Tom Teves and his wife Caren, who lost their son Alex in the 2012 Aurora movie theatre massacre, speak to members of the media while holding a t-shirt bearing the images of the twelve who were killed in the shooting, after the two attended the reading of the verdicts in the trial of theater shooter James Holmes, at the Arapahoe County District Court, in Centennial, Colo., Thursday, July 16, 2015. As one victim said, these are real people with real families and they’ll be injured for life. He told the judge he believed strongly in the death penalty when he was younger, but now wants to hear all of the facts before he makes that decision.
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Jansen Young’s boyfriend Jon Blunk saved her life by pushing her under a seat when bullets started flying.
Because of the not guilty by reason of insanity plea, that means the jury needs to find the prosecution proved the gunman was sane, as defined by Colorado law.
Holmes is on trial for allegedly murdering 12 moviegoers and injuring 70 more on July 20, 2012, when he opened fire inside a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.
While those 12 jurors deliberate, seven other alternate jurors who sat through the whole case will be asked to wait in a room elsewhere in the courthouse complex. Even before the verdict was read, jurors passed around a box of tissues and dabbed their eyes.
The verdict came after 2 1/2 years of legal skirmishing and 11 weeks of grueling testimony. – Survivor Marcus Weaver, who was sitting next to his friend Rebecca Wingo when she was killed.
“Because I’m not for the death penalty, I’ve been feeling guilt, and it’s been hard to continue to fight for that”, she said.
Despite the sentence they decide upon, the juror’s lives will be forever changed by their experience, and they can add themselves to the list of victims of the Aurora theater shooting. “I wanted to try to take him with me”, she said.
She says “we’re very happy this animal – this monster – will never see the light of day”. His father, Tom Teves said at the time that Teves died trying to protect his girlfriend from being shot.
While some shared their compassion for victims, their families and the Aurora community, others like Jessica Ghawi’s brother used his platform to discuss the shooter’s fate. After the final count was read, Arlene Holmes buried her face in her husband’s shoulder.
In closing arguments Tuesday, District Attorney George Brauchler kept the focus on the shooting’s heavy toll on victims, weaving their stories into a larger narrative that tried to show Holmes was legally sane when he carried out the attack nearly three years ago.
Prosecutors argued that Holmes knew exactly what he was doing when he methodically gunned down strangers in the stadium-style theater, taking aim at those who fled. They recalled the panic to escape the black-clad gunman. Using short, reluctant answers, he said he felt nothing as he fired, blasting techno music through his earphones to drown out his victims’ screams.
“We don’t care if he ends up getting the death penalty or not, it’s over for us”.
Robert Sullivan’s granddaughter Veronica was the youngest victim at just six-years-old. Dr Wachtel is providing frequent commentary on the theater shooting trial on 9NEWS and 9NEWS.com, which is a mixture of professional analysis and his personal impressions of this case. “Even for his own account”.
The defense called a pair of psychiatrists, including a nationally known schizophrenia expert, who concluded Holmes was psychotic and legally insane.
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But two state-appointed doctors found otherwise, testifying for prosecutors that no matter what Holmes’ mental state was that night, he knew what he was doing was wrong.
