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Massacre calls played in court

Date: January 10 2013

Nick Allen

ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colorado: Desperate 911 calls from victims of the Colorado cinema massacre were played to a court as it emerged the suspected gunman had also rigged his apartment with improvised napalm.

The calls included a harrowing four-minute plea from Kaylan Bailey, a 13-year-old girl, saying that two of her cousins were shot and bleeding, and that ''one of them is not breathing''.

With screaming in the background the teenager repeatedly said ''I can't hear you'' as the operator tried to instruct her on chest compressions.

The cousins were Veronica Moser-Sullivan, six, the youngest person to die in the massacre, and Veronica's mother Ashley Moser, who was pregnant when she was shot three times and partially paralysed.

In all, 41 emergency calls were made from the audience. In the first, Kevin Quinonez, who survived, was drowned out by gunfire. More than 30 shots were heard as the operator tried to establish where the incident was taking place.

James Holmes, 25, is accused of killing 12 people and injuring 58 during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, on July 20 last year.


An FBI bomb technician, Garrett Gumbinner, then told the court the alleged killer had booby-trapped his apartment using ''improvised napalm'' concocted from styrofoam cups and petrol, and placed in large jars packed with live ammunition.

Outside his door he had positioned a stereo in a rubbish bag, which was timed to play loud music 40 minutes after he left. On top of the bag was a remote control toy car rigged to set off explosives in the flat when someone picked it up.


Telegraph, London


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