CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) – The defense in the Colorado theater shooting trial rested its case Friday after trying to show James Holmes was legally insane when he carried out the deadly 2012 attack, suffering from delusions that each person he killed would increase his self-worth.
Holmes’ public defenders presented two weeks of testimony that featured a pair of psychiatrists who examined the gunman and found he was insane.
Earlier in the trial, two court-appointed doctors testified for the prosecution that they concluded Holmes knew the difference between right and wrong at the time of the killings and therefore was sane under Colorado law.
The defense highlighted Holmes’ sometimes bizarre behavior after the shooting – from playing with paper bags put over his hands to preserve gunshot residue, to running into walls head first four months after the massacre.
Holmes’ lawyers contended from the start that he was in the grips of a psychotic episode when he killed 12 people and injured 70 at a Denver-area movie theater.