The father and brothers of John Mark Karr, the man arrested on suspicion of killing JonBenet Ramsey in Colorado the day after Christmas a decade ago, do not recall him ever missing Christmas dinner in Atlanta or traveling to Colorado after the holiday, an attorney for the family said Monday.

Gary Harris said that the suspect’s father, Wexford Karr, found a photograph indicating that his son was part of the family’s 1996 Christmas gathering, the day before the child beauty queen was found strangled in her home in Boulder.

The Christmas Day photograph does not include John Karr but shows his three sons, who, Harris said, never attended the holiday dinner without their parents. Although the photo is undated, the lawyer said the family is certain it was taken in 1996, because an infant pictured in it, Karr’s nephew, was 2 weeks old that Christmas.

The account of Karr’s father and two brothers deepens the uncertainty of whether the 41-year-old teacher was responsible for the killing. Last week, Karr told reporters after his arrest in Thailand that he had been with the 6-year-old when she died.

A former wife of Karr who was married to him in 1996 also has said she remembers his being with her and his family during Christmas that year. An attorney for Lara Knutson, who lives in Northern California and was married to Karr for a dozen years until 2001, said she has “a great deal of contempt” for her ex-husband but wants to give investigators accurate information. Harris, the attorney for Karr’s father and brothers, said they have had little contact with her since the divorce, though they remain in touch with her teenage sons by phone.

In an interview, Harris, of Clayton, Ga., said Boulder County investigators were in Georgia on Monday and had interviewed Karr’s father, 85, and half-brother, Nathaniel Karr, 34, on Sunday night. “I don’t think they have the right guy,” Harris said, based on his conversations with the family.

The matching recollections from different parts of Karr’s family emerged Monday as the suspect spent his first known day back in the United States in five years being held as a fugitive in a windowless cell in the Los Angeles County jail. Escorted by representatives of the Boulder County district attorney and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Karr arrived Sunday night on a flight from Bangkok. He has not been charged with any crime related to JonBenet’s death.

Karr is scheduled to appear this morning in Los Angeles County Court for a hearing to determine how rapidly he will be transferred to Boulder. It was unclear Monday whether Karr plans to waive or contest his extradition to Colorado. A spokeswoman for the Boulder County district attorney said that if he waives extradition, sheriff’s deputies from Boulder will have 10 days to retrieve him.

Karr was last known to have been in the United States in 2001. That spring, he was arrested on child pornography charges in Sonoma County, Calif., where he and his family had recently moved. He spent five months in jail and, shortly after his release, skipped a pretrial court appearance. He did not contact anyone in his family after that. Resumes he posted on various Web sites said he held brief teaching jobs in Europe and Asia. A doctor at a Bangkok clinic that specializes in sex-reassignment hormone therapy and surgery has confirmed that Karr was a recent patient.