On Monday, the New York Times released a report of details of the life of alleged "Dark Knight" shooter James Egan Holmes prior to the shootout that left 12 dead and another 58 injured. The report details testimonies of from fellow students and professors revealing behavioral details about the 24-year-old months before the massacre. The report reveals some insight regarding the mental state of the Ph.D. dropout.
Of striking importance is a testimony from a fellow student, who says that Holmes texted her in July asking her what she knew of dypchoric mania. He told her that he was suffering from the disorder and said "I am bad news," as reported by the New York Times.
The report also says that Holmes showed a fellow student a gun he had purchased in May, which Holmes said was "for protection."
Pyschiatrist, Roy Perlis of Massachusetts General Hospital and Assist. Prof. of Psychiatry at Harvard University, tells ABC News that "dysphoric or mixed mania refers to the fact that during a manic episode someone can also have significant depressive symptoms -- which seems like kind of a strange concept, but if you imagine feeling extremely irritable, uncomfortable, revved up, that starts to give a sense of what dysphoric or mixed mania probably feels like."
The condition is described as state of extreme agitation that is accompanied by dark thoughts, delusions and paranoia usually found in patients suffering from bipolar disorder.
The NYT report adds to the growing suspicion regarding Holmes mental health. We already know that he had approached three mental health professions, while at the university. His condition obviously raised enough concern for one psychiatrist to report him to university authorities.
A few weeks ago the University of Colorado Psychiatrist Dr. Lynne Fenton said that she informed a police about the 24-year-old expressing concern that her patient showed signs of imminent violence. In addition, police recovered a journal that the Ph.D. drop-out sent the university physiatrist cautioning on the upcoming fatal event he planned. Unfortunately, the journal remained in an unchecked mail-box and was discovered only until it was too late.
Holmes sent a journal, which was "full of details about how he was going to kill people," according to Fox News to the University of Colorado Anschutz medical campus in Aurora psychiatrist. However it was not discovered until too late.
Last week, prosecutor Karen Pearson 24-year-old, revealed that Holmes had told a classmate that he planned on killing people "when his life was over," and had also made violent threats to a university professor and "those threats were reported to police," as reported by the Huffington Post.
Although Holmes has yet to make his plea, the growing revelations on his life in the recent past prior to the shootout is only owning more strength to the possible (and expected) plea of mental incompetency.
Defense, Daniel King, was insinuating a possible plea for insanity. King also objected to prosecutors bid for a gag order to get access to Holmes records. "They are fishing around to establish a motive. ... The motive is irrelevant...Nothing in those documents will reveal any intent," as reported by the Christian Monitor
Holmes is being charged with 12 counts of murder and 116 of attempted murder.
On July 20, at a midnight screening of the cult-inducing Dark Knight Rises film at a movie house in Aurora, Colorado, Holmes, opened fire killing 12 people and injuring 59 others. He was arrested that morning and placed in a detention facility of Arapahoe County in solitary confinement.
Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney Carol Chambers told News Day that she is considering pursuing the death penalty, but only after consulting with the victims and their families.
ABC News says that a good part of the evidence hints to "underlying mental illness that was triggered by the stress of failure," according to reports by ABC News.
The New York Times report on various details about Holmes can be found here.
