Fox News reports that John Mark Karr is serious about proving that he has no convictions in Alabama, where he asked for a background check from the Birmingham Police Department. It seems like only yesterday, but it was actually a year ago that John Mark Carr was all over the news.
You may recall that he confessed to killing little JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado ten years before. Since Karr was in Thailand at the time, the confession got him a flight home at US expense and we got to see pictures of him sipping a cool drink during the flight. The flight took him to Los Angeles and another took him to Boulder while we all waited to find out what would happen next.
What happened next was nothing. The authorities determined that he made up his confession. They let him go. And, for the most part, he disappeared from media radar.
Then, in early December, Karr wandered into the Birmingham Police station and asked for a document showing that he had no criminal convictions in Alabama. Karr said he needed the background check as part of a job search in Georgia.
Like Karr’s previous escapades, this one left me shaking my head. What employer in his right mind would accept a document from an applicant attesting to his purity?
What employer would rely on a background check that only covered the state of Alabama, especially if the employer was in Georgia?
And is there an employer anywhere in the developed world that wouldn’t catch on to the fact that this applicant handing you his own background check was also the fellow who confessed to one of the most notorious murders in American history?
Sometimes all you can do is chuckle.