One day, I got a tip with new information regarding a man I'd met months before-Chris Wolf.

I didn't know it at the time, but recent information indicates he may have known McReynolds while studying at the University of Colorado-despite claims by each man that they've never known each other. Chris Wolf was a local reporter whose girlfriend, Jacqueline Dilson, had accused him of killing both JonBenet Ramsey and Susannah Chase. I initially met with Wolf in the fall of 1997 to tell him what I had learned, although he had a difficult time accepting the fact his own girlfriend was the tipster who caused his most recent ordeals.

Despite his reputation for being somewhat aggressive and argumentative, I sensed a deep sadness within Wolf that often made me feel sorry for him.

He had traveled throughout the United States and Latin America, where he quickly bonded with poverty-stricken peasants and adopted an anti-imperialist political view on the world. Eventually, he moved to Boulder where he earned a master's degree in journalism at CU and went on to work as a mountain climbing instructor for Outward Bound, an outdoor confidence building program.

Later, Wolf worked at various local newspapers as a reporter, where he sometimes engaged in passionate arguments with his co-workers about politics. Wolf had a peculiar past-including a history of working as a male stripper and a 1992 indecent exposure charge to which he pleaded guilty. These facts were revealed by Wolf just recently during a deposition by lawyers for the Ramsey's, who are defending the couple against a libel suit filed by Wolf. Wolf is suing the Ramseys because they named him as prime suspect in their book The Death of Innocence.

Wolf became a surprising suspect in the JonBenet case when Dilson told police only two weeks after JonBenet's murder that Wolf had disappeared the night JonBenet was killed. She told police Wolf was wearing a tennis club-style sweatshirt, which said "Santa Barbara." Since the supposed foreign faction claiming responsibility for JonBenet's kidnapping in the ransom note identified itself as "SBTC," Dilson wondered if it stood for "Santa Barbara Tennis Club."

Dilson also claimed:

* She saw a package of cord on his dresser.
* He owned mountain climbing boots.
* He often expressed hostile emotions when talking about John Ramsey and Access Graphics' parent company, Lockheed Martin, which he believed was responsible for exploiting third-world countries.
* She awoke in the early morning hours of Dec. 26 to find Wolf with mud on the Santa Barbara sweatshirt and a pair of black jeans. When she asked where he'd been, he grew angry with her.

There was one other interesting possible connection. Wolf worked as a reporter for the Boulder County Business Report at the time of JonBenet's murder. I learned that police had found an issue of the newspaper in the Ramsey house, which featured a story about John Ramsey. There was a heart drawn around Ramsey's picture and on the inside of the issue was a separate story, written by Wolf. It sounded like a strange coincidence, nothing more.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued enough to visit Dilson. She allowed me to read Wolf's journals. As I read about his journeys in El Salvador, I realized that Wolf's Marxist viewpoints were strikingly similar to the politics expressed in the ransom note.

Wolf had previously said that before JonBenet's murder, he'd never even heard of Ramsey's company, Access Graphics. But based on his reporting notes, he actually interviewed a company spokeswoman there several months before the murder took place. Had he simply forgotten? Perhaps. Reporters don't remember many of the stories they write, especially the softer features.

Later, when I was examining Wolf's boots, Dilson approached me.

# "Can you feel it?" she asked me. I nodded slowly. I felt something-my heart was pounding, and little by little I began to feel like I was getting closer. Perhaps an intruder had killed JonBenet, but two important facts seemed to work in defense of Wolf: Handwriting experts in New York said he was not the author of the ransom note.
# His climbing boots were Danner's, not Hi-Tec, like the print at the Ramsey house.

My suspicion of Wolf resurfaced briefly when his ex-roommate told me he had once tried to date Susannah Chase. He later told Boulder Weekly Editor Wayne Laugesen he was friends with Susannah Chase, and often visited the woman at a health food store where she worked as a clerk. When Boulder police asked me if I thought Wolf had killed Chase, I told them I didn't. Eventually, Wolf was cleared in the Chase murder after I convinced him to cooperate with authorities by giving them his DNA.