In this image made from Colorado Judicial Department video, James Holmes, background fifth from left in white shirt, stands along with others as the jury enters the courtroom, during the sentencing phase of the Colorado theater shooting trial in Centennial, Colo., on Wednesday, July 29, 2015.
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“He was not a violent person”.
“That’s true”, Robert Holmes said.
But she still loves him, she said, and will still visit, and probably send him a birthday card each year in prison.
“Of course I do. She didn’t, she didn’t, she didn’t tell me”, she wept.
The jury is considering whether James Holmes should serve life in prison without parole or be executed for killing 12 people and injuring 70 others at a crowded movie premiere in 2012. “I told them I didn’t think there was any chance he was a terrorist”.
Was he posing, perhaps trying to appear mad?
Robert Holmes deflected Brauchler’s suggestions, saying he didn’t know anything about how the photograph was taken.
They had rarely spoken by phone, but they communicated even less after he moved to Colorado.
Asked by a defense lawyer why, Robert Holmes responded, “Well, he’s my son and, you know, we always got along pretty well and he was actually an excellent kid”.
The killer’s father said he and his wife had no idea their son was suffering from mental illness before the massacre. “I still do”, Arlene Holmes said Wednesday, choking up on the stand. Their son was more talkative than usual and “he didn’t give any indication he was homicidal or depressed, at least not to us”, Robert Holmes said. “That was our main concern”, the shooter’s father said, adding they had made plans to see their son. It would be too late.
During his first visit, Robert Holmes said his son “was clearly really messed up”, with his eyes bulging and his pupils dilated.
Death sentences must be unanimous.
The father says he didn’t know his son was mentally ill before the July 20, 2012, attack that left 12 people dead and 70 injured.
Jurors have been shown pictures and home-movies from Holmes’ unremarkable childhood: playing soccer, graduating high school, smiling at the dinner table, jumping in the surf near their quiet California neighborhood.
The father of Colorado theater shooter James Holmes is back on the stand in the sentencing phase of his son’s trial.
“It’s been a hard experience”, Robert Holmes said Tuesday.
When it came time to cross-examine the older Holmes, District Attorney George Brauchler focused on what the parents didn’t know or didn’t tell jurors: that James Holmes’ mother took him to a counselor when he was just 8 because he was throwing things and acting out, and that once he was in college he lost touch with his younger sister, and never inquired about her well-being.
While Robert Holmes occasionally glanced at his son during his testimony, the two did not acknowledge each other until near end of the day.
Earlier on Wednesday, Holmes’ father told the penalty phase of the proceedings how FBI agents quizzed him at an airport just hours after the rampage.
The CU psychiatrist, Dr. Lynne Fenton, testified earlier during the trial and described meeting with Holmes several times when she was medical director for student mental health services at the university’s Anschutz Medical Campus.
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The father said he and his wife were still asleep at the time of the shooting and were woken up by a phone call from a reporter.
