Aug. 16, 2006 ??? An arrest has been made in connection with JonBenet Ramsey murder case, Ramsey family attorney Hal Haddon told ABC News.
The arrest comes nearly 10 years after the 6-year-old girl was murdered, in a case that shocked the country.
The Associated Press, citing U.S. law enforcement officials, reported that a man was arrested in Thailand in connection with the slaying.
JonBenet Ramsey, a child beauty queen, was found murdered in the basement of her family's upscale Colorado home the day after Christmas, 1996.
Her mother, Patsy Ramsey, first found a handwritten ransom note on the back staircase of the home. It demanded $118,000 ??? the exact amount the little girl's father, John Ramsey had received as a corporate bonus ??? if the family wanted to see JonBenet again. Eight hours later, Patsy Ramsey found her badly beaten daughter's body in the basement.
From the beginning, the focus of suspicion was directed squarely at her father, a software millionaire, and his wife, a former beauty queen.
The Ramseys refused to take a lie-detector test and would only agree to be interviewed by police together.
Yet the Ramseys were steadfast in defending their innocence.
"Let me assure you, I did not kill JonBenet," Patsy Ramsey said then.
The Ramseys offered a reward of $100,000 to the person who captured their daughter's killer. They also wrote a memoir, "The Death of Innocence" and filed libel suits against several news outlets. Three years after the murder, investigators officially cleared the Ramseys.
"Our family name has been destroyed," John Ramsey said. "We want the killer of our daughter found."
But never-ending speculation in the tabloid press, and numerous books, continued to feed the nation's interest.
"It is our hope that this arrest will bring some closure to the Ramsey family after a 10-year ordeal," Haddon said today. "We respect the legal process and will have no further comment about the case or the evidence until that process is concluded."
BOULDER, Colo. ??? A man arrested in Thailand is being held in connection with the slaying nearly a decade ago of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Colorado authorities scheduled a news conference Thursday to discuss the case, but declined further comment.
Federal officials familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the man was already being held in Bangkok on unrelated sex charges. Media reported that the suspect,John Carr, a 41-year-old second-grade teacher, will be brought back to the United States this weekend.
The girl was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family's home in Boulder, Colo., on Dec. 26, 1996.
Law enforcement officials from Boulder were flying to Bangkok to present Thai authorities with documents in the slaying, officials in Washington said. They asked to remain anonymous pending an announcement in Colorado.
KUSA-TV of Denver, citing no sources, reported that the suspect has confessed to certain elements of the crime,knowing certain things which were not made public.
Officials in the Boulder County District Attorney's Office had no immediate comment. Nor did local police and sheriff's officials.
Speculation is that Carr is facing hard time in Thailands Prisons,and hopes to be taken back to the U.S. and face an easier time in a US prison.