James Holmes

James Eagan Holmes (born December 13, 1987) is an American mass murderer responsible for the 2012 Aurora theater shooting in which he killed 12 people and injured 70 others (62 directly and eight indirectly) at a Century 16 movie theater on July 20, 2012.

He had no known criminal background before the shooting occurred.

Before the shooting, Holmes booby-trapped his apartment with explosives, which were defused one day later by a bomb squad.

Holmes was arrested shortly after the shooting and was jailed without bail while awaiting trial.

Following this, he was hospitalized after attempting suicide several times while in jail.

Holmes entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, which was accepted.

Holmes was born on December 13, 1987, in San Diego, California.

His father Robert Holmes is a mathematician and scientist with degrees from Stanford University, UCLA and UC Berkeley, and his mother Arlene Holmes is a registered nurse.

He has a sister.

Holmes was raised in Oak Hills, a community in Monterey County near Castroville, California, where he attended elementary school.

At twelve years old, Holmes moved back to San Diego.

There, he lived in the affluent Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood, where he reportedly began to decline socially.

He went to Westview High School and graduated in 2006.

Holmes played football and ran cross-country in high school.

He attended Peñasquitos Lutheran Church with his family, according to the Lutheran church's pastor.

According to Holmes' lawyer, Daniel King, Holmes began to suffer from mental health issues in middle school and attempted suicide at age 11.

According to Holmes, during his childhood, he was frightened of what he called "Nail Ghosts" that would hammer on the walls at night.

Holmes saw social worker Margaret Roth once before she sent him to psychiatrist Lynne Fenton.

Holmes was depressed and "obsessed with killing for over a decade".

Despite these issues, Holmes graduated from high school in 2006 and completed a bachelor's degree at University of California, Riverside in 2010.

He decided to pursue a graduate degree in neuroscience at the University of Colorado and moved to Aurora.

In Aurora, Holmes lived on Paris Street in a one-bedroom apartment in a building with other students involved in health studies at the University of Colorado.

In a rental application for an apartment, he described himself as "quiet and easygoing", and in an online dating profile, Holmes identified himself as an agnostic.

He left some digital footprints, like a university email address, an old Myspace photo, a dating profile on Match.com, and a profile on Adult FriendFinder, as well as a résumé at the employment website Monster.com.

Holmes allegedly hired sex workers and left reviews of their services on an online message board.

In 2006, Holmes worked as an intern at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he was assigned to write computer code for an experiment.

Holmes, who was described by his supervisor as stubborn, uncommunicative and socially inept, presented his project to the other interns at the end of the internship, but never completed it.

Holmes wrote of his experience at the Salk Institute in a college application essay: "I had little experience in computer programming and the work was challenging to say the least. Nonetheless, I taught myself how to program in Flash and then construct a cross-temporal calibration model.... Completing the project and presenting my model at the end of the internship was exhilarating."

Graduating from Westview High School in the Torrey Highlands community of San Diego in 2006, Holmes attended the University of California, Riverside (UCR).

In 2010, he received his undergraduate B.S. degree in neuroscience with highest honors.

He was a member of several honor societies, including Phi Beta Kappa and Golden Key.

In October 2011, Holmes began dating a fellow student in his biology class.

Their relationship lasted until an encounter on Saint Patrick's Day, ending when she felt distant from him following an encounter between Holmes and another man who talked to her during a date.

She said that Holmes often made flat jokes that made other people feel uncomfortable and had expressed his desire to kill people.

She tried to recommend getting professional help despite not taking his claims seriously.

They resumed their relationship in early January 2012, but it ended again in February.

Holmes told a state-appointed psychiatric physician that "their breakup contributed to his violent depression."

His trial began on April 27, 2015.

On August 26, 2015, Judge Carlos Samour sentenced Holmes to 12 consecutive life sentences plus 3,318 years without parole after the jury spared Holmes the death penalty by a single vote.

In imposing sentence, Judge Samour declared "it is the intention of this court that the defendant never set foot in free society again."