Coroner describes bodies of theater shooting victims

CENTENNIAL, Colo. – A coroner who autopsied six of the 12 Aurora theater shooting victims led jurors through – in often graphic and heart-wrenching detail – the wounds some of the dead suffered during court testimony Thursday.

Dr. Kelly Carol Lear-Kaul, a forensic pathologist, described the path bullets and shotgun pellets took through several victims, including Veronica Moser-Sullivan, who was six when she was killed. James Holmes faces the death penalty in connection with the July 20, 2012, shooting inside a suburban Denver movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70 others. Police and prosecutors say Holmes also rigged his apartment with homemade explosives and incendiary compounds, along with gasoline and napalm made from Styrofoam cups.

Also testifying Thursday was Kevin Quinonez, who described shielding his girlfriend with his body as he called 911 from the theater. Prosecutors played a recording of that call so jurors could hear Quinonez struggling to make himself heard over staccato gunfire and screams. Under the law, prosecutors must prove each element of a charge to jurors to secure a conviction on that charge, and Holmes faces 24 murder charges, along with more than 100 lesser charges.

Prosecutors argue Holmes is a highly intelligent young man who secretly plotted for months as his professional and personal life unraveled. Defense attorneys say Holmes suffers from schizophrenia and was delusional, and that his mental illness prompted him to plan and execute the shooting without understanding that what he was doing was wrong. The trial is in its fourth week, and is expected to last another four months.