BANGKOK - The American schoolteacher suspected of murdering JonBenet Ramsey left Thailand on Sunday on a plane bound for the United States, where he will face questions over the 1996 killing of the child beauty queen.
John Mark Karr, 41, was aboard a Thai Airways flight which took off at 1300 GMT and was scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on Sunday evening. Thai officials said he would fly in business class, accompanied by at least two U.S. law enforcement officers.
Karr was arrested in Bangkok on Wednesday on suspicion of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault. He told reporters he had been with the 6-year-old when she died at Christmas a decade ago, but that her death was an accident.
JonBenet was found in the basement of her home in Boulder, Colorado, strangled with a garrote made from a stick and cord and her skull fractured.
Her father discovered the body hours after the girl's mother stumbled on three-page letter claiming she had been kidnapped for a $118,000 ransom.
Wearing a short-sleeved red shirt and dark tie, Karr looked composed but nervous when he arrived at the airport escorted by Thai police on Sunday. He did not answer questions fired by the crowd of journalists who thronged around him.
It was not clear when he would be flown on to Boulder where investigators were waiting to question him about his confessions. Karr said last week he loved JonBenet and answered 'no' when asked whether he was innocent. He did not say how she died.
Police said Karr was in fair spirits. 'He is good, he is okay, he has been eating well,' Immigration Police chief Lieutenant-General Suwat Tumroungsiskul told Reuters.
Suwat said Karr had asked for deep fried chicken and pizza which had been delivered to his cell, where he had his own television and was under 24-hour watch.
The arrest was a surprise development in a case which has drawn intense media coverage focusing on JonBenet's success in child beauty pageants, her family's wealth and mysterious details of the murder, including the bizarre ransom note.
Police seized Karr a day after he began teaching second grade students at a school in Bangkok, Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy told reporters.
Casting doubt on Karr's story, his ex-wife Lara told KGO-TV in San Francisco Karr had been with her in Alabama for the entire Christmas season that year and she did not believe he could have been involved in JonBenet's murder.
(c) Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
