AURORA | Katie Medley, nine months pregnant and crouching between the seats of a movie theater filling with tear gas, gunfire and screams, looked at her husband Caleb’s bloody face and told a friend, “He’s dead, he’s dead.”
Prodeo Et Patria was 14 that night, and sitting with his parents somewhere in the middle of the 421 people watching a midnight Batman premiere. He thought the gunfire was a joke until his father ordered him to the floor, where someone kicked off his glasses in the chaos.
His father told him to run and refused to leave his mother, whose arm and foot were shattered by bullets. Hoisting his wife onto his back, they made for an exit together. “That’s when I first felt a gunshot hit me,” Patria said.
They were the among the first of many prosecution witnesses in the death penalty trial of James Holmes, and their gripping testimony made clear the state’s determination to plunge deep into the carnage Holmes caused inside the suburban Denver theater on July 20, 2012, even if it means making survivors relive their horrors.
Judge Carlos A. Samour, Jr. warned jurors as the trial opened 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 this 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 dimissed 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 indefinitely committed to a mental institution.
Tuesday was Day One of testimony in a trial expected to last four months or more. If the prosecution keeps this up into August, the cumulative weight of the victims’ suffering could make the defense job even more difficult.
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, now 3, as Caleb underwent his third brain surgery in the same hospital.
She kept her composure Tuesday, even as her husband’s injuries were put on display, but sobbed as she returned to her seat in the courtroom. Others comforted her and said “good job.”
Robert and Arlene Holmes, sitting two rows behind their son, had no visible reaction to these descriptions of his slaughter. Neither did Holmes, who stared directly ahead. 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.
Defense attorneys did not question any of the witnesses from the theater, perhaps signaling a strategy not to prolong their wrenching testimony.
In opening statements, the defense sought to focus instead on what was going on inside Holmes’ mind, which they say was so addled by schizophrenia and psychosis that his sense of right and wrong was distorted, and he lost any control over his actions. They won’t call their own witnesses or begin making the case for insanity until after the prosecution rests, many weeks from now.
Defense lawyers said Holmes was a “good kid” who sensed something wrong with his mind, even at a young age. Studying neuroscience at the University of Colorado was his attempt to fix his thoughts; Instead, “psychosis bloomed” when he failed in the doctoral program, and delusions then commanded him to kill, they said.
District Attorney George Brauchler described Holmes as a frighteningly intelligent killer who meticulously planned and carried out the mass murder to make himself feel good and be remembered, all the while knowing that it was immoral and illegal.
Brauchler said two court-appointed psychiatrists who examined Holmes in custody decided he was sane during the attack. Public Defender Daniel King countered that Holmes was psychotic at the time, and that every doctor who has seen him — 20 in all — agreed he suffers from schizophrenia.
3:30 observations from Reporter Brandon Johansson in the courtroom:
Cute moment in otherwise rough testimony: Prodeo Patria grinned as his mom talked about his dad saving her life. Rita Paulina said her husband told her she couldn’t die because they were going back to Indonesia the next year. Prodeo, her son, sitting with his dad in gallery, turned to dad and smiled.
3:30 p.m.
Rita Paulina, wife of Anggiat, told the court how she was petrified and wounded. “I was waiting for Batman, and he never came.”
2:30 p.m.
Small laughter when Anggiat Mora describes carrying his wife and says (in broken English) “Why are you so heavy?”
Witnesses having a tough time using models and diagrams to show jury their escape path from theater.
Mora said he was begging hospital staff to keep wounded mother and son together.
1:45 p.m.
The Colorado theater shooting trial has resumed with testimony from 17-year-old Prodeo Et Patria, who went to the see “The Dark Knight Rises” with his parents.
Patria says he was wounded in the back, and his mother was wounded in the arm and leg. They were taken to the same hospital.
Prosecutors displayed a photograph of Patria’s injury, but the defense objected when the image lingered on the screen behind the witness stand.
James Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2012 attack. His death penalty trial is in its second day.
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Noon observations from Reporter Brandon Johansson in the courtroom:
Hearing 911 tapes tough on jurors and victims. Jurors all looked down during recording and one appeared on verge of tears.
Victims started crying before 911 tapes started, clutched each others hands. #theatershooting one of tougher moments so far.
Prosecution plans to play two more 911 tapes this afternoon. Defense objects.
With so many victims and survivors, victims and survivors rotated who is in the courtroom at each break.
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Noon
The Colorado theater shooting trial has recessed for lunch following testimony by three people who lost a friend, Jesse Childress, in the 2012 attack.
Childress worked in communications at Buckley Air Force Base. 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.
10:15 a.m Notes from reporter Brandon Johansson in the courtroom today:
• Holmes’ parents sitting quietly with Arlene Holmes taking notes in a small notepad.
• Jurors also appeared to have a question for Katie Medley but didn’t get judges attention in time.
• After grueling testimony, Katie Medley returned to seat and sobbed. Melisa Cowden, whose ex-husband Gordon, was killed, comforted her. The victims who didn’t know each other before July 20 have clearly bonded since and that bond continues.
• The jurors are paying close attention with at least 10 of them taking notes. A couple took notes almost the whole time.
9:50 a.m.: Testimony by witness and shooting victim Muni Gravelly, friend of slain Aurora man Jesse Childress
• “It shortly turned to screams-I wouldn’t have been able to get out because there were bodies everywhere”
• She became distraught when recalling she had to step over dead friend Jesse Childress to escape the theater.
• Lying on the floor of the theater, she discovered she’d been lying in a pool of blood
9:35 a.m.: Witness and shooting victim Caleb Medley dramatically takes the stand. He’s in a wheel-chair and essentially unable to speak. He cannot walk. He’s asked only his name and whether he was in the theater the night of the shooting, which he spells “yes” to, and answers making loud, unintelligible sounds.
9:10 a.m.: First witness is Katie Medley, wife of shooting victim Caleb Medley. Katie gave emotional and detailed account of horrific shooting that resulted in her husband being shot in the head. He now has numerous disabilities, he cannot walk and has a speech disability.
Testimony from Katie Medley:
• Katie Medley recalling the shooting: “as he stepped in, I knew something was wrong”
• “(Caleb) was still sitting in his chair…I saw blood pouring from his face.”
• “We thought he was going to come row by row and kill us”
• Her husband was alive and he was choking on all the blood pouring into his mouth.
• She and Ashley jumped over bodies to escape the theater and slipped in blood.
• She recalled spending days in the hospital, husband undergoing brain surgeries while she labored with her child.
The witness list in the case has been suppressed so it isn’t clear what witnesses will testify on any given day.
But during his opening statements Monday, District Attorney George Brauchler told the jurors they would hear today from Caleb Medley, one of the dozens wounded in the July 2012 attack.
Medley, an aspiring comedian, was at the theater that night with his wife, who was nine-months pregnant at the time, and he was shot in the head. Brauchler said Medley’s wife thought he was dead, kissed him on the head and told him she would raise their son before emergency crews rushed her to a hospital.
Medley survived his injuries and underwent life-saving surgery in the same hospital where his wife was in labor a few floors away.
He appeared in court in a wheelchair for part of the opening arguments Monday.
Accused shooter James Holmes appeared in court Monday wearing a blue shirt and slacks. He sat quietly at the defense table throughout the hearing.
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.
The courthouse in Centennial is less crowded Tuesday morning than it was Monday, but there were still dozens of media members in attendance.
Maybe you can change the name from ” Aurora Sentinel ” to the ” Aurora theater shooting newspaper “.