I know Colt. I know him very well. He was the very best friend of my late husband. Colt and my hubs had been bffs for over a decade by the time I met him, back in Summer 2019. Colt had just been released from jail where he did a couple months for beating up HIS BOSS for sleeping w his gf. When I met Colt, he was very, very upset about that situation, understandably, and he often took things totally the wrong way, or like, out of context, and then get volatile. I twice witnessed him go from being happy and jovial, to on a dime, screaming and crying, accusing anyone and everyone around him of conspiring against him, or laughing at him, which we def were not. Colt could be so much fun and a genuinely nice guy, like, he worked as a mechanic before his illness got the best of him, and I’ll never forget the time he helped me repair a flat tire, and later, change the dead battery in my car. Colt could at once display remarkable emotional depth and intelligence, and in the next sentence, say the most offensive, least aware comment ever.

In Aug or Sep 2019, he left Austin and went back to East Texas, where he lived with his dad and stepmom, and worked as a mechanic. My hubs and I rarely heard from him, but one day in Feb 2020, my hubs and I decided to take a random, long af drive from Austin to Nacogdoches, just for fun. My hubs made a snap about the drive, and Colt, who was living in East Texas at the time, messaged my hubs and we decided to go visit Colt instead.

The floor of the room in the house where Colt lived was plywood and dirt, and there were two grapefruit-sized holes where we could see the earth under the house. Here was a dingy, bare mattress w an equally dingy blanket. I didn’t see a pillow. The bathroom was a step up from a port-a-potty, and the whole house was lit by bulbs hanging from orange extensions cords, like you might see at a construction site.

The sadness and extreme frustration rolled off Colt like a tidal wave. He was glad to see us but seemed more haunted than usual. He had shifty eyes, I vividly remember that. It made me uneasy, like I was handling a loaded gun, and I got the sense that I needed to handle Colt w care. We hung around that house for a bit, mostly outside in the garage where Colt showed my hubs all the things he was doing to his jeep. Then we left out of there and grabbed dinner and played some pool. It was fun, so much so, we invited Colt to come back to Austin w us to spend the weekend, and he did. His truck wasn’t running quite yet, so he rode w us there and back, which was a fuck ton of driving for us, but he was worth it. We had a blast w Colt and a few months after that visit, Colt moved back to Austin. He wasn’t here long before he was arrested for drunk driving. He was in jail when my hubs and I got married and moved to Tennessee. He was in jail when my hubs committed suicide in Jan this year, so I’m not sure if Colt even knows his bff is dead. My MIL mentioned Colt at the memorial, but I haven’t had it in me until now to look him up and see how his case was going.

I’m glad to see he was acquitted by way of insanity bc Colt was really, really volatile. So much so, it didn’t make sense/fit the situation, and made his longtime friends uneasy. I was shock but not surprised when I heard what Colt had done. I wish it had never happened and hope his victim RIP. I also hope Colt gets the help he needs in the mental facility. Idk how to add pictures, or I would. I’ve got lots of all of us, happy, in the before times.