(Matthew Lysiak) The Joker is playing the amnesia card. Accused mass murderer James Holmes told jailhouse workers that he remains stumped about what landed him in a Colorado lockup, a jail staffer told the Daily News.
“He claims he doesn’t know why he’s in jail,” the worker said Thursday. “He asked, ‘Why am I here?’”
Holmes, 24, who is charged with shooting a dozen people to death and wounding 58 more at a screening of the new Batman movie, was also complaining of a stomach ache caused by lousy jail food after his sixth day at the Arapahoe County Detention Center, the worker said.
“He’s claiming his belly hurts him,” the worker said. “He complained once that he didn’t like the food . . . The guy killed 12 people, and he’s upset that he’s not getting a four-star meal?”
The former California honor student picks at his meals on some days, and doesn’t eat at all on others. A typical breakfast would include sausage and grits, while lunch could mean a ham sandwich.
Holmes was arrested in the parking lot of the Century 16 multiplex in Aurora, Colo., within minutes of his bloody rampage early Friday through a showing of “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Holmes surrendered without incident to police.
The suspect remains under 23-hour lockdown, leaving his cell just once a day. Authorities fear that other inmates could target Holmes and have him wear a bulletproof vest during his daily walk.
The jail worker said most folks inside the county lockup consider Holmes’ memory loss a ruse.
“He needs to save his act for the jury because no one here is buying it,” the worker said. “Everyone is convinced he is faking it.”
Published reports indicated that Holmes mailed a notebook filled with gruesome sketches and details of his plans for the attack in the crowded theater.
The notebook was in a package sent to a professor at the University of Colorado, where Holmes was a Ph.D. candidate until dropping out of school just prior to the killings.
The FBI snapped up the evidence after school officials notified them that the package was at the university.
In a statement, the university denied a report that the package sat in its mailroom for a week before the shooting spree.
The package was delivered by the U.S. Postal Service on the Monday after the shootings, and forced the evacuation of a campus building for 2 1/2 hours, the statement said.
The notebook and the rest of the contents were turned over to investigators within hours of the package’s discovery, the university said.