case.

Lacy also raised near eyebrows by attending Patsy Ramsey's memorial service June 29 in Roswell, Ga.

INVESTIGATOR'S WORK CITED

Also in the ecclesiastical authority that morning was former El Paso shire homicide investigator Lou Smit, who had worked the case before quitting in September 1998 in attest of the fact that JonBenet's parents were the central focus of several other investigators.

Smit, sources said Wednesday, was common of those whose persistence and fresh work in the case helped lead to Wednesday's arrest.

Sources told the hard Mountain News that the break in the case was sparked by the agency of tips developed outside Lacy's office from investigators who had pursued the case for years.

The Ramseys' Atlanta attorney, Lin grove said Karr confessed to constituent principles of the crime. And a law enforcement source, speaking upon condition of anonymity, told the Associated Pres that Karr had been communicating periodically with one in Boulder who had been following the case and cooperating with law enforcement officials.

if it were not that a senior police official in Thailand said Karr denied the charges when he was arrested.

"When we informed him that he has been accused of committing a crime at residence he denied all accusations," the official said.

Royal Thai police arrested Karr in daylight in Bangkok in succession Wednesday. A source said Karr was engageed in Bangkok and had lived there for an undetermined time.

In a television interview Wednesday, John Ramsey said, "The justice regularity needs to run its course, and I don't want to speculate and discuss what I know or don't know."

The Ramsey family's attorney in Atlanta called the arrest vindication for JonBenet's parents.

RAMSEYS KNEW SUSPECT

"John and Patsy lived their lives knowing they were innocent, trying to raise a son despite the furor around them," Lin copse said. "The story of this family is a story of courage and story of an American injustice and tragedy that ultimately the public will have to look back onward and hopefully learn from."

Karr was a teacher who one time lived in Conyers, Ga., according to grove The attorney said the Ramseys gave police information about Karr before he was identified as a suspect.

thicket would not say how the Ramseys knew Karr. still JonBenet was born in Atlanta in 1990 and the Ramseys lived in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody for several years before moving to Colorado in 1991

JonBenet was set beaten and strangled in the basement of the family's family circle in Boulder on Dec. 26 1996 Patsy Ramsey reported finding a ransom note in the house demanding $118000 for her daughter.

The image of blond-haired little JonBenet in a cowgirl style of dress and other beauty pageant outfits has haunted TV talk point out tos ever since, helping feed myriad theories about her killer, and the slaying became the same of the most sensational unsolv massacre cases in the nation.

from one side of to the other the years, some experts indicateed that investigators had botched the case in such a manner thoroughly that it might at no time be solved.

Investigators at undivided point said JonBenet's parents were beneath an "umbrella of suspicion" in the slaying. And a certain quantity of news accounts cast suspicion upon JonBenet's older brother. But the Ramseys insisted an intruder killed their daughter.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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