Reports: Aurora suspect mailed ominous parcel to university

The alleged gunman in the movie theater massacre sent a package to a faculty member at the University of Colorado medical campus that was found unopened in a mailroom Monday, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

A girl signs a message board at a memorial across the street from the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

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Two law enforcement officials said that it contained a "document" but that they did not know whether it was a notebook detailing plans for violence, as Fox News reported.

One official said authorities hope the document will shed light on how the attack was planned and carried out.

The officials declined to be named because a court order bars investigators and others from talking about the case.

The package was sent before the rampage that killed 12 people and injured 58 at a showing of the latest Batman movie at a multiplex here early Friday, the officials said.

It was delivered by the Postal Service on Monday and was immediately turned over to police, a statement issued by the university said. University officials declined further comment, citing the court order.

Discovery of the mail from James Holmes, who recently dropped out of a neuroscience graduate program at the university, was first reported by Fox News. It said the package contained a notebook "full of details about how he was going to kill people" and drawings of stick figures being shot.

NBC News reported that Holmes told investigators to look for the package. The university disclosed earlier that it had twice found packages that appeared to be suspicious after the shooting. "The buildings were locked down for several hours while authorities investigated. In both cases, the packages were deemed not a threat to safety on the campus," the university said in a statement on its website.

The latest discovery raises questions about whether Holmes' behavior had alarmed faculty or staff at the medical center where he was a student.

John Banzhaf, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University, said the discovery increases the likelihood the university will be sued by victims "for negligent failure to take appropriate steps to prevent the rampage."

He said mailing the package to a psychiatrist, as Fox reported, could suggest that Holmes had seen the doctor "in his professional capacity for therapy and/or counseling." He said Holmes' withdrawal from the prestigious graduate program "by itself would be a red flag" for a psychiatrist or psychologist, and that if Holmes was being seen for therapy, the university may have had a legal obligation to pay more attention to his mental condition.

"While it might seem unreasonable to expect that a university would be able to detect signs of potential dangerous mental instability in all of its thousands of students, a reasonable argument can be made that it should have followed up at least somewhat when a student suddenly and unexpectedly leaves a graduate program, gives up a substantial financial stipend which is supporting his lifestyle, is forced to move from his home, and consults a psychiatrist, — all major stressors," Banzhaf said.