John Mark Karr's Neighbors Want Him Out

(CBS/AP)  An Atlanta neighborhood association continues to discuss residents' concerns about the man who briefly was a suspect in the slaying of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey and is now living in the community.

Living about a mile from a playground, John Mark Karr makes many parents uneasy, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.

"I was shocked and very disappointed that he's not behind bars," said Kelly Seagraves, the mother of a 6-year-old. "I've kind of sheltered him from it, because it hadn't been a concern to us. But now it's going to directly affect us and I'm going to have to talk to him about it."

In a telephone interview Monday, Karr told CBS affiliate WGCL he loves Atlanta and it breaks his heart that his neighbors feel so strongly about him. He said the neighborhood is just as safe today as it was before he moved in. He also said he is not a sex offender, and it is unfair to treat him that way.

Members of the Chastain Park Civic Association met again Monday night at a private school near the park to discuss their concerns.

Last week, the president of the association sent an e-mail to the group's two-thousand homeowner-members announcing that John Mark Karr has moved into his father's home in the north Atlanta neighborhood where houses are on the market for more than $600,000 dollars.

"When you have mothers calling you on the phone who are frightened and crying and fearful for their children's safety, you have to take that seriously. You have to take action," civic association president Jim King told Strassmann.

The e-mail points out that Karr's home is near a playground and states "as you may recall there have been many published reports in newspapers on Mister Karr relating to incidents in Colorado, California, and Thailand," followed by an Internet link to media reports about Karr.

After Karr's release from a California jail on Oct. 5, he said he intended to live with his father in Atlanta and possibly a return to teaching.

"I've been here 55 years. I've got a right to stay here," Wexford Karr told a local reporter, adding that his son is welcome to stay with him as long as he wants.

Karr has not been convicted of any crime that would require him to register as a sex offender or restrict where he can live or work.

"There's nothing legally we can do to get him out of our neighborhood and I don't know how much pressure the civic association and security can do about him," Gillian Sherbourne, the mother of three girls, tells WGCL. "All I know is it completely freaks me out."

Soon after taking a teaching job in Thailand, Karr was arrested in August and brought to the United States after he claimed to have killed JonBenet, the child beauty queen found strangled in her home in Boulder, Colo., in 1996.

Authorities later said DNA evidence showed Karr confessed to a crime he did not commit.

After being cleared in the slaying, Karr was sent to California to face charges of possessing child pornography. But the case was dropped and he was released Oct. 5 because investigators had lost crucial evidence.

[hermit22]

If people who battle through life with perversions were all tested, what would they have in common? HOW did they get that way? WHAT happened to them? WHEN?WHY do relatives and school boards etc. make excuses for them? How much resposibility does Hollywierd and the CA/NY
porno industry have for these people, since often they are some of their best customers?How much resposibilty does the "false religion" of tollerance have in covering for evil thereby diluting judgements that would spare people from getting involved with certain evil things in the first place?How much resposibility has the judicial system got because of passing the buck?How much of this perversion keeps going on and on just because of the sheer intimidation of the evil itself?Its like being in World War II and not speaking until the soldier is 80 years old!Like when the perp is DEAD then finally people might start speaking.Even then, people are told to "let bygones be bygones".and the stench rolls on.

[jennydo]

I am not happy with him living in Alabama, Georgia, or anywhere else for that matter where he is near any children, schools, or hell, our pets! He is clearly...unstable and is past the point of "help" and should be locked up!..So what..DNA cleared him..and the other charges were dropped! He is sick....very sick! and I do not want him near my children! Just being in the same state is too close! I do not know where he could live..nor do I care that he is faced w/ that problem! The sick-o brought that on himself! The US brought him back...and now they should ship him back out! Its only a matter of time...before something happens to one of our children...and he will probably be behind it!...The man has problems...and should be dealt with~

and in regard to the above comment about "looking to our failure for answers"...its not "our" failure thats the problem, yet we have to suffer from whoever failed him (altho its possible, no one failed him..HE is responsible for his own actions) and "Why not model your healthy, loving, intelligent, humorous way of living and see if any answers arrive thru that way of being."......IT WOULD BE ..OH-SO- VERY NICE IF LIFE WORKED THAT WAY! BUT IT DOESNT, SO WE HAVE TO BE PARANOID..AND AWARE FOR OURSELVES TO PROTECT "OUR" CHILDREN, B/C THE "SYSTEM" FAILED!...BUT YOU CAN BET ...IF HES LIVING HERE IN ALABAMA.....ONE OF OUR "GOOD OLE REDNECKS" WILL MORE THAN LIKELY....TAKE CARE OF HIM!

[concernedmom-2009]

I would be concern for this guy to be near any children. He confessed to a murder which prove that he didn't commit. He would have been charged with child pornography but the police lost it. For now people of North Atlanta should be extra cautious around him. Wait for him to slip up again and take good care of the evidence. He thinks he's better than ice cream for kids. Yeah right!

[bama4u]

I would like to say that Atlanta does not have to worry about John Mark Karr being there...BECAUSE he is in Hamilton, Al right NOW. He has been to the Wal-Mart store buying supplies and other stores. He is back staying at the house that he lived at years ago. We have seen him. He needs to be doing community service somewhere to pay for all the FREE plane trips and other items he has received since his BIG "story". Also, he needs to somehow pay back the family of Jon Benet', for all the new heart ache he has caused them. I mean....didn't that "runaway" bride have to do community service????!!!!Thanks for reading.

[blondmadison]

Where is he supposed to go? He is a product of this specific society. If you don't like how he turned out, look to your failure for the answers.

No, I do not want him or anyone else preying on my children. Of course not. There has to be an answer which does not support hateful paranoid behavior as an immediate remedy until you think of something else.

Why not model your healthy, loving, intelligent, humorous way of living and see if any answers arrive thru that way of being.

[grumpas]

I will donate money to a one way ticket back to Thialand! He took the taxpayer and should have to reimburse the money! Everyone else here would have to!

[sharijm]

Has anyone considered sending him back to Thailand?

After being arrested there, and then deciding to confess to a murder he didn't commit to get out of the country.....I'm curious about a)what the charges were, and b) what the punishment would be if he was tried and convicted there.

If the Boulder Co. DA, or whomever authorized his extradition, was willing to pay to bring him back here, maybe Thailand might want him back.

He seems to be an individual that has real problems, and doesn't want or hasn't had any help in dealing with them.

Just mho.

[hermit22]

Oh, it is so encouraging to see that this sick pervert gets to a $600,000 neighborhood. Most of the time these guys get dumped in PovertyPitzville and when some healthy kid has had enough of some pervert's advances and fights back with a pipe in some alley,sadly enough the KID gets hauled off for being a juvey.

Poor dad,he is deceiving himself if he thinks he can do much for his son now. Dad is only about 35 or 40 years too late. There IS a place called EXODUS
somewhere down in Florida for sexual deviants.Maybe Dad could send his son there.The community could take up a collection.If you are in a $600,000 neighborhood, you can afford it.

[flolake]

John Mark Karr, time & nature will take care of John Mark Karr. And, with a little help from the Atlanta P.D. or NBC, I'm relatively sure that this Karr subject can be stung...

[bamacub38]

John is a sick person who really needs help. He will refuse it. He is the type person that bears constant watching. He was fired from several positions in Alabama as a teacher and left UNA under mysterious circumstances.