Yet it is exactly his familiarity as a type that has concentrated the attention of those Thais most familiar with it. Nit Dandin, a veteran teacher of the Thai language to Westerners, put it to me this way: “Why do farang come to Thailand after they kill or rape somebody in their own country?”
Why indeed?
I decided to ask Pong Arjpong, a local educator who is familiar with the West, having graduated with a degree in international communications from the University of Washington. “There is no access to overseas criminal databases at immigration points,” he said. “And once fugitives are in the country, it is not difficult for them to obtain forged passports, teaching certificates, etc. Every backpacker knows how to get false documents.”
It is true that plenty of Westerners run to Southeast Asia these days when life becomes too hot for them at home, evading law enforcement by moving around Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, using Thailand as a hub. Mr. Karr, too, it seems, was on the run from an arrest warrant issued in Sonoma County, Calif., in December 2001.
But there is another reason Mr. Karr might raise local hackles, regardless of whether he killed JonBenet. Like so many other farang kee-nok, he is apparently obsessed with sex. It isn’t known whether he indulged that obsession here, legally or illegally, but in a sense that does not matter.

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