50 Shades of Evil: Colorado

0:05 M h. A Wall Street line, shackle change, Oh weesome, gird it's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice as the huge stream game Rango three, Come here by me or die inside these walls, inside the wild.

0:56 And when the girls I. Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody and Gola. I'm Jim Chapman and I am back with another Fifty Shades of Evil series episode, and this time we are going to go to Colorado when on June twelfth of twenty twelve, a twenty four year old mail by the name of James Holmes entered a midnight movie screening of Batman The Dark Night and he was armed with an AR fifteen, a one hundred round magazine, as well as a twelve gage shotgun and a Glock forty caliber pistol. He killed twelve people, injured seventy others. And when you talk about evil, this guy embodies it. So today we are going to talk about what led up to this shooting, what became of James Holmes, and we're going to go to the state of Colorado to do it and tell you the story of the Colorado Theater shooter and for James Holmes,

2:27 it all started in nineteen eighty seven, but it was not in Colorado. It was in San Diego, California, where he was born to parents, Robert and Arlene Holmes. And look, his parents were very smart, educated professionals. His dad was a mathematician and his mom was a registered nurse, and they were super smart people, very affluent. And although he was born in San Diego, he was actually raised until the age of twelve about seven hours no of there, in what's known as Castorville, California. However, at the age of twelve, that family moves back to San Diego, and by this time James had a younger sister who was two years younger than himself. Now, up to this point, he appeared to have a pretty normal childhood. His family took vacations, they had fun together, but it was not completely without its challenges. When James was just eight years old, his parents sent him to a psychiatrist because he had hit his sister. Now it could have been one of those sibling rivalry things that maybe his parents overreacted, or maybe they knew something was a little bit off with James.

3:47 But outside of that, everything up until this point appeared typical, though he was a very shy kid when he was very young. Now, one thing that was a parent was that he he was smart, gifted. Even so, James and his family they moved back to the San Diego area, and James took this pretty hard, felt like he was leaving his friends, and he was so upset about this, in fact, that on that seven hour drive back to San Diego, he attempts to cut his own rest with a piece of cardboard, which really it was no big deal, just barely broke the skin. And his parents kind of looked at this as possibly some sort of reaction to that move and something to seek a little bit of attention.

4:33 But this is the timeframe where James would say later after his arrest to a psychiatrist that he felt he was starting to become mentally ill. Now by the time he was a teenager. His parents they tried to get him out. They were good people. They went to several different places to see psychiatrists. But the issue with James was, although it just appeared something wasn't right, it wasn't the warning signs that you would see where you would say, oh my gosh, this guy needs help right now. Just not huge things that would stand out. He just seemed kind of disconnected, if you will, from the rest of his family. Now, despite all this, he had a pretty typical social life. He had a few friends, He played soccer, he ran cross country, and in two thousand and six he would graduate from high school with honors. Now, although he would say he was never bullied during his high school years, he would say later that he would overhear people talking about him from time to time and that they would say he was strange and just different. He said, when this would happen, he would picture violent images in his head. When he was asked about this, he said, images like a saw going through whoever happened to be saying these things about him. Now, that I would say is quite the warning sign, right, but he would keep

6:05 that to himself. So, as I said, he graduates from high school with honors. He attends the University of California at Riverside, and he graduates from the University of California at Riverside in twenty ten with a three point nine to six GPA in neuroscience. Now, he would say later that he chose neuroscience because he knew that he had something wrong mentally and that he wanted to learn how to fix his brain. Now, after college, he toiled around with a few jobs and then decided he wanted to go back to college to pursue a PhD in neuroscience.

6:51 And it was also at this point in time that people he would work with if these odd jobs he had worked at like a factory at one point in some other places, they said he was very antisocial. He would stay to himself a lot of the times, and this would gradually get worse and worse for James as we go along. So James applied to several schools to seek this PhD and he ends up picking Aurora, Colorado in the University of Colorado in which to get his PhD. And he would actually get a girlfriend during this time now, although they would eventually break up because she would say she didn't want to have a long term relationship. And although he didn't verbalize the fact that this crushed him at the time, it crushed him and his mental state was going down at this point, so it was a blow that he didn't know how to deal with or didn't have the tools to deal with at that time. Now, they did continue to see each other, and I guess you could describe it as maybe some kind of hook up relationship, but they were not boyfriend and girlfriend, and he had said later on in interviews that he was absolutely in love with this girl. Now, it was during this time that also his anxiety would get really bad around almost everyone, so bad in fact, that while he

8:21 was in school he would go see a psychiatrist himself. Now, she takes this appointment with James, and they have a couple of sessions together, and she picks up that there was a lot messed up underneath the surface with this kid, so much so that she reaches out to a colleague because she started to think this is beyond how I can help him. So she emails this colleague and I'm going to read you that quick email. This is from psychiatrist Margaret Wroth to psychiatrist Lynn Fenton, and it was emailed March nineteenth of twenty twelve. She said, I saw a student late Friday who I would hope you would be able to see as soon as possible. He is the most anxious guy I have seen and has symptoms of OCD. But most concerning is that he has thoughts of killing people. Though I do not think he is dangerous.

9:22 He said he did not want to tell me everything he was experiencing, as I might have to report him. The reason I think might be best for you to see him, as I think it might be best to keep him in our system, and she means in the school system. What do you think about that? I am leaving right now to go get some work done on my car. Should be back about noon or twelve thirty. Thanks Margaret. So that was the email. And obviously these issues are really surfacing to wear James, not that he was attempting to hide them from other people, but he was certainly attempting to hide them from the public. He didn't hide them from a psychiatrist, say Man, doctor Lynn Finton, she does agree to work with James, and this is in late March of twenty twelve. And throughout these sessions he would mention that he's having or was having homicidal thoughts, and he would say these homicidal thoughts increased to about three or four per day. He would start to express hatred for people, and the doctor would note that he was having increased psychotic thinking levels. She would prescribe zoloft in Clonzipam for him. And what the doctor did not know during these sessions is that toward the end of their sessions, James started purchasing firearms. On May twenty second of twenty twelve, he actually purchased his first weapon, a

10:55 glock pistol a week later, on May twenty eighth, a shotgun. He was already planning something, but he wouldn't disclose that to his psychiatrist now. Just prior to his last session, on June seventh of twenty twelve, he purchases an AR fifteen rifle, six thousand rounds of AMMO, a drum magazine, and this drum magazine would increase the round capacity of that rifle from thirty rounds in the regular magazine to one hundred rounds. So it was on June eleventh that Holmes goes in for a session and he tells doctor Fenton that he failed a major oral exam and he quit school on the spot. And not only that, he also said he was quitting his therapy and she was like why, and he said that he had lost his student status, which also means that he would lose his insurance due to not being a student anymore. So when you're on your parents' insurance. You have to be a student in college when you were the age of James Holmes. Well, if he drops out of school, then he's not going to be covered under that policy. And he said he could not afford the four hundred dollars monthly fee that she would be charging him. Now, doctor Fenton, she was very concerned about this. Obviously, she sensed a lot wrong with this kid, and she offered him free sessions. Hey,

12:29 we're not going to charge you anything, but he declined those free sessions. And it's at this point you could kind of tell that he was not gihon if you will with doctor Finton. So on this day they did have one final session and James was described by the doctor as very belligerent during this session. The session was very short and it was very tense, and he walks out of doctor Finton's office that day and he never returned. Shortly after, she said that he sent her threatening messages and doctor Finton would be so concerned about this she would actually contact James's mother out of concern for him leaving therapy, as well as campus police. Now in his mother's case, his mother would testify at the trial and say the doctor never mentioned me, meaning doctor Finton, that James had threatened or had mentioned that he had these thoughts of killing other people. She said, had doctor Finton mention this, I would have done everything I could to pick him up that day. But the doctor never told her that. The only thing she mentioned that I was able to locate was that he was quitting his therapy and she was concerned about it. But she did contact campus police as well the doctor, doctor Finton, and they deactivated his student ID cards. So he had one of

14:00 those student ID cards where he could swipe in and out of buildings, and doctor Fenton was concerned he was going to come do something to her, so they'd deactivated his ability to be able to get into buildings. They also ran his criminal record, but the issue was James Holmes didn't have any criminal record, So once they did that, they just kind of put the file to the side. They figured, Hey, this kid dropped out of school. It's not really our problem. We're campus police, and that was where that stopped. Now. When doctor Finton took the stand in the trial for this case, she did testify that she did not alert James's mother nor the police that he had made threats or exhibited any desires to kill anyone, even though he told her he had this secret desire to kill people. She testified in court it was due to his lack of revealing any specific place, land or intent.

15:02 I don't know intent. When you tell somebody you've had these thoughts, that's kind of intent to me. But I guess what she was saying was he didn't sit down with her and say, Okay, I plan to go to a movie theater. For example, Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today? Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you what happened in New York. It cannot be as crazy as the case I told you about yesterday in Louisiana. You know what, we should do a podcast about it. And with that we did. Crime War Weekly covers the crime news headlines that have dominated the week. We cover trending crimes from all over the country and even sprinkle in a few globally.

15:45 Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to your podcasts. Simply by searching Crime War Weekly or clicking the link in the description of this podcast. Now, because we are on the subject of doctor finton I want to go ahead and mention this. The day before this twisted individual decided he wanted to go kill a bunch of innocent people, James Holmes mails an entire notebook, a manifesto, if you will, to the attention of doctor Finton. Now, inside of this notebook, which was fifty six pages, it was front and back, so it was twenty three pages both written front and back.

16:35 Every plan you could imagine in what I'm going to tell you about that occurred later on. What did this notebook contain? Well, I'll cover some of the ramblings, if you will, that were inside of this notebook. There were some philosophical ramblings. So basically this notebook opens with big handwritten questions that read like a torment in philosophy student, if you will, a journal of some sort, things like what is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of death? Can a person have both no value and be ultimately good and or ultimately evil in value? These were questions that were written inside this notebook. He had wrote the word why two hundred and forty seven times across eight pages, just the word why. He also had some pretty cryptic lines in there, including the mind is a prison of uncertainty. He had another one that said, to all problems death death multiplying both sides of an equation by zero. When mankind can't find truth, untruth is converted to truth via violence. I mean, just some weird shit.

17:52 Another one said, the reason why life should exist is as arbitrary as the reason why it shouldn't. Life shouldn't exist. And these sections of the notebook were filled with like stick figured doodles, symbols, They had fragmented sentences. They were just very bizarre scribblings all over these pages. Now prominent section of that notebook was labeled self diagnosis of a Broken Mind, and Holmes list possible conditions that he had kind of self diagnosed himself with, including schizophrenia, adjustment disorder, restless leg syndrome, and other vague entries that he had In there. He wrote in length about trying to rehabilitate the broken mind through neuroscience, but he said he concluded his soul must be eviscerated to fix it. He described a decade long obsession to kill in a long standing hatred of mankind. He called people sheeple, and he also listed alternatives to death, and he put ignore the problem.

19:03 He talked about the obsession to kill, and he said he considered nuclear or biological bombs, serial killings, and other mass murder casualty methods before checking mass murder slash spree as the winner, if you will, the one that he had chose to do. He had a notation that said maximum casualties easily perform with firearms, although prontive in nature, no fear of consequences being caught is ninety nine percent certain. Then under that he had venue options airport, and then he had notes underneath that that said substantial security too much of a terrorist history. Terrorism isn't the message. The message is there is no message. Then he had national force and he put rejected too personal and yields too few kills. And then lastly he had movie theater, which is obviously what he chose, and he put what better place to case than that of an inconspicuous entertainment facility.

20:07 Then underneath that it said case the place. And he was in this section detailing all this research he did on what he was going to commit, and it said south side of theater optimal fifteen screens theater ten and twelve were circled as best targets in complex and then he marked the best parking spot for his car. He had victim clustering notes in there, saying many initial persons packed into a single area. He even had mapped out an escape route. He had even put in the response time estimated by police, which he had three minutes as the estimated response time. He would have stick figure victims drew in this notebook he had theaters with and he would have notes like too many exits. He would have notes like reminders to practice shooting at the range, and he even listed the weapons and the ammunition that he had already acquired. So it goes without saying that at this point James Holmes is completely off the rails, and on July nineteenth of twenty twelve, he makes his final preparations.

21:25 He photographed his ballistic gear, if you will, including a gas mask, two tear gas canisters, a bulletproof vest, a shotgun, an AR fifteen, a glock pistol, as well as a ton of ammo. He lays all this stuff out on his bed and he takes a picture as if he were freaking proud of what he was about to do, and he wanted to memorialize this moment. This was at five seventeen that day, at six point twenty two pm, he takes a selfie and at this point he had dyed his hair orange and he had twisted the front of his hair to look like two horns coming out of his head Satanic style. Right. He then goes about the task of wiring his apartment home alone style, but with real weapons. I'm talking trip wires that would set off homemade bombs, et cetera. Just prior to walking out the door, he does one more thing. He sets his computer to blast techno music thirty minutes after he leaves the house. Now, this is designed by plan in the mind of James Holmes. He actually wanted to lure police to his apartment and all those explosives that he had set inside would go off as soon as they walked in the door. And then at eleven thirty pm, James

22:56 Holmes arise at the Century sixteen movie theater. Now he had three tickets to Batman the Dark Knight Rises and it was showing in two theaters, most popular movie of the summer, and this was like opening night for it. In the theaters it was showing him were Theater eight in Theater nine. Now, he had done a ton of research on these two particular theaters, and in the end he chose Theater nine to the ability to handcuff one side of the double doors shut. However, the tickets to theater nine were sold out. He tried three times to get theater nine tickets, and he kept getting Theater eight, thus the three tickets. And I want to explain that real quick. He was buying these tickets online and it wouldn't let you choose the theater. It was such a popular movie. And this was twenty twelve, it's not today, so you could choose tickets, but it would just automatically give you what's available. And because Theater nine was sold out, he just couldn't get tickets. He tried three times. So at eleven fifty five he goes inside of that theater and at twelve oh three am he's captured by surveillance cameras walking past concessions into Theater nine. And the way he explained this later on was even though he had tickets to Theater eight, the concession stand was actually located

24:28 on Theater nine side. So he just went there and mingled around that concession stand for a minute, and then he went into Theater nine, because they only checked your tickets at the front of the entire complex, not when you get inside. So as he goes in Theater nine, he spots an empty seat on the front row, and he sits down for a few minutes, and the previews start, and as they're playing, he gets up out of his seats. Now, witnesses would say later that he appeared like he was taking a phone call. Now we now know that this is fake, that he made this up. He just kind of picked up his phone, put it up to his ear as if he was getting a call, and started pacing out of the theater. It's part of the plan.

25:15 He then goes to the left side of the theater, where it's like a cubby. No one else can see you. And I want you to picture this. One side of that hallway that cubby led to the lobby of the theater, and the other side is an emergency exit, and he goes out of that emergency exit and right in front of it. Because he had planned all this out, his car is part so as he's walking out that door, he props it open just slightly with a tablecloth holder, and that was obviously, so it would not shut and lock behind him. Now, this is about twenty minutes into the movie. Upon entering his car home, start changing into that ballistic gear that he had photographed on that bed right, a helmet, a gas mask, bulletproof vest, even bulletproof growing guards, and leggings. He armed himself with all three guns the hour or fifteen, the shotgun and the pistol. Now about midway through changing in his cramped car, two employees actually walk right by him to throw some trash out, But James Holmes was well concealed. He had dark tinted windows for his vehicle, and he had taken a sunshade and he had placed that across the front windshield, even though it was after midnight. And he would say later to

26:47 a psychiatrist that had they saw him, he would have killed them. And he actually had his pistol trained on them the entire time they were out there. Now, once they went back inside, he completed putting on his gear, and he did one final thing before he exited that car. He actually dials and he calls a crisis hotline. Now, James would say later he called in the hopes someone could talk him out of what he was about to do. He claimed no one answered, that he never heard anything. He held the phone to his ear for nine seconds and then just hung up. However, records indicates someone did answer and that he hung up on that person. At that point, he places in his earbuds and he turns up techno music full blast, and he exits his vehicle. Now, as soon as he steps out, he drops one of the two tear gas canisters he had. Now, at this point, he's geared up to the max. He can barely see due to the gas mask he had on, and it actually had scratches on it, so it really affected his vision.

28:02 So he kind of panics for a second. He hardly looks around for this rolling tear gas canister of all things, but he can't find it. He then proceeds back to the emergency exit that he went out of, and there's a little corner there where nobody can see you, and he kind of stands there for about thirty seconds, almost like he was debating do I really want to do this or not? Well, he decides to do it, and at twelve thirty eight am he re enters that building through the emergency exit into the theater. Now as soon as he steps back in that theater, he throws the tear gas canister that he didn't lose into the crowd in this place is freaking packed to the gills. Every seat is taken in this four hundred seat theater by this point. Now, many people saw this canister flying over the crowd, and it had smoke coming out of it at that point, but they assumed this was some sort of teenage prank. I mean, you got this guy standing there, he's geared up as if he's going to war, and he's got orange hair, and he throws something in the air with smoke coming behind it. I don't think anyone would automatically assume it was as serious as it actually was.

29:25 They assumed it was like fireworks or a smoke bomb of some sort. But that thought left everyone's mind in there within just a few seconds, when Holmes opens fire with that shotgun, he fires off all six shells that were loaded in that shotgun in rapid succession. Then as quickly as you could think, he switches to that AR fifteen, which was loaded with one hundred rounds, and he quickly fires off sixty five rounds before the gun suddenly jams. Now, during this time, it is absolute chaos in that theater.

30:15 People are screaming, they're trampling over one another, trying to run. Someone at some point trips a fire alarm, and with the AR fifteen jammed, Holmes calmly retreats to the right side of that theater hallway that leads out to the theater, where he is just out of the line of sight of those inside. And at this point a family of three they see this as an opportunity. They think maybe he left and they wanted to get the hell out of there, so they make a run for it, thinking that Holmes went out the emergency exit, and they turn in the hallway to go run to the theater lobby, and they run right into James Holmes. Now at this point he's working on that AR fifteen, trying to get it unjammed, but he has his forty caliber pistol in his hand and he fires off three shots, hitting all three people. They are all shot, but they managed to escape past him. Now, at this point, literally hundreds of calls are placed into nine one one, And initially I was going to play a few of those calls for you. However, these are so disturbing. I just decided not to. If you want to hear him, a simple Google search will pull up some nine one one calls and you can

31:46 listen to him. But it was just too disturbing. I didn't want to put it out there. Now, the shooting itself only lasted one to two minutes. It was that quick. Police arrived just ninety seconds after the first nine to one one call. But in this short amount of time the damaged homes managed to inflect was staggering. He fired off seventy six shots total from those three weapons. Twelve people were killed, including a six year old girl. Now, several of these people died while shielding other people from the bullets. Seventy people were injured. Fifty eight of those were injured as a result of direct gunfire. Another twelve were injured as a result of the tear gas or being trampled on. Out of that theater. Now, after the shooting stopped, James Holmes simply strolled back out of that emergency exited where two police officers walked right by him.

32:58 They assumed he was police due to being geared up in all this ballistics gear. He walks to his car. He lays his weapons inside and he raises his arms in a surrender position in the air. Police took note of this, realized this is the fucking guy, and they place him into custody. Now. Once in custody, shockingly and thank god, he did tell police his apartment was wired with explosives, which, due to the use of robots and some other means, it took police over twenty four hours to even make entry into his apartment. They also found in this car tire tax to pop tires, as well as a first aid kit, alerting police that he had planned on a police chase and he was going to toss his tire tax out and he had a first aid.

34:00 He's a kid. I guess if he gotten a wreck or something, he could doctor himself back up. So they bring him into the interrogation room and they bag his hands, and the reason that they do this is to secure any GSR residue, gunshot residue that he may have on his hands. And you can tell during this point the cops they were doing everything they could not kill this guy, and understandably so, I mean, you can tell they got a ton of disdain for this clown. As they are bagging his hands. So this punk is sitting there with these bags on his hands, and what do you think he's doing? He starts doing hand puppets back and forth with the bags. Talk about someone that doesn't realize the evil of what he just did. Now, they did attempt to interrogate him. However, as soon as they read him his rights in the interrogation room, he invokes his right to remain silent. He basically said, I an attorney, and I want a quarter pointed attorney. It requests a lawyer.

35:05 And at that point you got to stop questioning or whatever he says is inadmissible in court. So police stopped him. He got his lawyer. Eventually this goes to trial and in the end he has found guilty and he is sentenced to twelve life sentences plus three thousand, three hundred and eighteen years in prison. And it wrapped up quickly for a case of this size. That was in twenty twelve that he actually got convicted. Now, in that trial, key evidence, just a quick sypnosis of that. They had survivor testimony, they had videos, they had that notebook that I told you about. Obviously a ton of psychiatric exam evidence, and you may wonder why no death penalty in this case, And according to jurors statements after the trial, they failed to unanimously agree on the death penalty due to his documented mental illness. Whether you agree with that or not, that was the case there and why he didn't get the death penalty. Now, after his trial, he's in jail forever. Right.

36:17 He's initially held in Colorado's state facilities, and in twenty fifteen he gets assaulted by another inmate, and so at that point they move him. They transfer him to federal custody, and he gets housed at USB United States Prison Allenwood in Pennsylvania, and he was housed in what's not as protective isolation due to his obvious notoriety. Look, people will get major points if they kill that guy other prisoners, so that's why he's housed there. He spends twenty three hours per day confined to his cell. He has no contact with other inmates and has it he has refused any sort of visits, even from his own family. And you know what, it's my opinion that he deserves every single thing that he has gotten. This is one of the most horrific individuals that I have covered yet. And he deserves every bit of sitting in that cell twenty three hours a day. In my opinion. Of course, families were affected by this over you know, hundreds of thousands, the whole community of Colorado was affected by this horrific shooting.

37:36 My thoughts, prayers, hearts go out to all of the victims, all of the victim's family, friends, and everybody in the Colorado community that was affected. What a horrific, senseless, fucking, senseless tragedy taking place in twenty twelve in Colorado. But there you have it. That is fifty shades of the Evil Colorado. I want to thank everybody for listening. Check out the Patreon for commercial, free early releases and more, Patreon dot com slash Bloody and Gola podcast. And this will be the last episode you hear before Easter, so I want to wish everyone out there a happy Easter with family and friends. And if you're in South Louisiana, wet crawfish for Easter. So I'm looking forward to that.

38:29 Until next time for Bloody and Gola, I'm your host, Jim Chapman, much love. Wall Street, Line, shackle Chain, It's calling by name. There is no mercy and it's been a tentery, Jess, as the hillstream game rangold the three.

39:18 I'm in by mere to die inside these walls, inside the wise, And when these I know it's oldbody, anglebody angle, Pa and Bud