Years later, he would pronounce his last name the French way with a silent T. He scored a job with upscale chain Toni & Guy, but there was another Chris on staff, so he started using the name “Christian” professionally. “He was a really good haircutter,” Cross says. He wasn’t a very trusting person.”Ĭolbert moved into Cross’ apartment and quickly began working his way up in the salon business. “That showed through in his relationship with me and everyone else. “He had a pretty messed-up childhood,” Cross says. Nathan Cross, Christopher Colbert’s ex-partner He would be your friend one moment, but he could turn on you.” “He was a shiny and attractive person,” Cross says.Ĭolbert had fled small-town Tahlequah, Okla., in a clunky Ford Tempo that needed a push to get started. The men met in a divey Arlington gay bar in 1992. And, according to Cross, he was the only one who ever really loved him. He was also volatile and self-destructive, Cross says.Īs social as Colbert was, almost no one truly knew him. He agreed to speak with The News exclusively only because he didn’t recognize the Chris he read about on Facebook or whenever he turned on the news last winter.Ĭross insists Colbert was “a genuinely caring person.” He was devoted to his two dachshunds, whom he referred to as his children. Nobody was a closer witness to his erratic, decades-long fragmentation than Nathan Cross, Colbert’s former partner.Ĭross, 50, gets emotional when he talks about Colbert. (File Photo/Nan Coulter)Ĭolbert didn’t respond to The News’ request for an interview.
In a now-ominous portrait taken by The Dallas Morning News 18 years ago, Colbert stands next to his own glass artwork on display at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary - the facsimile of a smile captured in the mirror’s shattered surface.Ĭhristopher Colbert’s Cracked was part of a display at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary in 1998. “I’m going to be his Ranch Hand :)”īut by then, police believe, Shumway was already dead.Ĭhristopher Colbert wanted to be rich and famous.
“He actually lives on a ranch,” one status update says.
“I think he inherited that.”įor the past five years, Shumway had worked as a bus driver for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, according to news reports.īut on April 24, 2015, DART officials received Shumway’s resignation in an email, WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reported.įor the next several days, posts on Shumway’s Facebook page mentioned a move to Austin to be with a new partner, someone referred to as his “cowboy.” “His mother was kind of a nut,” says his half brother, Mark Shumway. The group also talks to Fred Robertson, who found Shumway's body. He is accused of killing Ronald Shumway, hiding his body under a slab of concrete and posing as him to sell his house.
Texas CrimeCast Host Jen Emily chats with writers Naheed Rajwani and Christopher Wynn about Christopher Colbert, who came to Dallas in pursuit of wealth and fame and left an alleged con man and murderer.