The New Ward Churchill!

For those of you who are interested in the Jon Benet Ramsey mystery, I strongly recommend you listen on line to the Peter Boyles talk radio show, which airs from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. Mountain time Monday through Friday at www.khow.com. Today Peter had a guest who is a participant in an internet group called Forums For Justice. They can be reached here.

University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey seems to be the person who is driving this latest Jon Benet Ramsey hoopla, by feeding his version of the story to a local television station, KUSA. Mr. Boyles believes Tracey has been "grooming" John Mark Karr to become a suspect in the murder. Tracey has been corresponding with Karr for the last four years via emails. In 2004 Tracy produced a documentary alleging to nail another suspect. This is where the Forum For Justice group comes in. A blogger in Scotland got her camera and took a picture of a police report used in Tracey's documentary. The report listed a case number, which identified the suspect Tracey was alleging to be the killer of Jon Benet. Within a few minutes another member of the forum was able to contact the man, who then called Chief Investigator Tom Bennett at the D.A.'s office in Boulder, who assured the man that he is not a suspect. Like Mr. Karr, the man was not in Colorado at the time of the murder of Jon Benet! Tracey was exposed as a fraud. Another local journalist, Patty Calhoun of Westword, has dubbed Tracey the new Ward Churchill.

The concept of "grooming" is an important one to those of us who have worked in the field of child protection. Sex offenders groom their intended victims in various ways in order to set them up for victimization. I think it is interesting that Mr. Boyles is using the word to describe the manipulation of Mr. Karr by Mr. Tracey. Boyles also believes that Tracey, the Boulder D.A. Mary Lacy, and KUSA have all been manipulated ("groomed") by the Ramseys.