The Boulder Police Department has arrested a suspect in the July 28 burglary of Time Warp Comics (see “Shop Talk”).  James Wear, of Nederland, Colorado, was charged with five counts, some of which were not related to the robbery: one count of second-degree burglary, one count of theft, a criminal mischief charge, and two criminal violations of a protection order. Boulder detectives informed Time Warp owner Wayne Winsett of the arrest on August 11.

Westword reports that the first break in the case occurred when Martin Davidson, owner of KaPow Comics and Coffee in Colorado Springs, read a news report about the robbery and realized he had just bought some of the stolen items the previous Wednesday.  “I’ve known Wayne for almost thirty years, and I immediately texted him to let him know I’d bought some of his books, and since I’d written the guy a check for them, I knew his name, too,” Davidson told Westword.  “It was pretty easy to figure out who the kid was.  We just looked him up on Facebook and, boom, there he was.”

Not only that, Wear had mentioned to Davidson that the Iron Lion was the only other store buying comics in Colorado Springs. When Winsett reached out to Iron Lion they told him they had bought seven of the stolen comics from a customer who used the alias “Christopher Hitchens.”  They are now cooperating with the investigation.

Winsett also credited customer Rita Rollman, who alerted every comic book store in Colorado to the theft and also sent the news out to the media.  “What she did on behalf of the store was incredible, and definitely key to where we are now in this process,” Winsett said.  “Without Rita’s efforts, I don’t know that Martin at KaPow would have ever seen what he did and connected the books he bought to the books that were stolen.”

 Winsett and some friends have set up a GoFundMe to help recoup some of the losses and improve store security.