Exclusive: 'I Married John Karr At 13'

ABC News/San Jose ^ | 8.23.06

[apackof2]

Quientana Ray was just 12 years old when she met John Mark Karr, the 41-year-old man under arrest for the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Within a year, against her parents wishes, she and Karr, then 19, were married.

Ex-Wife Claims She Was Drugged, Abused

Ray said she met Karr at a party in Hamilton, Ala.,and he proceeded to seduce her. Her parents, Melissa and Larry Shotts, said they were opposed to the marriage.

The couple had a lengthy battle with Ray's parents over the relationship. According to Ray's parents, Karr became more defensive and threatening as they continued to oppose the couple's plans.

And Ray said Karr became a different person after they were married.

"I believed he loved me," she said. But her marriage to Karr lasted less than a year. That year, according to Ray, was a tumultuous one.

"I was drugged and things were done to me without me having any idea," said Ray, who is now married with a 4-month-old child.

In 1985, after nine months of marriage, Shotts filed for an annulment, complaining in court records that she was "fearful for her life and safety."

[Tax-chick]

Aww!

[Tax-chick]

Well, that's reasonable. Might have been different law 22 years ago, though.

One first-cousin marriage is no big deal, genetically. It's multiple generations of it that zots the gene pool.

[apackof2]

That's pretty judgemental and quite rude, really

[EX52D]

If that would have been my 13 year old daughter, the battle would be short lived with him looking down the barrel of my shotgun.

[Little Ray]

If she were my daughter, my opposition to the relationship would have involved a convent for the girl and shallow grave in a lonely place for the man.

[apackof2]

Might have been different law 22 years ago, though.

Just what I was thinking

It's multiple generations of it that zots the gene pool.

True

[Bigh4u2]

Not bad. Not bad at all!

[apackof2]

I agree

Parents are supposed to protect their children

[apackof2]

To me she DOES look like a grown up Jon Benet Ramsey or what she very well could have looked like if she hadn't been brutally murdered

[sully777]

That's pretty judgemental and quite rude, really

---

For whom? The squirrel?

You must excuse me, down here in Oklahoma many of my neighbors will call such marriages, or squalid living conditions (poor and proud), as indications of being white trash. Many use the term ALBINO to emphasize the whiteness of the trash.

I'll alert my neighbors that this is no longer acceptable. They'll have to go back to the tried and true: Must be from Arkansas.

[Bigh4u2]

Yeah. Very close.

[Sacajaweau]

Stunning similarity!!

[apackof2]

Stunning similarity!!

I thought so

Bigh4u2, thanks for posting the side-by-side

Although that's what is so sad to me, what Jon Bent DIDN'T get to look like

And not just JonBent but all the other little girls who were victims of such evil

It makes me ill and my heart breaks for the parents

[Tax-chick]

I would feel very strongly the same way.

[Bigh4u2]

"It makes me ill and my heart breaks for the parents"

I couldn't even imagine what I would be feeling if it had been one of my girls.

Sad indeed.

[Cecily]

That helps to explain Karr's obsession with poor JonBenet. She was his type.

I don't care how "harmless" beauty pageants are. In this day and age, parents should not put their little girls out on display. There are too many freaks roaming around.

[Bigh4u2]

A 6 year old girl should not be wearing makeup and paraded around a stage. Period.

[fivecatsandadog]

Criminy.... they're all coming out of the woodwork. If they're telling the truth about Karr, would it be admissable in court?

[apackof2]

In this day and age,

Sad but true

[apackof2]

Too awful to contemplate