Geraldo At Large 08-28-2006 John Stephen Gigax and Tricia Griffith

Transcribed from video by ACandyRose (www.acandyrose.com)

GERALDO (VOICE OVER): About John Mark Karr's first court room appearance, we have been investigation the man behind Karr's Bangkok arrest and we have uncovered something that we feel is deeply disturbing. Laura Ingle has our exclusive investigative report

(CLIP OF JONBENET): My name is JonBenet Ramsey and I'm five and a half.

(CLIP of JONBENET SINGING COWBOY SWEETHEART)

LAURA INGLE: [Geraldo At Large Correspondent] (VOICE OVER): Michael Tracey is a University of Colorado Professor and documentarian who brought John Mark Karr to the attention of the Boulder District Attorney. Now startling revelations that this is not the first time that a suspect that Michael Tracey has named.

JOHN STEPHEN GIGAX: I started getting these weird e-mails saying did you know you're being named as a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case.

In a world exclusive meet Steve Gigax, the man that Michael Tracey first claimed killed JonBenet Ramsey.

LAURA INGLE: Did you have anything to do with the murder of JonBenet Ramsey?

STEVE GIGAX: No, no I did not.

(CLIP of JONBENET in Documentary)

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) Michael Tracey made these apparently untrue claims in this 2004 documentary he co-produced called "Who Killed The Beauty Queen - The Prime Suspect."

STEVE GIGAX: Here we go, Michael Tracey's at it again.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) These are disturbing facts about the respected professor, facts that could cast even more doubt on the validity in the case against John Mark Karr.

TRICIA GRIFFITH: (VOICE OVER) He has been known in the past to produce out and out lies about supposed prime suspects in the case who were not prime suspects at all.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) Tricia Griffith runs Forums For Justice, an online JonBenet Ramsey blog based in Salt Lake City. Griffith said she was the first to scrutinize the accusations made my Michael Tracey made in his 2004 documentary which was broadcast in Britain.

TRICIA GRIFFITH: (VOICE OVER) In this documentary he talks about this prime suspect whose a very dangerous man.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) The documentary shows a document on screen reported to be a police record of this prime suspect with his name and address blacked out but an alert viewer in Scotland [Jayelles=alert viewer in Scotland :-)] took a screen shot of the case number in the corner of the police document and sent it to Griffith. Griffith did some online research and found the document corresponded to a person named John Stephen Gigax. The documentary called this suspect the man, quote, who has since disappeared. But Griffith says she was able to find his phone number without leaving her chair.

TRICIA GRIFFITH: I found John Stephen Gigax with a Google search in a few minutes so obviously I'm not an investigator and I was able to do it. There was Michael Tracey's first big lie.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) Tricia Griffith called Steve Gigax

STEVE GIGAX: It was like a nightmare. It can't be happening. And I wanted it to stop.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) Gigax was no angel. He admits he served time for attempted sexual assault and menacing with a deadly weapon but he says he's also no killer. And in 2004 he says he called Tom Bennett in the Boulder District Attorney's office to prove he was not even Boulder at the time of the murder.

STEVE GIGAX: And I sent him some records that I had of signed credit card receipts from purchases at Sears at the time when I'd been in Indiana

LAURA INGLE: Did he tell you, you were not a suspect?

STEVE GIGAX: He said don't worry about it I'm not a suspect. They don't want to talk to me.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) Do to a gag order the District Attorney's office is not able to comment on Steve Gigax's story but Fox News correspondent Carol McKinley who has covered this case from the beginning confirms it.

CAROL MCKINLEY: As far as for the official investigation he was never a suspect.

LAURA INGLE: When we asked Michael Tracey for a comment on our story he refused to go on camera for an interview but he did offer a statement through a spokesperson, quote, "I'm a great believer in rational debate, not a shouting match on Fox TV. People have every right to disagree with me. I have no problem with that." Still Gigax tells us there is nothing Michael Tracey can say that would fix the effects of his claims in the 2004 documentary.

STEVE GIGAX: People showed up at the house, reporters and all kinds of stuff. I couldn't go back to work. I just couldn't do it.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) If Michael Tracey fingered the wrong suspect in 2004. Tricia Griffith wonders if he's doing it again by bringing John Mark Karr to the attention of the current Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy.

TRICIA GRIFFITH: Apparently she takes his phone calls. There's something wrong about that, this man has lied in the past and who knows what he's doing now.

LAURA INGLE: Here in Boulder Colorado, friends of Michael Tracey's say he's just a regular guy who likes to hang out here at this local pub on Friday nights.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) He's also joined here by his friend, newspaper journalist Michael Sandrock. The newsman defends Tracey's documentary.

MICHAEL SANDROCK: And I really think he does want to see the case solved and the fact that he's doing documentaries I think it's a good thing and whether he's right or not I can't really say.

LAURA INGLE: (VOICE OVER) But that's little solace to Steve Gigax. He is suffering from a heart condition and Hepatitis C and with his failing health there is nothing more he wants than to counteract the effects of Michael Tracey's film.

STEVE GIGAX: I want the world to know I'm a hundred percent innocent of that and I just want the world to know and move on.

GERALDO: Laura Ingle now from Boulder Colorado. Laura, regardless of what we think of Professor Michael Tracey, John Mark Karr could barely possible but could still be the man who murdered JonBenet. Tell me though the theory here on his first scheduled court appearance that maybe he got his information another way other than committing this awful murder.

LAURA INGLE: We are hearing that a man in Petaluma, California where Karr once lived is telling people today that he took a road trip, that's Karr with his former wife and three sons across the country and made a pit stop here in the year 2000 to Boulder, Colorado where he dropped his wife and kids off at a motel so he could go over to the Ramseys home. This is where he said he wanted to do research on an upcoming book he was going to write. So that could be where he got a lot of his information about the layout of the home, the landmarks here in Boulder. This case is still developing and we'll bring you even more tomorrow as it develops Geraldo.