Steve Thomas investigated the case that was presented to the grand jury.
Why would he have anything different to say now?
TRICIA: Tell us how you met James Kolar and tell us a little bit about the man
STEVE: Yep, when I was a police officer in Boulder, and still a young police officer, in a blue uniform,
pushing a black and white around out on the street, um, I had the good fortune to have, as my sergeant for a period of time, Jim Kolar and uh, I can say he is widely respected by his peers. He rose through the ranks and is now a police chief and I know he’s active with the Colorado Association of the Chiefs of Police, um, and he comes from a perspective having worked this case, knows this case as a current police chief, so I think his CV and background and credentials, and his peer respect, sort of speak for themselves. But uh, I always enjoyed working for Jim Kolar very stract, squared away, excellent police officer, excellent investigator. Yep, was a good sergeant to work for, and I learned a lot about police work from Jim Kolar, so when he later would step into this frying pan as the lead investigator for the DAs office, assigned to the Ramsey case, um, that gave me some comfort and assurance that, you know, it would be once again reviewed through the eyes of a professional police investigator. Of course,having read his book, recently when it came out, I was (chuckles) disappointed to say the least that he experienced many things, not the least of which, the same sort of kill the messenger phenomenon from the DA’s office at the time, and
I am just very impressed with his book and what he’s put forth.
TRICIA: Um, so, we’re talking with Steve Thomas, Boulder detective on the JonBenet Ramsey case, and
we’re talking about James Kolar. He is the chief of police of Telluride, and he wrote the amazing book, A
Foreign Faction Who Kidnapped JonBenet Ramsey, and we’ll be talking with Chief Kolar here in just a moment, but we’re talking about him behind his back. I wonder if his ears are burning. Steve, were you
surprised when James Kolar, he was on the job, uh, with the Boulder District Attorney’s office less than a
year if I remember correctly. Were you surprised when he quit, or did you go, yea I get it. He went through what I went through, just like you said. Were you surprised that he did quit?
STEVE: Well, um, I didn’t know he…we had spoken a couple of times during that period but only on a
professional level as he was investigating the case, and I think we may have spoken a time or two where he wanted some clarification on something or another that I may have been able to help with, so we
had a couple of conversations I recall in which, um, it was, um, it was absolutely on, he was an
investigator and I was just playing case information, as I recall it, um, but he didn’t share with me any
frustrations or anything that was going on inside the DA’s office, so I was surprised when he quit, um,
but I was surprised upon reading his book to see all of the frustrations that he encountered with the same institution – this DA’s office – um, while only trying to do his job. And, uh, so I didn’t think much would surprise me about the case anymore, um (chuckles),
until I read his book and read some profound and staggeringly significant revelations that he made.
Um, about various things that went on, and a couple items of evidentiary nature that, um, just in any reasonable review or assessment of the case, um, perhaps like my experience, just left me a bit dumbfounded that some of the experiences that he had were identical to mine, albeit some years later and with a different District Attorney in place. Um, but, again, I give Chief Kolar a lot of credit that he was trying to work towards a definitive conclusion to the case and um ran into a lot of the same frustrations and road blocks that I experienced.
