AURORA | Aurora theater shooter James Holmes said he wished a psychiatrist who treated him before the shootings had locked him up so the attack wouldn’t have happened, according to a videotaped interview with a state-ordered psychiatrist who evaluated Holmes’ sanity.
In a videotape played for jurors in Holmes’ murder trial Tuesday, the admitted shooter also says he might not have carried out the attacks if the psychiatrist, Dr. Lynn Fenton, hadn’t prescribed him a drug that reduced his anxiety and fear — but he says he might have done it later in life.
Fenton is expected to testify later in the trial.
The videotape shown to jurors was from of a court-ordered sanity evaluation of Holmes conducted last year by another psychiatrist, Dr. William Reid. Reid concluded Holmes was mentally ill but legally sane because he understood right from wrong.
On the video shown Tuesday, Holmes says he repeatedly asked Fenton if she was going have police detain him under a 72-hour psychiatric hold, which she could do under Colorado law.
“I kind of regret that she didn’t lock me up so everything could have been avoided,” Holmes says. But Holmes also tells Reid he was careful not to let Fenton know he was planning the theater attack.
Fenton is a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado, where Holmes was a student before the shootings. The reasons she didn’t ask police to detain Holmes have not been made public, but they could come out if she testifies. Holmes told her he was having homicidal thoughts, according to court documents and testimony.
The 22-hour video of Dr. William Reid interviewing James Holmes last summer has been shown to jurors for four straight days of the trial and is expected to continue through Thursday.
In the lengthy interview, Holmes told Reid he expects people will remember him for opening fire in the theater.
“At least I’m remembered as doing something,” he said.
Reid and Holmes also discussed whether Holmes saw himself as a warrior, to which Holmes said he did not.
“I didn’t think of myself as a warrior, especially because the people I was shooting were unarmed,” Holmes said.
Holmes told Reid he experienced some hallucinations and believed the president was speaking to him through a TV at the jail, but those thoughts came after the shooting only.
The next segment of the recorded interviews the jurors are slated to see is expected to focus on the shooting, which Holmes has referred to as a “mission” throughout the interview thus far.