SANTA ROSA, Calif., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- California child pornography charges were dropped Thursday against John Mark Karr, who was for a time a suspect in the killing of JonBenet Ramsey.
Prosecutors in Sonoma County told a judge they do not have the evidence to convict Karr. Judge Rene Choteau dismissed the charges and ordered Karr's release.
"I don't think this case should have ever been brought, based in the evidence," Karr's lawyer, Robert Amparan, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I feel tired, relieved, happy for my client and for justice."
Karr, a former school teacher, became a fugitive after his arrest in 2001. He was arrested in Thailand, where he made a quasi-confession in the Ramsey case, saying he was with the 6-year-old when she died at her home in Boulder, Colo. But his DNA did not match evidence from the scene, and he also turned out to have an alibi.
Prosecutors said that in the child pornography case they could not prove that Karr had used a computer seized in 2001 in the year before his arrest.
