April 27, 2015, file sketch by courtroom artist Jeff Kandyba of movie theater massacre defendant James Holmes.(Photo: Jeff Kandyba, AP)
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Aurora theater shooting defendant James Holmes declared he had a "broken mind" and wrote pages of nonsensical ramblings in the same notebook he used to map and plan the shooting, witnesses testified Tuesday.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys are using the notebook — which Holmes mailed to a psychiatrist shortly before the shooting — to show his mind-set. Prosecutors argue Holmes methodically planned the July 20, 2012 shooting inside the suburban Denver movie theater, and they used portions of the notebook to demonstrate his preparations. Defense attorneys say it shows he suffers from mental illness. Holmes faces the death penalty and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Reading aloud on the witness stand, Aurora police Sgt. Matthew Fyles quoted portions of the diary: "The obsession to kill since I was a kid, with age became more and more realistic. Started with nuclear bombs, then shifted to biological agent that destroys the mind, most recently serial murder with stun gun ..."
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In another portion, Fyles read how Holmes wrote that he was 99% certain he'd get caught committing mass murder at the movie theater and said he didn't want to attack an airport because people would think it was a terrorist attack. "The message is there is no message," Fyles read aloud. Holmes wrote that people would think his failing university and personal life were the reasons for an attack but said they "both were expediting catalysts, not the reason."
Prosecutors showed how the notebook contains diagrams of the theater complex and notes about which specific auditorium to attack, based on part on the number of exits. "Embraced the hatred," the notebook says. "The Dark Knight Rises."
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Police arrested Holmes outside the theater, dressed in black body armor he had amassed over several weeks, and was carrying weapons witnesses said he bought and practiced with well before the attack in which 12 people were killed and 70 injured.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Dan King read aloud other passages from the notebook, including one in which Holmes referred to seeing flickers, crows or insects in his peripheral vision. King said one page of the notebook contained the phrase that Holmes had made a "self-diagnosis of broken mind" and that "my soul must be eviscerated." The notebook contains pages of the word "why" repeated over and over, along with infinity symbols. Defense attorneys say Holmes suffers from schizophrenia.
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"I view myself as divided," King read from the notebook. "The real me is fighting the biological me."
The trial is in its fifth week out of an expected four-month-long schedule. Prosecutors say they are a little more than halfway through their presentation. Jurors were allowed to read copies of the notebook after the presentation.
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