COLORADO MASSACRE: UCR Grad Makes Court Appearance

James Holmes, made his first court appearance Monday.

With dyed-orange hair, Holmes sat motionless and appeared dazed according to reporters who were in the Arapahoe County courtroom this morning for his hearing.

Sitting next to one of his publicly appointed defense lawyers, Holmes “gave little outward sign of recognition” as a district court judge informed him of his rights and of the likelihood that he would face charges of first-degree murder, the New York Times reported this morning.

Prosecutors are expected to file charges formally next Monday against Holmes.

Colorado does allow the death penalty.

The Associated Press is reporting that Holmes is refusing to cooperate with investigators and it could take months to identify a motive for the rampage.

Holmes is being held in isolation at the Arapahoe County detention facility, according to The Associated Press.

Security at today’s hearing was tight: Uniformed sheriff's deputies were stationed outside, and deputies were positioned on the courthouse rooftops, The Associated Press reported.

Weeks before the killings, "Holmes quit a 35-student Ph.D. program in neuroscience for reasons that aren't clear. He had earlier taken an intense oral exam that marks the end of the first year but university officials would not say if he passed, citing privacy concerns,” The Associated Press reported.

The list of those killed in the massacre, according to ABC, are:

- Navy Sailor John Larimer, 27, from the Chicago area.

- Alex Teves, 24, from Arizona.

- Staff Sgt. Jesse Childress, 29, an Air Force Reservist from Thornton, Colo. In a statement, the DOD said Childress was a cyber systems operator on active duty with the 310th Forces Support Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado. He grew up in Lake Los Angeles in the Antelope Valley.

- Alex Sullivan, who was reportedly celebrating his 27th birthday at the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises."

- Sports blogger Jessica Ghawi, 24. The aspiring reporter recently wrote of surviving a shooting in a Toronto mall last month.

- Micayla Medek, 23.

- Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6. She is the youngest to die in the shooting. Moser's aunt told the AP that the girl's mother, Ashley Moser, 25, is in critical condition with a bullet in the throat and abdomen. ABC News confirmed Sunday that Ashley Moser was pregnant when she was shot.

- Gordon Cowden, 51, was the oldest victim. He had gone to the midnight movie premiere with his two teenagers.

- Alexander J. Boik, 18.

- Jonathan T. Blunk, 26.

- Rebecca Ann Wingo, 32.

- Matt McQuinn, 27.

After the massacre, UC Riverside classmates of Holmes recalled him as a quiet person, and expressed shock that he was capable of going on a killing rampage.

"He seemed like a nice guy," former UCR student Janine Gharghoury told City News Service.

Gharghoury said she talked often with James Eagan Holmes while they attended UCR's honors science program and lived adjacent to him in the dorms.

"He didn't strike me as creepy or as someone who would do something like that," she said. "Everyone that knew him from UCR that I've spoken to is in total disbelief. No one expected that from him."

Another UCR classmate, Jessica Cade, lived across the hall from Holmes in the UCR dorm and was in a science study group with him. She described Holmes as "a very nice guy. He was very smart and a little weird like you'd expect a really smart guy to be."

Holmes, the son of a nurse and a software company manager, grew up in Rancho Penasquitos in San Diego and graduated from Westview High School in 2006. He attended UCR on a merit-based scholarship and graduated with honors, earning a neuroscience degree in 2010. He enrolled at the University of Colorado at Denver in June 2011, but had recently withdrawn from classes.

Counseling services were being made available to UCR students and staffers who may know Holmes or who wanted to talk about what happened in the movie theater.

Holmes enrolled at UCR in December 2006. A resume posted on Monster.com, said he worked as an intern at the prestigious Salk Institute in La Jolla and, at UCR, was a lab assistant in chemistry, cellular biology and neuroscience.

According to the resume, he also was a counselor at Camp Max Straus during the summer of 2008. The nonsectarian camp, for children 7-12, is run by Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles.

Kelly Huffman, an assistant professor of psychology at UCR, told the Los Angeles Times that Holmes did well in her Drugs and Behavior class in 2010, describing him as a "smart and quiet guy."

He apparently had no criminal record, only a citation for speeding. Holmes was apparently not doing well in classes aimed at earning a doctorate, the Washington Post reported.

Holmes moved from San Diego to a UCR on-campus residence on Pentland Way and lived there between 2006 and 2008, according to UCR officials. He moved into an off-campus apartment near UCR on Everton Place in July 2009.