Colorado Shooting Suspect's 'Batman' Obsession Examined

MTV Personality Diggity Dave Says He Took Phone Call From Someone Calling Himself James Holmes

Posted: 08/02/2012
Last Updated: 291 days ago

New information reveals James Holmes' obsession with the "Batman" character may have developed long before he was accused of opening fire inside a Colorado movie theater.

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KNX Newsradio reporter Charles Feldman talked to MTV's "Pimp My Ride" host, "Diggity" Dave Aragon, about a phone call from someone calling himself James Holmes several weeks before the Colorado shootings.

He said he had watched a violent movie trailer for a still-to-be-released spoof on Batman, called "The Suffocator of Sins." The spoof was written, directed by and starred Diggity Dave.

"He said he watched it a hundred times," Diggity Dave told Feldman. "He wanted to know, how many people does Batman kill? He wanted to know if it was selected killing. Does he make a list of people he wanted to kill or is there just a mass body count throughout the whole movie?"

Clinical psychologist Dr. Michael Mantell assessed that kind of interest.

"That aggressiveness or assertiveness, that extra bit of interest [in] 'how many people were killed? Was it a mass murder?'… That is frightening and alarming and that says that he had been thinking a great deal about this... this part of his plan," said Mantell.

He noted that thousands are obsessed with the comic book and movie character but they do not go that extra step.

"Correlation does not imply causation," said Mantell. "You can't blame Batman for this."

He is also troubled by the fact Holmes has fans on Twitter. Psychologists call it the "Bonnie and Clyde syndrome."

Here are a few recent Tweets. Hanna wrote "that James Holmes is kinda cute." Tara tweeted, "murderer or no, James Holmes is hot."

Joellen tweeted that she is "sincerely attracted to him" and then wrote, "Maybe it's because I think I could fix him.”

Mantell said he believes something is wrong with society.

"In this country, we tend to tear down what's good and in a freakish way, celebrate what is evil," he said.

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