Like everyone else inside screen 9 of the Century 16 cinema, Jessica Ghawi could hardly contain her excitement as she waited for a midnight premiere of the latest Batman epic, The Dark Knight Rises.
After waiting for months to see what was tipped to become the most successful film of all time, the 24-year-old sports journalist passed the time by teasing a friend via her Twitter account, saying: “You aren’t seeing it tonight?! ...Loser!”
She was so desperate for the film to begin that she even tweeted her frustration, writing in capitals: “Movie doesn’t start for 20 minutes.” In a staff car park at the back of the cinema, James Eagan Holmes, a medical school drop-out, 24, was also counting down the minutes to an evening for which he, too, had spent weeks getting ready.
While many children inside the cinema had come dressed as Batman, Holmes had painted his hair red and, when arrested, told police he was the comic book hero’s nemesis, The Joker.
He had armed himself with four guns and tear gas canisters as he prepared to storm the multiplex in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, determined to kill as many people as he could. Half an hour after the film began, Miss Ghawi and 11 others were dead or dying after Holmes carried out America’s latest mass shooting, silently and indiscriminately targeting men, women, children and even a four-month-old baby. “Every few seconds it was just boom, boom, boom,” said Jennifer Seeger, who was in the theatre. “He would reload and shoot and anyone who would try to leave would just get killed.”