Peter Boyles Show - Friday, July 16, 1999

This transcript was copied "as is" from Panico's posting

"JT Colax on Peter Boyles/Friday"
Posted by Panico on Jul-16-99 at 11:27 AM (EDT)

PB: JT Colfax is here in studio with us after spending 2 years and 6 months in jail. This case continues to take so many strange twists and turns. The one story that the thread kinda ran through this, putting the capital S on strange, was the case of JT Colfax, whose real name is James Michael Thompson and he has been released from jail--you've been out how long now?

JB: Since Tuesday morning

PB: It's good to see you and good morning. It was freedom day for you. What happened on Tuesday morning? How did it all come together?

JT: Well, we had a little walk from Pasta Jay's Restaurant to the Justice Center

PB: Was the Pasta boy there?

JT: I didn't want to get too close to the restaurant itself--we just had a few press people take a few pictures in front of it and all that. I don't want to aggravate him. You know, if you can get away with your legal cases, then you would. And that's what he did.

PB: Sure he did. He beat the dealer too many times.

JT: It's a very irritating syndrome when you're in jail--everyone sits around and talks about it. And that doesn't mean him specifically--I mean anybody else that gets off easy...

PB: He got off again and again.

JT: Yeah, he got off scott free basically

PB: Many times

JT: I sat there for 2 years — it's like being in a big waiting room--and people come in over and over--it's the same people, because they violate probation.

PB: Not Pasta Jay

JT: He goes out and ...

PB: Driving drunk and on probation and going after people with ball bats and hand guns

JT: They say he fell through the cracks and they didn't charge him

PB: Winky, winky

JT: I've been looking for that crack for 2 years--I have the blueprints to the jail and I posted them on the internet and I couldn't find that crack.

PB: Take you back--June of 97--you go the Ramseys home. What motivated you to go to their house that night?

JT: It starts before that with ..

PB: Begin at the beginning. You were driving the morgue truck, correct?

JT: Yeah

PB: Tell the story--Dec 26th, 1996, JonBenet's body is found.

JT: And I was in Canada and not even in the mortuary business. I'd been in it before, but had been out of it for years. But then I came back to Denver, I grew up here in Westminster, I'd say about Jan 5th or somewhere right around there.. I saw an ad in the Post for that type of work, mortuary transporting, I'd done it before and I needed a job so I got that one.

PB: When you say mortuary transport, you were transporting bodies to funeral homes from morgues, correct?

JT: Or from hospitals...from place of death.

PB: You saw Jon Benet's name in the book at Boulder Community Hospital

JT: Yes...I'd been there before and she was in a log book and I had to sign that out for any other person that had died

PB: So you saw this page with her name

JT: Yes, so in that respect her name was just one of many on the list

PB: You stole the page?

JT: Yes--2 pages

PB: What did you do with the pages?

JT: I just made xerox's of them and painted something like "All in a night's work" on it and I didn't paint on the actual logs. I can tell you right now, if you want to talk about strange, what happened to those logs is...after I was snitched off

PB: Who snitched you off?

JT: Dave Rogers from ---- Mortuary

PB: He gave you up?

JT: Yeah, but I didn't know that I was already in trouble with him. One day I was sitting there watching TV and you know how they do with 'tomorrow's headlines' in RMN, I was sitting there drinking a beer--and the morgue logs about JonBenet Ramsey---I mean I was spittin' out the beer---I was already in trouble and I'd lost my job and everything for taking pictures

PB: And then your name goes up on TV

JT: And now 2 weeks later I got a new case

PB: There's an art show that is open now, The JT Colfax Freedom Celebration is 8-10:30 tonight at the Hart Studio, 4325 W. 41st Ave., right off Tennyson. The infamous JT Colfax art.

BREAK

PB: JT Colfax's involvement in the unsolved Ramsey case. It begins in May '95 when he is charged with theft and criminal mischief for ripping out a page from a log book that recorded the arrival of JonBenet's body at the morgue. Pick that up...you saw her namein the book at the Boulder Community Hospital, and you took the page.

JT: Yes, the 2 facing pages.

PB: And you started to send it to people

JT: Yeah, just to friends and all that, but what happened to the actual originals that I'm charged with stealing...they left my control. Once I saw the thing on the news and knew that it was out and what would be coming next.....I sent them to a friend of mine in California, Randy Walker, and he was not there when they arrived, and the idea was that he would send them back here and call Crimestoppers out there and send them to a bar on E. Colfax. Then it would just be a strange, bizarre thing, but they would have them back and wonder what the hell...

PB: So where are those pages now?

JT: Since he was not there and didn't send them, then when I talked to him, I had a different newspaper in my hands, and he sent them to "Dad's Coffee Shop" in Denver.

PB: So no one knows where they are?

JT: Maybe somebody at Dad's does

PB: The real pages with JonBenet's name

BREAK---back with the good stuff

2 . "More"
Posted by Panico on Jul-16-99 at 12:08 PM (EDT)

PB: I gotta bring Julie Hayden from Channel 7 on, the reason I asked you to come on is JT Colfax is sitting here and I know you know who he is, I think maybe you've even spoken with him?

JH: I don't think we've spoken in person, but...

PB: He's sitting here telling me this most bizarre story.. now to know the players, real quickly, James Michael Thompson is JT Colfax, he walked out of Boulder County Jail on Tuesday after serving a 2 year sentence for attempted arson, he did more than 2 years. His involvement in the unsolved Ramsey case began in May of 97, he's charged with theft and criminal mischief, for ripping out a page out of the log book that recorded the arrival of JonBenet's body at the morgue. And then later that month, he went to the Ramsey's home, where JonBenet was found dead. He set fire to some papers and shoved them through the mail slot, and then he admitted that it was an attempt to burn the house down. And he spent the night outside the house and he called the detectives--actually, if I remember correctly, you called the detective who was working on the case, and told him what you had done, right?

JT: Yes, Detective Ron ---(missed it)

PB: And then while he was in jail, JT, writing as Colfax, penned a lot of letters to me and to a lot of other people. But here's the blow, Julie, and we're trying to get ahold of McKinley, Chuck and Charlie and everybody... To know the players, you gotta have a score card. Everybody, I think knows, Patsy and John Ramsey. Patsy Ramsey has a sister named Pam, who I have dubbed Crazy Aunt Pam. Aunt Pam is a woman, for instance, who claims that JonBenet talks to her. And as Chuck Green said, "Well, for God's sakes, ask her who killed her." CAP has been just an amazingly wierd player in the investigation of her sister. Now Julie, batton down your hatches--

JH: OK

PB: JT, tell Ms Hayden and the audience while you were incarcerated, what happened.

JT: I think some dentures are going to drop in tea cups now, but... I had been doing an internet thing. My friend who got out of jail started putting my daily postings on the internet. He did a lot of work and everything, but we've had control issues, and I need to separate from this case, so that's why I have to do this so he stops using my name to contact people...my friend Lance Matthews is going to be angry, I'll still call him my friend. He contacts people, he's called PB at home

PB: Oh, many times, sure. He sends me emails.

JT: Anyway, he somehow has gotten in contact with Pam Paugh all along while I was in jail there, during the portion when I was on the internet for 9 months. And he surrepticiously recorded her and at her suggestion (he played it to me over the phone) she suggested that he and I go to the Governor's office with information on other inmates as alternative suspects.

PB: For killing JonBenet

JT: Yes

PB: Did you hear that Julie?

JH: Whoa

JT: Or at least for blurring

PB: CAP. who has been on the Larry King Show, has done all this whackadoo stuff, Aunt Pam, on a tape recorder, you say this tape exists?

JT: Yes

PB: Aunt Pam telling Lance, your partner, to go to you...

JT: The snippet I heard was....he told her about some information about a party that was near the Ramsey house. It's an interesting story I posted about....cause that's what this all relates to...and she suggested that we aid them in taking it to the governor's office...and I didn't hear her say this, but I assume it would be to make some sort of big deal about it and bypass the DA. But I don't understand why they would have a problem with the DA.

PB: (laughing) They have immense problems.

JH: And not to doubt your word, but obviously, that would be the kind of stuff everyone would want to clarify that it was really Pam Paugh and .... but she's been kind of an unusual, and that's putting it mildly, character in this from the beginning, Peter, you know? It wouldn't surprise me if that kind of situation were possibly true.

PB: You remember who she plays in this. Patsy Ramsey makes a statement: "We're going to turn the dogs loose---everybody and his mother can go to the media now and can talk and defend us now and tell the truth" Well, the only person that came out was Pam Paugh.

JH: Right, and she said all kinds of things to everybody.

PB: I mean, she said she knew who the killer was, she couldn't wait to get in front of the GJ, so they decide they want her to come there and she says, "No, no" -- she got lawyers to start fighting her appearance. That gives you an idea of who CAP is. But this story---this urgins....talk about witness tampering...

JH: Right

PB: She's urging you JT, and Lance, to go to the Governor and give people up....say that again

JT: She said "Why don't you guys" and Lance is telling her things about what I've told him about other inmates, and she's saying "Why don't you guys take that to the governor's office?"

JH: Now would these be other inmates that you knew weren't involved in the case and she--and this person who you think is Pam Paugh is sorta saying---just go use it to muddy the waters?

JT: I assume it's about muddying the waters, because, nobody seems to know about this, but I posted it on the internet on i.pam/jtcolfax on the April 25th posting, and believe it or not, now it's thrown a rock musician under the bus, but he gave me permission to use this story before he left the prison. His name is Al Laughlin, he used to be in the samples and he had some drug case and now he's in prison in..----

More good stuff comin'

3 . "More" Posted by Panico on Jul-16-99 at 12:15 PM (EDT)

JT: He told me, while we were in jail, that he was at a party several doors down from the Ramseys

PB: Have to go to a break, let's summarize this, telling the story that CAP, and you claim you've heard a tape of this

JT: Yes, and I know it's her. I know also that Lance will deny it probably.

PB: Aunt Pam says, "Go to the Governor and give him some info from people inside county jail about ...

JT: Well, I've now met 3 inmates that were at this party...

PB: We'll talk about the party but CAP wanted you to go to the governor, not to the DA, not to the PD

JT: Right

PB: And you see it as muddling up the case

JT: It's completely assuming what she would want it for. I only heard the part of the tape where she suggests that

Break---back with more

6 . "More"
Posted by Panico on Jul-16-99 at 12:44 PM (EDT)

PB: I know by now that folks who have followed the Ramsey investigation know the life and times of JT Colfax. He walked out of Boulder County jail on Tuesday after serving more than 2 years for attempted arson. He's in our studio this morning and also joining us is Julie Hayden from Channel 7. There's kind of an interesting twist to all of this--that while incarcerated, he was approached by his webmaster, who was in communication with Patsy's sister, Pam Paugh, and Pam wanted Lance and JT to I guess develop cases against other people while they were in jail, take it to the governor and say perhaps these were the true killers of JonBenet. It's meddling. And I don't know what you believe JT, and I've never asked you this publicly, but I will now. Who do you think killed JonBenet Ramsey?

JT: Well, when I worked in the kitchen in the jail, I baked and cake and I wrote in frosting on it "Patsy did it"

PB: OK-- now there's this wierd story of this party. Could you talk about this party?

JT: the party happened on the same night as the murder and it was several doors away from the Ramseys house apparently. I met 3 inmates that had been at the party--two of them I've written about, but one of them I've met more recently. There was a big large party, lots of drinking, lots of cocaine

PB: Up the street or down the street?

JT: I don't know the area that well--I wasn't there that long.

PB: OK

JT: And it may be just around the corner I'm thinking--or on the corner—but somehow you could see --but the people who were at this party, and it lasted all night, cocaine and all this. They come out, one of them, a guy named Harold, I don't know his last name...he got in a cab, he'd called a cab to the neighborhood. He gets in the cab and he knows the cab driver...and they saw the first cop car arrive and the cab driver says "Look at that cop" And they took him home, and then the cab driver later called this Harold and warned him that this little girl had been murdered and that the cops had contacted the cab co. about people riding and that they would probably be coming. But they never did. If they had, they would have found out about this party. All these people roaming around. This could explain that scream. That's why I kept asking the people that were there 'was this noisy enough to cause...if somebody woke up...if somebody was deeply asleep and heard a noise, could that have been from you all' and they all say yes. Somebody got in a little altercation at this party over a man talking to a girl that somebody else felt ownership over, and later a bottle was thrown into the street...

PB: Have you ever heard any of these stories, Julie?

JH: I haven't heard anything about a party--huh huh I would imagine though that, I mean if the police contacted the cab company, obviously they were aware of it though. I would imagine they would have checked it out.

JT: They contacted the cab co. and were given this guy Harold's number, but he never was contacted.

JH: hmmm

PB: So--that night you say--there's always been so many different rumors of people seeing things that night, but none of them have ever panned out. I know Julie's chased a bunch of them and I certainly have. But you're saying there was a party that night in the neighborhood.

JT: Yeah, these people have been whispering about it for 2 years. 'have the cops ever talked to you....'

PB: And they never have?

JT: Everybody that was at that party runs into each other sooner or later and ....like I say, I've run into 3. Later that day, when the news starts coming on about the murder, and all that, they all realized that's what all the crime scene tape was. Al Laughlin, the guy that used to be in samples, when he came up on it a little later after Harold, he saw all the crime scene tape and all that and ... when there's drugs, you don't want to walk out of a party and see a whole bunch of cops and they were all afraid, so they just silently got in their car and went to Dot's (?) Diner and had breakfast and later found out what the meaning of all that tape was.

PB: Wow. Parallel universes. You know, things..unintended consequences. What was really going on wasn't, and what was going on was going on, huh? So the Aunt Pam story is bizarre. Julie, I wish I had this picture--tell me JT, Miss Virginia pageant 1995--where'd you get this?

JT: I took that picture in 1995. This is part of the reason why everything's been so stressful for me--why maybe I was investigated in the first place. I think some people think I just like to claim I was investigated, but ...I did a project in 1995, I wrote to a town in W. VA,

PB: I remember that. Remember when we found out about that Julie

JT: Which of course, there was no word Ramsey in my life at the time, but I wrote to Clarksburg and went there several times

PB: And there's the Miss W. VA pageant..

JH; So you shot some pictures at the pageant?

JT: Outside the theater. I shot pictures of the KFC and stuff all over town and xeroxed these and sent them with my letters, but all this time I've been in jail I've not seen this photo.

PB: I gotta get you to tell this story to Julie and then we gotta wrap this up--he doesn't know to this day where the 'real' JonBenet log sheets are (then Peter repeats that story)

PB: 2 more questions while Julie's on the line. When you set the house on fire, or tried to, why did you then call the detective?

JT: Because I did it as a symbolic thing to get a new case because I had a case in Boulder for the morgue logs, I had a case in of corpse abuse in Littleton and Englewood. I had nowhere to go, no money, no nothing. I was bailed out by somebody in an amazing way and I'd rather have like skipped and got out of this, but I couldn't do it because of that so, I had to go back to jail and start my time. That's the whole thing I did that for--was to start my time. And of course they took my good time away anyway.

9 . "Last little segment"
Posted by Panico on Jul-16-99 at 12:54 PM (EDT)

PB: (Telling about the JT Colax Art Show tonight again) The infamous shock artist is in our studio, just out of Boulder County jail. So my question, knowing what you've been through in the past, and some issues are on alcohol, what's next for you?

JT: Well, things are different in that I had no where to go, no money, no nothing when all that happened

PB: When you were released from jail, how much money did they give you?

JT: $20. But all my belongings were lost by... you know the bumbling never ever stopped. So when I went to the Rams house, I carried a duffle bag with my typewriter, and they lost it all. So they did have to pay for that, so I do have some money. I got it off the books because I don't trust them.

PB: So what are you going to do now?

JT: I am working with Mickey at the gallery. That's all I ever do is get an annual job.

PB: And if in fact there's an indictment coming, you'll stay here and be an artist through all that?

JT: Not related to that--you know this was just a wierd incident, you know.

PB: OK

JT: And it never ends, you know. That's why I wanted to tell you about Pam Paugh. That would put an end to a few of the possibilities.

PB: That's a bizarre story. Thank you my friend. Stay straight now.

And thhhhhaaaaattts all folks.