James Eagan Holmes (born December 13, 1987) is an American convicted on 24 counts of murder and 140 counts of attempted murder for the July 20, 2012, shooting where he killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He had no known criminal record prior to the shooting. Holmes booby-trapped his apartment with explosives before the shooting to hurt even more people if anyone went in there but, fortunately, the explosives were defused one day later by a bomb squad before anyone else was hurt or killed.
Holmes was arrested shortly after the shooting and jailed without bail to await trial. Following this, he was hospitalized after attempting suicide several times while in jail. Holmes entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, which was accepted. His trial began on April 27, 2015, and on August 24 he was sentenced to 12 consecutive life sentences plus 3,318 years without parole.
His father was a mathematician and scientist with degrees from Stanford University, UCLA, and UC Berkeley and his mother was a registered nurse. He had one sister. Holmes was raised in Oak Hills, a community near Castroville, California, where he attended elementary school. According to Holmes’ lawyer, Daniel King, Holmes began to suffer from mental health issues in middle school and attempted suicide at age 11. At 12 years old, Holmes moved to San Diego. There, he lived in the Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood, where he reportedly began to decline socially. He went to Westview High School and graduated in 2006. Holmes played soccer and ran cross-country in high school. He attended Peñasquitos Lutheran Church with his family, according to the church’s pastor.
According to Holmes, during his childhood he was frightened of what he called “Nail Ghosts” that would hammer on the walls at night. He would also see shadows and “flickers” at the corners of his eyes, which would fight each other with firearms and other weapons. Holmes saw social worker Margaret Roth and she sent him to psychiatrist Lynne Fenton. Holmes was depressed and “obsessed with killing for over a decade.”<6>
James Eagan Holmes did not start out in this world as a psycho killer. At his trial his lawyers showed he once was a cute, happy little boy from a doting family, a nice kid who was gentle with his dog and his baby sister. He was wanted, he was encouraged, and he was taken to piano lessons and soccer practice and neighborhood birthday parties. He was at the center of a pack of exceptional boys who ruled his Northern California neighborhood and elementary school.
He did well in school and played basketball and video games. He went to the beach, on camping trips in the mountains, and to Disneyland. There were family gatherings on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and neighborhood parties on July 4 and Halloween.
He was a bit of a prodigy. After he finished his assignments in fifth-grade, he and a classmate filled their time writing code and building a website for the school. His teacher, impressed, called him a “Renaissance child.”
By middle school, according to testimony, he was one of the top five players in the world at the video game Warcraft III. He was also starting to withdraw from people. Mental illness was always lurking in the background, Holmes’ lawyers said. It stole his childish joy, and ultimately any chance he had for a normal life.<7>
I want two sentences from the last paragraph to sink in, “By middle school, according to testimony, he was one of the top five players in the world at the video game Warcraft III. He was also starting to withdraw from people.”
And from a few paragraphs before that, “According to Holmes, during his childhood, he was frightened of what he called ‘Nail Ghosts’ that would hammer on the walls at night. He would also see shadows and ‘flickers’ at the corners of his eyes, which would fight each other with firearms and other weapons.”
Remember those – we’ll come back to them.
In Aurora (at the time he killed people at the theater), Holmes lived on Paris Street in a one-bedroom apartment in a building with other students involved in health studies. In a rental application for an apartment, he described himself as “quiet and easygoing.” According to a few sources, Holmes allegedly hired prostitutes and left reviews of them on an online message board.
In October 2011, Holmes began dating a fellow student. Their relationship lasted about two months and ended when she felt distant from him. According to her, Holmes often made flat jokes that made other people uncomfortable and he also expressed his desire to kill people. She tried to recommend professional help despite not taking his claims seriously.<6 repeated>
On the 58th day of his son’s capital murder trial, Robert Holmes took the witness stand and repeatedly tried to make eye contact with the mentally ill young man he still called “Jimmy.”
He spoke of his son’s idyllic boyhood in Castroville, a small California town south of San Jose that treasured its children. He described the social awkwardness and isolation that came with a move at age 12 to a bigger city, San Diego. The boy once surrounded by a pack of friends suddenly had no one. But he still had soccer and he still had school. “He still had a family that loved him,” the elder Holmes testified. He looked back at that move as a pivotal time in his son’s life. There was a before and an after. Before is the Oak Hills neighborhood, near Monterey and after is San Diego.
“He was happiest when he was playing soccer when he was a young kid,” Robert Holmes testified. “Oak Hills was probably the happiest time in his life – and ours, too.”
His father’s testimony revealed a longer, wider disconnect. As Holmes got sicker, he pushed his family away. His mother and father didn’t have a clue. Despite a family history of mental illness, it was something not talked about.
Robert Holmes referred in his testimony to “two breakdowns” his twin sister suffered but said he never learned the diagnosis. He also testified his own father suffered from a mental illness in his later years but didn’t know what it was.
“Our family didn’t discuss it,” he said.
James Holmes never told his parents about the intrusive homicidal and suicidal thoughts he was telling others about that plagued him since he was 15.
“His mental illness was disturbing to him,” testified Jeffrey Matzner, a court-appointed forensic psychiatrist. His parents never knew he was mentally ill, although they began to suspect something was wrong when he visited them at Christmas in 2011. He was pale, scrawny, and worn down.
They learned in June James was seeing a psychiatrist. The family had been to counselors before but this time they were worried because the psychiatrist said James, who had broken up with the only girlfriend he’d ever had, planned to drop out of school. The parents began to research what might be wrong with him and came up with a theory: Asperger’s syndrome. They left a voicemail with the psychiatrist, Dr. Lynne Fenton, but she never called back. His father thought James might be depressed.
More than two dozen witnesses had testified, painting a vivid picture of Holmes’ family life. Unlike many people on death row, Holmes childhood seemed almost idyllic.
“Jimmy was always really an excellent kid,” his father testified. Friends, neighbors, schoolmates, and teachers agreed, describing a smart, sweet, exceptional boy.
The witnesses also spoke of doting parents who did everything they could to raise happy, successful children. Dozens of photos were shown of an adorable baby, a grinning boy, a loving brother, an awkward teen and young adult. Other photos and videos showed the parents snuggled in a huge bed with their two children, family camping trips and vacations, ball games, summer and winter trips to the mountains, beach outings and even the obligatory Disneyland photos of two smiling kids wearing mouse ears. It was difficult to believe those photos were of the same person who posed for selfies with orange-dyed hair, spooky black contact lenses and high-powered weapons and body armor, and stormed a crowded movie theater and opened fire.
Robert Holmes encountered that person in jail shortly after his arrest. He barely recognized the promising boy he’d raised. “He was clearly very messed up,” he said. “His eyes were bulging out of his head, and his pupils were dilated. He did tell us that he loved us, and that was good. But I could see something was really wrong with him.”<8>
The above was from the father. A few years later the mother opened up with, “I want to share the lessons that I’ve learned. My son had a diagnosis of schizophrenia which I didn’t know about until I sat in the trial.”
“The way that I want to honor [the victims’] injuries and their distress is to try and help prevent something this bad from happening again,” she told the TV station she agreed to give an interview to.
Arlene Holmes said James was a normal, happy child. During his teenage years, he became more withdrawn and irritable, she said. The family took the teen to a therapist, who suggested the mood change may have been prompted by the clan’s recent move from northern California to San Diego. Arlene said she started home remedies – fun family vacations and more exciting meals – to cheer her boy up. But as he became more ill-tempered and isolated, Arlene said she hoped he’d grow out of the moodiness.
She urged others to notice their loved one’s behavior shifts – and help them seek professional help.
“Don’t try to do like he did and like I did, which is try and just keep going or solve everything yourself. Get some help, some professional help,” she said. “This is what I have to offer, I failed to be educated and I want to offer up that failure as advice to other people.”
She added: “Maybe they can’t tell you in words, so look at their actions, look at what’s different, ask them to write you a letter even.”
Since the horrific attack, Arlene Holmes said she hasn’t stopped thinking about the victims.
“Violence perpetuated by mentally ill people is rare. It’s not rare if you’re the one that was harmed. It’s not rare to you,” she said.<9>
CITED REFERENCES
6. Wikipedia contributors, “James Holmes (mass murderer),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hol ... _murderer) (accessed April 4, 2019).
7. “James Holmes' life story didn't sway jury”
Ann O’Neill. CNN: August 11, 2015.
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/02/us/13th- ... index.html (accessed September 19, 2020).
8. “From witness stand, James Holmes’ dad tries to bridge an unfathomable gulf”
Ann O’Neill, Ana Cabrera, and Sara Weisfeldt. CNN: August 3, 2015.
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/28/us/james ... index.html (accessed December 8, 2018).
9. “James Holmes’ mom speaks for first time since 2012 Colorado movie theater shooting: ‘I can’t erase the day, but I wish I could’”
Meg Wagner. New York Daily News: May 13, 2016.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/nation ... -1.2635982 (accessed December 8, 2018).
