Ex-Girlfriend Calls Holmes Socially Awkward, Not Strange

<p>(Photo: CPR/Megan Verlee)</p>
<p>The Aurora theater where 12 people were killed in a July 2012 mass shooting.</p>

The ex-girlfriend of the man charged with killing 12 people at an Aurora movie theater in 2012 testified Thursday that he was so socially awkward that she told him to seek therapy. But she says James Holmes never acted overtly strange.

Holmes dated Gargi Datta months before the shooting. She testified that he liked to do ordinary things like eat together, play video games and watch b-movies.

District Attorney George Brauchler asked Datta if Holmes ever acted oddly. "Like disjointed or disorganized?" he asked.

"Not that I remember," she said.

"Guy’s not eating paint chips off the wall or talking crazy or nothing like that?" Brauchler asked.

"No," she said.

"Did you ever remember seeing any bizarre hand or arms gestures, or anything like that?" he asked.

"Not that I remember," Datta said.

The questions were aimed at challenging Holmes sanity plea.

Datta did admit that he seemed depressed after doing poorly in school, and she says he told her that he could do something evil. But Datta recalls thinking he was being more philosophical; he didn't sense not that there was any imminent danger or plan of attack.