CENTENNIAL, Colo. –James Holmes claims he was insane when he opened fire in a Colorado movie theater in July 2012, killing 12 people and injuring 70 — and therefore, not guilty of murder.
On Thursday, jurors heard from state-appointed psychiatrist William Reid — and from Holmes himself, in an interview he gave to Reid last year.
“What do you think people, or shrinks, should know about James Holmes?” Reid asked, according to the recording played in court.
“Uh, that I’m kinda shy, I guess,” Holmes responded.
Holmes and Reid talked on camera for five days, a total of 22 hours.
Prosecutors intend to play for jurors almost all of that interview, by far their most exhaustive opportunity to hear from Holmes himself.
At one point, Reid asked Holmes, “What brings tears to your eyes sometimes?”
“Uh, just regrets,” Holmes answered.
Holmes methodically planned the killings, but defense lawyers claim he was schizophrenic and in the grips of a psychotic episode.
Prosecutor George Brauchler asked Dr. Reid the trial’s central question.
“Is it your opinion that on the period of time that is applicable to these proceedings that the defendant James Egan Holmes met the legal definition of legal sanity?”
Reid simply responded, “Yes.”
Defense lawyers tried unsuccessfully to block the tape as evidence.
Jurors will spend several days getting a different impression of James Holmes, in his own words.