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Killer's mother says her son never 'ever . . . ever' harmed anyone until July 2012.

One of the most anticipated defense witnesses in the trial of convicted movie theater shooter James Holmes took the stand today in hopes of saving his life. Arlene Holmes smiled at her son as she sat down in the witness box and stuttered as nerves caused her to misspell her middle name.

But she soon had the courtroom’s attention as she revealed  how, three years ago, her life changed forever when an early morning phone call awakened her and her husband. On the other end of the line was a reporter who told her that there had been a mass shooting in a Colorado movie theater.

At first, the Holmeses thought James had been shot; but they were shocked to find out he was actually the one with the guns.

“He never harmed anyone…ever…ever…until July 20,2012,” his mother said Wednesday.

On July 16, the defendant was convicted of killing 12 people and injuring 70 more. The jury is now in the penalty phase deciding whether or not the former neuroscience graduate student should receive life in prison without parole or death by lethal injection.

Arlene Holmes, who has missed only two days of the three-and-a-half month trial, appeared to blame the psychiatrist who saw her son seven times

From March 2012 until about a month before the shooting, Dr. Lynne Fenton was treating the shooter for social anxiety when he abruptly left her care and quit the University of Colorado on June 11. Concerned, the psychiatrist called Arlene Holmes that same day to let her know that her son had quit school, but did not tell her that the shooter had confided to her his several-times-a-day thoughts of killing people.

“Do you wish she had?” asked public defender Rebekka Higgs.  “Of course,”  Arlene Holmes said, her voice breaking. “We wouldn’t be sitting here if she would have told me that. I would have been crawling on all fours….he never said he wanted to kill people. She didn’t tell me. She didn’t tell me. She didn’t tell me.”

Reaction among the jury ranged from what looked like sad concern to no emotion at all as home movies played showing a young defendant in happier times:  at 5 years old making Christmas gingerbread cookies, riding a tricycle around a pool and in a soccer jersey. “We’re gonna beat their butts!” he mugged to the relative behind the camera.

Victims of the shooting and their families are not impressed by Holmes’ family moments.  The gallery which is often crowded has been almost empty during this mitigation phase. Families who have shown up during this time bring books and crossword puzzles to keep their minds off of the humanization of the man many of them call “monster.”

A wave of sickness has hit the jury, so four of them sit apart from the rest in the back row, a bottle of Purel and a box of tissues beside them.

Thursday they will deliberate to decide whether the mitigating factors outweigh the aggravators. If they do, then the three-and-a-half-month-long trial will be over and the convicted gunman will go to prison for the rest of his life with no possibility for parole. But if the jury believes the horrors of the murders outweigh his Americana upbringing, they will then enter a third phase, during which they will decide if he should get the death  penalty.

Arlene Holmes’ husband, Bob, testified before her, telling the court in a soft-spoken voice that their son was an “excellent kid.”

But during cross-examination, District Attorney George Brauchler pointed out that Bob Holmes rarely emailed or called his son, and couldn’t remember that as an 8-year old, his behavior was so severe that they took him to multiple therapy sessions.

The last communication the defendant had was an email he sent a week before the movie massacre.  In it, he told his worried parents that  a visit they wanted to  make on the weekend of Aug. 10 would be fine. “Hey Bobbo,” he wrote  his dad. “Don’t have any plans for that weekend. ~Jimmy.”

Brauchler asked Bob Holmes about the July 12 email exchange.

“You now know that this was seven days before he would booby trap his apartment and head out to the theater?”

Bob Holmes lowered his head. “Ummm yes.”

He testified earlier that he and his wife had no idea of their son’s homicidal thoughts nor that he was mentally ill.  Both paternal grandfathers were hospitalized for mental illness and Bob Holmes’ twin sister has suffered from schizophrenia since she was 19 years old.

When the jury found him guilty, the nine women and three men soundly rejected James Holmes’ insanity plea.  Still, Arlene Holmes hopes her testimony will sway them not to kill her son.

“Schizophrenia chose him. He didn’t choose it,” she told jurors. “And I still love my son. I still do.”