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THE MAN ACCUSED of killing a dozen people at a Colorado cinema sent a chilling warning of his plans in a parcel which sat unopened in a university mailroom, Fox News has reported today.
The package contained a notebook “full of details about how he was going to kill people” and appeared to have arrived more than a week before Friday’s mass shooting, an unnamed law enforcement source told the network’s website.
It’s not clear why the package was never delivered, nor whether it actually arrived in time to potentially prevent the massacre, which also left 58 people wounded.
A second law enforcement source quoted by FoxNews.com said they were unable to confirm that the package had arrived prior to the massacre. The first source said it had arrived on July 12, but did not say why it was not delivered.
It was addressed to a psychiatrist who is also a professor at the University of Colorado, where James Holmes was a graduate student.
The spiral-bound notebook was discovered on Monday, after the psychiatrist received a package he feared had come from Holmes and police searched the mailroom for suspicious packages.
“There were drawings of what he was going to do in it – drawings and illustrations of the massacre,” an unnamed law enforcement source told the website.
Among the drawings were some of gun-wielding stick figures shooting other stick figures.
Officials believe Holmes, 24, meticulously planned his attack on the first midnight showing of the hit movie “The Dark Knight Rises” in a cinema in Aurora, 20 minutes’ drive from Denver.
The gunman emerged from a fire exit shortly after the film began and threw two canisters of noxious gas into the auditorium.
After firing one round directly into the air with a pump-action shotgun, he began shooting people at random with a military-style assault rifle that could dispatch 50 to 60 rounds a minute, witnesses said.
Authorities said Holmes had painted his hair reddish orange and claimed he was the Joker, Batman’s sworn enemy in the comic book series that inspired the movie.
According to reports and at least one witness, he might have killed more people had his assault rifle not jammed.
Holmes gave himself up outside the cinema, still clad in the body armor witnesses described the gunman wearing.
Police said on Sunday they had found Holmes’s computer inside his booby-trapped apartment — rigged to kill anyone who entered — which could provide crucial details about how he planned and executed the attack.
He is being held in solitary confinement in the Arapahoe County Detention Center and could face the death penalty if convicted.
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Death penalty would be so unbelievably backwards, this guy needs to be studied and understood, not killed.
Well said Adrian, no person with a normal functioning brain would do this, if you me or anyone else’s brain was in the same state, we too would probably do something just as crazy, hard to admit I know, but unfortunately that’s the truth of it. I don’t see any point in killing him, ok we’d have one less nut case in the World, but we’d only be asking the same WTF questions after the next massacre.
I don’t know if we do need to study him! He is a child of our times. Some people, these days, feel disconnected from society. And ‘social’ media enforces this, as it is the most unsocial of activities.
The worlds of Film/TV/Video games and ‘Celebrity’ are the ‘reality’ is which they want to exist. They cannot see it for the fakeness that it is.
There is a strong chance that this guy wanted the notoriety and attentIon of all this! KeepIng hIm alIve wIll only feed that desIre. You ask young people today what they want to do when they grow up and a large portion will say ‘Be famous’!
Some, I suspect, would not care ‘how’ they get there!
Crime and Punishment, for too long we’ve had one, but not the other.
I dont know a whole lot about the Bible but one quote comes to mind. ‘Forgive them Father for they know not what they do’. Analyse it and make our own opinions
The death penalty is to generous let him die in jail an old man
Brilliant reponse! How grown-up…
No way. My tax dollars will pay for his bed and board. Lethal injection!!
I mean not to joke about it, but as what was said in th film he impersonated “some men cant be reasoned with or understood, some men just want to watch the world burn”. There is no one answer for his mentallaty.
This really adds to the tragedy of the whole situation.
This guy should be stuck in a lab so as to find out where he took that wrong turn and why. killing him would solve nothing and he would only take his messed up motives and reasons with him to the grave. He is the only person that can give some kind of explanation why so many innocent people had to die.
Let the BAU (FBI) study him to learn more about what’s makes people do theses things. It might help to identify people like this before they commit these crimes in the future.
Pity Gideon left…
The BAU is only a made up name for Criminal Minds, it’s the BSU- Behavioural Science Unit that handles all the criminal psychology side of things in Quantico. Same idea, I think it’s a legal thing that they don’t use the actual BSU name in the TV show.
The NRA have questions to answer also
What questions? They will just give the standard answer “Guns don’ kill people, people kill people”.
Hi Brian ,the NRA mantra” the right to bear arms ” is wearing a little thin ,
A gun on it’s own will not kill someone, you have to have someone to pull the trigger. Admittedly the US does have some strange gun laws but it is only when 1 nutter goes mental that the 4,300,000 members of the NRA are all tarred with the same brush. You want to call to account an organization with a membership of almost the population of Ireland for something that 1 individual did?
Yes Brian you can blame the NRA here. What a stupid stupid remark you made. The NRA make weapons available for idiots like him via lobbying to have relaxed gun laws. “I’m a beer swigging man I need an m16 to hunt deer, yeeeeeaah” and it not just this one shooting the NRA through their actions making gun freely available are part responsible for every gun crime in America.
James I had 2 firearms for years and I didn’t feel the need to shoot up my local omniplex. It is the same for all other gun holders in Ireland. There was a incident in Dublin some years back whee a man drove a car into a crowd on a pedestrian street in Dublin and that guy recently that drove a Garda jeep around Cork and Cork airport. Are you saying that we should ban motor vehicles because they can potentially kill people? Banning firearms will not stop gun deaths as people who want guns can get them if they really want to.
If you knew anything about shooting deer you would know that you can’t use an M16 to hunt deer in the first place. Secondly anybody drinking and shooting at the same time shouldn’t have a gun. Responsible gun owners are being persecuted for the actions of an extremely tiny minority of people. Gun laws do need to be tight enough to weed out potentially dangerous individuals and the US needs to get up to speed on this. In Ireland we have draconian laws that persecute gun enthusiasts because of the hysteria generated by the media and the anti-hunt lobby. The reality is that it is virtually impossible for me to get a 9mm handgun to go target shooting in a gun club legally but could acquire one illegally within 24 hours tops.
What I do find ironic though is that you accuse me of making a stupid remark yet on your FB page you have a picture with the words ” AM I THE ONLY ONE? who wants to kill those mo#!”#ckers who can not park in the goddam lines?” Maybe you are right James, maybe we should keep people like you away from guns! :-)
Your analogy comparing guns with cars is ridiculous! The primary purpose of a car is to transport; the primary purpose of a gun is to kill or maim!
John the primary purpose of a gun is to fire a projectile. Where you fire the projectile is up to the shooter. The primary purpose of a car is to drive. Where that car is driven is up to the driver. So the analogy is not ridiculous as it is up to the person in charge of either a car or a gun as to how they are used. Clay pigeon shooters don’t kill anything and target shooters don’t maim anything.
“Bus rampage driver admits death collision” http://www.independent.ie/national-news/bus-rampage-driver-admits-death-collision-1398485.html The primary purpose of a bus is to transport, not kill or maim yet in the hands of a man armed with a knife, a hatchet and a knuckle duster it becomes a dangerous weapon.
So what do you want to do ? Ban buses, knives and hatchets? After all they can be used as lethal weapons in the wrong hands. Blame the individual and not the tools that they use.
study him,lock him down and get rid of guns designed to kill people,ie glocks or all handguns,Uzi and any semi auto that is not intended for hunting duck or rabbit. now I know all guns are bad,and its the finger behind the trigger.but what did he do,used the shotgun in the air,then dropped it,why,because its no good to a nutter trying to kill lots of people! get rid of anything above a .22 at least ffs!
Give him the lethal injection.
Give yourself a trip to a psychiatrist…
Well said Dathi, agree 100pc, people need perspective!
He’s a physo because he acted on his ideas! Apparently we all the capability to be one, but most normal human beings have more control and a will to survive
jonathan: you seem to be against this guy being executed. I wonder would your view be shared by the families of the people who died and were injured?
@Mark
I fully sympathise with them but they’re the people least capable of giving an objective opinion on the death penalty.
Regarding this brutal crime, that there is no excuse for, I would just ask the Journal readers to allow me to relate an experience of mine, which I don’t intend to tell for any other reason than that they might find informative, regarding this case. Depending on the jurisdiction and country of this case, this man could be subjected to bullets, ropes and trapdoors, hazardous chemicals etc. He may well deserve it. It’s not for me to say alone. What I want to tell you is, that when it comes to pulling the trigger, or trapdoor, regardless of your feelings, or intentions, sometimes something else happens. In my case, when the jury had decided that a pedophile was guilty, I being the foreman of the jury had to sign the verdict as guilty. Even though this was the correct and universally agreed verdict, my hands began to shake uncontrollably. It took me at least ten minutes to regain composure of my hands. I had only a pen in my hand. What if I had a gun?. What I am trying to say is that the unstanderable urge to seek justice and the final act of issuing justice are two very different things.
fair point,but it all depends where your head is at.at the end of an emotional trial,finish line right there,then home to your loved ones.of course you shook but ya did the job! this lad shakes in his head for different reasons!
Killing him is too easy, he should spend the rest of his days in a cell! Nutcase!
Do not believe fox news… Im surprised they didnt say it was a black communist murdered those people
The only way to stop things like this from happening is to try him, convict him and take him straight outside the court house and execute him! Let people see the consequences of the action. Unfortunately he will sit on death row for 25 years in relative comfort! POS!
it was a pity there was no voice in his head saying, ”this is a bad idea”
I feel so sorry for his victims families and loved ones, what an evil individual! But I also feel for his poor family who’s lives will be destroyed because of his evil actions. Death penalty will be too easy for him!
I can’t believe this heartbreaking situation something needs to be done nobody has the right to take anybody’s life my thoughts and prayers are for all the people, family and friends of all of the people who where there that night god bless them all it’s horrendous what some people are capable of
Ashley moser, you won’t be familiar with the name. She was shot in cinema that night. Pretty bad. throat and abdomen. Still critical but will probably live. I’d usually be against the death penalty but I’d wait a couple of years and ask Ashley what should happen the killer.
Ashleys daughter Veronica, was one of the ones killed. She was 6 and had started swimming lessons a few days beforehand. I’d go with whatever Ashley decides.
It’s not a question of studying him to find out what’s wrong with him, that much is quite clear. He’s a psychopath who fits the profile of every other animal who’s done this before, a young white male with sociopathic tendencies and enough money on hand to be able to afford to carry something like this out, and purely for kicks by the looks of it. The common factor there is quite obvious, you allow mentally disturbed people to purchase firearms unhindered and this will keep happening again and again and again. Gun control is virtually irrelevant when psychopath control is the only way you’ll fix this horrendous trend.
Throw away the key, cut him up for experiments, or give him the chair, I’m cool either way so long as he never steps foot outside of a prison while he’s still breathing and suffers for the rest of his life however brief it may be.
and the nxt nutter can buy more guns and history will repeat itself!
Just so we’re clear, you want to kill the mentally ill?
Just wondering Danny how you figure that he is a psychopath. Normally this diagnosis is made by a trained and suitably qualified psychologist based on set criteria such as the PCL-R. He may have psychopathic tendencies but then so too do a lot of the general population. I would venture to say that there are other underlying disorders that caused this rampage but they have to be diagnosed first and studied later so as to give us a better understanding of how people like him work. Unfortunetly society gets most of it’s information on criminal psychology from the likes of Silence of the Lambs and Criminal Minds rather than from people who have studied the subject.
Yes I want to see the state kill him even if he is or is not mentally ill. Mind you the FBI are good at profiling they will produce a picture during him trail on if he is nuts or putting on an act.
James the reason that the FBI BSU are so good at profiling is because they have been able to interview violent criminals over the years and establish why they committed their various crimes. They then used that knowledge to catch other criminals or stop them before they could carry out their acts. They still conduct research on a regular basis with violent offenders to give an ever increasing amount of data. That’s kinda hard to do when the offender is dead.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the above commenters. What I was trying to explain, was that in my limited experience of being part of justice administered, it is not what you might think it feels like. I only had to sign a piece of paper, to determine someone’s fate.What would I have felt like if the judge asked me to use a gun instead of a pen?.
you would have done it and reasoned it out as the right thing to do or not! that’s because you have emotion and a moral compass! now sit beside this lad on a bus and tell me how you feel!
How someone sold this person a gun is beyond me. What a fruitcake
It deserves to be shot out of a cannon at a concrete wall!
Look there all different ways that he could be punished but I don’t think banning guns in the states will be one of them he should of been intercepted long be4 this happened who buys 6000 rounds over a few days and doesn’t rise any eyebrows?? There are alot of americans that carry 9mm .45 pistols (legally) everyday like we carry a phone in our pockets and think noting of it this could of all been stopped right as it started if one or two people at least we’re carrying concealed firearms and I know he was wearing armer but his face was not plus it still hurts regardless of body armer……
A six year old out at that hour! Does anybody else think that this is totally irresponsible…..anybody at all??
Nope not when out with parent. I see 6 year olds from the flats in the city running around the city at midnight
Oh so if other people are doing it its ok
Is that it? Bit of a sheep james are ye
@ Ken Corcoran
FYI, the cost of the death penalty is considerably higher than life imprisonment. See http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42 for more on the subject.
If holmes is found to be guilty by reason of insanity and therefore not in control of himself or his actions, and he is subsequently cured of his insanity – shouldn’t he be released?
No
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