AURORA | One of the psychiatrists who evaluated James Holmes is expected to testify near the start of Thursday’s proceedings in the Aurora theater shooting trial.
After a month of testimony from victims and investigators, prosecutors on Wednesday, May 27, shifted to Holmes’ mental state. They showed jurors notes from a spiral notebook that Holmes made on how long it would take police to respond to an attack at the theater, as well as a dating website profile on which he asked, “Will you visit me in prison?”
On the 20th day of the trial, District Attorney George Brauchler said he planned to call Dr. William Reid to testify on Thursday. He also said he plans to show the 22-hour video of Reid’s interviews with Holmes at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo during Reid’s testimony.
[wc_fa icon=”file-pdf-o” margin_left=”” margin_right=””][/wc_fa]James Holmes’ Sketchbook
Holmes’ lawyers objected to prosecutors showing the lengthy video and asking Reid questions at various points, but Judge Carlos Samour Jr. sided with prosecutors and said they will be allowed to question Reid and show the video as they choose.
Brauchler said during his opening statements last month that Reid determined that Holmes was sane at the time of the attack.
James Holmes’ notebook offers view into theater shooter’s mind
Reid’s testimony could be contentious. The defense objected to Reid examining Holmes in the first place before the trial started, but Samour sided with the prosecution, which asked for a second exam after they were unhappy with the first doctor’s findings. The defense also objected to Reid recording the interview and that recording being shown at trial.
Also on Wednesday, an FBI agent testified she found a Batman mask inside Holmes’ apartment after he opened fire during the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” in July 2012.
Aurora theater shooting prosecutors meticulously build case that Holmes was sane
Stephanie Benitez said the mask was one of dozens of items of evidence seized from Holmes’ booby-trapped apartment on Paris Street.
“It was prominently displayed on the television stand in the living room,” she said, adding that the mask had Holmes’ fingerprints on it.
While Holmes opened fire during a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises,” there have been few mentions about why he chose that particular movie. During discussion about Holmes’ notebook, it was revealed he wrote “Embraced the hate, the Dark Knight Rises,” in it, along with plans for the attack and details about his mental state
FBI agents also seized flashlights, gloves, shoes and tactical mirrors from the apartment, Benitez testified Wednesday.
Benitez testified there was a very strong smell of gasoline in the apartment during the search. “We put on masks toward the end of the search because of the fumes,” she said.
The jury asked Benitez what the black tanks seized from Holmes’ apartment contained. She said the black tanks were pressurized, but she was not sure what was in them.
Postal inspector and former Aurora police Officer Greg McGahey also testified about the package Holmes mailed to his psychiatrist, Lynne Fenton, which included the notebook.
He said the package would have been mailed the night before July 20, 2012, according to when it was processed by the U.S. Postal Service. He said a book of forever stamps were sold as part of the same transaction.
After McGahey, Jansen Young, a veterinary technician who was in the theater the night of the shooting, testified. Young said when she saw a canister fly over her head in the theater and smelled smoke, she thought teenagers were playing a prank.
She was with Jonathan Blunk that night who was killed.
She described Blunk pushing her underneath the seat after the canister was thrown.
“I was laying flat underneath the seats, and he was on my left side,” she said. Young then said she heard gurgling sounds coming from Blunk. She heard the gurgling three times before it stopped.
She said she then felt “warm, wet stuff” flowing from the seats above her.
“I decided this was a prank again. It had to be water balloons with warm, wet latex. It was like a river of water falling onto me. I was blinking this liquid down my eyes,” she said.
When the shooting stopped, she said she shook Blunk, whose face was turned toward her. He was not moving or breathing. She said she could barely lift Blunk, who was 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed about 200 pounds.
Young crawled to the end of the seats, and ran down the stairs to try get help. She was afraid to exit through the lobby, so she exited through another part of the theater.
She said she saw a white car outside and someone standing next to it. She said the individual looked like a man and was “weirding her out.”
She hid underneath a trash compacter, so that the person near the car couldn’t hear her, she said. Young had incurred a shrapnel wound on her left side from the shooting.
The jury also heard from Stefan Moton, who was shot in the spine and paralyzed from the chest down in the theater attack. Moton was the second witness confined to a wheelchair to testify in the trial after Caleb medley testified on the first day of testimony.
Moton said he played basketball the day of the shooting and had been looking forward to the movie for several days.
He said he was shot and tried to yell his brother’s name but couldn’t speak.
“It just paralyzed me instantly,” he said.
Moton said he woke up a few days later in a hospital and learned he was paralyzed.
Prosecutors say Holmes killed 12 and wounded 70 others during the attack. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Aurora Sentinel reporter Rachel Sapin contributed to this report.
Why does the state even need a trial? Mr. Holmes does not appear competent to stand trial.
What is wrong with transferring him to a secure mental hospital, so that he can be studied by Mental Health Professionals and more importantly Law Enforcement. No doctor would ever authorize his release, even while supervised.
Yeah – what’s wrong with letting this guy go from justice because some untrained eye commenting on a news article subjectively thinks he’s not competent.