LATE AFTERNOON UPDATE:
AURORA | Recorded interviews of Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes reveal someone who wanted to subdue suicidal thoughts by turning them into homicidal ones.
Video of the interview conducted by Dr. William Reid last summer was shown for a second day Friday at Arapahoe County District Court.
Holmes said he purchased a taser and a knife in the months preceeding the shooting initially as a means of self defense. He said when he purchased tear gas in May or June was when he started looking at using the weapons in an “offensive” manner.
Holmes said on the video the sensation that there was no alternative came from feeling depressed and catatonic. Holmes said he would stay in bed any time he had a chance and had also decided to delete all of his friend’s numbers from his phone.
Holmes said after buying the first glock, his compulsion grew to buy more weapons.
He said he had to buy guns such as a Glock 22 40 caliber locally at camping shops such as Bass Pros because he couldn’t purchase them online. He said he had no problem buying as much ammunition as he wanted online. He said he worried the two pychiatrists he was seeing at the time at Anschutz might have already reported that he be committed to a mental institution.
Holmes said there was no anger when he decided to purchase weapons for a “mass murder” he was starting to fantasize about.
“I have a mission to complete. There’s no anger. It was something I had to do,” he said. “It was like I was obligated to do it. That there was no other alternative.”
Reid also showed Holmes photos the defendant took of himself just before the shooting where he was wearing an armed coat, a ballistic vest, black contact lenses, and holding weapons.
Holmes said he took the pictures “to be remembered,” but that they were not an accurate picture of who he was. He said they just “captured the moment.”
Holmes said he dyed his hair red before the shooting to look “exotic” and that the reason he chose the Batman premier was because he knew the movie would be a summer blockbuster with a lot of people there.
The recorded videos also revealed that he told a psychiatrist about not being happy in graduate school.
During the interview, Holmes said the reason was unhappy was because he had to do “more public speaking” than he did as an undergraduate student.
“I worry over saying the right things,” Holmes told Reid on the video.
Reid then questioned Holmes about friendships and relationships he had in the months preceding the shooting. Holmes said that he had about five good friends before July 2012.
Holmes also told Reid he sometimes had fantasies about getting a good job in order to buy a nice house and support a family.
Reid questioned Holmes about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. Holmes said they had broken up multiple times before July 2012. The first time Holmes said it was because “she couldn’t picture family life with me” and that he couldn’t provide her with “ample conversation.” The second time, Holmes said they broke up after getting back together because she didn’t want to be in a committed relationship.
Holmes said he started listening to more trance and techno music and watching comedies as a form of escapism. He listed “Arrested Development,” Louis C.K. and “The Big Bang Theory” as shows he watched.
“They mirrored my situation sometimes,” he said of the shows. He said of the characters on “The Big Bang Theory,” he most identified with Leonard.
Holmes said he started a relationship with another woman but decided to stop it once he died his hair red.
“I didn’t want to hurt her by putting her in jeopardy of being the girlfriend to a murderer,” he said in the interview.
Also during the interview, Holmes said by that May or June, thoughts of becoming a murderer consumed him.
2:15 P.M. UPDATE:
James Holmes thought his mind was falling apart and he had homicidal thoughts in early 2012, he told a psychiatrist last year.
Prosecutors showed jurors in the Aurora theater shooting trial parts of the videotaped interview Holmes conducted with Dr. William Reid last summer.
In it, Holmes told Reid he was depressed in early 2012 because the lone romantic relationship of his life ended. He said he slept often during that stretch and was also battling mononucleosis.
“I became more disorganized, I guess my mind was kind of falling apart,” he said.
Holmes said he thought he might be mentally ill at the time and had suicidal thoughts that eventually changed.
“It kind of transferred into homicidal thoughts,” he said.
Holmes said he had intrusive thoughts at the time, including that: “I should shoot as many people as possible.”
He also said he regularly had visions of violence, including a saw cutting people.
Reid said during questioning from District Attorney George Brauchler that those comments were important.
Rather than saying he is the one holding the saw, Holmes disassociates himself from the situation, Reid said.
“In my view this is not a lie, this is the way he perceives it because it’s extremely uncomfortable, intolerable perhaps, for him to see this incredible anger inside himself,” he said.
Holmes also told Reid he was paranoid in the weeks before the shootings. He thought his psychiatrist hid a stun gun behind her chair to protect herself from him and believed the FBI was watching him.
He said as he went into the theater the night of the shooting, he hoped the FBI was watching and planned to step in so they could have done the right thing,” and “lock me away before I did it.”
Reid said those comments about the FBI show Holmes had the capacity for knowing right from wrong. That’s an important detail because prosecutors are trying to convince the jury Holmes was sane at the time.
“It suggests that he knew that he was doing something wrong, or planning something wrong,” Reid said.
Noon update
AURORA | Jurors in the Aurora theater shooting trial on Friday continued to watch portions of 22 hours of recorded interviews by a psychiatrist with suspect James Holmes.
As they were in the segment showed Thursday, Holmes’ answers continued to be short as Dr. William Reid worked and pried to get Holmes to give answers longer than a few words.
During the recorded interview, Holmes talked about working with a charity in San Diego that made day trips to Tijuana, Mexico, to visit orphanages. Holmes said he regularly went to church when he was a kid, but wasn’t particularly religious. He also said his mother had to bribe him with post-church trips to Taco Bell to get him to go.
After Holmes said he believes in a god, Reid asked him what he thinks god thinks about the theater shooting.
“He might care that people were dying,” Holmes said.
Holmes is rarely around other inmates in the Arapahoe County Jail, but in a video shown to jurors, he told Reid that during the few times he is around them — particularly when jail trustees are cleaning near his cell — they call him “baby killer.” He said he ignores them and the comments stop.