CENTENNIAL | One was nine-months pregnant when she kissed her gravely-wounded husband near the gunshot wound in his face and said she would raise their son if he didn’t make it.
Another wailed to a 911 dispatcher as her 6-year-old friend lay dying and her cousin’s girlfriend slumped over, paralyzed by a gunshot wound.
One man shook his friend and pleaded in vain for him to be alive.
And another lifted his wounded wife on his back and carried her from the chaotic theater right behind his wounded teenage son.
All of that came Tuesday — just the first day of testimony in the Aurora theater shooting trial, as prosecutors wasted no time showing the 24-person jury gut-wrenching evidence against accused shooter James Holmes.
Prosecutors called 10 witnesses to the stand Tuesday — nine who were in the theater that night, and one Aurora police officer who carried a fatally wounded 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan from the blood-soaked theater to an ambulance. They played two 911 tapes from people inside the theater begging police for help.
Those 911 tapes marked some of the toughest testimony for the victims, their families and the jurors. Several jurors wept, as did many family members who buried their heads in their hands and sobbed as they listened to the horror in the theater that night in July 2012. Attorneys held their heads in their hands during some of the tapes.
Holmes sat quietly at the defense table, occasionally swiveling slowly in his chair and turning to look at evidence shown on a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. He had no discernible expression during any of it.
Judge Carlos A. Samour, Jr. warned jurors as the trial opened April 27 not to let sympathy and emotion influence their judgment. The defense team has conceded that Holmes was the killer, hoping to focus not on the crime itself or its lingering damage, but on what it sees as the only question jurors must resolve: whether Holmes was legally insane at the time.
But again and again on the first long day of testimony, the judge turned away defense objections to particularly gruesome and tragic details.
Defense attorney Katherine Spengler argued that grisly photos, a 911 recording of shrieks and screams, and the words “bloody victim” that a witness wrote on a diagram of the theater served only to inflame the jury. The judge dismissed her motions, reasoning that the evidence is relevant and fairly depicts a horrific crime.
Prosecutors say they will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was sane, therefore guilty, and should be executed. Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; his defense hopes the jury will have him committed to a mental institution, most likely indefinitely.
Perhaps the most riveting testimony was also the shortest so far, coming from Caleb Medley, an aspiring comedian who lost an eye and was left unable to walk and barely able to speak after Holmes fired a bullet into his brain.
Prosecutors asked him only two questions: Was he married to Katie? Was he at the theater that night?
From a wheelchair, he answered the first with a breathy, grunted “Yeah.”
To the second, he tapped out his answer on a poster board with the letters of the alphabet: Y-E-S.
His wife filled in the rest of their story, recalling her desperation between the seats before she decided to make a break for it, to try to save their baby. She said she took his hand, and felt him squeeze hers back, thinking she’d never again see him alive.
“I told him that I loved him and that I would take care of our baby if he didn’t make it,” she said.
She later gave birth to a healthy son, Hugo, now almost 3, as Caleb underwent his third brain surgery in the same hospital.
She kept her composure on the witness stand April 28, even as her husband’s injuries were put on display. After her grueling testimony, she returned to her seat in the gallery and sobbed. Melisa Cowden, whose ex-husband Gordon, was killed, comforted her. The victims who didn’t know each other before the July 20, 2012 shootings have clearly bonded since and that bond continues in the courtroom.
Robert and Arlene Holmes, sitting two rows behind their son, had little reaction to these descriptions of their son’s slaughter. Arlene Holmes occassionaly jotted notes in a tiny notebook and Robert ringed his hands together.
But Ian Sullivan, whose 6-year-old daughter Veronica was the youngest to die that night, fixed his gaze on Holmes, glaring intently at him from the audience for long periods of time. Sullivan had tears streaming down his face as his daughter’s babysitter, Kaylan Bailey, testified about that night in the theater.
Bailey, now 16, went to the movie that night with Veronica, Veronica’s mom, Ashley Moser, and Moser’s boyfriend, Jamison Toews.
She said after the shooting started the group hit the floor and she reached for Veronica. She thought Veronica was alright because she could feel her breathing, but after she reached for a phone to call 911 and put her hand back on Veronica, the small child wasn’t breathing.
Prosecutors played Bailey’s 911 call from inside the theater that night. During it, she wailed to the dispatcher that she couldn’t hear and that she couldn’t reach Veronica.
A few seconds after the phone call, Aurora police Officer Mike Hawkins arrived in the theater and carried Veronica away. He testified through tears that he thought the girl was alive when he ran from the theater with her in his arms, but when he reached an ambulance he believed she was dead.
Hawkins revealed a horrific and gut-wrenching scene where victims wounded and dying littered the theater. He came across a teenaged boy badly wounded: “He whispered, ‘Help me, I’m dying.”
As he left the stand, a clearly shaken Hawkins nodded toward Veronica’s family.
Defense attorneys did not question any of the witnesses from the theater, perhaps signaling a strategy not to prolong their wrenching testimony. The closest they came was when Public Defender Rebekka Higgs told Hawkins “thank you for what you did.” Prosecutors said that comment was inappropriate and Samour agreed, telling the defense not to do it again.
Prodeo Et Patria, who went to the see “The Dark Knight Rises” with his parents, Anggiat Mora and Rita Paulina, testified he was wounded in the back, and his mother was wounded in the arm and leg. His dad suffered an eye injury but carried his mother from the theater.
As Paulina testified about how her husband told her in the middle of the chaos that she wasn’t allowed to die because they were going to visit their native Indonesia the next year, Prodeo, sitting in the gallery, looked up at his dad and grinned.
Jurors also heard from three people who went to the movie that night with Jesse Childress, who was an Air Force staff sergeant stationed at Buckley Air Force Base and was killed in the attack. He was excited to see the “Batman” premiere and bought tickets for himself and some friends, including his boss, Derick Spruel, and Spruel’s wife, Chichi.
When the Spruels saw flashes and tear gas in the theater, they at first thought it was a prank and tried to keep watching the movie.
Soon, they were both on the floor praying.
In a 911 call played in court, Chichi Spruel pleads with a dispatcher to send help. She’s still on the phone when police arrive.
“Oh my God,” Chichi Spruel says. “There are people dead everywhere.”
District Attorney George Brauchler listened to the recording with his head bowed, partially covered by his hands.
Muni Gravelly, who went to theater with Childress and the Spruels, said she wanted to crawl out of the aisle after she hit the floor in terror, but later realized it would have been hopeless.
“I wouldn’t have been able to get out because there were bodies everywhere,” she said.
The jurors paid close attention throughout the day, with at least 10 of them taking notes. A couple took notes almost the whole time and several of them sent questions for witnesses, generally about what the witnesses saw or heard the shooter do.
Holmes’ lawyers say he was in the throes of schizophrenia at the time of the shooting and was convinced killing people would increase his “human capital.”
But prosecutors say Holmes was sane and wanted to kill people because his academic career and love life were falling apart. They are seeking the death penalty.
Testimony will continue April 29.
The Associated Press contributed to this story