A professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder is in the middle of a news-media blitz about a crack in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, which has remained unsolved for 10 years.

According to the Rocky Mountain News, a university spokesman confirmed that Michael Tracey, a longtime journalism professor there, had communicated for months with John Mark Karr, 41, and had contacted police about the man.

Mr. Karr, a schoolteacher, confessed on Wednesday to killing the 6-year-old beauty queen in what he called an “accident.” He was taken into custody in Thailand, where he had been living. He reportedly had lived near the Ramseys in Georgia before they moved to Colorado, when JonBenet was an infant. The girl was found beaten and strangled in her family’s Boulder, Colo., home on December 26, 1996.

Mr. Tracey, who has spent decades researching the mass media, co-produced a documentary in 2004 called, Who killed JonBenet? According to the Rocky Mountain News, the university spokesman said he did not know what prompted Mr. Tracey to become suspicious of Mr. Karr.

Mr. Tracey’s voice-mail box at his university office was full.