Well, it started with a comment on our front page and thanks to the teachers who answered the quest for information, a reporter was able to go into an interview informed enough to ask the right questions. BCC admitted to John Karr working more than a two week trial period and have given us a totally believable and plausible story. Thanks go to BCC for setting the record straight. Unfortunately the spotlight now falls on St. Joseph's and New Sathorn International School.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4937376,00.htmlEducator thought of Karr as 'normal'
Suspect was let go after brief tenure as Bangkok teacher
Photos by Todd Heisler © News
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
August 23, 2006
BANGKOK, Thailand - The assistant director of a large private school for boys in Bangkok said John Mark Karr was articulate and "seemed just normal" during the month that he taught rambunctious first- and second-graders at the school this spring.
Banchong Chompoowong sat in his quiet, book-filled office Tuesday afternoon and mused about his former and now notorious colleague, while hundreds of Thai schoolboys scrambled about the soccer field outside and gathered around food carts on the urban streets beyond the school gates.
The school, founded in 1852 by missionaries, now has 5,500 students in kindergarten through 12th grade in several tall buildings in downtown Bangkok.
Karr, suspected of sexually assaulting and killing 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, was never accused of wrongdoing during his time at Bangkok Christian College, Chompoowong said.
Ironically, Chompoowong was working on his doctorate in the United States at the time of JonBenet's death and he remembers being upset by the child's murder. He said he was shocked to learn that Karr had been arrested for the crime but that he's withholding judgment about Karr's potential guilt.
Chompoowong also expressed doubt about reports that Karr was starting a sex-change procedure.
One local doctor has said that at the time Karr was teaching in May and June he was undergoing four treatments each month to have the roots of some of his facial hair burned away by laser.
The doctor said Karr told him he chose the procedure because he was beginning to take medications for a sex change. Chompoowong said there were no physical signs of it.
'A good teacher but tough'
Records and interviews make clear that Karr kept busy during his 10 months in Thailand, moving from one teaching job to another in the country's extensive network of private schools with English language instruction. And although most of those schools are not religious, all three of his jobs were in Catholic and Christian institutions.
The schools where Karr found work were in a second tier of quality among international schools providing English-immersion lessons, according to other foreign teachers working in Bangkok. The second- tier schools are less careful about checking qualifications of native English speakers and ensuring they have Thai teachers' licenses, work permits and valid visas, teachers said.
On paper, Karr would have been a very attractive candidate, with a U.S. education degree and teaching experience. Some Thai schools desperate for English teachers who are native speakers hire people without any teaching qualifications, the teachers said.
Although all of Karr's movements have not been traced, he made his first visit to Thailand by air, arriving Oct. 27, 2005, and departing Nov. 24, according to immigration records.
He returned Dec. 16 and stayed. He made day trips outside the country to renew his visa.
But he remained a resident of Thailand until he was deported Sunday.
Karr worked at St. Joseph Convent School in the late winter and used it as a reference when he applied to Bangkok Christian, Chompoowong said. When Bangkok Christian checked that reference, Chompoowong said St. Joseph described Karr as "a good teacher but tough."
Officials at St. Joseph have refused to comment, and it is unclear how long Karr worked there.
Chompoowong said he believes Karr finished the winter term at St. Joseph at the end of March, and then moved to his new position at Bangkok Christian after the April vacation.
Karr didn't pass probation
Chompoowong said he did not check Karr's earlier references from other countries. But Karr presented a copy of his college degree and transcript. Chompoowong would not look up the college, but a job application posted online dated in March shows Karr claims to have graduated magna cum laude from Regents College in Albany, N.Y.
Regents College confirmed Tuesday that Karr had participated in one of its study programs via e-mail or mail.
Karr's first day of teaching at Bangkok Christian was May 9, the first day of the spring term. He was paid 46,000 baht or about $1,300 per month, which the assistant director said was a very good salary.
It turned out that "he was very strict. Some parents complained," Chompoowong said. But the assistant director said, "I didn't see anything wrong with that."
Karr's students were transitioning from kindergarten to first grade and needed to learn to settle down, he said. "They could not run around while he was teaching. He asked them to sit down and concentrate.
"He has to be firm for these hyperactive children," Chompoowong said. "But, of course, the hyperactive children come from hyperactive mummies. It's amazing to see how children grow up today."
And Bangkok Christian had to listen to parents' complaints, he said. So the school informed Karr that he had not made it through probation. The dismissal came shortly after Karr made a visa run June 5 and 6 to Malaysia and switched from a tourist visa to one that would allow him to obtain a work permit to continue teaching, Chompoowong said.
Karr took the dismissal well, Chompoowong said. "When we interviewed him, that was the agreement - that sometimes it doesn't work."
Arrest at start of fall term
According to the Association of International Schools in Thailand, top-tier schools recruit overseas for the best foreign teachers, check their references, and then apply for a Thai teacher's license and work permit on the employee's behalf well before he or she arrives in the country.
Chompoowong said Bangkok Christian began the legal process after Karr began teaching, and dropped it when he was let go.
But Karr evidently found his next job at a school that did sponsor him for a teaching license, which was issued Aug. 1. Officials at the Ministry of Education refused to reveal the name of the school.
However, local media have identified it as New Sathorn International School.
On Aug. 15 - the first day of fall term at New Sathorn - Karr was to start work as a second-grade teacher in Bangkok, according to Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy.
School officials declined to comment about any Karr connection.
The next day, Thai police arrested Karr in his scruffy, tiny room at the Blooms guesthouse, in a quiet apartment district not far from New Sathorn.
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