Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy, the prosecutor who ordered the arrest of John Mark Karr in the slaying of John Benet Ramsey, defended her handling of the investigation Monday.

Her decision not to charge Karr came after DNA tests failed to link him to the 6-year-old child beauty queen's 1996 killing. Lacy went before reporters a day after the charges were dropped.

"I'm not embarrassed," Lacy said. "I think we did a good job."

Lacy said she is accountable for all decisions made by her department and that it has been a "very difficult few days for all of us."

Asked is she had sympathy for Karr, who was arrested in Thailand and extradited to the United States, she said , "no."

"John Karr inserted himself" into this case, Lacy said. "He believes he killed JonBenet."

"I believe he did not commit this crime," Lacy said.

As information about about Karr surfaced in her office, Lacy said she and her colleagues recognized his possible involvement was a "long shot," but that she "couldn't ignore it."

"This guy confessed numerous occasions," in great detail and with information that only a few investigators, prosecutors and family members knew about, said Peter Maguire, a deputy district attorney, in explaining why they took Karr seriously.

"This was a bizarre crime and the person who committed this crime acted in a bizarre way," Maquire said.

Some angry callers said they wanted her to be "tarred and feathered" and "run out of town," she said. Another wanted to know why DNA wasn't taken surreptitiously from Karr while he was still in Thailand, she said.

She responded that a sample was, in fact, taken, but that it wasn't good enough to be matched against the other evidence.

Prosecutors said Karr repeatedly insisted that he sexually assaulted and strangled the child. But court papers said the state "would not be able to establish" its case. That's because no DNA connected Karr to the crime scene.

Karr, a 41-year-old schoolteacher fascinated with JonBenet and Polly Klaas, who was murdered in 1993 in Petaluma, Calif., said after his arrest in Thailand earlier this month that he was with JonBenet at the time of her death. He called her death an accident.

Defense attorney Seth Temin expressed outrage that Karr was even arrested.

"We're deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption that he did anything wrong," said Temin.

Karr is being held at the Boulder jail until he can be sent to Sonoma County, Calif., to face misdemeanor child pornography charges dating to 2001. An extradition hearing is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

Investigators have said DNA was found in blood spots on JonBenet's underwear, but a Ramsey family attorney said two years ago it didn't match any of the 1.5 million samples in an FBI database at the time. Other physical evidence includes an alleged ransom note, a boot print found outside the Ramsey house and some indications an intruder could have entered through a basement window.

Mistakes were made early in the investigation. John Ramsey was allowed to roam the house before finding his daughter's body. Friends of the family came to the home, called by the Ramseys after they found the ransom note.

"I've never seen a case in trial where the defense didn't find something to attack the investigation about in terms of technical investigative techniques, and I've never seen an investigation that was perfect," said Bob Grant, a former district attorney who served as an adviser on the case in the 1990s. "If there's DNA able to be matched to him, then the mistakes are of little or no consequence."

After Karr was detained in Bangkok, Lacy told a news conference that sometimes it becomes necessary to make an arrest before an investigation is complete and that much work remained in the Karr investigation.

Karr Wanted In California

A California district attorney said the child pornography case filed against Karr five years ago is still alive, so he wants Karr returned.

Authorities in Sonoma County, Calif., said Karr had made "uncertain allusions to placing himself in the killer's role" in talking about JonBenet and 12-year-old Polly Klaas.

Karr pleaded not guilty to five misdemeanor counts of child porn possession in Sonoma County in 2001. After several months in jail awaiting trial, Karr was freed under orders to remain in the area. He then disappeared.

His extradition hearing is set for Tuesday afternoon in Boulder. But Sonoma County officials said he probably won't return until the first or second week in September.

If convicted, Karr could face up to a year in prison on each count and would have to register as a sex offender. He also faces a misdemeanor charge for leaving.

Ramsey, Karr Families React

Disappointment and vindication were the reactions of the families affected by the latest turn in the Ramsey case.

Karr family spokesman Gary Harris said he was not surprised that prosecutors dropped their case against Karr.

Karr has "personality problems, but he's not a killer," Harris said, adding that Karr "wanted to be a rock star at one time."

Relatives of Ramsey are expressing disappointment. But the girl's aunt, Pamela Paugh, said she believes the justice system worked.

One way or another, Paugh said Karr needs a lot of help. She said she wasn't terribly shocked to learn that Karr's public confession didn't hold up.

"Either he is quite disturbed, and in that respect needs a lot of help and care, or he has perpetrated quite the fraud on the American public and the victims' families, and he needs help and a lot of care," she said.

Attorney Lin Wood said JonBenet's father still has great confidence in the district attorney.

JonBenet's parents, John and the late Patsy Ramsey, were initial targets of a grand jury investigation that ended with no indictments. Patsy Ramsey died in June, not long after learning authorities had turned their attention to Karr.

Professor Recalls Leading Authorities To Karr

The man whose contact with Karr prompted authorities to consider him a suspect in the Ramsey case said he could barely tolerate Karr's graphic details of the death.

University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey told The Associated Press that Karr described how he supposedly had sex with the child and accidentally killed her.

"I cannot get the image out of my head," Tracey said.

Investigators said e-mail and phone calls between Karr and Tracey over four years are what prompted them to bring Karr to Boulder from Thailand. The case against Karr disintegrated Monday.

Tracey, who has produced documentaries on the case, said Karr's claims could not be ignored. As a father, Tracey said he felt an obligation to alert authorities.