John Mark Karr questioned by San Francisco Police

By Tamara Barak, Bay City News Service

October 6, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - San Francisco police briefly detained John Mark Karr today after employees of an elementary school where he briefly worked reported him stepping out of a limousine and peering into the school's windows.

The incident occurred at Convent of the Sacred Heart at 2222 Broadway St. - less than 2 miles away from Karr's attorney's office, where a press conference was about to begin regarding Thursday's dismissal of child pornography charges Karr faced in Sonoma County. Karr did not appear at the press conference.

San Francisco police Sgt. Steve Mannina said that at 12:17 p.m., a worker called police and said Karr was in front of the school.

"According to witnesses, a limousine pulled up, he got out, went up to the school and was looking in the window," Mannina said.

The caller reported that Karr then tried to open the school's door, which was locked, then walked to an adjacent school and looked through its windows, Mannina said.

"He then got back into the limousine and it drove down Broadway," Mannina said.

A police officer pulled over the limousine a short time later, to find Karr in the back with two people working for a national television news program, Mannina said.

Police "determined there was no illegal activity occurring, so they had to let him go," Mannina said.

Robert Amparan, Karr's attorney, was not immediately available for comment.

Karr was a teaching assistant to Convent of the Sacred Heart's two third-grade teachers in 1996. He left after less than four weeks, saying he didn't like the job, school officials said.

Karr made international headlines in August after confessing to the 1996 murder of 6 year-old beauty pageant contestant JonBenet Ramsey.

He was subsequently arrested and extradited from Thailand, but authorities dropped all charges after DNA evidence failed to link him to the crime.

On Thursday, Karr was freed from the Sonoma County jail after prosecutors dropped the five misdemeanor child pornography charges filed against him in 2001.

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