LOS ANGELES -- John Mark Karr waived extradition Tuesday and agreed to be sent to Colorado to face first-degree murder charges in the slaying of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey.

Karr, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and handcuffed to a chain around his waist, spoke calmly and quietly to affirm his decision.

"Yes, sir," Karr said when asked if he waived extradition.

Karr, represented by a public defender, kept a blank expression as the judge read the charges of first-degree murder, felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, second-degree kidnapping and sexual assault on a child. He slowly closed his eyes when he heard the murder charge.

The felony murder charge means prosecutors are either accusing Karr of killing JonBenet during the course of a sexual assault or kidnapping, or that he was present while someone else killed the girl.

Felony murder carries the same penalties as first-degree murder: either life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.

"It's a perfect insurance policy for the prosecution in Colorado," said former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman. "Even if a jury were to somehow buy that this was an accident, any death during the commission of a kidnapping or sexual assault is first-degree murder regardless."

Karr To Return To Colorado Soon

The two-minute hearing before Superior Court Commissioner James N. Bianco means Karr could return to Colorado as early as Tuesday evening.

The Boulder County sheriff's office said it would not share any plans for the transfer.

"Normally, once an inmate being held in another jurisdiction has waived extradition, we will be contacted by that agency and notified to pick the inmate up," Sheriff Joe Pelle said Monday.

In Boulder, Karr could end up in one of three sections -- intake, special management or disciplinary. Intake is where most inmates are housed. Special management is where inmates with mental health issues are often placed and disciplinary where combative prisoners are isolated.

A three-part test will help his jailers determine the right pod.

Karr's Attorneys Say He Didn't Confess

Earlier, two other attorneys who spoke to Karr in jail described him as "extremely lucid" but exhausted and concerned. They also said his admission about the case was not a confession.

Attorney Jamie Harmon and Patience Van Zandt, who represented Karr when he was charged in 2001 with possessing child pornography in Northern California, said they spent a total of seven hours with him on Monday. Their role representing Karr hadn't been clearly defined.

Harmon told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday that Karr seemed bewildered by the national attention.

Both attorneys said they don't believe he confessed to the crime.

"A confession is a legal term ... and the statements taken from Mr. Karr are primarily sound bites," Harmon said outside court. "We have no idea what the context of the comments may be."

"I don't believe he's made confessions. I think that he's made statements," Van Zandt said. "Although I can't, unfortunately, flesh out thoughts behind them at this point, I am absolutely confident that what Mr. Karr meant will become clear."

Karr told reporters in Thailand, "I was with JonBenet when she died." The statement could be attributed to Karr having a self-perceived "emotional connection" with JonBenet, rather than a physical connection.

The 41-year-old teacher has told reporters that the slaying of beauty pageant princess in the basement of her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996, was an accident. Little is publicly known, however, about what evidence Boulder officials have.

Harmon also said Karr was injured by aggressive camera crews in Thailand and has three bruised ribs and bruises on his body. They said he wasn't comfortable in jail either.

"He was not allowed clothing so he was cold, and uncomfortable, and self-conscious. He's frightened," Van Zandt said. "He's holding up as well as could be expected under the circumstances. He's exhausted. He's been through more in the last week than most people go through in a decade."

Harmon said she and Van Zandt, would be advising Karr "in some capacity" but that she would not be accompanying him to Colorado just yet.

"He wants to go now," Harmon said. "Mr. Karr has been portrayed by the media as of late as being mentally unstable, attention-seeking, unwell, mentally unwell. And he is none of those things. He is anxious to have an opportunity to address the allegations against him, to be portrayed in a more accurate and complete way."

She said Karr was "not subject to ready categorization or easy answers."

"He's just a very different kind of person. He's someone who has ... You've heard the expression, 'He marches to the beat of a different drummer?' John Karr marches to the beat of a different drummer," Harmon said.

"He is a different sort of person than most of us walking around on the face of the planet, and that differentness has been construed in the media as wrong or somehow unbalanced," she said. "And I don't find that to be true at all. I found him to be very engaging, very bright, very articulate and very, very much appropriate in his emotional response to what is going on."

Waiting In Los Angeles Jail

Karr spent Monday in a high-security jail cell, where officials said he met with various lawyers.

In Los Angeles County's Twin Towers jail, Karr is in a high-security isolation cell and kept far away from the other 3,500 male inmates.

"There may be inmates in here who might take an opportunity to hurt him, so we have to be careful," said sheriff's Chief Marc Klugman, who oversees county jails.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has yet to be asked to compare any evidence from Karr with evidence taken from the Ramsey crime scene, bureau spokesman Lance Clem said Monday.

A law enforcement official said last week on condition of anonymity that Karr was given a mouth-swab DNA test in Bangkok, but the results of that test were not known. Authorities could have also taken DNA from drinking glasses he used on the flight, but it is not known if they did.

The Boulder district attorney's spokeswoman declined to comment on any evidence in the case.

Relatives Say Photo Proves Karr Wasn't In Boulder

Meanwhile, a lawyer for Karr's relatives said a photo has been located showing Karr's three sons at a 1996 Christmas dinner gathering in Atlanta.

awyer Gary Harris said Karr's father, Wexford Karr, found the photo, and relatives are certain that if the sons were there, John Karr would have been, too. He told The Washington Post and The Denver Post that the photo is from 1996 because an infant pictured in it was born in December of that year.

"If he had flown to Colorado or somewhere at that time, they would have remembered it," Harris told The Washington Post.

Karr's ex-wife, Lara Knutson, has said he did not miss family Christmases. The couple lived in Alabama at the time.

Knutson's lawyer told 7NEWS that she's been interviewed by Boulder police. Michael L. Rains said that Knutson has not located the photo that would put Karr at his former home in Hamilton, Alabama during the Christmas holiday in 1996.

"Despite this, Lara continues to believe that during the course of her marriage to Mr. Karr never absented himself from [his former wife] or their three children for a period of time long enough to travel to Colorado on or around any Christmas period during the marriage," said Rains.

Karr's Creepy E-Mail Address

The Rocky Mountain News reported on Tuesday that the e-mail address that helped officials track down Karr in Thailand was December251996@yahoo.com, the date of JonBenet's murder.

Several e-mails were sent to University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey from that address, and he forwarded them to officials who were able to trace it to Karr.

Media organizations including The Associated Press on Monday asked a judge to unseal the arrest warrant and other documents involving Karr. The filing noted previous mistakes in the Ramsey investigation and said there is "great public interest" in whether Karr's arrest "is yet another 'mistake."'

In an Aug. 15 order, Boulder County District Judge Roxanne Bailin ordered case documents sealed, saying disclosure could jeopardize the investigation. Monday's filing asked her to consider releasing edited versions of the documents if she rules against their full release.

In recent years Karr apparently traveled to Europe, Central America and Asia to search for teaching jobs. He taught in at least two Thai schools. U.S. authorities brought him from Thailand to Los Angeles on a commercial flight Sunday.