A Psychological Profile of James Holmes: The Joker Killer

In watching and reading the media coverage of The Batman movie killings in Aurora, Colorado, it is frequently stated that the killer’s behaviors are incomprehensible, not understandable, beyond belief, etc. Taken figuratively, I understand what these people are saying since there a very few people who would walk into a crowded movie theater, throw down chemical bombs, shoot and kill 12 people from ages 6 to 51, and wound 58 others. Taken literally, however, I disagree, because there are reasons why people behave the way that they do and those reasons are indeed discoverable.

The first thing I noticed about the alleged killer, James Holmes, that I have not seen anyone discuss yet, is that the school picture of him looks quite awkward. While clean-cut and properly dressed, what stands out from the picture is a vacant stare. Try staring at the picture and making a connection with it. You can’t. The smile also seems forced. In a video of him when he was age 18, note how when he speaks to the audience in front of him, he mostly looks at the presentation screen or at the floor, and when he does look in the audience’s direction, his eyes go out to right, preventing him from properly connecting with them.  He also never seems to directly turn and face the crowd in the clips shown.

The vacant stare, forced smile, and difficulty emotionally connecting with others is consistent with the repeated theme that has emerged in media reports from people who knew him (or knew of him) which is that he was shy, introverted, aloof, socially inept, stubborn, quiet, that he stayed to himself, and was easily forgotten.  This information, combined with other information below, makes me wonder if he has Asperger's syndrome, a condition manifested by qualitative impairment in social interaction and restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities.

It seems that Holmes was teased, probably related to his social awkwardness, and that he did not know how to handle it and held his emotions in.  For example, a H.S. classmate said, "He was the kind of person that if you teased him, he would sit there and smile and really not do anything about it."

Many have remarked about his lack of on-line presence, at least under his real name. He apparently does not have a Facebook or Twitter account. Although he had a MySpace page, he either never had any friends or the friends were deleted due to an inactive account. Note how in his MySpace picture that both eyes are closed, apparently at a restaurant,which seems strange. He appears to have had more recent account with the website, Adult Friend Finders, and another profile with Match.com. This indicates, given the other information that has come out about him, that he was having trouble finding a sexual partner using normal behavioral methods (e.g., introducing himself to someone, dating, etc) and was trying to bypass that by going directly to an exclusive sex dating site and swinger service. By this time, he had dyed his hair orange and was asking “Would you visit me in prison?” In a picture of him on Match.com he again seems awkward, with a strange smirk, one eye almost closed, and his head tilted to side. Maybe the sun was shining in his eyes, but all of the pictures seem odd for one reason or another.
Despite stellar grades, Holmes was unable to find a job. One wonders if it was due to his social awkwardness and extreme rigidity and stubbornness that caused him to perform terribly during a computer  programming summer internship. He had been giving off social cues, at least recently, that there was something seriously wrong with him. For example, it was recently discovered that he had a “bizarre, guttural, freakish” sounding answering machine message. It seem like he was struggling to fit into society and recently decided to withdraw from his PhD program. He was trying to pay for college by working part-time at McDonald’s, which obviously is not going to work. Some say he seemed depressed. He would not acknowledge people in his apartment complex who said hello. At some point,  it appears that he had enough. People who decided to shoot members of the public at random can get to that point by being convinced that the world (or a particular society) is the enemy and needs to experience retribution. To someone who thinks this way, there are no more individuals. Each person is simply viewed as a reflection of the society as a whole that the person despises.

In the case of James Holmes, such feelings may have been brewing for some time. It has been said that he always rooted for the bad guys to win and loved to play fantasy role playing computer games.  While there is nothing wrong with that, it seems that Holmes eventually had difficulty detatching fantasy from reality and eventually over-identified with the Joker character, most like Heath Ledger’s award winning version.  The Joker is known to take his anger out against the world through violent means, which sometimes involves using explosive devices and guns in public places. This may account for the dyed hair (although it is strange he did not dye it green) and would account for why he committed this crime during a Batman movie, identified himself as The Joker when police arrived, and is reportedly still carrying out the role in prison.

Note: The comments above are based on early media stories, are preliminary, and partly speculative. Also, I have never evaluated Mr. Holmes.

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