1998-10-14: Colfax Diary; October 14th - James Thompson at Boulder County Jail

"on the web (by pencil)"

the first letter

october 14th-15th

It's a billion o'clock at night. Exhausted. Just finished your giant packet of Internet glop. Amazing, but nerve wracking. So much to respond to. Can't right now. Total overwhelming period of depression. Will answer all those points over the weekend.

Let this letter serve as my first response to this eye opening experience on the web (by pencil), and I'll just gloss over a few things before I go to bed.

1. A lot of the negative things said were good points and I'll get to them.

2. The main put down is on the theme of attention seeking. "Let ME say this about THAT." I've been working on art projects and writing under the Colfax name for 10 years. I had various successes. I saw the "publicity" of what happened to me with legal problems as ruinous in '97 as it happened. I think it was Goethe that brought it up. He implied I hopped up out of nowhere and stole morgue papers and started the Ramsey house on fire for attention. I could have gotten 20 years. Definately not worth the attention.

I am actually very shy in person but I do like to send larger messages via the media. I've been way down in the depths and can bring forth new perspectives. The Ramsey problems and my incarceration have INTERRUPTED me in the course of what I have always been doing as an artist. I don't want to be stuck with this Ramsey thing permanently.

3. I've gotta hurry up for tonite. Faster. Faster.

4. Loved seeing Mrs. Brady's comments, + others.

5. I am crawling the walls with boredom and tension. I refuse to be found at fault for talking about this idiocy in any forum that pleases me or presents itself. A good flier an the street corner pleases me more than a lot of newspaper stories.

6. I am going to shift into ULTRA FAST mentions of various topics. Just mentions. THIS has caught me at a bad time.

7. I have met Det.Gosage, X-Det.Thomas, Lou Smit, & TRIP DeMuth.

8. I burned the R. house after weeks & weeks of investigation. I burned it the day I came to the end of my rope financially. I sat on the Ramsey patio with a duffle bag containing my typewriter and phone and radio. I forced myself out of the patio chair to go do what I did so I could STABILIZE my situation and free all the legalities I had before me. Only 2 months ago did I finish my Denver corpse photography case. SEE IT. I saw legalities stretching WAY out before me. I handled it in the desperate way I did.

9. This is already bringing back so many bizarre memories.

10. I was at the Royal Hotel in Vancouver when "the event" occurred.

11. The first I heard of the girl with the unusual name was in the Portland Oregonian probably on Dec. 28th or so. I was on a bus journey to Denver. Bad weather. Took forever. Heard more along the way.

12. I can't do this now. I have black eyes of stress. Someone mailed me a photo that got me in trouble. When you get stressed, everyone can see it and they attack like barricudas. Almost got fired at my trusty kitchen job tonight.

13. Someone in this batch of net conversation I received asked if I was interested in justice for JonBenet or if I just wanted to leak harmful info. My friend Matthews spoke incorrectly by degrees for me in giving the sort of political "justice" answer. You know, I try not to think about her. Period. But I feel that the Ramseys injected PR into this circus. I've had noncriminal contact with the media for years. I do now what I always did.

14. I'm ending up trying to get to it all too fast at the worst time.

15. Goethe must live in Boulder?

16. There used to be a prisoner here named Nick Lowe. He was my neighbor. "The Boulder Burgler." Eighty-six counts of burglary. Det. Gosage came to tape record him here at the jail. They took hair, saliva, and handwriting from him too. This was in about August '97. Then I was removed from the POD. Nick's mother had moved to Victoria, Canada not far from where I was when the Death happened. Det. Gosage called her there. Her name is Debbi Lowe. Nick is in a Minnesotta prison, as Colorado overflow.

17. Lou Smit sat in on my plea bargain meetings in Dec. '97 and Jan. this year. ATTENTION, huh? It just keeps going.

18. Sometimes I wonder if I stumbled across one very sore point of stupidity in Mr. Meyer's part. I mentioned a sloppy tub full of brains on the top shelf of the cooler in the basement morgue of Boulder Community Hospital. I mentioned it in the BODY OF WORK article in Westword. Some OTHER homicide Detectives came and searched my room again at the YMCA when they read that. They kicked my bed from its spot and asked me if I had any of JBR's body parts. Sick. But all I wonder is if what I implied in Westword might be true - that JBRs brains were just added onto the filthy pile negligently, if perhaps they were ruined as evidence by being mixed in with parts from other people. Could they be that stupid?

19. So much more to say but I've GOT to sleep, or try. I'll seal this into an envelope and slice it under the door for the "graves" shift guard to pick up. I'd like a beer and a cigarrette and fresh air and to talk about something else.

20. To: Bryan Morgan. OH YES, I'm gonna get to IT. You should HAVE to answer to it someday.

All for now,

J.T.Colfax
jtcolfax@hotmail.com