The media loves a circus.  They feed off it on behalf of rabid television viewers and tabloid paper readers hungrily obsessed with the latest in pop culture bizarre.  Its for that very reason that Richard Ramirez, ‘the Night Stalker’ (and vicious rapist and serial killer) had a fan club during his trial- including one of the jurors who convicted him; or that the Menendez Brothers, who viciously murdered their parents and are doing life in prison- have wives who married them solely based on their celebrity.  There has always been a disturbing and confounding vacancy of morality in American pop culture that makes victims out of predators, and celebrities out of monsters, often leaving the true and literal victims of our various crimes of the century out in the trash.  More than any other type of tabloid news story, the media LOVE a good, old fashioned Bruno Haughtman (the Lindberg Baby Kidnapper) or O.J. Simpson-level murder case.  One where talking heads can babble for days without offering a single substantive point- take Court TV’s Nancy Grace for one instance, who constantly cites her conviction record as a former prosecutor as a qualification and justification for convicting the accused in the media, often before a trial has even started, where she holds her greatest record.  She did it to Karr, and he looked like the guy, but she also did it to Scott Peterson throughout his trial, months and months before he was ever actually found guilty.  In the case of any suspect cable journalist- be it Grace or any of her counterparts in the Cable news media- for as much talking as they do to hype a suspect and story, once they get an exclusive, they love it as much when the subject refuses to offer specifics as when they spill their every secret.  Karr this week offered a wild assortment of additional claims to amend his initial spouting of freak-show fuel, including that he was ‘better than an ice cream cone’ for little girls on the Dr. Keith Ablow Show.  If he was innocent, deny it all, and then wouldn’t you want to come out and say that for the last of the 15 minutes that anyone cares about you???  NOPE, can’t do that, because it would disrupt plans for a BOOK and MOVIE OF THE WEEK.  SHAME on whatever tabloid publisher gives this fuck KARR even one red cent to continue funding his ego basking.  

Karr’s strategy is not new.  Years ago, Steven Seagal pulled the same card trick on the Arsenio Hall Show, claiming he ‘couldn’t comment’ when the talk show host asked about art imitating life in terms of a Top Secret Military background rumored in Vanity Fair that mirrored many of the action star’s movie characters.  His obviously bull-shit reply only worked to add the aura of more mystery than a military file on Seagal ever could have possibly held in real life.  In truth, there was none, and the U.S. Armed Forces Press Office emphatically denied Seagal had ever been part of the U.S. Military.  It's not that different from an instance in which a mystery author claims in interviews that his completely fictional private detective character is based in fact on the adventures of the author himself.  The author by simply refusing comment can fuel speculation and mystery, and historically speaking in that context, the ‘I can’t comment on that’ shield has hid some monumental bullshit once the curtain was pulled back.  Or the D.A. who burrows through a horde of reporters on the court house steps barking out ‘No Comment’ when he knows the answer to every question they’re asking.  It’s a game of suspense, and as pawns, the public is played and plays right along as though we enjoy the waiting.  In a much more modern example of history repeating itself, John Mark Karr has appeared on a number of prime time news shows in this past week, in a series of interviews as bizarre as the freak show himself in which Karr first sought out the opportunity to tell ‘his side of the story’, then countered every question with ‘I can’t comment on that.’  While he offered no countering evidence or logical explanation of any sort to substantiate his claims that he never should have been the subject of media spotlight, it was his claims to begin with that led to that attention in the form of boast after boast in the media that he had been responsible in some way or another for Jon Benet Ramsey’s murder.  Still, no one seemed very interested in pointing that out to Karr.   

Playing the victim card to the full possible tilt, Karr claimed on Larry King that he had been exonerated by DNA testing from any wrong doing, yet a day later on Dr. Keith Ablow‘s show claimed that he had an extra pair of Jon Benet’s underwear from the night she died that he’d swapped off of the child as some sort of sick souvenir.   Thankfully, it's only in his obvious fantasies about child pornography and pedophilia that such an event even occurred, but that he is so obsessed with the case is creepy in and of itself.  The media eats it right up too, feeding this freak’s ego and encouraging him to feel like he’s entitled to the attention, even though he did nothing to earn it beside claim he committed a horrible sexual violation and murder.  What a hero!  And once it was proved he didn’t, rather than forget about him, the media only indulged him further with interviews like the aforementioned.  Think of the valuable role that media attention and focus could have instead spent reporting on actual missing persons, unsolved child murders, and/or amber alerts and related coverage.  The only pundit so far to actually call out Karr’s farce was Fox News’ Greta Van Sustren, who repeatedly attempted to corner Karr’s attorney on the fact that his client had asked for the opportunity to speak up for himself, then refused to by cowardly playing and hiding behind the ‘can’t comment’ card.  When Van Sustren pointed out that Karr had CALLED her to tell his side of the story- and wasn’t- his attorney got extremely defensive because she’d rightly cornered him and called Karr on his shit.  More importantly, if he is in fact setting the stage for a book deal through this series of appearances to further hype his freakish brand of bizarre, I can only hope his publisher will have the decency to donate a portion of the revenue from book sales to the foundation Jon Benet’s family has set up to hunt for the real killer.  In the end, its very much our society’s fault that useless assholes like this have a forum of any sort for tabloid celebrity because WE BUY THE TABLOID PAPERS and WATCH THE TELEVISION SHOWS that pander to this freak’s type. 

Someone needs to point out to this buggy-eyed freak that he wouldn’t have our ear if he hadn’t shot his mouth off to hordes of television cameras back in Thailand that he had been responsible for the murder.  Nothing unsettles America more historically than the murder of a child, especially a little girl, and especially when it's an unsolved murder.  I’ll admit it, when I first saw Karr, I thought they had their guy.  He fit the profile to a T, and many speculate in hindsight that it was by design.  That Karr was so fascinated with the Ramsey murder as a spectator that he had to inject himself into it.  The fact that he ended up the focal point is saddest because 10 years from now, as many people are likely to remember Karr’s name as they are Jon Benet’s, and that is just about the most disrespect we could pay to her or her family, who the media wrongly accused to begin with, most prominently in the case of Nancy Grace.  Grace can hide behind the claim that she’s only reporting the news, but she makes this asshole the news by continuing to report on him!  It's that simple, period.  The fascination is one she creates with her stories.  She and hundreds of useless talking head pundits like her, with the notable exception of Greta van Sustren.  Even LARRY KING was playing buddy-buddy with this jerk off on Monday night!  Imagining out loud how hard it must have been for Karr to be put through the media circus HE HIMSELF FIRST CREATED WITH HIS FALACIOUS CLAIMS!!  Why does no one seem to see that or want to point it out?  Only Van Sustren has done so to date, and it is GROSSLY disturbing that King was paling around with this prick like they were old poker buddies, or that Karr had just survived some life threatening hostage situation; or that he’d just saved some baby from a burning building.  His attitude toward Karr was borderline CONGRAGULATORY- unlike Van Sustren’s, which was as combative as a prosecutor’s every time Karr attempted to hide behind his attorney when any real question was posed to him addressing his role and responsibility for the media spotlight that had been thrust upon him in the first place.      

While John Mark Karr will never end up under indictment, we as a society should for even giving this asshole a single second of airtime past the point where it was determined his claims were a hoax.  He has confirmed as much in every interview he has done, by pointing out he was exonerated through DNA testing, yet continuing in the same time- as he did from the start- that he was in some way responsible for Jon Benet’s ‘accidental’ murder.  Clearly a sick fuck, why are we indulging this prick?  Our attention is NOT his medication, instead it seems to be ours, and as a culture, we’re OVERDOSING on it.  We’re obese with it to the point of pushing maximum capacity, and if we keep it up, making heroes out of horror shows like John Mark Karr, we’ll end up haunted by it in the years to come in some very dangerous ways.  What if this Karr freak feels emboldened enough by the media attention he’s clearly become addicted to actually pull a murder to qualify his image, in the same way Dennis ‘BTK’ Raider did time after time.  Raider admitted in his post-arrest prison psychiatrist that the media attention fueled his desire to kill, and that one hand, in essence, washed the other.  How is it any different here, except for the fact that NO CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED!!!  So let’s drop this jack ass from the headlines, before we go disrespecting this poor little girl’s memory any further.  That’s what this is all about in the end of the day- a LITTLE 6 YEAR OLD GIRL who was brutally assaulted and suffocated in her basement on Christmas Eve!!  And we have the audacity as a society to continue to indulge this sick fuck’s fantasy that he actually was her killer.  Who would EVER want to take credit for such a horrific crime with the pride that Karr clearly desires to, and WHY would we as a society EVER want to reward that kind of behavior?  Because make no mistake, every time we buy a tabloid news rag with Karr on the cover, or watch one of his disgusting interviews, that’s EXACTLY what we’re doing- rewarding him for his desire to be responsible for the rape and murder of a little girl that could be any one of our daughters, and too often is.  Moreover, those out there who really are killers of this sort can only be emboldened in their own sick ways by seeing the kind of glorification the media spotlight thrusts on Karr.  Reading about Michael Jackson in a similarly-alleged light (in context of the sexual molestation allegations) is one thing because Jackson was once such a beloved American icon, and ALREADY very, very famous.  Or even O.J. Simpson, because the accusations ran so contrary to their public image.  We were initially eager to see both men exonerated, and in the case of Simpson, once the evidence clearly showed his guilt, equally as passionate about seeing him convicted.  When he walked, we as a society were disgusted, and treated him by and large as a pariah.  In the case of Karr, he was a nobody before his ludicrous and disgusting claims, and that’s exactly where he belongs now, back in the shadows of his own dark, creepy fantasies, locked as far away from the spotlight as the actual killer- if he or she was ever caught and convicted.  Lord only knows how much harder Karr’s actions have now made the crusade to find Jon Benet's real killer...  Only time can tell, and hopefully, Karr's is close to being up!
 

About the author: Jake Brown is owner/operator of Nashville-based Versailles Records and a biographer who has published several books. Click here to more details. 
 

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Fan Speak:

Posted by  antiGUY on 2006/10/31 21:47:25
I saw that interview too. Scary that Greta wasn\'t talking about Aruba. Anyway, yeah it was funny that he called to get on her show and then hid behind his hack.