SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) –Suspected mass killer James Holmes may have been planning this for a long time.
That’s what a local forensic psychiatrist believes.
Dr. Noel Gardner has been called upon by the state to analyze many of Utah’s high profile criminals like Brian David Mitchell and Mark Hoffman
Dr. Gardner says in order to offer a thorough analysis of a suspected killer one has to sit down and meet with him. In this case, Dr. Gardner is offering generalities based on his past dealings with criminals. But he says mass killers have one thing in common.
“They tend to be exclusively male (and) they tend to be loners almost always,” says Dr. Gardner.
Holmes allegedly opened fire in a Colorado movie theater killing 12 and wounding 71. Dr. Gardner says those who commit these kinds of crimes carry emotional scars.
“They almost uniformly have a sense of being victimized or humiliated,” he says.
Police can’t thoroughly search his apartment because they’re worried it may be booby trapped. Authorities will look for diaries, letters or essays that he kept in his apartment.
For now, police do say he was organized and carried out a plan. It doesn’t surprise Dr. Gardner who says Holmes planning revenge for quite some time.
“Sometimes it’s diffused and poorly directed and so after some sort of final straw they begin to form a plan,” he says.
Police found a number of weapons and explosives on Holmes when he was arrested. Dr. Gardner says that fits the profile of a paranoid person.
“Shootings like this tend to be people who begin to develop a paranoid view,” he says. “They may not be schizophrenic or psychotic in the traditional sense,” he says. “They may be kind of a conspiracy theorist type.
Dr. Gardner says the jury's still out on Holmes. But he says the answer may be very simple.
“The fact that he didn't try to escape and that he's a graduate student and his parents didn't seem to be surprised that he might be involved in something like this makes me wonder if he didn't have some emotional problems," Dr. Gardner says.
