CENTENNIAL — Another doctor who treated James Holmes prior to the shooting at an Aurora movie theater said Thursday that he had deep concerns about his patient but didn’t think he had enough information to commit him.
The problem, Dr. Robert Feinstein testified, wasn’t that he didn’t dig deep enough. It was that Holmes didn’t reveal enough.
“We had no doubt that he was withholding information,” Feinstein, a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado, said on the witness stand. “But we had no idea what information he was withholding.”
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Feinstein was the second CU psychiatrist to testify in the trial that he heard Holmes talk about wanting to kill people prior to the July 20, 2012, attack but felt limited in what he could do about it. His comments came on what was expected to be the second-to-last day of the prosecution’s case, a day when prosecutors worked to wrap up loose ends.
Jurors watched several video snippets of Holmes, including 11 minutes of grainy footage from a cell at the Arapahoe County Justice Center. The footage, shot in September 2012, showed Holmes fidgeting with something in his hands. Before the jury was brought into the courtroom to watch it, Judge Carlos Samour Jr. said the video was admissible because it possibly showed Holmes trying to undo his shackles.
Jurors heard Samantha Yowler describe how a night at the movies with her boyfriend, Matthew McQuinn, turned tragic.
“I was shaking Matt,” Yowler remembered of the shooting. “And he took a deep gasp.”
McQuinn was one of the 12 people killed in the theater shooting. Seventy were wounded.
Prosecutors have at least two more survivors to call Friday, including Ashley Moser, whose 6-year-old daughter, Veronica, was among the slain. After a lengthy debate Wednesday, Samour ruled Thursday that Moser will be able to tell jurors that she suffered a miscarriage because of the shooting but will not be able to talk about relearning to hold a spoon or make a sandwich after the shooting left her paralyzed. Prosecutors will be able to show a picture of Veronica during Moser’s testimony — but only for 3 seconds.
In his testimony, Feinstein — who saw Holmes for two visits in the spring of 2012 along with Holmes’ original CU psychiatrist, Dr. Lynne Fenton — said Holmes never told him about any specific plans to kill people when talking about his homicidal impulses.
“They were in very general, almost philosophical terms,” Feinstein said.
Feinstein said the lack of specific timing or targets in Holmes’ description of his homicidal thoughts meant there wasn’t enough information to commit him to a hospital on a 72-hour mental health hold.
But, on cross-examination, defense attorney Rebekka Higgs pressed Feinstein on whether he could have done more. Reading from notes taken during one session, Higgs asked Feinstein if Holmes asked “whether therapy would make him safe.” She later suggested Feinstein had told Holmes that doctors couldn’t fix him.
“I didn’t say we couldn’t fix him,” Feinstein replied. “I said we couldn’t fix him without his active participation and cooperation.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
