Karr's lawyers earlier had said that prosecutors decided not to charge him after a TV station reported that the schoolteacher's DNA failed to match genetic material on the 6-year-old girl's body.

"The warrant on Mr. Karr has been dropped by the district attorney," public defender Seth Temin said outside the jail. "They are not proceeding with the case."

"We're deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption that he did anything wrong," Temin said.

Earlier in the day, Denver's KUSA, citing two sources close to the investigation, said that hair and saliva from Karr were tested over the weekend at the Denver police crime lab and that he was ruled out as the source of the DNA taken from the crime scene.

Investigators have said male DNA was found in blood spots on JonBenet's underwear. Other physical evidence in the case includes a ransom note, the garrote used to strangle the girl, a boot print found outside the Ramsey house and some indications an intruder could have entered through a basement window.

The schoolteacher's arrest in Thailand a week and a half ago was seen a surprise break in the decade-old murder mystery that had cast suspicion over JonBenet's parents. But Karr's bizarre account — and his apparent fascination with the little girl's death — immediately raised suspicions that he might be an obsessed follower of the case who confessed to a crime he didn't commit.

Among other things, Karr's relatives insisted that he was with them, celebrating Christmas in Georgia and Alabama, around the time the child beauty queen was found strangled and beaten at her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996. They said that if Karr had not been with his family at Christmas, they would have certainly remembered it.

In an interview with the media in Thailand, Karr said that he was with JonBenet when she died and that her death was an accident. Asked if he was innocent, he said no.

In an interview today with MSNBC, Gary Harris, who had been spokesman for the Karr family, said of the DNA: "I knew it wouldn't match." Karr has been "obsessed with this case for a long time. He may have some personality problems, but he's not a killer," Harris said. "He obsesses. He wanted to be a rock star one time. ... He's a dreamer. He's the kind of guy who wants to be famous.