Q. Chris Wolf has indicated to us that he was never asked to take a polygraph exam. Do you have
any factual information to dispute that?
A. I don't have any knowledge of that.
Q. If Jackie Dilson said Chris Wolf lived with her and that I believe she woke on the morning of the
26th of December and he was coming out of the shower and that his clothes were dirty, do you recall
that being information provided by Ms. Dilson?
A. Yes.
Q. If that were his only alibi, that is to say, well, I was at home with Jackie Dilson who I lived with at
the time and Jackie Dilson who he lived with at the time came to the police with suspicions that he
might have been involved in the murder, wouldn't you ask Mr. Wolf to, as you say, sit down on the box,
get on the box and take a polygraph exam to see how he did on that alibi?
A. Certainly. There are many people in this case I would have liked to have steered toward the box.
Q. I'm asking you about Mr. Wolf. Wouldn't that be standard procedure with an alibi that is related
only to being with the person who thinks that you may have been involved in the murder that you would
say, well, Mr. Wolf, if that's your alibi that you weren't out that night let's put it -- put you on a
polygraph exam and see what you say; wouldn't that be standard procedure?
A. Certainly in some departments but it had been my experience that the Boulder Police Department
had never embraced and had no policy, that I'm aware of, in place regarding polygraphy.
Q. So there was no standard practice in the Boulder Police Department about when to seek a
polygraph examination from a suspect?
A. For example, in other departments who have in-house polygraphers.
Q. Well, I'm asking you about the Boulder Police Department?
A. I'm trying to get to that.
Q. Let's get to that for me, if you would, please.
MR. DIAMOND: Let him finish.
A. Regarding the Boulder Police Department, there was no in-house polygrapher and it didn't appear
to me that there was any sort of a policy in place, although I personally favored the use of polygraphs in
some cases. In which to -- and how it was necessarily applied, we certainly were able to polygraph
some other potential suspects in this case but I don't know that Mr. Wolf ever was.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) You don't have any basis to dispute his statement that he was never asked to
take a polygraph, do you?
A. No.
Q. And do you -- are you aware of any efforts by the Boulder Police Department to ever obtain Mr.
Wolf's computer and the hard drive from his computer to have it analyzed as part of its thorough
investigation?
A. If I recall correctly, Jackie Dilson early in this investigation of Mr. Wolf had volunteered to me
that she would supply me with items belonging to Mr. Wolf, bed sheets, underwear, writings, et cetera,
and I explained to her that she could not act as an agent on behalf of law enforcement. And she may
have volunteered the computer equipment you mentioned.
Q. But you didn't accept her offer?
A. I couldn't.
Q. Because you thought it would raise questions of chain of custody and admissibility?
A. Not because I thought so. Because that, if my understanding is correct and I think the legal
advisor and even Hofstrom, you can't have a private citizen act as an agent on your behalf to
circumvent a search warrant.
Q. Well, you couldn't -- you could test the material and gain potentially valuable information even if
that information might not be admissible in court, couldn't you, sir?
A. I wasn't trained that way in the least. And I know from dope work, you can't use a citizen to act
as your agent.
Q. So if Jackie Dilson walks in and says here is a piece of evidence, here is a rope --
A. Sir.
Q. -- did you tell her, did you say wait a minute, I can't take that rope from you, Ms. Dilson?
A. Very different.
Q. How is that different --
A. Here we --
Q. -- her offering to bring you articles of clothing or his computer?
A. It's my understanding, and here is the difference, is she volunteered evidence on the front end
without any prior knowledge on our behalf, which is acceptable, according to our in-house legal
advisor. But when an individual makes it known to you as a detective that they would go out and seek
to gather evidence on your behalf and bring that to you for testing, that's entirely inappropriate.
Q. Did you have after Mr. -- based on Ms. Dilson's statements to you and Mr. Wolf's actions when
you had him brought in under the ruse, did you have probable cause at that time in your view to obtain a
search warrant of Ms. Dilson's property to obtain items of evidence to be analyzed?
A. As a matter of fact, I went to Mr. Hofstrom, at the time the chief trial deputy in the DA's office,
and this was just one of scores of examples in which we needed the power of the DA's office either
through warrant or preferably grand jury subpoena to secure evidence. And during the course of, it's
been my experience, during the course of '97 and '98 received certainly no grand jury, but very little
support from Mr. Hofstrom in the DA's office and in this case made my Detective Sergeant Wickman
aware of our inability based mostly on the DA's office reluctance to move forward further investigating
Wolf at that time.
Q. Thank you. My question was, did you have in your mind probable cause sufficient to obtain a
search warrant of Ms. Dilson's residence to obtain items of evidence based on the information she had
provided to you and the conduct of Mr. Wolf when you had him in the office under the ruse?
MR. DIAMOND: Did he conclude then or are you asking him to look now in hindsight?
MR. WOOD: I think my question is extremely clear.
MR. DIAMOND: Reread it, please.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) I would be glad to do it. My question was, did you have in your mind
probable cause sufficent to obtain a search warrant of Ms. Dilson's residence to obtain items of
evidence based on the information she had provided to the department and the conduct of Mr. Wolf
when you had him in the police department under the ruse. Did you think as a police officer that you
had probable cause to get a warrant to get these items and property?
A. I understand the question, Mr. Wood.
Q. Okay. Thank you. What is the answer?
A. The answer is one of the items that I or anyone else would have relied on to put within the four
corners of a warrant affidavit did not include any physical evidence and would have been based almost
solely on the information provided by an unreliable, mentally unstable informant. And I would have had
-- I don't know that I would have put forth my name on a search warrant affidavit and taken it to a
judge based solely on Jackie Dilson's information.
Q. I didn't ask you that. I asked you based on Jackie Dilson's information and Mr. Wolf's conduct
when you had him in the department under the ruse?
A. Well, I'm not making my answer clear obviously to you.
Q. I don't think you are but maybe I'm not understanding it.
A. No. I'm saying I did not have sufficient facts and circumstances to put in a warrant affidavit.
Q. When did you conclude that Jackie Dilson was unreliable and mentally unstable? Did you
conclude that on the first meeting with her?
A. Yes, Mr. Wood. And I suggest you read that transcript and the comments of the other detectives
walking out of the office that night. It was -- she had, God bless her, mental health problems. She's on
medication. She's an alcoholic and just was not deemed terribly reliable. But nonetheless, we chose to
move forward with that information and look at Mr. Wolf.
Q. Let me make sure I understand how the Boulder Police Department was working now. You
were involved at this time specifically with Chris Wolf, right?
A. Yes.
Q. So if I understand you --
MR. DIAMOND: Can he answer the question?
A. At what time?
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) You said yes, at this time in January of 1997 so here is what I understand.
You, Mr. Thomas, as a detective of the Boulder Police Department took an individual that you decided
in one meeting was on medication, was an alcoholic, was not reliable, had mental problems, was
mentally unstable, and you set up a ruse to have a man brought into the Boulder Police Department to
try to get him to give you a handwriting exemplar of the Ramsey note, to try to get his photograph, and
then you hobbled this man based on an informant that you tell me today was an alcoholic, mentally
unstable and unreliable; is that the way you did business with Mr. Wolf?
A. She provided sufficient details that warranted looking further at Mr. Wolf.
Q. So, I mean, you felt like you then did have a legitimate basis to investigate Mr. Wolf as a suspect
in the case, even though you had some concerns about Ms. Dilson's reliability and mental status; is that
a fair statement?
A. As I just said, there -- she provided some sufficient details to look further at Mr. Wolf in this
case.
Q. So you felt like, then, that you did have a legitimate basis to investigate Mr. Wolf as a suspect in
the case even though you had some concerns about Ms. Dilson's reliability and mental status; is that a
fair statement?
A. Yes.