Why did Holmes warn about booby-trapped apartment?

I was out of country when the Aurora Theatre shooting took place and thus was not inundated with details in the weeks that followed. I did have a basic understanding of the case and read a little more in depth here and there. As I've started studying it more recently, I've been pondering this topic: Why do you think that Holmes warned the police about his booby-trapped apartment after he was arrested?

I wonder if he might've been in some kind of pensive, potentially even remorseful state following the shooting? Perhaps as with Eric and Dylan when they wandered around after leaving the library, sort of aimlessly drifting and opting not to engage any more students.

I don't think that he could've reasonably believed that it would affect his sentence if he allowed his apartment building to blow up after the fact. I am not sure that suicide by cop was part of his plans that day, considering he did not pursue certain attack options (chemical weapons) due to concerns for his personal safety. I think that he planned to go to jail after the whole ordeal, so what did it matter to him if his apartment blew up or not at that stage? Tipping them off to the apartment might even have worked against his insanity plea unless he related that he was suddenly sane again after the shooting and thus concerned for the well being of his local tenants.

What do you folks think about this part of the story?

Probably too escape the death penalty

Maybe he didn't want the people there to be homeless. Or maybe he wanted more information about him, since probably everything would've been destroyed due to how much explosives he had.

It is interesting but some killers have 'a form of remorse' after killing a bunch of people.

James Holmes probably realized what he did and did not want to kill any more people.

Some, if not most, killers mention being sorry for what they did.

sororityalpha wrote:

It is interesting but some killers have 'a form of remorse' after killing a bunch of people.

James Holmes probably realized what he did and did not want to kill any more people.

Some, if not most, killers mention being sorry for what they did.

Good point. That's probably the reason.

How much damage could his IEDs cause?

He realised he fucked up like most mass shooters, didn't want to hurt anyone more.

I don't think he revealed the fact that his apartment was booby trapped out of any caring or remorse. He may have just blurted it out impulsively or simply mentioned it as a way to boast to police. I am leaning towards it just being impulsive. Police probably interrogated the answer out of him and caused him to blurt it. Police are experts at forcing most unprepared people to talk.

He told them very quickly after he was approached.

Whether it was impulse/remorse it shows that he DID warn them about his apartment.

For all James knew maybe his apartment had already burned/blown up.

Could the bombs have destroyed the building?

because he didn't know it would even work, it was a mad Joker scheme for the media.

My money's on him hoping for a reduction in sentence, but remorse may also have played into it, since his madcap scheme could've killed quite a few people.

It could be impulsiveness, akin to the actions of would be shooter John LaDue. So upon questioning he just blabbed everything. Although, from what I've seen of the photos of his apartment the IEDs were not viable, so likely it was just for attention.

He blurted it out, possibly because of remorse. I don't think he was aiming for a reduced sentence. He's such a smart guy, it's so sad that his illness got the better of him.

I read sometime ago that he set music to start playing loudly while he was still sitting in the cinema to lure people to detonate the explosives by going to his apartment and opening the door (in the article I read they said had left it open a crack so they could have just pulled it open and detonate everything) .If this is true (im not an expert on holmes case) then there is no way he could have known if his apartment was already blown into pieces and if people got injured and or died while he was beeing arrested by the police.

Kaynvink wrote:

I read sometime ago that he set music to start playing loudly while he was still sitting in the cinema to lure people to detonate the explosives by going to his apartment and opening the door (in the article  I read they said had left it open a crack so they could have just pulled it open and detonate everything) .If this is true (im not an expert on holmes case) then there is no way he could have known if his apartment was already blown into pieces and if people got injured and or died while he was beeing arrested by the police.

Good point.

Kaynvink wrote:

I read sometime ago that he set music to start playing loudly while he was still sitting in the cinema to lure people to detonate the explosives by going to his apartment and opening the door (in the article  I read they said had left it open a crack so they could have just pulled it open and detonate everything) .If this is true (im not an expert on holmes case) then there is no way he could have known if his apartment was already blown into pieces and if people got injured and or died while he was beeing arrested by the police.

Damn, that adds a whole new dimension to this. Maybe he was expecting the bombs to have already gone off.

Either way, he admitted that his apartment was booby-trapped.

Probably did it for more attention. I mean the point of a booby trap is to catch some one off guard. And it looked like his trap wouldn't of worked for shit anyway.

Population Control wrote:

Probably did it for more attention. I mean the point of a booby trap is to catch some one off guard. And it looked like his trap wouldn't of worked for shit anyway.

As in they wouldn't have fallen for it or the bombs wouldn't have gone off?

QuestionMark wrote:

Population Control wrote:

Probably did it for more attention. I mean the point of a booby trap is to catch some one off guard. And it looked like his trap wouldn't of worked for shit anyway.

As in they wouldn't have fallen for it or the bombs wouldn't have gone off?

Well, I think a bit of both. I've seen some of the video a while back of the bomb squad robot going it, and it looked like it was more of a crudely rigged mess to me. And not mess as in the bomb squad guy goes "oh shit this sucks to defuse" but mess as in homes either didn't know what he was doing or didn't care what he was doing.

How many could the bombs have killed had they detonated? James Holmes and E&d are failed bombers.

Population Control wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Population Control wrote:

Probably did it for more attention. I mean the point of a booby trap is to catch some one off guard. And it looked like his trap wouldn't of worked for shit anyway.

As in they wouldn't have fallen for it or the bombs wouldn't have gone off?

Well, I think a bit of both. I've seen some of the video a while back of the bomb squad robot going it, and it looked like it was more of a crudely rigged mess to me. And not mess as in the bomb squad guy goes "oh shit this sucks to defuse" but mess as in homes either didn't know what he was doing or didn't care what he was doing.

I guess that makes sense; after all Holmes specifically ruled out the possibility of using bombs due to it being too risky.

Ziamber II wrote:

How many could the bombs have killed had they detonated?  James Holmes and E&d are failed bombers.

I think that had it worked, there wouldn't be a explosion, there would of been a fire, cause he went to complete over kill with all that gasoline.

During the deconstruction of his apartment, they did detonate one bomb, and it shock the house a bit, but not much.

I think the apartment rigging was a last second idea of sorts.