

Holmes attempted to join a gun club in the eastern Arapahoe County town of Byers on June 25, but his behavior was deemed too bizarre for membership.

It wasn't Holmes' club application that raised a red flag for Lead Valley Range owner Glenn Rotkovich but rather the outgoing message on his answering machine.



James Holmes
James Holmes (Handout courtesy University of Colorado)

Had Holmes been allowed on the range, he could have practiced with the guns found in his possession when he was arrested in the back of the Century Aurora 16 movie theater Friday morning. Police say he had an assault-style rifle, a shotgun and two .40- caliber handguns.

Holmes allegedly set off canisters of noxious gas and then opened fire on a crowd watching the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises," killing 12 and wounding 58 others before surrendering to police and telling them there were explosives in his apartment.

A federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the gunman's semiautomatic rifle jammed during the attack, forcing him to switch to another gun. That malfunction and weapons switch may have saved some lives.



Residents of the three-story building, where Holmes' apartment was rigged with explosives that Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said were meant to kill anyone who walked through the door, were not allowed to return home. But police did retrieve whatever belongings people evacuated since Friday needed from inside their homes.

Dmitry Shchekochikhin, 27, a student at the Anschutz Medical Campus from Moscow, returned home Sunday at 8 a.m. to retrieve belongings including his laptop, cellphone, passport and medical text books.

Shchekochikhin has had a first-floor apartment in the building since November and said he often encountered Holmes.



As police retrieved his belongings, that same neighbor said Holmes had male and female visitors from time to time, but never anyone who drew attention. He also said Holmes was a quiet neighbor, never playing his TV or stereo too loudly.



Although Holmes' unit had been cleared of explosives, there still may be hazardous materials inside. Police said residents may have to wait until Tuesday to return home.

Those dangerous materials, along with magazines for firearms and ammunition, are believed to have been purchased through the mail, not taken from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus where Holmes was a graduate student.

Police evacuated two research buildings that Holmes had key-card access to while he was a student in a neurosciences program on the Anschutz Medical Campus on Friday. The buildings were searched by bomb-detection dogs, Oates said.


Oates would not specify what materials Holmes had delivered to his home but said they indicated a level of premeditation.

