Just three days after James Holmes quit CU鈥檚 Neuroscience program, he applied for federal unemployment. In the application he wrote that he dropped out of the program because it was 鈥渢oo social鈥� for him, adding that he was shy and lacked passion for the research topics.
Under the application鈥檚 question as to how long he had felt this way, Holmes indicated that it had been that way for him all year. Five weeks later, he carried out his murderous plan at Aurora鈥檚 Century movie theater.
FBI Special Agent Jeremy Phelps, Tuesday鈥檚 last witness on Day 15 of the Aurora theater shooting trial, shared the unemployment application details. Jurors wrote furiously in their notepads as the testimony unfolded.
Earlier in the day, the prosecution focused on evidence pulled from autopsies of the 12 people who died on July 20, 2012, at the midnight premiere of 鈥淭he Dark Knight Rises.鈥�
James Holmes, the defendant, injured 70 others that night. The defense aims to convince the jury that Holmes is not guilty because he was insane at the time of the shooting, while the prosecution seeks the death penalty.
Prosecutor Karen Pearson called Faye Borquez, a crime scene investigator at the Aurora Police Department, to the stand Tuesday morning. Borquez and colleague Patricia Hopkins, a criminalist in the Aurora police department鈥檚 crime lab, attended autopsies of the 12 victims on July 20 and 21, 2012. Borquez took the stand for 90 minutes. Hopkins also testified Tuesday.
During the autopsies, Borquez collected evidence and took photos. On the July 20, she removed evidence from the bodies of victims Jessica Ghawi, A.J. Boik and Matthew McQuinn. Eight bullet fragments were removed from Ghawi鈥檚 body, five shotgun pellets and two bullet fragments from Boik, and a spent bullet and four bullet fragments from McQuinn, along with a movie ticket stub from his pocket.
Family members in the gallery, including mothers of Jessica Ghawi and Alex Teeves along with Micayla Medek鈥檚 grandmother sobbed and held each other as the metal fragments which killed their loved ones were named off in an orderly fashion. Also in attendance this morning was glossy-eyed Brent Lowak, who went to the movie with Ghawi on the night of the shooting.
Later, the jury somberly passed the evidence along to each other.
The following day Borquez attended the autopsies of Rebecca Wingo, Gordon Cowden, and Alex Teeves. The coroner removed four shotgun pellets and seven bullet fragments from Wingo, nothing from Gordon, who died of a gunshot wound, and 11 fragments from Teeves.
Borquez was also questioned about the evidence she helped to retrieve from the defendant鈥檚 car. The car鈥檚 contents included: eight metal road spikes, duct tape sunglasses and the vehicle registration in the driver鈥檚 seat, tennis shoes, plastic bags, goggles and a snow scraper in the hatch, a black knit hat in the center console, and nothing in the back seat.
Angela Benford, the supervisor for the Aurora Police Department鈥檚 crime scene investigators, testified immediately after Borquez. She also discussed evidence from the car, adding that a pair of black knit gloves were found on the passenger鈥檚 side floor along with a set of keys from the driver鈥檚 seat. They included a bent car key, a King Soopers card, and handcuff keys.
It took the jury around 10 minutes to look at the evidence pulled from the defendant鈥檚 car.
Aurora police officer Hopkins documented the autopsies of the other six fatal victims. The first autopsy she attended was of 鈥渢he little girl,鈥� as she referred to 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, the youngest victim of the massacre. Three bullet fragments were recovered from the child鈥檚 abdomen.
Hopkins also collected evidence from the bodies of John Larimer, Jesse Childress, Jonathan Blunk, Alex Sullivan, and Micayla Medek. Nothing was recovered from the bodies of Larimer or Sullivan, who both died of gunshot wounds. Ten shotgun pellets were removed from Childress鈥� body, two bullet fragments and an unknown material from Blunk, and three bullet fragments from 23-year-old Medek, as well as a ticket stub from her pocket.
The prosecution called 17 witnesses, including six members of the Aurora Police Department; four shooting victims, two Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents; two FBI agents; and three people who either interacted with the defendant or took part in identifying things he bought in the days and weeks before the massacre.
Victims who took the stand today included Hailee Hensey, Evan Morrison, Daybra Dolores Thomas-Kizzar and Marcus Kizzar.
Hensey recalled babysitting 6-year-old Moser-Sullivan with best friend Kaylan Bailey before the movie to seeing a man 鈥済urgling blood鈥� near the front row during the aftermath. Hensey was 13 at the time of the shooting.
The Kizzars testified back to back. Marcus Kizzar explained that he recognized the smell of tear gas due to his basic training for the Army and called the theater a 鈥渒ill zone.鈥�
Also Tuesday, Judge Carlos Samour denied a request by prosecution to submit into evidence a video of police cars carrying dying patients speeding into local hospital emergency rooms. The prosecution had hoped to have the video admitted in order to show injuries pre-treatment, but the defense argued that the injuries and first responders have already been covered. Samour agreed.
Editor鈥檚 Note: CU News Corps will remember the victims of the tragedy with every post via this graphic.