James Holmes’ therapist said that she had only been seeing him for a few weeks before the mass shooting at the Aurora cinema in Colorado in 2012 that left 12 people dead occurred. The shooting occurred during a showing of The Dark Night Rises.
In an interview to promote her new book, “Aurora: The Psychiatrist Who Treated the Movie Theater Killer Tells Her Story,” Dr. Lynne Fenton, 61, said that it was “every psychiatrist’s nightmare.”
The morning after the shooting, Fenton, who co-wrote the book with Kerrie Droban, claimed she had been seeing Holmes for a few weeks when she received a call regarding her client.
supervisor of her Are you seeing this? Steve questioned her over the phone. It’s Lynne, our man. He completed it. Really, he did it. I just can’t believe it, Jesus.
In addition to 3,318 years in jail, Holmes is now serving 12 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City after being found guilty in 2015.
James Holmes, the Colorado movie theater mass shooter who murdered 12 people in 2012 at a showing of The Dark Night Rises, was being treated by his therapist at the time of the massacre, according to her.
According to Dr. Lynne Fenton, 61, it was “every psychiatrist’s nightmare.”
Fenton is promoting Aurora: The Psychiatrist Who Treated the Movie Theater Killer Tells Her Story, the title of her most recent book.
Fenton said that she was disgusted by what her client had done and drove right away to her office at the medical campus of the University of Colorado.
Police questioned her there, asking whether she was aware of his intentions or that he had bombs hidden in his residences.
She said that he had never spoken to her about such atrocities.
After being compelled by his teachers to seek therapy while working as a first-year PhD candidate, Fenton first met Holmes via a social worker.
He had a “odd, gazing, bug-eyed face,” according to her, and when they first met, he stood up and rejected her effort to shake his hand.
She described how the hair on her forearms pricked against her sleeves as he rejected her welcome.
Police investigate an overnight shooting that left 12 people dead during a midnight premiere at the Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado.
The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office in Centennial, Colorado, provided this handout with a booking picture of the Colorado shooting suspect James Eagan Holmes.
He then started to speak: “He stated he had ideas of murdering people. He spoke it in a general, unimpressive manner. I questioned him about his specific objectives, but he withheld any information from me. I was unable to persuade him to express anger at a specific individual or group of people.
Fenton said that Holmes stated he had no strategy for carrying out those ideas and that they were a “antisocial fantasy,” but that he afterwards recognized he had lied when she inquired whether he had any weapons and he claimed not to.
She said, “Getting him to talk alone is like pulling teeth,” and claimed that even after many sessions, his fear had worsened.
Later, she got an email that had a series of characters and symbols that Holmes described as “me hitting you in the eye,” which made her question if he was planning to murder her.
This action, according to Fenton, is “not the normal furious response.” It was eerie and ambiguous.
In Aurora, Colorado, actor Christian Bale and his wife Sandra Blazic pay a visit to the monument across from the Century 16 cinema.
Despite this, she insisted on keeping him as a patient since it would have been unethical to do otherwise and it would be difficult to locate him a new psychiatrist.
She maintains that the information Holmes provided regarding his fantasies was insufficient to justify taking drastic actions like placing him under monitoring.
Fenton claims that while Holmes “did not match any of those requirements” to keep him committed, he continued to deteriorate.
Seven weeks into their sessions, according to Fenton, he stopped making eye contact and lost any passion in his voice.
Just one month before the massacre, on June 11, Holmes informed Fenton that he had failed his final examinations and would no longer be attending school and receiving counseling.
She calls her last encounter with him “frightening,” and she continues, “I felt a pit in my stomach and inquired if he felt unmoored.” He refused and was oddly carefree. Most individuals would be saddened if they were unsuccessful.
Fenton said that when Holmes “stood up like a soldier” and departed, she “had a horrible feeling about him.”
Fenton claims she violated HIPAA guidelines when she contacted his mother, who she claims assured her that “nothing radically different than it typically was” was taking place.
But on July 20, 2012, Holmes opened fire at a Batman sequel screening, killing 12 people and injuring 58 more.
Even now, she regrets not taking more action: No of my justifications or the constraints imposed by the law, I had to live with the knowledge that I had failed to stop him.
There are memorials for the victims close to the location of the Colorado tragedy that lost 12 lives.
Fenton, who is still tormented, relocated from Denver to the suburbs and now only practices medicine part-time.
Holmes became one of the most despised persons in America as a result of the horrifying massacre at the Colorado movie theater.
After the jury rejected Holmes’ insanity defense and found him guilty of killing 12 people and attempted to kill 70 more when he opened fire on a crowded cinema in a suburban Denver neighborhood on July 20, 2012, he was sentenced to prison in August 2015.
The massacre was attributed by his state-appointed counsel to Holmes’ schizophrenia and psychotic delusions, a hypothesis that is well-liked by Holmes’ supporters who contend that he had mental health issues and shouldn’t have been imprisoned.
Holmes was given 12 life sentences plus an additional 3,318 years in prison because the jury was unable to agree on the death penalty.