CU professor: Aurora theater shooting gunman disengaged at final exam

CENTENNIAL — Six weeks before a gunman opened fire inside an Aurora movie theater in July 2012, University of Colorado professor William Sather watched as the man drew a detailed diagram of a human ear.

It was all perfectly accurate, Sather recalled Wednesday in testimony during Day 12 of the theater shooting trial, except for one thing: Sather and the other professors in the room hadn’t asked James Holmes anything about the ear. Instead, during a key oral exam at the end of Holmes’ first year as a neuroscience graduate student on CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus, the professors asked Holmes to talk about how the brain processes sound — a question Holmes never answered during a test in which he mostly spoke in short sentences.

“It was as though he may not have been fully engaged in the process,” Sather said.

Sather’s testimony provided a glimpse into the exam that both prosecutors and defense attorneys argue was a watershed moment in Holmes’ transformation from quiet student to armored killer.

To prosecutors, the exam — which Holmes flunked — represents the final defeat in a failed neuroscience career that persuaded Holmes to attack the theater as a way of improving his sense of self-worth. They have presented evidence that Holmes was busy buying weapons and ammunition even before the exam. To them, the lackluster exam performance is a sign that Holmes had turned his ambitions elsewhere.

When questioned by a prosecutor Wednesday, Sather said the professors attributed Holmes’ behavior during the exam to nerves or lack of interest.

To the defense, which has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, the exams show a man succumbing to mental illness. Sather agreed with defense assertions that Holmes’ performance was “increasingly scattered” and “disorganized” and conceded something other than nerves or apathy may have been at work.

“We did not know what was the issue,” he said.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Holmes, who is charged with murdering 12 people and trying to kill 70 others.

As has been the case so far in the nearly 4-week-old trial, prosecutors jumped around in their presentation Wednesday, interspersing dry testimony about evidence found in a Dumpster outside Holmes’ apartment with the stories of survivors who fled the theater during the shooting.

The day ended with a crime scene investigator describing the bullet holes and impact marks found on seats in the theater. She had testified about 82 marks by the end of the day. She has 174 still to go when the trial resumes on Thursday.

Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794, jsteffen@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jsteffendp