The man who once falsely confessed to the murder of child beauty contestant JonBenet Ramsey is now living as a woman and attempting to form a cult of little girls he intends to have sex with, his former fiancee said Wednesday.
Nineteen-year-old Samantha Spiegel made the disturbing allegations to TODAY’s Ann Curry in New York. She said she was once engaged to John Mark Karr and, under his sway, tried to recruit girls between the ages of 4 and 8 into a sex cult.
“His mission is to create a cult that he wants to call ‘The Immaculates,’ of little girls that would have sexual relationships with him and do whatever he wanted and just, like, be his little minions,” Spiegel told NBC News’ Jeff Rossen in a report that aired on TODAY prior to her interview with Curry.
‘This cult could happen’
It’s not clear that Karr has done anything illegal, but police in California and Washington state would like to talk to him. But they can’t find him: Karr is reportedly living as a woman under the name Alexis Valoran Reich and has a group of “minions” who help him stay out of sight by providing food and money and computers.
“I think I’m a victim of his, as a teenager under the age of 18. It wasn’t that long ago,” said Spiegel, who met Karr two years ago.
She said she began to look for little girls to bring to him. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she told Curry. “He was so persuasive. He’s very manipulative. It’s a family that he had wanted, and I didn’t want to get in the way of something he wanted.
“This cult could happen. It hasn’t happened yet,” Spiegel told Curry.
But Spiegel’s attorney, Robin Sax, told Curry that isn’t necessarily true. “Other people, we have evidence to show, are already actively engaged in this cult,” Sax said.
In 2006, Karr sparked headlines when, while living in Thailand, he confessed to the sensational murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in Colorado 10 years earlier. Prosecutors flew him back to the States to check out his story.