NewsNational News

Actions

Google chats between theater shooting gunman, ex-girlfriend released

Posted
and last updated

Electronic chat exchanges between James Holmes and the woman he was dating before the Aurora movie theater shooting provide more insight into his plan to do something "evil" and "kill many people."

Transcripts of the Google Chat message between the gunman and his ex-girlfriend, Gargi Datta, were shown to jurors in the trial on June 12.

See The Transcripts

The instant message chats start off in October 2011, just after the couple had met while attending graduate school at the University of Colorado.

In those first few months, the exchanges are lighthearted and focused on learning more about each other.

However, the chats grew disturbing in March 2012.

Holmes: "Well what I feel like doing is evil so can't do that"

Datta: "What do you feel like doing?"

Holmes: "Video games are the next best thing through escapism"

Datta: "What is so evil that you want to do?"

Holmes: "Kill people of course - That is why I live in the future"

Datta: "Killing people is too much effort, you'll end up locked up most people are not worth what might happen to you coz of the act"

Holmes: "That's why you kill many people"

Datta was in the Biological Basis of Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders class with the gunman in the spring of 2012.

She was one of the last people to leave a voicemail for the gunman, according to records. It was left on July 20, 2012 -- after the mass shooting.

In a videotaped sanity examination with Dr. William Reid, the gunman said they dated for about six months, and he told her some of his disturbing thoughts.

When she took the stand, Datta explained that her first date with the gunman was during a horror film festival. It was a casual, yet physical relationship, she said. 

However, she began to separate herself from him in early 2012 and they broke up in February of that year. 

"I was getting distant from him," Datta testified last weeky.

"Why?" asked Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler.

"I had already told him from the start that it would be a casual relationship and I did not really feel much closer with him, so I wanted to break up with him," she replied.

"Do you have a sense of how he felt towards you?" Brauchler asked.

"I think he liked me more than I liked him," Datta said.

She also testified about his demeanor at school and how he interacted with her alone.

"He never had highs and lows of emotion... He was pretty calm for the most part; friendly if people interacted with him," Datta said.

Datta said she encouraged Holmes to get help and recommended a social worker, Margaret Roth. 

Roth described him as "the most anxious person I have ever seen," attorneys said during their opening statements. She saw him once before referring him to psychiatrist Lynne Fenton.

Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to killing 12 people and wounding 70 more during the July 2012 attack at a midnight showing of the Batman film, "The Dark Knight Rises."

Two state-appointed psychiatrists have testified that they believe the gunman is mentally ill, but that he knew right from wrong when he opened fire in the theater.

The evidence released by the court on Monday also show diagrams of Theater No. 9 and the location of the gunman and the victims, as well as purchase-order information for the bulk ammunition the gunman had shipped to himself. 

Coverage Resources: