James Holmes took photos of Aurora theater month ahead of massacre; CNN's Ed Lavandera reports details from prelim hearing

The preliminary hearing presenting evidence against James Holmes for the “Dark Knight” shooting is over. A judge will decide tomorrow if the case goes to trial. CNN’s Ed Lavandera has been reporting on the hearing from Centennial, Colorado and tells us more about the chilling details it has uncovered to the public.

“Prosecutors have laid out a detailed time line of how Holmes planned the Aurora theater massacre,” he says. “Investigators say James Holmes started casing the Century 16 movie theatre about three weeks before the shooting. They say he came here on three different occasions and snapped off a series of pictures they found on his iPhone that showed various hallway and doors, even the exit area of theatre nine.” According to prosecutors, Holmes also spent weeks stockpiling weapons and rigging an explosive system in his apartment timed to detonate just before he started the killing spree.

“Holmes's deviant and deadly plan feels more like the deranged creation of a fictional villain in a Batman movie,” Lavandera says. “But all these disturbing details we've learned in the past 3 days still don't explain why James Holmes wanted to kill so many people.”