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The picture Chris Holmes kept for herself.

The  picture Chris Holmes kept for herself.

Two minutes after Chris Holmes received the news of what happened the night of July 20,2012, she grabbed a photograph of herself and her brother. She didn’t know if the FBI was going to take everything.  Reaching for a tissue, she said she wanted at least one picture of the good times with her brother.

“I call him Jimmy,” Chris said.

The photograph she saved would remind her of better times. It shows the two children, young and smiling, both flossed their teeth with their elbows out and stood side to side. Her brother smiled widely and she had curly, shoulder length hair.

“I just wanted one picture of us,” Chris said in a tiny voice.

Before her daughter took the stand, Arlene Holmes whispered encouraging words in a nearly empty courtroom Monday afternoon. Chris took heavy breaths, her shoulders expanded and contracted with the effort. Arlene assured Chris she was going to do great.

“I still love him,” Chris said. “I’ve gone to the hearings twice. It was nice to be in the same room.”

The defense asked if the Aurora theater shooter acknowledged her during the hearings.“He smiled,” Chris said. Tears spilled out and she grabbed a tissue, quickly regaining control.

Still, in the three years since the shootings, she only visited her brother in jail once and did not write at all, she said, because she knew prison employees would read his mail.

[video:https://vimeo.com/134676152]

Last week’s theater shooting in Louisiana was felt here in Colorado, and especially in the Arapahoe County courtroom. At least 12 jurors, two-thirds of the panel, heard about it. Judge Carlos Samour spent the first hour and half questioning each juror individually.

Most of them only heard briefly what happened before they realized the order Samour had given them and removed themselves from learning more.

But Samour hesitated on Juror 87, as her exposure was longer and more intentional than the others. She knew the age of the Louisiana shooter, how many people died and the town in which the killings occurred. 87, who is an alternate juror, even discussed the news with her husband, who suggested they shouldn’t talk about it.

However, all jurors were allowed to remain.

Some of the most important testimony of the day came from Dr. Jeffery Metzner, a University of Colorado psychiatrist who testified earlier on the defendant’s sanity. The defense asked questions to reinforce the notion that the Aurora theater shooter struggled with a mental illness before, during and after the shooting resulting in 12 deaths and 70 injuries.

“What I mean by serious mental illness is a mental disorder that is characterized by significant problems in reality testing,” Metzner said. “But for the mental illness,” he said, “The shootings would never have happened.

Several of the defendant’s old friends were also called to the stand.

“I didn’t believe it,” said Ryan Lacroix, the defendant’s former dorm mate. “Even today it’s hard to believe it.”

Lacroix said he would still consider the defendant a friend if circumstances were different.

“In my mind it’s still two different people, even though it’s obviously not,” Lacroix.

Tomorrow, more testimony is expected as this mitigation winds to an end.  Holmes’ attorneys are expected to call his parents to the stand.