Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

at midnight of july 20th ,2012, A wave of excitement amongst the moviegoersat the century 16 theater in Orlando

turned into horror.when an unexpectedassailant attacked them

unleashing a merciless hail of bullets within the dark auditorium. as the authorities raced to dcopmrehend the unfolding tragedy ,a disturbing didcovery looms in a nearby neighborhood, a potential new threat has been set up to claim even more innocent lives.

shockingly so, the details surrounding the calculated planning of these prutal attacks lie within the pages of a red book looked away in a univeresity mail room.

late on a quite friday night the aurora police departement is joled by a distressing call

At 12:38 a.m 911 emergency services receive a bone chilling report about a shooter .who had invaded the century 16 ,theater in Aurora, colorado.

after storming into one of the auditoriums,he’d started unleashing a voley of gunfire, plunging the theater into utter chaos and tragedy.

in the wake of the initial distressing call, the operators at the 911 emergency services faces an overwhelming influx of calls from terrified and injured moviegoers desperately seeking aid.dispatchers make notes of the distraught individuals,offering reassurarnce as they wait for futher assistance to arrive.

as troubling reports of gunshot wounds start flooding in,other callers pinpoint the exact location within the theater where the shooter had opened fire,which helps guide the swift response of police officers rushing to the scene.

many shared that the atmosphere inside the theater was fillled with excitement and wonder for the new batman movie.

but soon and entertainment turns into their biggest nightmare as they come tp the grisly realization of what’s happening

in an exclusive interview with EWU, the retired commander from the aurora police departement and one of the first responders thar night , michael dailey, explains what happened after receiving the horrified calls.

” i was a lieutenant that night .i was in charge of our city SWAT team.i was also on duty running a unit called the summer task force.it was targeting crimes in some of our older areas.our older neighborhoods. when the initial calls came out, we were working in a different district of the city ” oh it’s a shooting at the mall” district two can handle it

.it sounds routine well just kind of monitor as the radio transmission started pick up, it became apparent that there was an active shooting going on in the theater.”

current cheif jad lanigan , shartes a similar experience from the night of the shooting in his exlusive interview.

“i worked a swing shigt at the time,it was three in the afternoon to three in the moning shift i was the swing shift probationarywatch commander at the time ,when it happened ,

of course it was at midnight, 12 :30 in the morning. when it happened it was just like any other night.it was very beautiful outside, we got up and went to work that day and it ended a much different way than we ever planned on.

when the officers arrive at the theater, the site is nothing short of a horror movie.

michael park on the side street,run up this small grassy berm,and first encounter an officer that as an individual , he’s shot on the ground,he’s bleeding bad. the officer’s asking for help, so michael started to helping him with this subject and send another officer back from his patrol car. he actually drives it up over the grassy berm

and they load this kid , he was probably 20 years old load him in the backseat of michael dailey’s car and michael told the officer ” get in with him, hang, on ,were taking off”

michael spot an ambulance,so michael drive right to the ambulance, they drop the patient off , and then the officer and michael go immediately to the front of the theater.

there’s already people straming out.its very chaotic.

is absolute mayhem, with deafening gunshots coming from one of the auditoriums as people drag exh other out to safety and injured victims cry for help.

the suspect had dispersed gas inside the theater.like a chemical agent very similar to what the police use .tear gas and things like that.immediately when you entered the building you could smell tit , and then it starts to affect you .

as they perepare to charge into the theater.the officers brace themselves for a potential chootout. how ever the cloud of tear gas was severely hapmering their vision.

and compromising their ability to respond effectively.

” do we have gas masks available?”

” we need gas masks in 9 ,can’t get in at 9″

” any unit s that can bring gas masks to theater nine,again , we need gas masks.”

” get us some damn gas masks for theater nine, we can’t get in it”

“we’re letting rescue know as well”

ones the smoke clears out , the police are confrotnted with a heart-wrenching scene at the auditorium , the harrowing damage ,the wounded and the dead.

while one party continues to look for the shoter,another team of officers swiftly switch gears to extend t medical aid to the critically wounded, in an attempt to stabilize the dire situation.

” okay ,six, we got another person outside shot in the leg, a female, i got people running out of the theater they’re shot”

“318 , we also have anothe victim on the north side of the theater in the parking lot”

“302 , i for another male shot, i need rescue right in front of the theater by dillard’s right of the main road”

” cruser 25, you need to break in.i’ve got two victims on the east side , north side of the theater i need an ambuance here quick.

” we need rescue inside the auditorium , multiple victims”

” lincoln 25 , i need rescue to stage in the dillard’s lot. i need as many ambulances as we can to the dillard’s lot .

” 15 , i got seven down in theater nine , seven down.”

” i´ve got a child victim, i need rescue at the back door of the theater nine now”

as the number of people in need of immediate medical help surpasses the capacity of available ambulances ,the officers convert their wans into makeshift ambulances. doing everything within their power to speed up the transfer of wounded individuals to the hospital

” do i have permission to start taking some of the victims via car?i got a h whole bunch of people shot out here , no rescue “

” yeas ,load ’em up ,get ’em in cars. get’em out of here”

” 302 , i’m taking one male to the hospital in my car”

” i notified rescue,just let me know what hospital you’re taking ’em to so we cangive ’em a heads up”

” lincoln 25 , just notify all the hospitals we got people coming in”

” copy”

beneath all of the chaos laid another sense of urgency.upon breaking into the auditorium they’d notice multiple firearms lying on the floor.

it seemed unlikely for one pereson to carry it all and walk into the auditorium. the team suspects the presence of at least two shooters

who might have escaped the scene by blending in with the frightened moviegoers. at this point they decide to interview all the witnesses on site to get a picture of the incident.

witnesses from auditorium eight ,the auditorium next to the shooting recount the similar incident of an individual throwing a gas canister that caused coughing , irritation and blurred vision among the audience.

some witnesses claime to have seen the shoter. and said that he was in regular clothes.while others said that he wore a costume

the team notifies all officers to be on the lookout for any suspicious- looking moviegoers.

” 321 , one of the shooters might be wearing a white and blue plaid shirt.”

” copy , oustanding shooter possiblt wearing a white and blue plaid shirt .

in a race against time, those who aren’t helping aid the wounded quickly start checking the CCTV footage from the theatrejust as the survivors and witnesses had informed them,the police notice many moviegoers in costumes.thins seem to be moving smothly until people start hearing the gunshots.

as they diligently scrutinize the surveillance footage and comb through the mall one officer notifies all parties with an update they’ve all been waiting for.

” 16 adam , i need a marked car. behind the theater ,sable side, a suspect in gas mask”

” 10 – 9 okey, and we need cars south side , suspect in a gas mask.”

” hold the aur one second.cars with that white car in the rear of the lot ,is that a suspect?”

” yes,we’vegot rifles, gas masks,he’s detained right now.’i’ve got an open door going into the theater”

” okay , hold that position.hold your suspect.

while combing through the mall one of the officers stepped out from auditorium 9’s exit. and notice a trail of blood.

he then caught sight of someone wearing what appareared to be a police armor and a mask

however , unlike everyone else who was gripped by panic and horror, this individual remained remarkably composed

as soon the officer approached the individual instinctively raised his hands in the air seeingly cooperative

however it was when the officer glanced at the man’s car in the secluded parking lot.

that chills ran down his spine. almost immediately ,the individual admits to be the sole shooter.however he then makes an even more shocking admission.

he confesses to having arranged an explosive booby trap at his apartment,which was situated five minutes away from the theater.

this terrifying revelation puts the lives of all apartment residents and the entire neighborhood at risk. in a whirlwind of urgency andconcern officers immediately take the man .

24 . year -old james holmes , into custody

other officers are ddispatchhed to his apartment, there , true to what he had declared they uncover a harrrowing booby trap arrangement that bears an eerie resemblance to a ticking time bomb. set to unleash devastation upon anyone within its vicinity.

the police swiftly evacuate the residents of james apartment buiding AND of the five other buildings in the surrounding area.

to aid in their assesment on the perilous situation, they place a bomb robot inside the apartment to anaylse the threat efficiently.

given the chaos in the vicinity and the number of people affected, the news of the incident starts trending on twitter, and media houses swarm the theater

words of the attack spread rapidly throughout the country,prompting worried family members to rush to the scene in search of their loved ones.

to assist them the police establish a camp at a nearby high school where family members can receive information about their relatives.

at the police station ,james remains remarkably composed and unfazed by the gravity of his crimes and the lives he’s taken.

for someone who showed no remorse for his actions james seems to want the officers to know he claims to be concerned about any children.

his strange behavior and demeanor raised numerous questions about what had led him to commit such a heinous attack.

to unravel the mystery investigators delved deep into his life,conducting a comprehensive background investigation covering the months leading up to the incident.

what they uncover is not at all what they expected.it turned out that james holmes was a PhD student studying neuroscience at the university of colorado,

he called himself an “an aspriringscientist” was an honours student, and had applied for jobs working as a lab- technician.

james had only just started the PhD program,but if he had completed it ,he would have been a doctor of neuroscience and able to work as a professor or in a lab.

his mentor ,professor sukumar speaks highly of his talent bur shares a few red flags about his behavior. he was very asocial , he never interacted with people. he had some mannerisms that the professor personally working on to get rid of.

for example , in the seminar, he would have off -the cuff -remarks (as trying to be funny) whitch people found was not very appropriate .or he would have these funny twitches kind of thing

so professor sukumar used to train him, when he had to give seminars , he would rehearse it with his mentor .and the professor used to go through all that. trying to get him to stop doing that , and in the end ,he already improved.

so there were concerns socially,but there were red flags in terms of now whether he would be successful and with his kind of personality kind of issues but never had the professor concerns that he ‘s going to end up shooting people.

furthermore, this profesor reveals that despite his high IQ at 123 and knack for science, james had failed an important examen.

on june 7th, there was this preliminary exam that james didn’t do well, and the professor think about june 8th or 9th , he talked to james and told him that they were planning to give him a remedial exam, two to three weeks from that day and that he should talk to the examiners

james professor told him that he should think about whether this is the career he wants. and that point he told his mentor -the professor , that he had thinking about it and he had decided t o leave the program

so that was the last contact the professor had with james holmes. he thinks it must have been a couple days after june 7th.

there was no other conversation about why he wanted to quit the program, but it was specific about the oral exam.

while the investigating team makes notes on james behavior on campus and subsequent decision to leave the program , the FBI Mnages to get detailed information from james about the booby trap he had set up in his apartment.

” james,anything else you can think of if i put guys in that appartment that i need to be aware of? did you cook up any explosives? so all that’s n there,there’s nothing that ‘s gonna go boom?”

” unless those bullets can … well , not really ( indistinct)”

” if i go walking in there james , anything else you can think of, t you know i would be concerned about?

” well ,the music’s still playing.it could be loud”

“is there anything attached to your computer, any wires or anything running to your computer?”

“no”

and the gasoline in the two -liter bottles, that’s was fonna be just , were there any fuse foing into that?i couldn’t really see.”

” those wer jsut to make fumes”

” so the fumes were after they went?”

“yeah”

on the other hand the investigators at the university find out that james had been seeing a psychiatrist on campus, furthermore it comes to light that there had been sifnificant tension and issues between james and the psychiatrist.

leading to the involvement of the university of colorado police departement to investigate the situation.to find our more about the conflict, the investigators meet with the lead campus officer on the case.

the officer’s chilling revelaitons expose the dark and ominous reality of james
thoughts

“when i talked to him, this was a telephone call at my office, and she said that she had been seeing a student who had failed an exam, and he had made comments to her her , i want to kill as many people as possible . she said that she and dro (redacted) who’s her supvervisor were very concerned about this individual so i asked her to give me as much information as she could on him .

so i told her that there’s really nothing on him ,we can find nothing on him. and she explained that he had come in voluntarily a couple months ago and she thought he was psychotic or could be schizophrenic, that he as in the age group for a first break for schizophrenia. she said that he had expressed to her constant homicidial thoughts.

i asked if he had a plan or target. she said no , no plan or specific targets. but he liked to thinking about it. she said she knew from seeing him that at least for a couple of years he had been teased and that he was in the neuroscience program for a year.

that she felt that he was odd and awkward throughout the year.and that he seemed unconcerned aboit feedback that he would get from his unstructors about his performance.

he left in a huff and that was in a meeting witg ( redacted) that meeting , i have no idea ehen it tool place. she said that he had refused antipsychotic drugs when she had offered them to him, again ,she didn’t say when. so i have no information about that.

then she talked to me about the threats with the emoticons of him pnching her in the face and giving her a black eye. she said at one time he said that (redacted) is already scared of me. and she has a bag behind the chair. i dont know hwo that was adressed to when he said that .

the psychiatrist was so alarmed by the violent thoughts james had shared that she informed the authorities about his dangerous inclination and his high potential to act on them.

this doesnt break HIPPA. the federeal law that restricts the sharing of sensitive patient information with third parties.

because if a patient is a risk to hurting themselves or others, its not only gegligence if it’s not reported.but it’s legally required to be roported.

i asked her if he had siad, how he was going to kill people and she said he hasn’t told anyone how he would kill and that he became interested in neuroscience to ” overcome biology” she did’t define ” overcome biology” so i dont know exactly what that meant.

so she told me at that time that she was going to call his mom. when she called me back, she said she had talked to his mother and that , that was pretty much his normal baseline behavior.

i asked her a few more questions . i said ! does he have a support system here?”she said “no he has no familiy here.he’s from san diego” that he tends to be a loner.and doesn’t really have friends. he did tel her ” have 10. 000 dollar saved up and that will last a littel while. my parents would help me.”

this was in response to him finding out he had failed his preliminary, he told her ” don’t like the program anyway i’m going to drop out”

i asked her what she was doing from there, she said she wasn’t going to put him on a hold because he was borederline.

however , despite the psychiatrist’s ongoing concerns, the university police departement found no incriminating evidence against james or any cause to see his statements as intetn to harm.

since he decided to drop out of ther program and leave the university , the matter eventually faded away, the officer also reveals that she’d spoken with one of james’ friends, who shared some troubling tesxt messages from james with her.

so we went into a private room, she identified hersrelf s ( redacted) and said that she didn’t knwo if it had anything to do with anything.but she had gotten a text message on her phone

she had been text messaging him as recently as june 9th is what she told me. and she showed me the text message. and i advised her to keept those textmessages to forward them to her email. not to delete them , but not to send them to me.

and she showed me them . i picked out some key things. and she was basically, she was told me , she had contacted him to see how he was doing.because she hadn’t heard from him for a while.they were not intimate, they were not boyfriend , girlfriend, she had tried to befriend him.

they had gone on a hike together at one time,and she was just trying to see how he was cause she had’t heard from him for a little while. and looking at those text meesages,one of the things i noticed was that he said ” i have to dysphoric mania .” and in an another portion of that tesxt message , he said,” stay away from me, im bad news”

Dysphoric mania is an old term for bioplar disorder. the officer’s report detailing james ‘ seterioirating mental health and disturbing precoccupation with violence. prompt the investigators to examine his web search history history .

this information reveals a troubling array of maps to auroa theater and delving into explantations of numerous mental health conditions and philosophical theories.

each one seemingly more troubling than the last.

further tracking of his credit cards showed that between may and july of 2012 ,ames purchased firearms from a firearms dealer

and picked up deliveries of ammunition from the FedEx center.it appeared that james had meticulously orchestrated every aspect of the shooting.

and had conducted extensive research on the cetury 16 theater

After the FBI speaks with james about explosives, the bomb squadreaches his apartment and detonates the booby trap va controlled blasts.

ultimately saving several other lives, that was threatened by his vicious plan, after eliminating the booy trap,police conduct a thorough search of his apartment and find a batman mask, and tickets to the show , amongs other pieces of evidence.

while james ‘ plans to shoot people at the theater find form in the evidence the investigators had gathered so far , his decision to set up an explosive booby trap at his apartment leaves everyone puzzled.

was it a sigm that he intended to take his own life following the shooting?or could it be a part of an elaborate scheme they’re yet to discover?

in a series of interviews ,a psychologist , dr william reid spent hours talking to james , discussing his thoughts and giving us a rare and chilling glimpse into the mind of a mass murderer. during these interviews he also reveals his true twisted plan for the booby trap in his apartment.

james’ affect is ntoably flat here. he’s likely medicated, so it’s hard to know if this is diagnostic related or medication related, as a number of antipschyotics can cause affect to be flattened.regardless , it’s quite eerie and showcased his lack of emotion.

although the bombs in james apartment were put there to distract police and allow him more time to freely murder a large number of victims in the theater, he still informed police of the presence of the bombs after he was apprehended.

james didn’t have to make this confession,so it’s possible that after the horrific massacre at the theater , he might have felt some level of regret.

regardless of james plan and intentions, all of this shows his ability to think ahead and his advanced problem -solving abilities.we know that he’s intelligent,but even individuals with high intelligence tend to be coqnitively impaired when they’re in the midst of a pychotic episode or a manic episode.

it’s difficult for them to focus , sustain attention and follow through on even simple daily tasks.much less something as complex as planning and executing a muirderous rampage of this magnitude

james might have had periods of psychosis and maybe mania , too,but it’s likely that when he committed the mass shooting , his thinking and other cognitive processes were intact.

still ,even with these admissions, a crusial question lingered : why?

in a final shocker, investigators are notified by the authorities at coloroad university about a notbook lying in theis anschutz medical campus mail room.

james had mailed this notebook to his psychiatrist on july 19th detailing his thoughts and plans during the weeks leading up to the crime. but the notebook was never delivered to her

though this would’ve given her a heads up.james revealed that he knew she’d only receive the book after he’d done the damage.

” can you tell me why you created the notebook?”

” to educate the psychiatrist, so something like this wouldn’t happen again”

” was there any other purpose to creating the notebook besides educating the psychiatrist?”

” well ,if i died ,it would’ve kind of told my stroy.”

this statemen is an indication of the presence of an inflated sense of self- importance.this is a common thought process among individuals with severere antisocial personality disorder they really believe that they are that important

in the book, jame described his plans,his mental struggles, feelings. and his idea of seeing humans based on their worth in thecontext of their life

he added the most worth to children and believed they deserved a chance to live.this deatail explained his concern for child victims during the shooting.

” what did you put together?”

” that a child was killed the nect day , i think”

” how did you react at the time when you put that together?”

” that i tried to minimize chilf fatalities, by choosing midnight and PG -13″

” once you learned that a child was killed, that you had killed a child”

” yeah, i was remorseful, that i was sad that a child had died”

“ did you think much about it?”

“uhm.. yeah”

” do you still think much about it?”

” i dn’t know how it could have been avoided though,other than changing the plan to something else.”

” if you had knwon that a child was going to be killed, would you have changed the plans, do you think?”

” no , i think i would ‘ve still carried them out”

” if you had known that lots of children were going to be hurt,dozens of children were going to be hurt”

” then i’d have to change the plan to make it imperesonal and not with children”

” and you’re aware that dozens of children were hurt?”

“i’m not aware of that . i didn’t know dozens of chilren were there.

his hesitation and his cop out claiming he doesn’t know how it could have been avoided indicates that james likely doesn’t care about having killed a child.

his suspposed concern about children seems like it’s just another aspect of his narcissism he seems to want to act like he’s a decent person because he’s willing to spare children from his evil plan.

another indication of his grandiosity is how he has placed himself in a position of deciding whos should live and who should die a god complex.

he’s still trying to justify that he’s innocent and has convinced himself that he did everything he could to prevent the child’s death. perhaps

he’s even blaming the parents of the child for alowing them to be at a late night movie.as if they shouldn’t have been there. it seems they were just collateral damage in james mind he didn’t keep all of these disturbing details to himself however.

he first shared these thoughts with his girlfriend at the time via a Gmail chat. one message read:” what i feel like doing is evil..so can’t do that .on being asked what was the evil he wanted to do james said .” kill people of course.”when his girlfriend had joked about being locked up after the act ,james reasoned , saying ” that’s why you kill many people”

in his diary, he wrote aobout contemplating shooting people for a long time but claimed he hadn’t acted upon his thoughts until he believed his life was truly over .he stopped caring about the consequences after his girlfriend broke up with him in february 2012

“at that time ,were you still seeing ( redacted) or do you think you’d broken up by that time?”

” the depression was after”

” at the deepest of the depressions, did you think about hurting yourself or killing yourself?”

” no”

” any other time in the depressions did you think about hurting yorself or killing yourself?”

“no”

” how about hurting or killing other people?”

” yeah , i’d kind of trandferred it into kind of homicidal cause like, depression’s normally suicidal.so i kind of transferred my suicidal thoughts into homicidal”

” talk to me about the necessity of carrying out the sthootings themselves after the preparation had done its job”

“well ,the shootings were supposed to increase my self -worth, so that would get me out of the depression in the end”

” the shootings were supposed to increase my self- worth.can you tell me a little bit about that?”

” i think it was in a text message i sent to (redacted) about human capital, how you can kind of place a value on a life, and if you take lives away that kind of adds to your own value”

this is another disturbing indication of james’ god complex , only here,james is more specifically alluding to it.his abilities to decide who lives and dies and to have people at his mercy insuch a horrific way gives him some sort of sick satisfaction, a high that he can ride for a short time to derive some sort of relief from his misery.

in addition , this is a completely chilling though process of a genuine psychopath. this idea of adding value to your own life by taking others ‘ lives, he’s likely enjoying this back and forth with the psychologist as its all ablout james here.

him and the inner workings of his mind.he’s so full of himself that all of this digging into the whats and whys of the mass murder is allowing james to get more and more of that dopamine high by reliving it all.

“is that an accurate rendition of the way were feeling at that time,or is there anything more to that , that you can explain to me?”

” i don’t think there’s anything else to it”

” that’s a pretty concisely encapsulated theory, if you will, there’s gotta be more to it than that.”

“well, why des there gotta be more to it?”

“in what way did you think of taking other people’s lives as enhancing yours? tell me about the logic of that “

“just that anything they would’ve done or pursued gets canceled pit and given to me”

” starting today and looking back, does that still make sense to you?”

“yeah”

“okay, so the premise that you’re describing two years ago you would still..

” agree”

” …agree with that premise today?

“yeah”

” okay”

only a malignant psychopath would believe this.the psycologist is correct in the sense that it’s not totally clear how ending a life adds to james life in any ways.

but james seeing himself as gaining something by ending lives . the reality is that james is not being given anything tangible by the victims of course.

the only thing james gets is a feeling of power and control, his thirst for these things is so insatiable that he needs to go to this extreme level to feel them .

its often common among individuals with severe antisocial personality disorder to commit extreme acts of brutal violence because their thresthold for feeling anything is so high. they often wanna feel something and they know the only way to do it is by going to such extremes.

” can you say any more about that?”

” just that the ultimate violence death we resort to killing when we can’t solve a problem any other way”

” sounds like that applies to politics and wars”

” right , yeah”

” does it apply to you?”

“yeah”

“tell me how it applies to you”

” well, i couldn’t solve the prolbem of getting out of my depression, so i thougt i would make myself more valuable by killing people.”

” and i think we talked about that being more valuable didn’t mean you would live longer “

” no”

” or that you would have more lives, tell me again in what way you’re more valuable”

“well ,its kund of like the value of a dollar, a dollar isn’t worth anything ,but you attribute value to it ,so if you attribute value to killing people,then you become more valuable when you kill a person”

” and who does the atributing of the value?”

” the killer”

james reveals more of his disturbing thoughts leading up to the crime during his discussions with dr .reid.

” where there people over the last few months or so leading up to july 20th of 2012 people that you told you were angry?”

” no i never told anybody i was angry”

“okay”

“i’m thinking of folks that you told or who at least got the impression that in some ways you had a hatred of mankind or were angry at mankind .”

“oh, i wrote ” hatred of mankind” in the notebook.

” okay”

“to oyu, does that transltate to vert angry, or is that different from very angry?

” to me the hatred’s kild of like hating broccoli or something. not a fiery,angry passionate hate.its kind of an aversive hate”

” okay , tell me about the hating broccolie kind of hate of mankind.”

” well i just don’t wanna eat broccoli, so i kind of avoid it , be averse to it. insteas of being , like angry at broccoli.like shopping it up or something.

“Can youi estimeate what the earliest point was you began to think about hese killing

” when i bought the shotgun , i think…”

” a shotgun , so that was the second gun that you purshased ‘ i am right?

” yeah”

” okay ,do you remember roughly when the earliset pint was that you ever thought aboit killing anybody ?

” teens, in the teens”

” tell me about those thoughts ,if you would.”

” they would just pop up and they were destructive thougts towards others it was kind of that in an abstract way. it wasn’t actually visualizing killing or anything. it was just kind of of like a voice saying,lile ” kill people”

” and then a voice that you could hear inside or otside your head , or something else?”

” like your own voice, your own mind voice

james continued flat affect and limited show of emotion and not in only in his fave, but his tone of voice. are aften indications of severer mental illness. such as psychosis

flat affect can bek assocciated with dysfunction in amygdala , which is the part of the brain responsible for signigicance to events in a persons envrionment .

flat affect can also be associeted with imbalance of brain chemicals like dopamine and serotonin . and may be related to his own biological imbalances, or even to heavy psychotropic medications he may be taking. which will affect hs brain chemistry in a similar manner.

” the hatred’s kidn of like hating broccoli… it’s just kind of an eversive hate”

in regards to his statements about broccoli,we dont’s see anger because james basically compares his feelings towards mankind as being similar to how he feels about he betetable .

it seams like james not only has significant difficulty processing emotions ,but his empatihy is so absent that he doesn’t feel anything for othe human beings.

thats why anger isn’t even on his radar.people dont mean enoug to him for him to even tet to the point of bothering to feel anger.people are just a nuisance to him,

so his thoughts are of just exterminating them. almost like they were inanimate objects. maybe at some point long ago, james did feel emotion for orher people.

perhaps his emotions were so intense that he unconsciously shut them off. the theory may be true if james suffered some sort of childhood trauma. since people with severe mental illness often have trauma histories.

his drawing revealed he´picked audtiorium nine as his target , given its size.

and because it had en exit that led to a sparsely used parking lot.

-did you have a particular crowd in mind or particular setting in mind at that time?

-no , not at that time.

-so ,going back now over two years, what do you think the crowd looked like?where was it? what were they doing? what was going on?

-it was just a crowd. there wasn’t any specific setting to it.

–

further interrogations with ames helped the investigatiors understand the timeline.

of events from his persepctive.on the night of the event, he dressed in regular clothes and reached the century 16 theater for a pack midnight show. of the movie ” the dark knight rises”

he occupied a seat in the frint row for auditiorium nine.and had walked out of the exit door half an hour into the movie , pretending to be on a call.

he´d used a tabletcloth holder to prop the door open.

and then hewalked up to his car in the parking lot.

-at what point did you call the behavioral health hotline.or the hotline of some kind?

-like halfway through gearing up

-from the car then?

-yeah.i called ’em ,but i couldn´t hear anybody on the other line.

-what led you to make that call?

-just one last chance to see if i should turn back or not.

-how big was the part of you that was hoping for the last chance?

-it was overruled by comlpeting the…

-but how big was it to be overruled?

-not very big.

-enough to make you dial the phone?

-yeah

-what was your through when the pone call ended?

-im´really gonna do this.

following this call, he put on a ballistic III A jacket

and an arm protector on one are.

a belt with ammunition and a tactical vest.

he also put on a gas mask and a helmet in additon to arming himself with multiple firearms

and some ov the pictures investigators eventually found on his iPhone

jame’s eyes looked bigger and solid black. he called those possesive lenses. a means to differentiate himself and become the james that wanted to kill and destroy. it was hisway of sissociating himself from his actions.

there is apersistent but inaccurate rumor.that he dressed as the joker. he did not .

while pening fire in the packed auditorium, james listened to loud techno music on his wireless headphones. he claimed he didn’t wanna hear the cries of his victims. “so it wouldn’t be personal”

james even detailed his brutal attack to dr reid.james kept it very ompersonal because , again, he thinks of humanity in the way he thinks of broccoli.

however , the fact that he too measures to drown out the screams and gunshots could be because he knew that whatever ounce of humanity he has in him would likely be shaken by hearing the sounds of death and suffering all around him.

-then i reased the shotgun and saw that people were getting up in,like , the back left corner, so i , like, shot up that direction. i don’t remember any of the other shots of the shotgun. i heard a scream. and i shot all my shotgun rounds and tossed it on the floor, i think the shotgun held five och six shells. so i shot all six.

then i threw the gun down and switched to the AR-15.

-i don’t remember where i shot those ones either.exept for two people who tried to run away. and i shot , like three shots at them.it made me kind of focus on them or divert my attention to them,’cause can’t have everybody running away from the scene.

– tell me what you mean,” i can’t have everybody running away.”

-well , ” cause then i’m kind of out of control of the situation.

-did anybody get out while you were firing?

-yeah ,the two people who ran away, and then afterwards four people , i think carried a guy out, and they got out the back exit ,the emergency exit.

-tell me how you fired an AR with the gas mask on.

-put iy up to your shoulder and start shooting.

-can you sight down the barrel with the gas mask on?

-i had a scope on it but i didn’t use it.so i kust shot randomly.

-what do you see?

-bullets going towards seats.

-are the bullets going toward anything else besides seats?

-uhm .no.

-people?

-all the people are hiding behind the seats.

-about 65 or 70 of ‘ em obviously went towards people, didn’t they?

-so yeah, i assume it went throug the seats and hit them.

-really?

-yeah.

-how many folks do you suppose were hit directly?and how many of the bullets went through the seats and hit them?

-maybe like four or five directly,and then the rest were behind the seat hits.

-really? okay.

-but i can’t remember seeing it.

-the shotgun , you were shooting BB shot.

-yeah.

-you think that would go through at theater seat ?

-i fired that one first , so that was the four or five .

-the AR, the loads that you had, would they go through theater seats?

-i don’t know , i didn’t test it.it would be pretty hard to test it.

-did you plan for it to go through seats?

-i thougt they would go through seats because they’re rifle rounds.

it’s strange that james is claiming he shot at the seats rather trhan the people. this isn’t at all consistent with his thinking.in regards to increasing his own value by killing others.

-but the plan was that you would shoot them while they were running down the aisleway. or do i misunderstand?

-no, the plan was to contain them so they wouldn’t start running. but i´d left that aisleway cause i was kind of blocking the left aisleway and the emregency exit. so the only exit would be the right aisleway.

-so why did you leave them that exit?

-cause it was far away from me and they wouldn’t attack me,come down and run and attack me

-so the thought was they would go there, rather than attack you? kind of a pressure valve , i guess

-yeah, pressure release valve.

-those that did run that way . did you shot at them or no?

-yeah.

-hit some of them

-no i dont believe so ,i think there were three shots , though, that went through the wall and into theater eight.

-were you trying to

– i didn’t knoiw it would do that.

-were you trying to shoot them?

-yeas , i was aiming at them.

-okay. is there anything else about the experience inside the theater that sticks in your mind? that you remember vividly?

-this one guy in the front row was smiling.i thought it was kind of odd that he was smiling. this was when i was gonna leave , going towards the exit. and just looled back and saw that he was smiling. i think it’s probably a stress reaction that he did.

-as far as you know , did he look alive?

-yeah ,he was alive and moving a little bit.

.-okey

as said earlier , the police found james car in the parking lot of the theater,but he shares an interesting detail about his thought process following the shooting with Dr reid.

-why were you outside the theater and not inside the theater?

-i left the theater at that point and went out the back

-had you finished or were you ready to go back in , or?

-no at that point , i just decided i was done.

-so it wasn’t that they interrupted you, you had decided that you were done.

-no , i could´ve kept on shooting, well, the magazine jammed, so my main weapon malfunctioned

-but you had three others.

-i had two others on me and i would’ve had to reload the shotgun which takes so much time. so essentially , i only had the one handgun.

-so,if the cops hadn’t come up to you. what would you have been doing?

-i would ‘ve driven away.

that night ,james homles killed 12 people and left 58 people injured with gunshots wounds

during his imprisonment, james was put under psych evaluation, following attempts to end his life.though he pled guilty by cause of insanity the court reasoned that he was struggling with severe mental health conditions but was leaglly sane.

James was found guilty on 24 counts of first -degree murder.

a 140 counts of attempted first degree murder.

one count of possessing illegal explosives.

and sentence enhancement of a crime of violence.

The jury ruled that james acted cruelly , was lying in wait and ambushed his victims during the shooting which constituted as aggravating factors.

On august 26 th , james homes was sentenced to 12 life imprsionment sentence without parole and a maximum of 3,318 additional yeas on attempted murder and explosives possession convictions.after the jury failed to arrive at a conclusion about his death sentence.