New Delhi: As prosecutors are expected to press for charges of first degree murder, Colorado massacre suspect James Holmes could face the death penalty for killing 12 people during a Batman film screening on Friday.
But for this they will have to put together an enormous amount of evidence, secure inputs from survivors and prove that Holmes showed either extreme indifference or that he acted deliberately while carrying out the killings.
The 24-year-old dyed his hair orange and showed little emotion during his first court appearance on Monday. He is currently being held in isolation at the Arapahoe county jail.
About 40 members of the victims' families were seated on the left side of the courtroom. One family member seated in the front row glared at Holmes throughout.
When Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester asked Holmes a question, he remained expressionless and an attorney answered for him.
Police say he presented a far different figure last Friday when, dressed in a gas mask and body armor and toting three guns, he opened fire at a packed midnight show at a theater complex in the Denver suburb of Aurora in the early hours.
The dead include war veterans, an aspiring sportscaster who had narrowly escaped a shooting in a Toronto mall earlier this summer and a 6-year-old girl. Fifty-eight other people were wounded, and many of them have serious injuries.
The former neuroscience student also left his apartment booby-trapped with explosives that police said could have destroyed the apartment complex. They conducted a controlled detonation over the weekend.
With additional information from Reuters
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