Alleged Aurora, Colo., shooter James Holmes sent a text message to a classmate in July asking about “dysphoric mania”—then told her to stay away because he was “bad news.” Whether the question was driven by curiosity, self-diagnosis, or a doctor is unknown, but in a profile in The New York Times, the shape of a young man who grappled with loneliness long before the shooting at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises comes into focus. Known by classmates for his occasional oddball sense of humor and profound shyness, Holmes mostly kept to himself, seemingly receding from the world until the time of the shooting. In court filings, prosecutors said recently that Holmes told a fellow student that he wanted to kill people “when his life was over.”
