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That's Chumbuck Casino dot Com 46 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:02.000 and Live the Chumba Lat Bilbert never Armediebaby, I lost 47 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.599 the term conditions eighteen Plussbian. 48 00:02:13.719 --> 00:02:17.159 You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking 49 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:20.280 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 50 00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:27.639 written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK every 51 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:31.319 week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and 52 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:35.919 infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, 53 00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:38.199 journalist and author Dan. 54 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:49.120 Zupanski, Good Evening. 55 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:54.800 On July twentieth, twenty twelve, twelve people were killed and 56 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:57.479 fifty eight wounded at a mass shooting in a movie 57 00:02:57.479 --> 00:03:03.280 theater in Colorado. In nineteen ninety nine, thirteen kids at 58 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:07.719 Columbine High School were murdered by their peers. In two 59 00:03:07.719 --> 00:03:11.199 thousand and twelve, twenty children and seven adults were killed 60 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:15.159 at Sandy Hook Elementary, thirty two were killed at Virginia Tech. 61 00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:19.240 Twelve killed at the Washington Navy Yard. In May two 62 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:22.479 thousand and fourteen, after posting a YouTube video of retribution 63 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:26.759 and lamenting a life of loneliness, rejection, and unfilled desires, 64 00:03:27.759 --> 00:03:31.039 a lone gunman killed six and wounded seven in Isla Vista. 65 00:03:32.599 --> 00:03:34.680 All of these acts of violence were committed by young 66 00:03:34.719 --> 00:03:39.599 men between the ages of eighteen and thirty. Mass violence 67 00:03:39.639 --> 00:03:42.680 committed by young people is now an epidemic. In the 68 00:03:42.719 --> 00:03:46.560 first fourteen school days of two thousand and fourteen, there 69 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:50.039 were seven school shootings, compared to twenty eight school shootings 70 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:54.319 in all of two thousand and thirteen. New York Times 71 00:03:54.319 --> 00:03:58.240 best selling author Stephen Singular has often examined violence in 72 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:02.039 America and his critically acclaimed book Here He is teen 73 00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:05.719 with his wife Joyce for their most important work yet, 74 00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:12.639 one that investigates why America keeps producing twenty something mass killers. 75 00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:17.839 Their reporting has produced the most comprehensive look at the 76 00:04:17.879 --> 00:04:24.079 Aurora shootings yet and draws upon the one group that 77 00:04:24.120 --> 00:04:27.639 has been left out of the discussion so far, and 78 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:37.120 that's the twenty somethings themselves. The Spiral Notebook follows the 79 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:40.319 legal proceedings in the Aurora shooting and is full of 80 00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:43.759 interviews with Generation Z, a group dogged by big pharma 81 00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:49.639 and antidepressants in ad HD drugs, by a doomsday apocalyptic 82 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.680 mentality present since birth, and by an entertainment industry that 83 00:04:54.720 --> 00:04:58.879 has turned violence into parlor games. The book that we're 84 00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:03.240 featuring this evening is Spiral Notebook The Aurora Theater Shooting 85 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:07.040 and the Epidemic of Mass Violence by American Youth, with 86 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:12.000 my special guest Joyce and Stephen Singular. Welcome to the program, 87 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:14.639 and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. 88 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:17.279 Joyce and Steven. 89 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:20.519 Singular, Thank you Dan for having us. 90 00:05:23.199 --> 00:05:26.720 Thank you very much Joyce and Stephen for joining us 91 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:30.800 here today in the first program of twenty seventeen. And again, 92 00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:35.639 we couldn't be discussing a more important case and important 93 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:39.920 cases as this phenomena that we are discussing this evening, 94 00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:50.079 mass shooting in America. Let's talk about again why this 95 00:05:50.279 --> 00:05:54.399 was important to you. It becomes very obvious for those 96 00:05:54.439 --> 00:05:58.839 of people read the very first pages. But tell us 97 00:05:58.040 --> 00:06:03.160 how close to home this case is for the Singular family. 98 00:06:05.720 --> 00:06:10.720 Well, Joyce's a Denver native and I've lived here for 99 00:06:10.759 --> 00:06:15.240 more than three decades. And in nineteen ninety nine the 100 00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:19.360 Columbine massacre occurred, which you alluded to a little bit earlier. 101 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:24.959 Our son would have been five years old at that point, 102 00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:29.480 and we went out to Columbine when that happened and 103 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:32.759 looked at that scene and all of the mourners, and 104 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:36.759 it was very, very powerful, but it was about twenty 105 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:39.439 miles or so from here, fifteen to twenty miles probably, 106 00:06:39.480 --> 00:06:43.160 which was quite close, and it sent shockways through the city. 107 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:47.000 But that happened in nineteen ninety nine. Then in twenty 108 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:50.199 twelve when this happened in Aurora, this was in a 109 00:06:50.279 --> 00:06:54.480 theater that Joyce and Eric myself somewhat less, but they 110 00:06:54.519 --> 00:06:58.079 had been in that theater many times, watched many movies, 111 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:02.360 and this was much closer literally to our house, probably 112 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:06.240 you know, five to seven miles something like that. So 113 00:07:06.600 --> 00:07:10.040 it was it was literally closer. And there had been 114 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:15.120 a number of mass shootings between Columbine and this event. 115 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:20.800 So and so, the morning that was being broadcast on 116 00:07:20.839 --> 00:07:24.680 the local news stations, I told Steve that we should 117 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:28.240 probably drive over to the scene to where they were 118 00:07:28.319 --> 00:07:32.680 doing the examination for bombs at James Holmes apartment, which 119 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:35.480 is not very far from us. So we drove over 120 00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:38.879 there and then we talked to people his neighbors as 121 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:42.160 they were, you know, examining the apartment, and then we 122 00:07:42.199 --> 00:07:46.319 went over to the theater site and we began with 123 00:07:46.439 --> 00:07:50.920 other journalists interviewing people that had been kept in a 124 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:55.079 school that were in the theater that night that had 125 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:57.800 survived the shooting, but they bust them all over to 126 00:07:57.959 --> 00:08:01.319 a school, so they were up on and then they 127 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:05.439 let the survivors come out, and we started interviewing people 128 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:08.040 that had actually been in the theater that had witnessed 129 00:08:08.079 --> 00:08:11.360 what had gone on, and that's when we decided to 130 00:08:11.519 --> 00:08:14.720 start looking into it more. And we came home that 131 00:08:14.839 --> 00:08:18.040 day after beat at these scenes, we asked our son, 132 00:08:18.120 --> 00:08:22.519 who was home from his first semester of college, what 133 00:08:22.879 --> 00:08:26.439 did his friends think when these events happened? And we 134 00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:30.399 were rather surprised by what he said, Steve, you want 135 00:08:30.439 --> 00:08:30.959 to continue? 136 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:34.759 Yeah, he I mean the most formative thing that he 137 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:38.879 said was, you don't understand how I grew up. I 138 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:43.240 knew kids who could have done something like this, and 139 00:08:44.120 --> 00:08:46.279 we were the first sentence there. You don't know how 140 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:50.200 I grew up? Really took us aback, because we've worked 141 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:53.720 at home doing writing the whole time he was growing up. 142 00:08:53.799 --> 00:08:56.279 I mean, not only did he have two parents that 143 00:08:56.360 --> 00:08:58.480 were around all the time, but you know, we were 144 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:00.480 literally in the house all the time. How could we 145 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:05.240 not know how he grew up? So what he really 146 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:08.240 meant by that was you don't really understand the social 147 00:09:08.279 --> 00:09:13.200 influences on me and on kids of my generation from 148 00:09:13.200 --> 00:09:17.200 the time we were very very young, and so a 149 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:20.320 lot of writing. You know, if you look at a 150 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:23.120 mass killer, you say, well, this is an a individual, 151 00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:27.480 and let's focus on the aberrations of that person. That 152 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:29.799 applies in this case. But we thought, well, what would 153 00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:31.840 happen if you started to look at more of the 154 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:35.399 aberrations of the society. Why do we keep producing these 155 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:39.159 same killers over and over again? The numbers you just 156 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:43.159 alluded to, and our son being that age, the age 157 00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:45.799 not very far from Holmes's age, in the age of 158 00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:48.519 some of these other kids who had done this, was 159 00:09:48.600 --> 00:09:52.480 really providing a doorway into that world. So that's where 160 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:53.240 it all started. 161 00:09:55.879 --> 00:09:58.240 Yeah, it's very interesting that you enlist your son to 162 00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:02.759 really add a dimension of understanding to this, because again, 163 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:07.399 things have changed, and things do rapidly change. So let's 164 00:10:07.399 --> 00:10:11.559 talk about specifically the case that people have heard about. 165 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:17.159 But as you detail in great excruciating detail about him 166 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:22.399 parking the Hyundai hatchback behind Theater nine and what he 167 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:26.039 was wearing, if I could read it, or you could 168 00:10:26.159 --> 00:10:32.159 list what exactly how he was equipped behind this movie theater, 169 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:35.279 and then talk about the police officer that encounters him, 170 00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:39.240 who at first believes that it's a fellow officer responding 171 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:43.240 to the emergency calls to the theater itself. 172 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:49.240 Yes, he was dressed in sort of two modes. I mean, 173 00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:53.399 one was like someone dressed for combat and the other 174 00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:56.399 was having some of the gear of a police officer. 175 00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:00.960 When the first officer on the scene arrived, I as obiot. 176 00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:04.200 When he arrived, he glanced at Holmes, who was leaning 177 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:07.919 against his car right after the shootings, and thought he 178 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:11.440 was a fellow officer, except the gas mask didn't fit 179 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:16.679 the standard issue, and he approached Holmes and told him 180 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:20.759 to go on the ground, and then he arrested him. 181 00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:24.639 But what was extremely striking to the officer was that 182 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:29.000 Holmes offered no resistance whatsoever. He was totally relaxed. He 183 00:11:29.080 --> 00:11:31.960 did everything they asked him to do. This officer to 184 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:35.120 arrested a number of people before, obviously over his six 185 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:38.679 years in law enforcement, and he couldn't. You know, when 186 00:11:38.679 --> 00:11:41.360 people are being arrested or being handled, they tend to 187 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:45.120 stiffen up their muscle stiff and Holmes was experiencing this 188 00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:49.000 great sense of reliefs and almost peace, and it was 189 00:11:49.039 --> 00:11:54.000 a very unusual moment for the officer and for anyone 190 00:11:54.039 --> 00:11:58.399 else who showed up on that scene. So it just 191 00:11:59.399 --> 00:12:02.240 goes to the sort of the notion that he was 192 00:12:02.279 --> 00:12:06.200 in combat mode. He'd watched movies like that, he'd watched 193 00:12:06.200 --> 00:12:09.279 a lot of video games of that nature, and he 194 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:12.519 was really He told someone but in the jail that 195 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:15.480 night after his rest, that he felt that he was 196 00:12:15.519 --> 00:12:18.240 in a video game when he was actually doing the shooting. 197 00:12:19.080 --> 00:12:21.840 So it evokes all kinds of things that we would 198 00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:26.159 explore in the book about the video game culture, violent entertainment. 199 00:12:25.639 --> 00:12:26.120 Et cetera. 200 00:12:26.360 --> 00:12:29.840 I believe he was he had some music playing, Deny 201 00:12:29.879 --> 00:12:34.519 stephen Is ear. He had like some electronic music plane. 202 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:38.600 Real loud, real harsh music was playing in his ear 203 00:12:38.759 --> 00:12:41.600 so that he could not, you know, hear the results 204 00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:43.279 of what he was doing as he stood in front 205 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:45.879 of that audience and open fire. So I mean, he 206 00:12:45.960 --> 00:12:50.480 had completely dehumanized himself in order to do this, which 207 00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:53.720 which of course is very interesting because this was a 208 00:12:53.799 --> 00:12:57.120 you know, a very intelligent young man who was in 209 00:12:57.159 --> 00:13:00.799 the PhD neuroscience program here at the Universe of Colorado, 210 00:13:01.759 --> 00:13:04.720 and he had, you know, so much potential and so 211 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:07.120 much intelligence, and this is how it turned out. 212 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:11.399 You put something that's incredible in this and very of course, 213 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:15.519 very movieesque in that when the police removed his gas mask, 214 00:13:15.559 --> 00:13:18.159 he has this shock of orange hair and he says, 215 00:13:18.200 --> 00:13:21.559 I'm the Joker, and he has huge, these huge, super 216 00:13:21.639 --> 00:13:23.000 huge pupils. 217 00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:24.960 Right. 218 00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:30.799 He had identified, from what we understand, with the character 219 00:13:30.879 --> 00:13:35.320 of the Joker in that Batman, the first Batman movie 220 00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:39.039 in that particular series, I guess, so he had watched 221 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:42.879 the movies obsessively leading up to the crime. He had 222 00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:46.720 actually called someone who'd made sort of a trailer that 223 00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:50.960 sort of took off from that movie, and he had 224 00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:53.799 just obviously thought a lot about it. One of the 225 00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:58.080 details that many people don't know about was that he 226 00:13:58.840 --> 00:14:01.360 there's a scene in that movie where the Joker burns 227 00:14:01.399 --> 00:14:05.080 stacks and stacks of money to kind of make the 228 00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:09.639 point that society is overly interested or obsessed with money, 229 00:14:09.639 --> 00:14:12.919 and then it doesn't really have that much value. Holmes 230 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:18.080 mailed his own spiral notebook. He kept the Spiral notebook, 231 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:21.799 which in itself was fascinating because it contained his thoughts 232 00:14:21.799 --> 00:14:24.639 and feelings leading up to the crime, and then he 233 00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:28.879 sent it to his psychiatrist one day, the afternoon of 234 00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:33.480 the crime. But he put these burnt twenty dollars bills 235 00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:36.799 in the spiral notebook so they would fall out when 236 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:40.919 it was eventually open, making the connection with the joker 237 00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:44.039 and sort of making a statement about the society that 238 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:45.679 he felt he was living in. 239 00:14:48.480 --> 00:14:52.600 Getting back to the chaos and the mayhem at the 240 00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:56.399 movie complex, you write that there's two hundred and twenty 241 00:14:56.399 --> 00:15:00.320 three police officers from Denver and Aurora descending on this 242 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:08.200 complex and at the same time they arrest Holmes and 243 00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:12.320 ask him questions about explosives and if he has any partners. 244 00:15:12.840 --> 00:15:16.840 Tell us about this sort of the unnerving scene where 245 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:25.399 one of the officers asked him if he has a partner. 246 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:25.360 Yes, I mean he is asked if he's the only 247 00:15:25.399 --> 00:15:29.279 one present, and he says no. And then that one 248 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:32.960 of the officers says, you have explosives and this is 249 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:35.879 what Joyce had referred to earlier, and he says, yes, 250 00:15:35.960 --> 00:15:40.240 I have explosive wired to detonate in my apartment. And 251 00:15:40.360 --> 00:15:44.679 they said what are they and he said, IEDs And 252 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:49.720 these are improvised explosive devices mostly found in I Rock 253 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:53.120 and other places that America has been at war since 254 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:57.039 two thousand and one, So, I mean, one of the 255 00:15:57.039 --> 00:15:59.639 themes that were sort of exploring in the whole book 256 00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:02.639 is that a lot of this violence is not occurring 257 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:06.080 at a time of peacefulness in American history, but a 258 00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:09.320 time when the United States has been at war essentially 259 00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:12.879 for the last fifteen years. So there are some connections 260 00:16:12.919 --> 00:16:17.919 that are made there. But he I think Joyce could 261 00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:21.480 talk about the impact of this on the community. She 262 00:16:21.639 --> 00:16:23.559 was in the courtroom, maybe a little bit more than 263 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:27.000 I was. But you think, you know, a guy opens 264 00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:31.039 fire literally I think for twenty seven seconds, thirty seconds 265 00:16:31.240 --> 00:16:33.879 I believe was the like the amount of time that 266 00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:37.240 he was actually shooting. That brings two hundred and twenty 267 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:40.879 three officers to the scene, and then it just the 268 00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:44.480 impact that this created on the community over the next 269 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:46.519 three or four years was just incredible. 270 00:16:46.919 --> 00:16:50.240 Yeah, the impact not only on the you know, the victims, 271 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:54.279 the survivors, the families, but also on the first responders 272 00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:57.320 to the scene, the people at the hospitals that had 273 00:16:57.320 --> 00:17:00.399 to treat them. I mean, the ripple effect is huge 274 00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:04.519 in a community when this type of event occurs. The 275 00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:09.319 damage that it inflicts is it's hard to put into words. 276 00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:14.039 Well, there were seventy people besides the twelve that were killed. 277 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:18.400 Ultimately the number was seventy who were injured. A number 278 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:21.759 of those people came into the courtroom and testified in 279 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:26.559 wheelchairs or incapacitated in some ways, and it was just 280 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:29.559 it was devastating to sit through and watch it, but 281 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:32.640 we felt that was something we needed to do to 282 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:33.319 write the book. 283 00:17:35.400 --> 00:17:39.200 You talk about the damage, so you cite this incredibly 284 00:17:39.279 --> 00:17:43.720 personal story of a woman named a police officer going 285 00:17:43.720 --> 00:17:48.200 against protocol and transporting victims to the hospital because he 286 00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:51.680 figures it's just prudent to do that expedient, and so 287 00:17:51.759 --> 00:17:55.160 he in the back seat of you write there's a 288 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:58.519 woman named, a pregnant woman named Ashley Moser, and she's 289 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.559 bleeding heavily from shots to her head and chest, and 290 00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:05.519 her husband Ian Sullivan, and the police officers determined to 291 00:18:05.559 --> 00:18:08.720 get these people to the hospital, despite them wanting to 292 00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:10.640 go back to look for their six year old daughter. 293 00:18:11.559 --> 00:18:14.960 This is an incredible example of the damage that you 294 00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:18.319 talked about. Can you tell us a little bit more 295 00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:22.960 about this again, tragic story of just three. 296 00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:30.200 Right, his wife is pregnant and bleeding profusely, and Ian, 297 00:18:31.279 --> 00:18:35.400 her husband, is next to the police officer who's driving, 298 00:18:35.880 --> 00:18:37.720 and he says, you've got to go back and get 299 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:39.680 my six year old daughter. I have to know if 300 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:44.559 she's okay. And the officer says, I can't do that. 301 00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:46.720 We have to get to the hospital. And the guy says, 302 00:18:46.759 --> 00:18:49.240 you have to do it, and then he says no again, 303 00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:52.200 and Ian grabs the door handle and starts to jump 304 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:56.319 out of this fast moving patrol car. The officer grabs him, 305 00:18:56.440 --> 00:18:59.680 pulls him back in and says, you know you can't 306 00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:03.480 do We have to try and save her life. Ultimately, 307 00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:07.240 what happened was that the six year old girl was 308 00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:15.640 killed and the woman miscarried. So, I mean again, we 309 00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:20.440 felt compelled to sort of try and explore this tragedy 310 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:23.400 and these other tragedies, not because we think we have 311 00:19:23.480 --> 00:19:28.119 all the answers or anything, but just to feel what 312 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:31.720 this does to a community is an overwhelming thing. And 313 00:19:32.119 --> 00:19:35.559 so our book is really an exploration of kind of 314 00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:38.880 trying to examine the whole social forces that caused these 315 00:19:38.880 --> 00:19:41.400 things and to boil it down into the Holmes case. 316 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:47.519 So it's interesting too. You write that one of the 317 00:19:47.559 --> 00:19:52.000 victims named Caleb they rushed to the University of Colorado Hospital, 318 00:19:52.039 --> 00:19:56.039 where you say, again, ironically, Holmes had been in graduate 319 00:19:56.079 --> 00:19:57.559 school just a few weeks earlier. 320 00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:03.519 Right, They had to use a variety of hospitals around 321 00:20:04.359 --> 00:20:09.839 Aurora and Denver because there were so many victims. And yes, 322 00:20:09.960 --> 00:20:12.480 Holmes had been a student there. He'd actually been a 323 00:20:12.599 --> 00:20:16.839 very good student during the first semester of his first 324 00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:19.920 year of graduate school, and then things began to deteriorate. 325 00:20:20.920 --> 00:20:25.519 But again, there's so much irony and tragedy around the 326 00:20:25.559 --> 00:20:28.440 whole thing. He was in a PhD program. He was 327 00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:31.839 one of six students who was selected from across the 328 00:20:31.960 --> 00:20:36.359 entire United States, and he was around some very intelligent people. 329 00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:41.440 We interviewed his professors, one or two in particular, and 330 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:44.920 you know, they observed him fairly closely, and they just 331 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.359 didn't see what was unfolding, but beneath his surface, they did. 332 00:20:49.200 --> 00:20:51.319 Say also that, you know, some of the people are 333 00:20:51.440 --> 00:20:53.799 quite nerdy in these types of programs and they might 334 00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:57.640 be a little eccentric. So they just attributed his behavior 335 00:20:57.720 --> 00:21:00.240 to just being a little bit more, you know, of 336 00:21:00.279 --> 00:21:04.480 a loner, stand offish, but extremely intelligent and very good 337 00:21:04.519 --> 00:21:07.039 at what he did. But then they started noticing that 338 00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:13.160 his behavior was socially awkward, especially in his presentations. He 339 00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:15.559 didn't he had a real hard time speaking in front 340 00:21:15.559 --> 00:21:19.880 of the group, not in the content, but just to 341 00:21:19.880 --> 00:21:23.640 make the strange little jokes he would make, and the 342 00:21:24.039 --> 00:21:28.960 inappropriate jokes and the lack of eye contact. And then 343 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:31.440 that's when they started kind of noticing in you know, 344 00:21:31.559 --> 00:21:35.119 in retrospect that his behavior was a little. 345 00:21:34.920 --> 00:21:40.519 Different and he was deteriorating in the second semester. That's 346 00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:43.640 probably one of the more interesting aspects of the whole 347 00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:47.000 story is that he he knew he needed. 348 00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:48.640 Help. 349 00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:51.880 He knew that he had problems. He was going to 350 00:21:52.359 --> 00:21:56.559 enter an experimental study on and get a functional MRI 351 00:21:57.119 --> 00:22:00.000 that fall that I believe would have looked at his brain, 352 00:22:00.279 --> 00:22:02.440 but at the last second, you know, he decided to 353 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:06.279 pull out. Then in the late winter of twenty twelve, 354 00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:09.920 he sought out a therapist, then began to go to her, 355 00:22:10.599 --> 00:22:13.960 and he was seeking help. I mean, that's one of 356 00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:17.559 the really poignant parts of this story. And he was 357 00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:20.599 seeking meaning. And when you read his spiral notebook, which 358 00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:24.200 actually came out during the trial, that's what you see. 359 00:22:25.079 --> 00:22:28.240 So Joyce, why don't you tell him about the therapist 360 00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:29.079 to part of it. 361 00:22:29.799 --> 00:22:33.079 Well, he started going to the therapist on the university 362 00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:41.200 campus and she began prescribing andy depressants, and I believe 363 00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:45.240 Zoloft was the main one. And then she, you know, 364 00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:50.079 then she prescribed more zoloft, and then she prescribed even 365 00:22:50.160 --> 00:22:55.880 more zoloft where she tripled his original dosage, and he 366 00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:59.079 was and then he was also taking other drugs to 367 00:22:59.559 --> 00:23:07.559 opiums and or benzo benzo benzoids, and also drinking and 368 00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:13.440 self medicating with other types of medications street drugs. So 369 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:18.000 he just began getting more and more frustrated with his 370 00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:21.559 sessions with this doctor Lynn Fenton at the university hospital. 371 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:28.160 Eventually she pulled in one of her superiors and they 372 00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:31.160 it was surprising to us that between the two of them, 373 00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:36.039 they didn't recognize these signs that he was because at 374 00:23:36.039 --> 00:23:38.920 that point he had actually said that he wanted to kill. 375 00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:41.519 People a lot of people. Yes, that's true. 376 00:23:41.720 --> 00:23:45.160 And then she did make some contact with his mother, 377 00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:49.039 Arlene in California and San Diego, but she didn't tell 378 00:23:49.079 --> 00:23:52.880 the mother that he had actually stated that he wanted 379 00:23:52.920 --> 00:23:56.400 to kill people a lot of people, because in court 380 00:23:56.839 --> 00:23:58.759 his mother said, if I would have known that I 381 00:23:58.759 --> 00:24:01.480 would have crawled on my hands knees back to Colorado. 382 00:24:02.920 --> 00:24:05.359 So that was pretty shocking to us. 383 00:24:05.720 --> 00:24:09.359 Yeah, he was, I mean, he was unlike some of 384 00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:13.000 these shooters, he was quite aware that he was troubled. 385 00:24:13.079 --> 00:24:15.839 Some people felt he went into neuroscience to study his 386 00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:19.359 own brain and figure out what was malfunctioning in it. 387 00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:23.240 There's a section in the book where it lists a 388 00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:27.599 lot of the most prominent mass shooters over the past 389 00:24:27.720 --> 00:24:30.200 decade or so, and the one thing they have in 390 00:24:30.279 --> 00:24:34.880 common is all having been on some of these on 391 00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:38.319 some of these same meds. And I mean, he was 392 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:41.599 trying to make a connection with the therapist and explore 393 00:24:42.200 --> 00:24:47.480 his own reality more and she just really didn't seem 394 00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:50.599 to have time for that and gave him, you know, 395 00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:56.480 the medications and it it did not help at all. 396 00:24:56.759 --> 00:25:02.759 Was there any legal option that she was available once 397 00:25:03.359 --> 00:25:09.000 they did hear the talk of homicidal violence, Yeah, they did. 398 00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:12.839 Colorado the laws that once you a therapist makes that 399 00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:17.200 determination of danger to the self or this public, you 400 00:25:17.240 --> 00:25:20.559 can hold them for a mandatory toory seventy two hours. 401 00:25:21.480 --> 00:25:26.000