Chris Holmes comes to court for the first time since theater shooting trial began
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — A mother, a father and a daughter share a laugh Monday as they speak to each other in hushed whispers. A father shares his orange Tic Tacs and the rest of his bag of candy. It’s a picture of a happy family—or what could have been—had they not been sitting two rows behind a man on trial for his life. A man they called son, brother.
Chris Holmes, defendant James Holmes’ younger sister, joined her parents for the first time at the Arapahoe County Courthouse since the Aurora theater shooting trial began on April 27. She wore black skinny jeans, a light grey-brown shirt and a vest. Years before the shooting, Chris Holmes wrote a song titled “Walking Down Death Row.” Her lyrics included: “I’m praying to God, ‘Please save my soul.'”
During the 22 hours of psychiatric video shown last week, Dr. William Reid mentioned Chris Holmes had not written her brother and only visited once.
Her brother killed 12 people and injured 70 on July 20, 2012 when he opened fire at the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Monday marked the trial’s 27th day, and it featured testimony from forensic psychiatrist Jeffery Metzner. In a dramatic close before the lunch break, he declared the Aurora theater shooter was legally sane the night he opened fire.
“Having homicidal thinking doesn’t mean you can’t tell the difference between right and wrong,” Metzner said.
Reid had come to the same conclusion and stated that last week in court.
In 2013, the court found Metzner’s assessment incomplete, despite his 35 years in the field. The court assigned another psychiatrist, Reid, to the case.
On Monday, Metzner pointed to the defendant’s journal as well as Gmail chats and text messages to demonstrate an understanding on the defendant’s part of illegality and moral wrong doing.
In a Gmail chat sent on March 25, 2012, the shooter writes he was “thinking about doing something evil.”
The defendant reached his Rubicon when he called the mental health department of the University of Colorado and decided to hang up the phone.
It was a “last chance to turn back,” the defendant said. “I don’t know. Doubts, I guess.”
Metzner clarified the difference between having the capacity to know right from wrong and choosing to act despite that understanding.
“He didn’t consider the morality but he had the capacity to,” Metzner said.
Daniel King, one of the lead defense attorneys, cross-examined Metzner. He probed for a deeper explanation of psychosis, which established that Metzner did believe the defendant was psychotic the night of the shooting.
“There’s no doubt Holmes was genetically loaded for schizoaffective disorder,” King said.
Metzner agreed, citing a family history saturated with serious mental illness.
One jury member got sick during the testimony, so Judge Carlos Samour Jr. allowed for an additional 20-minute break.
Here is Chris Holmes’ song “Walking Down Death Row”:
[video:https://youtu.be/AKRTancp660]