Movie Rampage Suspect Makes First Court Appearance

His hair dyed orange-red and a dazed look his face, the man accused of going a deadly shooting rampage at the opening of the new Batman movie appeared Monday in for the first time.

An unshaven, handcuffed James Holmes sat maroon jailhouse jumpsuit Monday as the judge advised him of case. Holmes sat motionless, his eyes appearing tired and drooping.

Holmes, 24, has been held solitary confinement at an Arapahoe County detention facility Friday. Holmes is being held suspicion of first-degree murder, and he could also additional counts of aggravated assault and weapons violations.

Authorities have disclosed that he is refusing cooperate and that it could months to learn what prompted the horrific attack midnight moviegoers at a Batman film premiere.

District Attorney Carol Chambers said her office is considering pursuing the death against Holmes. She said a decision will be in consultation with victims' families.

Holmes is accused setting off gas canisters and then opening inside an Aurora, Colo., multiplex theater early Friday during the midnight debut the Warner Bros. movie "Dark Knight Rises."

Holmes has assigned a public defender, and Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said the former doctoral student has "lawyered up" his arrest early Friday, following the shooting an Aurora theater that left 12 dead and 58 wounded, some critically.

"He's not talking us," the chief said.

Holmes has held without bond at the lockup Centennial, Colo., south of Denver and about 13 miles the Aurora theater.

His hearing was the same complex amid tight security. Uniformed sheriff's deputies were stationed outside, and deputies were positioned the roofs of both court buildings the Arapahoe County Justice Center.

Police have said Holmes began buying guns Denver-area stores nearly two months before Friday's shooting and that he received at 50 packages in four months at his home and school.

Holmes' apartment was filled trip wires, explosive devices and unknown liquids, requiring police, FBI officials and bomb technicians to evacuate surrounding buildings while spending most of Saturday disabling the traps.

Investigators found a Batman mask Holmes' apartment after they finished clearing the home, a enforcement official close to the investigation said Sunday condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak the news media.

Officials the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus were looking whether Holmes used his position in a neuroscience graduate program collect hazardous materials, but that disclosure was one of the few it made three days after the massacre. It remained unclear whether Holmes' professors and other students his 35-student Ph.D. program noticed anything unusual his behavior.

His reasons quitting the program in June also remained a mystery. Holmes recently an intense oral exam that marks the end of the first year. University officials would not say if he passed, citing privacy concerns.

Amid the continuing investigation Holmes and his background, Sunday was a day for healing and remembrance in Aurora, the community holding a prayer vigil and President Barack Obama arriving to visit families of the victims.

Obama said he told the families that "all America and much of the world is thinking them." He met with them at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, treated 23 of the people injured in the mass shooting; 10 remain there, seven hurt critically.

Congregations across Colorado prayed the shooting victims and their relatives. Elderly churchgoers an aging Presbyterian church within walking near Holmes' apartment joined in prayer, though none had met him.


Adapted and abridged from: CNBC, July 23, 2012.