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Inside the booby-trapped apartment of Aurora shooter James Holmes
Newly-released photos and video offer a chilling look into the booby-trapped apartment of Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes.
The photos were taken after Holmes opened fire and killed 12 people during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises at a suburban Denver, Colorado movie theater in July 2012.
After arresting Holmes, the 27-year-old revealed to police that his nearby apartment was rigged with explosive and incendiaries intended to kill anyone who opened the front door.
Bullets in napalm set to go off by the fire. Hundreds of them.
Holmes intended for the bombs to go off in his home after he was long gone. He devised a plan to coax police to break into his apartment, catching a trip wire that would spill a thermos of glycerin into a frying pan of chemical potassium permanganate - starting a fire
Holmes intended for the bombs to go off in his home after he was long gone. He devised a plan to coax police to break into his apartment, catching a trip wire that would spill a thermos of glycerin into a frying pan of chemical potassium permanganate - starting a fire
Liter bottles filled with gasoline and gunpowder are spread out along the floor and would further accelerate the flames when they caught fire. The flames would cause the fuses to catch fire and detonate the more than 15 spherical bombs gathered in the center of the floor in the living room
Also triggered would be the pickle jars filled with napalm and bullets. Once ignited, the bullets would should out in all directions, tearing through the apartment
A BMX bike belonging to Holmes is propped against a wall and draped with orange fuse wire at his home after the mass shooting...
...The pictures, some of which were taken by a bomb disposal robot, show the carpeted floor of Holmes' apartment littered with about 20 black spherical bombs, which are rigged together with a tangle of fuse wires.
Also seen are pickle jars packed with napalm and bullets that would have torn through the home if ignited. Nearly a dozen liter soda bottles filled with gasoline rest on the floor, along with a dusting of white gunpowder, intended to catch fire and speed up the process.
Luckily, no one was hurt by Holmes' mouse-trap of bombs. The apartment and surrounding buildings were evacuated while bomb experts carefully disengaged the explosives with the help of a robot.
Police and FBI teams broke into the house through the window in Holmes' bedroom. Above, shattered glass seen in the room next to a poster for the cult classic Pulp Fiction
...It appears that Holmes intended to blow up the apartment after he left for the movie theater by planning two ways to start the fire remotely.
The first was a trip cord connected to the front door. After he left the apartment, Holmes started a recording in his apartment that was 40 minutes of silence followed by blaring music.
He thought the noise would prompt one of his neighbors to call police and that responding officers would break into the home through the front door, starting off a series of explosions.
The other plan was a remote control that he left outside his apartment, next to a remote-controlled toy car. If police didn't respond to the noise complaint. He thought someone would see the car and try to play with it using the remote, which was in fact hiding a remote detonator.
...Neither plan worked, though one neighbor did say she tried knocking on Holmes' door around midnight when she grew tired of his music. She got no answer on the door but did not report the music to police.
Gary Smith, a bomb expert with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told KUSA about the process of securing the apartment.
'No, I really wasn't too scared,' he said. 'It doesn't surprise me to run across anything anywhere really. It's just a matter of time before something like that ends up here, kind of the way we look at it, kind of worst case scenario, you always try to think ahead.'
In addition to the booby-trap of bombs, the pictures from inside Holmes' home include a few items that shed light on his life before the mass murder.
A name tag from the University of Iowa graduate program bears Holmes' name, pointing out his past life in academia. Elsewhere, a binder is seen propped up against a backpack, decorated with stickers in the shape of bullet holes. By the time he carried out the attack, Holmes had already stopped going to neuroscience classes at the University of Colorado.
Several posters are also hung up in Holmes' apartment including one for the comedy Anchorman and another for the cult classic Pulp Fiction - which shows John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson holding up handguns. But one seemingly-benign drinking poster holds a darker meaning in the aftermath of the attack. It is a play on a motivational poster and shows a tequila shot with the caption: 'Challenge: When life presents a challenge...take a shot.'
Even more spooky is a Batman mask which was found sitting on the top of Holmes' flatscreen TV. It was a midnight showing of the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, that Holmes chose to target...
I am at a loss for words. There are more pictures in the full article. Thank you ATF and EOD for handling this so well. Even if the building had been evacuated the loss would be staggering if this went off.
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