James Holmes trial: Accused 'had obsession to kill since childhood'

 
Daniel Bates28 April 2015
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The man accused of going on the rampage during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises had an "obsession to kill" since he was a child, a court heard last night.

James Holmes wrote in his workbook that he "decided to dedicate my life to killing others" whilst he was young, it was claimed.

He harboured a ‘long standing hatred of mankind’ and acted it out by shooting dead 12 people and injuring 70 during the showing of the Batman film at the cinema in Aurora, Colorado.

Holmes - who dyed his hair red like The Joker - did it in a warped attempt to make himself feel better, a jury was told.

Anyone who was injured in the 2012 massacre was just ‘collateral damage’ to the 27-year-old, prosecutors said on the opening day of the trial.

Holmes admits that he was the shooter but claims that he was insane at the time and denies 166 counts of murder.

He faces the death penalty if convicted.

Arapahoe District Court heard how Holmes carried out mass murder after his life spiralled out of control.

He was getting poor grades on his neuropsychiatry at the University of Colorado, his girlfriend had dumped him and he felt that he ‘had no purpose’.

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler said that Holmes dressed himself in body armour, a gas mask and cranked up his techno music on his headphones to the highest volume before entering into the cinema.

He dramatically described how Holmes pumped his victims full of of bullets, saying "boom" before describing how each died.

He said: "Through this door is horror. Through this door are bullets, blood, brains and bodies.

"Through this door, one guy who thought as if he had lost his career, lost his love life, lost his purpose, came to execute a plan.

"Four-hundred people came into a boxlike theater to be entertained, and one person came to slaughter them’.

Holmes’ youngest victim was six-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan whose pregnant mother Ashley Moser, 24, lost her baby and was left paralysed.

The rest of the victims were aged up to 51 and included three heroes who used their bodies as human shields to protect their girlfriends, sustaining fatal injuries in the process.

Mr Brauchler said that Holmes considered going on his rampage at airport but decided against it because he didn’t want the attack to be labelled terrorism.

Holmes told psychiatrists that he thought that the apocalypse was coming and that his victims would be ‘grateful’ to be killed before that day arrived, the court heard.

At those words a woman in the audience could be heard to let out a loud sob.

The court also heard that Holmes had a twisted points system under which children were "worth" more as they had their whole lives to lead, though he later revised it so that all lives were worth one point.

In a chilling recording of him speaking to psychiatrist, Holmes says that the injured did not matter to him and: "I only count fatalities".

Mr Brauchler refuted the claim that Holmes was insane and said that two Colorado state psychiatrists who examined him found he had a "superior" intellect and a high IQ.

Holmes booby trapped his apartment but police defused the bombs when they went round to search the property, the jury heard.

In his opening statement Holmes’ defence attorney Daniel King said he had been evaluated by over 20 doctors and that all agreed that he was not faking his mental illness.

Mr King describes Holmes as a "good kid" who could be "anyone’s son" but that his psychosis was the cause of his actions.

The trial has been beset by delays and drew from a jury pool of 9,000 people, thought to be the biggest in US history, from which 12 were selected.

Among them is a survivor of the 1999 Columbine high school shooting, which took place 30 miles from the court.

The trial continues.

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