The family of John Mark Karr is looking for a buyer for the movie rights to their story. They say it is to help pay for a high-powered lawyer to represent the suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey case.

Karr’s father and brother hired actor, author and producer Larry Garrison to represent them in any media deals and to help them find a top attorney to represent Karr, who is in a Los Angeles jail awaiting transfer to Colorado to face allegations he killed the girl in 1996.

But what does the family know about him in recent years? When was the last time they saw him? Reportedly, the father thought he was dead. Does anyone even want to hear their story? The story that counts is that of John Mark Karr. Even sillier, the family thinks that the public defender’s office isn’t adequate.

“Right now he’s got a public defender to represent him,” Garrison said. “It’s their desire to get someone high-level.” Garrison declined to say if the family has been in touch with Karr in jail.

As I wrote here at Elevated Voices almost a year and half ago when writing about the public defender victories in the Lisl Auman and Robert Harlan cases in the Colorado Supreme Court:

Colorado has one of the finest public defender programs in the nation….At a time when indigent defense is in crisis mode around the country due to lack of adequate funding and a shortage of lawyers willing to take the hard, unpopular cases, Coloradans should be proud that their defenders stand head and shoulders among the best. There is little money and even less glory in being a public defender. Typically, the public views only prosecutors in the role of heros, since they represent the victim, the good guy, the blameless one. Shows like Law and Order reinforce this notion, due to “Wolf’s Law,” which is that prosecutors are doing God’s work. Today’s Supreme Court decisions show that defenders do God’s work too, and not just when they represent the innocent. These defenders work to protect the rights of the lowest and most hated among us, so that those rights be there for us and our children should we need them.

I bet if Lisl Auman could pay Mr. Karr a visit when he arrives, he’d be quickly disabused of the notion that he needs a big-name lawyer to defend him. It looks like one of the ex-wives is looking to cash in as well:

Today, Quientana Ray, who married Karr when she was 13, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in a pre-recorded interview that Karr was controlling and used to tell her about fantasies he had about little girls. “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.