Theater shooter’s mom takes the stand

They offered details of Holmes’ pleasant and seemingly average life to counter the prosecutors’ depiction of him as a monster who wanted to kill as many as he could in the audience of more than 400 people, and stopped at 12 only because his assault rifle jammed.

On Thursday, the jury will deliberate to decide whether the mitigating factors will prevail, meaning James Holmes would get life without parole. Prosecutors declined to cross-examine Arlene Holmes.

The father said he and his wife were still asleep at the time of the shooting and were woken up by a phone call from a reporter.

Earlier this month jurors convicted James Holmes of 165 counts, including 24 murder charges.

Holmes’ defense says mental illness contorted Holmes from a once-promising neuroscience graduate student into the deranged-looking man police arrested outside the blood-drenched theater where he killed 12 people in July 2012.

Brauchler sought to focus on what they didn’t know or didn’t tell jurors: that James Holmes’ mother took him to a counselor when he was just 8 because he was throwing things and acting out, and that once he was in college, he lost touch with his younger sister, and never inquired about her well-being.

Arlene Holmes said she has seen her son only three times in jail since the attack because such visits require extra security, but she writes to him about once a week. She also told jurors that she wished her son’s university psychiatrist had told her he was having homicidal thoughts before the shooting, and said she would have crawled to Colorado, if that’s what it would have taken to help him.

A jury is considering whether James Holmes should serve life in prison without parole or be executed for the July 20, 2012, attack that left 12 people dead and 70 injured.

A fuller portrait of the Colorado movie theater shooter has emerged during his death penalty trial.

“I kept telling him, just keep trying, keep trying, but I didn’t realize that his loudest cry for help was his silence”, she said, stifling a sob.

“People say to me that when your kid turns 18, you’re done”, she said.

“We wouldn’t be sitting here if she’d told me that”.

She also recounted some family therapy sessions she and her children had participated in when they were young.

“It never occurred to me that he would be the shooter”, the older Holmes said.

She was asked by the public defender Wednesday why she still loves her son.

Fighting back tears, she said she “would have been crawling on all fours” to reach her son in Colorado had she known her son was talking about killing. He told that doctor, Lynne Fenton, he was having homicidal thoughts three or four times a day.

In this image made from Colorado Judicial Department video, Arlene Holmes, top right, the mother of James Holmes, third from left, in white shirt, stand for the jury to leave for a break in testimony during the sentencing phase of the Colorado theater shooting trial in Centennial, Colo., on Wednesday, July 29, 2015.

Holmes’ attorneys say he committed the crime because of a severe psychotic break.

Robert Holmes said he realized he had seen that look before — the previous winter, when his son came home stressed from graduate school.

“At least not till the occasion”, Robert Holmes stated.

At first, the Holmes thought their son had been shot; but they were shocked to find out he was actually the one with the guns.

Arlene Holmes’ testimony at her son’s sentencing represents her first public feedback because the trial started. Instead, Robert Holmes booked a flight to see his son at his first court appearance.

The father’s testimony came during the second penalty phase of his son’s murder trial. He chose the graveyard shift at a pill-coating factory, and his parents saw him even less.