Holmes told MD his mind was ‘falling apart’ months before theatre shooting
CENTENNIAL, Colorado — James Holmes said his “mind was kind of falling apart” and he began to have homicidal thoughts months before he killed 12 people and injured 70 others in a Colorado movie theatre, according to a video excerpt presented on Friday at his murder trial.
Holmes told a state-appointed psychiatrist in the videotaped interview that he had contracted mononucleosis in late 2011 and became depressed and lacked energy partly because of a breakup with a girlfriend in 2012.
“My mind was kind of falling apart,” he told Dr. William Reid in the interview at a state mental hospital two years after the July 20, 2012, theatre attack in Aurora. “I don’t know what else to say.”
Asked by Reid whether he ever thought about hurting or killing himself, Holmes replied: “No.” Asked about killing other people, Holmes said: “Yes.”
However, Holmes did say he associated depression with suicidal thoughts and added: “I kind of transferred my suicidal thoughts into homicidal.”
District Attorney George Brauchler interspersed five hours of the recording with questioning of Reid, helping to frame what jurors heard.
Reid told jurors he thought Holmes was struggling to protect himself from tumultuous emotions during the 22 hours of interviews that jurors are expected to see and was not trying to hide anything from prosecutors.
Again and again in the video, Reid pressed Holmes to describe his feelings, often eliciting answers of one word or succinct sentences. Reid, for example, asked him how it felt to take pictures of himself posed in body armour with weapons.
“I didn’t feel anything,” Holmes said. “Except that I’d be remembered by those pictures.”
Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to multiple charges of murder and attempted murder. If jurors rule in his favour, he would spend his life in a state mental hospital.
Colorado law defines a defendant as insane if he or she was so mentally diseased or deficient at the time of committing a crime as to be incapable of telling right from wrong, or of being able to form a culpable state of mind.
Prosecutors are trying to show that Holmes knew right from wrong at the time of the attack. They are seeking the death penalty.
Reid testified on Thursday that following the exam, he determined Holmes was legally sane at the time of the shooting.
Under questioning by Brauchler, Reid said the comments suggest “he knew that he was doing something wrong or was planning something wrong.”
Holmes’ attorneys have yet to question Reid.