James Holmes, accused of killing 12 people in a shooting rampage in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, appears July 23, 2012, in Arapahoe County District Court with defense attorney Tamara Brady in Centennial, Colo.DENVER – The suspect in the Colorado shooting rampage tried unsuccessfully to call his university psychiatrist 9 minutes before he opened fire during a Batman movie premiere, defense attorneys revealed in court Thursday.
James Holmes placed the call to an after-hours number at a hospital at the University of Colorado, Anschutz campus, where psychiatrist Lynne Fenton could be reached, defense attorney Tamara Brady said.
It wasn’t clear why he called Fenton, and she wasn’t immediately available to talk to him. Holmes, 24, is accused of opening fire during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.
The detail about the call came out during a hearing about his relationship with Fenton, to whom he mailed a package containing a notebook that reportedly contained violent descriptions of an attack.
Prosecutors asked the judge to let them review the notebook as part of their investigation, while defense attorneys argued it was inadmissible because it was protected by doctor-patient privacy laws.