This Karr won't drive

I've suspected from the beginning that John Mark Karr's confession to JonBenet Ramsey's murder just didn't add up. The DNA evidence proves that I was right.

As details surfaced even on the day of his arrest — most notably his ex-wife's contention that on the day the murder occurred in Boulder, Colorado, Karr was in Atlanta with his family — Karr began to look more and more like a glory-seeking wannabe. After all, Karr's ex-wife dumped him like a faux Rolex as soon as she learned that he was a pedophile and collector of child pornography. She'd be the last person on earth to weasel him out of prison with a trumped-up alibi.

Now our local criminal justice officials here in Sonoma County are mulling over whether to pursue Karr's prosecution on the child porn charges he skipped out on six years ago. Even if convicted, given the time he already served, former fugitive Karr would wallow in jail for a matter of months at most, though he would be required to register as a sex offender. District Attorney Stephen Passalacqua is weighing whether the cost (both in resources and publicity) of trying Karr at this juncture would be worth the hassle.

As I noted in this space a couple of weeks ago, child sex crime seems to be part of the fabric of our community, for reasons that baffle me. Just this past weekend, NBC Dateline pulled off one of its infamous online predator stings right here in my backyard, netting 30 would-be child molesters in the process.

Which reminds me...

Today is Michael Jackson's birthday.