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Cinema killer may face death penalty

Jurors who convicted Colorado killer James Holmes will decide if he faces the death penalty for the massacre of film-goers at a midnight Batman premiere.

They rejected defence arguments that Holmes (27) was insane and driven to murder by delusions, to reach their guilty verdicts on 165 charges.

Holmes - who had been working towards his PhD in neuroscience - left 12 people dead and dozens of others wounded at the cinema in a Denver suburb in July 2012.

He showed no visible reaction as the judge read the jury's verdict.

Testimony

Next Wednesday, jurors will hear what is expected to be a month's worth of testimony over whether Holmes deserves the death penalty.

The verdict came almost three years after Holmes, dressed head-to-toe in body armour, slipped through the emergency exit of the darkened cinema where The Dark Knight Rises was playing and started shooting.

His youngest victim was a six-year-old girl whose mother also suffered a miscarriage and was paralysed in the attack.


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