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Colo. trial ready for next stage

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Prosecutors in the Colorado theater shooting trial will rest their case today after eight weeks of testimony in which they sought to show that former neuroscience student James Holmes meticulously planned and carried out the 2012 massacre, knowing all along it was wrong.

The five-member prosecution team relied on emotional testimony from dozens of survivors, graphic photos and Holmes’ own videotaped statements to a state-appointed psychiatrist to undermine his claim he was so mentally ill he didn’t know right from wrong at the time he killed 12 people and wounded 70.

They tried to weave a powerful story by mixing dramatic recollections of victims with technical testimony.

Classmates at the University of Colorado-Denver, a former girlfriend, and two university psychiatrists who treated him before the shooting all testified they knew nothing of his plans to attack a midnight showing of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” on July 20, 2012.

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