AURORA | Several victims of the Aurora theater shooting say secrecy surrounding where the gunman is being housed violates their rights.
After being convicted last year of killing 12 and wounding 70 more in the July 2012 attack, James Holmes was moved from Colorado Department of Corrections custody to an undisclosed prison. Arapahoe County prosecutors say even they don’t know where the convicted killer is serving his life sentence.
Lisa Teesch-Maguire, one of the prosecutors who handled the case, said she knows of at least three victims who have filed a complaint with the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice arguing the state’s decision to keep the gunman’s location secret violates the Colorado Victims’ Rights Act.
The division’s Victims’ Rights Act Subcommittee was set to hear the complaint Friday, but that was delayed when some of the victims asked for more time to review a response from DOC.
The hearing is tentatively set for June.
Teesch-Maguire said she isn’t sure the division could compel the Colorado Department of Corrections to disclose the gunman’s location, but she said the victims would like to know details about his time in prison, including what privileges he has and who is allowed to visit him.
“What does his daily life look like, which are things the victims want to know,” she said.
Some of the family’s questions include whether Holmes’ family knows where he is, and whether Holmes is barred from disclosing his location, she said.
Teesch-Maguire, who specialized in working with the victims throughout the trial, has been in contact with DOC since last year trying to get details about the killer’s location. Other than being told he is not in Colorado or California, she said prosecutors don’t have details.
Some victims testified during Holmes’ sentencing that they didn’t want him imprisoned in California, closer to his parents who live near San Diego. Prison officials had assured prosecutors last year that they would not move him there.
Documents provided to The Associated Press and other news outlets through open-records requests later revealed that Holmes was transferred partly because another inmate pushed his way through a partially open door and attacked him when he was being held in Colorado’s highest security prison.
Prison officials believed other inmates were likely to continue to target Holmes “because of the high profile nature of his crimes,” according to the documents.
Not knowing Holmes’ location meant attorneys representing several shooting victims and their families in a lawsuit against theater owner Cinemark were not able to question him during their civil trial unfolding this week in state court.
Without Holmes’ testimony, attorneys were forced to rely on the spiral notebook in which he detailed elaborate plans for the killings.
— The Associated Press
contributed to this report.