BOULDER, Colo. — More questions have been raised than answered after prosecutors and authorities around the globe addressed the arrest of John Mark Karr in connection with JonBenet Ramsey’s 1996 death.

Is Karr’s hotel-room confession that he killed the 6-year-old beauty queen valid Or is the 41-year-old schoolteacher making false claims in one of the world’s most notorious murder cases

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy advised a horde of reporters Thursday to heed the advice of JonBenet’s father, John Ramsey: “Do not jump to judgment.”

She said circumstances — including fear of flight and public safety — can mandate an arrest before an investigation is complete.

Those statements have kept a cloud of suspicion over Karr and whether he’s different from the more than 140 suspects who’ve been considered before. Ramsey family members told the Daily Camera that they are eagerly awaiting DNA results and information on the investigation. Detectives have taken a DNA sample from Karr and are awaiting results.

“I don’t know what to think, other than he’s a very sick man,” said Doris Paugh, Patsy Ramsey’s stepmother. “I want answers. When are they going to do the DNA tests That is one of my huge hang-ups.”

‘He was not ... real normal’

HAMILTON, Ala. — Much about Karr just wasn’t right.

He was friendly, but he didn’t seem to have many close friends.

He was smart, but he left high school and college just short of finishing.

He was married for 12 years, but before that, he took another young girl across state lines, persuaded her to lie about her age and married her.

Those are just some of the contradictions that are emerging as people who knew Karr during his years in Alabama and California grappled with the news that the Georgia native has confessed to JonBenet’s murder.

“He was not, I don’t know how to say this, not real normal,” said Dale Jenkins, the former pastor at Hamilton Church of Christ in Karr’s longtime home of Hamilton, Ala.

“I just remember talking to him several times in the foyer of the church building, and his way of thinking was always different than anybody else’s.”

Karr spent the first 12 years of his life with his parents and siblings in Atlanta, his brother, Nate Karr, said. Records show the Karr family home was about 9 miles from a house once owned by John and Patsy Ramsey.

Key evidence — DNA

DNA evidence is the key to finding out whether Karr is truly JonBenet’s killer, or just a nut case seeking his 15 minutes of fame, legal experts say.

Karr’s “kooky confession” won’t be enough to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, said former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman.

“DNA is the big ticket, the 600-pound gorilla in this case,” he said. “If his DNA doesn’t match, that’s a huge problem for the prosecution. If it’s a match, then it’s game, set and match for the state.”

Former Denver District Attorney Norm Early questioned whether the case will ever go to trial.

“Unless there is something positive in DNA or a match to handwriting, I don’t think he’ll be charged,” he said.

But Early cautioned that it’s too soon to know because Karr was arrested sooner than prosecutors wanted because of concerns that

he posed a risk to young students and that he might flee if he realized he was under scrutiny.

“It’s hard to tell whether he’s a wannabe or a kook, or whether he is, in fact, the murderer,” Early said. “We’ll have to wait until the forensic evidence is developed.”

A portrait of ‘my darkness’

DENVER — It was the day before Christmas Eve 2005 when Karr sent an e-mail to University of Colorado professor Michael Tracey, seeking a strange favor.

He asked Tracey to visit JonBenet’s old house in Boulder and read aloud an ode he called “JonBenet, My Love.”

“JonBenet, my love, my life. I love you and shall forever love you. I pray that you can hear my voice calling out to you from my darkness — this darkness that now separates us,” it read, in part.

The e-mail was part of a small sample of the often lurid and disturbing correspondence between a person that investigators believe to be Karr and Tracey. The e-mails were obtained Thursday by the Rocky Mountain News from a source close to the investigation.

None includes any statements from Karr about his possible role in JonBenet’s death. They do, however, include several interesting — and sometimes bizarre — exchanges between the two, including one in which Karr expresses concern that Tracey has obtained a photograph of him; another in which Karr said he was under federal investigation for “child murder and child molestation” in four states; and one in which the two traded views on the Peter Pan-related film “Finding Neverland.”

In one of the e-mails obtained by the News, Karr brought up the legal travails of pop singer Michael Jackson, long under scrutiny for what seemed by his critics to be unusually close relationships with young boys.

“I will tell you that I can understand people like Michael Jackson and feel sympathy when he suffers as he has,” Karr wrote. He added that he, himself, “is trapped in a world that does not understand.”

The News reported exclusively Wednesday that Tracey and Karr have swapped hundreds of e-mails during a four-year span, and that it was the content of those e-mails that gave rise to Tracey’s suspicions about Karr’s potential involvement in JonBenet’s killing.