• Gunman’s mother admits she feared he was disturbed for years
• Sources: Police placed evidence bags on James Holmes’ hands after his arrest and he pretended they were puppets
• Gunman had previously received $26,000 federal education grant
• Jail workers said he was not on medication during court appearance
• Victim set to launch first lawsuit against movie theater, Holmes’ doctors and Warner Brothers for not preventing horrific attack
The man accused of gunning down cinema-goers at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado has been spitting so much at officers while he is held in police custody, they have been forced to put a face guard on him.
After James Holmes was arrested in the movie theater’s parking lot, he sat wide-eyed and twitching and refused to cooperate with investigators, sources revealed.
It also emerged that when authorities placed evidence bags over the 24-year-old’s hands to preserve gunshot residue, he began playing with them as if they were two puppets, the sources told CALL7.
He is being held in isolation at the Arapahoe County Jail but the continual spitting has forced authorities to cover his face while he is being moved.
It is just the latest example of Holmes’ bizarre behavior and comes as his mother revealed she feared he had been disturbed for years and was concerned about his social isolation.
Arlene Holmes, who lives in San Diego, California and was only made aware of the shootings when a reporter called her for a comment, is said to have urged her son to seek counseling.
The claim in the Washington Post about Mrs Holmes, a nurse, is the first sign that she could have averted the massacre and raises grave questions over what else she knew.
When she was called about the shootings on Friday, she told an ABC reporter ‘you have the right person’ – in an apparent indication that her son was the likely gunman.
But on Monday, her lawyer spoke out to claim Mrs Holmes’s statement had been mis-characterized, and she had in fact been confirming that she was the ‘right person’.
According to reports, the neuroscience graduate was adopted and Mrs Holmes, 58, and husband Robert, 61, a software developer, raised him as one of their own.
The reports come just one day after Holmes’s startling first appearance in court on Monday, where he rolled his eyes, stared directly ahead and swayed from side to side.
He also displayed a disheveled mop of orange hair, apparently fading from the red he had dyed it in an attempt to resemble Batman’s arch nemesis, The Joker.
He stayed silent throughout the appearance at Arapahoe County Court and at times appeared as if he was under heavy medication.
But a jail employee has claimed that the 12-minute catatonic appearance was an act, not the result of any drugs.
‘We don’t just hand out meds,’ the Arapahoe County Detention Center worker told the New York Daily News. ‘It just doesn’t work like that. If he was acting sleepy, he was faking it.’
She said this would also explain why he dropped out of his PhD so abruptly.
‘We know that certain types of psychoses tend to have an onset in the early 20s; if that’s the case he may be in the midst of coping with that. He may not know what’s going on,’ she said.
Alternatively, she said the conditions of his jailing – especially for someone who has never been in trouble with the law – may have brought on an episode.
‘Sometimes that can be an experience in and of itself,’ Dr Neff said. ‘So his appearance is not very surprising.’
Jailors at the facility agreed Holmes has been acting bizarrely ever since arriving and ‘thinks he’s acting in a movie’, they told the New York Daily News
‘He was spitting at the door and spitting at the guards,’ a released inmate said outside the jail. ‘He’s spitting at everything. Dude was acting crazy.’
Mental illness is something the suspected gunman would be educated in, after completing a neuroscience degree before dropping out of his PhD program last month.
Holmes was previously awarded a $26,000 federal grant from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, part of the US Department of Health.
The sum covered a stipend and his tuition at the University of Colorado in Denver. He was one of six neuroscience students at the school to receive the money, WNEW News reported.
As well as mental illness, there have been other suggestions at a motive, including reports Holmes had recently split from a girlfriend and the fact he had been struggling in school before dropping
The source added: ‘I heard he’s not cooperating. He’s trying to act crazy. I know the people here believe it’s an act, but only he knows for sure.’
Dr Joan Neff, a criminologist from the University of Virginia, told MailOnline that Holmes’ appearance was consistent with someone who was suffering from a mental illness, such as schizophrenia.
Mugshot: James Holmes, 24, is suspected of shooting dead 12 cinema-goers and wounding 58 others
Mugshot: Holmes, 24, is suspected of shooting dead 12 cinema-goers and wounding 58 others
She said this would also explain why he dropped out of his PhD so abruptly.
‘We know that certain types of psychoses tend to have an onset in the early 20s; if that’s the case he may be in the midst of coping with that. He may not know what’s going on,’ she said.
Alternatively, she said the conditions of his jailing – especially for someone who has never been in trouble with the law – may have brought on an episode.
‘Sometimes that can be an experience in and of itself,’ Dr Neff said. ‘So his appearance is not very surprising.’
Jailors at the facility agreed Holmes has been acting bizarrely ever since arriving and ‘thinks he’s acting in a movie’, they told the New York Daily News
‘He was spitting at the door and spitting at the guards,’ a released inmate said outside the jail. ‘He’s spitting at everything. Dude was acting crazy.’
Mental illness is something the suspected gunman would be educated in, after completing a neuroscience degree before dropping out of his PhD program last month.
Holmes was previously awarded a $26,000 federal grant from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, part of the US Deparment of Health.
The sum covered a stipend and his tuition at the University of Colorado in Denver. He was one of six neuroscience students at the school to receive the money, WNEW News reported.
As well as mental illness, there have been other suggestions at a motive, including reports Holmes had recently split from a girlfriend and the fact he had been struggling in school before dropping out.
Whatever the cause, families are now reacting to the killings by unleashing lawsuits on the Century 16 Theater where the shooting took place, Holmes’ doctors and Warner Brothers.
TMZ reported that Torrence Brown, Jr. was in the cinema when Holmes shot dead 12 people and wounded another 58.
One of his friends, 18-year-old A.J. Boik, was killed in the massacre, and Brown is now suffering from extreme trauma, according to his attorney Donald Karpel.
His lawsuit, which has not yet been filed, will name the theater, for not properly securing the emergency exit and Holmes’ doctors, for allegedly prescribing medications, as defendants.
It will also name the studio Warner Brothers, claiming that Dark Knight Rises is too violent.
After his brief appearance on Monday, Holmes is back in solitary confinement – but the families of the victims said they saw enough.
‘I saw the coward in court today,’ said Tom Teves, whose son Alex was among those killed. ‘Alex could have wiped the floor with him without breaking a sweat.’
Holmes is being held without bond and will hear the formal charges against him next Monday. The County District Attorney is considering whether to seek the death penalty.
Legal experts told the Denver Post that Holmes’s attorneys are likely to pursue an insanity defense.
