Colorado shooter: a high achiever's abrupt descent

Reuters ^ | July 23, 2012 | Stephanie Simon and Dan Whitcomb

[Mrs. Don-o]

For most of his 24 years, James Holmes seemed to be doing everything right.

He worked for a summer as a counselor at a camp for needy kids, guiding them through activities designed to teach empathy, compassion and good citizenship. Another summer, he snagged a prestigious internship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

He attended church with his family in their quiet, upper-middle-class San Diego neighborhood, listening to his sister play bass in the worship band. He breezed through high school and college, taking a strong interest in science and graduating with honors from the University of California, Riverside.

Friends and acquaintances of Holmes say they had no inkling that anything was awry with him --

"It's absurd. It's so out of character for this young man," said Jerry Borgie, senior pastor at Penasquitos Lutheran Church in San Diego, where the Holmes family worshipped. "James had goals. He was going to succeed."

But a few hints have emerged in recent days that Holmes may have struggled far more than those around him realized.

His summer internship at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, in 2006 might have been impressive on paper, but...

[Mrs. Don-o]

There's more.

[Mrs. Don-o]

None of the usual categories seem to apply.

[knarf]

Hmmm .. He comes from a pretty interesting gene pool

Either an academic or a 'push through'

An unusually quiet and withdrawn guy ... autistic ?

Chooses neuroscience for an advanced study.

in 2006, he's discovered to be ... less than what he purported to be.

Got gov't and school grants to live

Drops out and after becoming a mass murderer, it is discovered he's chock a block full of weird, insurgent/terrorist type influence

Where was Bill Ayers in 2006?

[txrangerette]

When I click the link I get nothing.

But that could be just me.

What I’ve read so far suggests a quiet ticking bomb. He was totally wrapped in defining who and what he was based on these “achievements”.

Something in his brain might have gone wrong at some point, some kind of mental disorder, and it would appear he had NOTHING within himself or outside himself to fall back on.

I read, or heard, that as soon as he took the oral exam he began ordering ammo and other stuff and dropped out of the program.

He must have thought it didn’t go well, or that he couldn’t go on with the rigors of the program, and to HIM, that meant he needed to start killing people.

It reminds me of people who killed themselves during the stock crash in ‘29 because they had nothing but money. When their finances were wiped out, they jumped off of buildings.

Except for one thing, they killed THEMSELVES, not a bunch of innocent movie goers in a theater.

[Nervous Tick]

Setting up that insanity plea.

The media is helping because it fuels arguments for keeping guns out of EVERYONE’S hands (just in case a few of us gun clingers might turn out to be insane).

[johngrace]

Some of the smartest people I know can have the biggest problems. I have a mentally ill nephew. He is a genius140 IQ. I can ask him the hardest questions on " jeopardy ". He can answer them. It does not mean anything compared to his emotional mental problems.

He is stark raving mad at times.

If you ever see the movie " A Beautiful Mind" you can only begin to maybe scratch the surface to understand. I am always praying for him.

[ETL]

Chooses neuroscience for an advanced study.

"Holmes had been a student at the University of Colorado, but withdrew last month, according to the university. He was getting a PhD in neuroscience. A "James Holmes" is listed as enrolled in a class at the university called "Biological Basis of Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders."

Holmes also received a B.S. in neuroscience from the University of California Riverside in 2010, where he graduated with honors."

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/20/who-is-james-holmes-suspected-shooter-is-24-may-have-house-full-of-explosives-
____________________________________________________________________________________

"The day of the shooting, [Amy] Bishop taught her anatomy and neurosciences class and then attended a faculty meeting in the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Bishop#Shooting
____________________________________________________________________________________

"A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was "obsessed" with President Obama to the point of being off-putting."--Boston Herald, February 15, 2010

'Oddball' portrait of Amy Bishop emerges:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100215oddball_protrait_emerges_suspects_family_pals_offer_clues/srvc=home&position=0
___________________________________________________

[knarf]

Holy friggin’ brain surgeons, Batman ... I’d forgotten about that lady.

[Gay State Conservative]

If you ever see the movie " A Beautiful Mind" you can only begin to maybe scratch the surface to understand. I am always praying for him.

Just as diseases of the heart,lungs,kidney and liver clearly exist so,too,do diseases of the brain.When your heart is abnormal it might ship beats,pump inefficiently,etc,etc.When your liver is abnormal you might turn yellow or feel weak,etc,etc.When your brain's abnormal you might have abnormal thought and sometimes act on these thoughts.Schizophrenia exists...it's a chronic,devastating brain disease that destroys lives...just as certain types of heart disease destroy lives.

My diagnosis is Schizophrenia.He's exactly the right age for it.

[kabumpo]

That’s not his gene pool. He was adopted.

[knarf]

I missed that .. thanx.

Hmmm .. if he's a crack baby and surrounded by all this achievement he was incapable of ...

Just thinkin', that's all ...

[Zhang Fei]

His family must be mortified - church-going people having something like this land at their doorstep.

[kabumpo]

Schizophrenia is not comparable to hepatitis or congestive heart failure, which have physical symptoms that can be seen. Schizophrenia is not a disease of the brain. A brain tumor is a disease of the brain.

[kabumpo]

Good point.

[libstripper]

Your point is well taken. In fact, even given the dubious source (NBC “News”), I still think Holmes’ mother did identify him as the likely mass murderer. This fits in with his trouble with the internship program and a developing illness. Indeed, I suspect the family knew all about it, was horrified, did its best to conceal the problem, and didn’t know what to do about it.

[Chickensoup]

What do you mean “interesting gene pool” he was adopted.

[Zhang Fei]

That’s not his gene pool. He was adopted.

While John Derbyshire views the New York Post as the country's paper of record, I suspect that this bit of news isn't necessarily reliable.

[nightlight7]

He comes from a pretty interesting gene pool

Those were not his biological parents. He was adopted.

[trailhkr1]

Some of the smartest people I know can have the biggest problems. I have a mentally ill nephew. He is a genius140 IQ

There was a guy like that in my dorm. So genius he bordered on madness. Would wear his watch on his ankle...stuff like that.

[henkster]

I agree with the schizophrenia diagnosis. I’m not a shrink, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I was also a prosecutor for 18 years and tried several murder cases where the insanity defense was raised. Even though he can be diagnosed with schizophrenia, and a fairly bad case of it, that alone does not mean he is “insane” in the legal sense of the word. In order for his insanity defense to fly, he must suffer from a mental disease or defect to the extent that he is unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. One of the main things forensic shrinks look at in determining legal “sanity” is the ability to plan. In this case, he clearly had a plan, not only for the theater but also in the booby-trapping of his home. Sure, it was an evil and diabolical plan. Nor was it a very good one. But it was a plan, and I think that’s what the jury will hang their hats on to convict him with a Guilty but Mentally Ill verdict.