Bill Robles / AP

This courtroom sketch shows James Holmes being escorted by a deputy as he arrives at preliminary hearing in district court in Centennial, Colo., on Monday.

James Holmes, accused of killing 12 people and wounding 70 others at a Colorado movie theater last year, is scheduled to be arraigned Friday after a judge ruled that there was enough evidence to take him to trial.

Earlier in the day, lawyers for Holmes, 25, a former graduate student at the University of Colorado-Denver, asked Arapahoe County Chief District Judge William Sylvester to delay an arraignment, saying Holmes wasn't ready to enter a plea. They gave no reason.

In an order filed late Thursday, Sylvester said he was convinced that prosecutors had established probable cause and ordered that a status hearing scheduled for Friday be converted to a formal arraignment. He ordered that Holmes continue to be held without bond on 166 felony counts, most of them murder and attempted murder.

The murder charges could carry the death penalty. Once Holmes is arraigned, prosecutors will have roughly two months to declare any intention to seek a capital sentence.

Sylvester noted the defense request and told prosecutors to come to court prepared to respond to what he said was a likely motion for a delay, however.

Scott Robinson, a prominent criminal defense attorney in Denver, said that was no surprise.

"It's not unusual for defense lawyers to want more time to prepare," Robinson said. "After all, the prosecution got a huge head start in the case."

The ruling came after three days during which prosecutors laid out some of their evidence against Holmes, who they said meticulously collected weapons and ammunition over many weeks before he went to the Century 16 Theater in Aurora on July 20 and opened fire on a sold-out audience for the premiere of the movie "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises."

They also described how they believe Holmes fiendishly booby-trapped his apartment, turning it into a bomb-filled death-trap for law enforcement.

The hearing closed Wednesday with prosecutors' showing Sylvester a photo, recovered from his cellphone, of Holmes smiling into the camera while gripping a semiautomatic handgun just six hours before the rampage.

"He didn't care who he killed or how many he killed, because he wanted to kill all of them," Arapahoe County Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Pearson said.

Holmes' attorneys offered little response, calling no witnesses of their own and cross-examining only a handful of the prosecution's witnesses. Holmes sat impassively during the three-day hearing, the dyed red hair he sported in pre-slaughter photos replaced by messy brown hair and a beard.

Previous stories on the Holmes hearing

• Photos of Aurora suspect smiling with gun shown
• FBI: Holmes' booby-trap used toy car, frying pan
• 'Help me!': Teen's 911 call played at Holmes hearing

DENVER -- The families of the 12 people killed and those who suffered permanent injuries in the July 20 shooting at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater will get the majority of the $5 million donated to help the victims, a governor-appointed mediator says.

Kenneth Feinberg said Monday those two classes of victims will get 70 percent of the money, or about $200,000 each, based on current donations. The Aurora Victim Relief Fund currently has $4,961,739, according to a statement released by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper's office.

The rest of the donations will go to people who suffered physical injuries, based on the number of days they were hospitalized. Feinberg identified the categories as "victims hospitalized for 20 days or more; victims hospitalized for between eight and 19 days; and victims hospitalized between one and seven days." Victims within each category will receive the same payment.

There were 58 people wounded in the attack.

Slideshow: Shooting at Batman screening in Aurora, Colo.

Ted S. Warren / AP

As many as 12 people were killed and 50 injured at a shooting at the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colo. early Friday during the showing of the latest Batman movie.

Launch slideshow

Feinberg said due to limited funds, victims who did not require overnight hospitalization and claims for mental trauma will not be compensated.

Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com

Former University of Colorado-Denver graduate student James E. Holmes is charged with carrying out the the attack during a showing of a Batman movie. 

“We are extremely grateful to Ken Feinberg for his service to victims and their families and to the state of Colorado,” said Hickenlooper in a statement. “He has proven once again why he is the nation’s leading expert in handling these kinds of matters. Those most impacted by the theater shooting are best served by a speedy and fair distribution of the Aurora Victim Relief Fund and Ken is delivering as promised.”

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Feinberg also said Monday was the last day for the public to donate through Community First Foundation's GivingFirst.Org website. Checks, however, will be accepted through Nov. 15, according to the statement.

Feinberg oversaw the compensation fund for victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Hickenlooper recruited Feinberg in September to expedite the disbursement of the Colorado fund and curb turmoil that had grown over the donation process, The Denver Post reported.

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The families of victims of the Colorado movie theater massacre said Tuesday at an emotionally charged news conference that although a fund intended to help them had raised more than $5 million, they had been shut out of the decision-making process.

Family members in Aurora, Colo., tearfully decried what they called state officials' and the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance's lack of leadership and organization. They accused fundraisers of failing to give them a voice in determining what to do with the money already donated to the fund, despite using photographs of the victims in their fundraising efforts.

Group spokesman Tom Teves, whose aspiring psychiatrist son Alex Teves, 24, was killed in the attack, pleaded on behalf of the group for urgent financial help and for more of a role in the process.

“We come to speak as one voice,” Teves said. “We are here because we want the public to know what has happened within days of the shooting.”

Other victims' relatives said that COVA's disorganization had left them all in the dark about the fund and deprived them of a much-needed sense of community.

"Every desire that we have has to come under a microscope," said the mother of one victim, responding to a question about the particular financial needs of victims' families. Deidra Brooks, whose 19-year-old son Jarell was recovering from his wounds from the July 20 shooting rampage, said that scrutiny had added insult to injury.

"It's more than a slap in the face. It's going through the 20th over and over and over," she said.

Teves said money had been solicited for The Aurora Victim Relief Fund using the names and pictures of those slain. "I am certain that the public intended 100 percent of those donations to go to the families of victims, and to use that money to help the healing process," Teves said. "Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case."

Teves said the families believed the funds would help all the victims, who Teves said included people in the theater or in the shooter’s apartment complex who suffered physically or emotionally.

The 12 who were killed included 18-year-old recent high school graduate AJ Boik, Air Force cyber-systems operator Jesse Childress, aspiring sportscaster Jessica Ghawi, community college student Micayla Medek and mother of two Rebecca Wingo.

Alexander Teves, Matt McQuinn, U.S. Navy veteran Jonathan Blunk and Navy sailor John Larimer all died shielding their friends or girlfriends.

NBC News

Tom Teves speaks at a press conference as other family members of the theater shooting victims look on Tuesday in Aurora, Colo.

The massacre's oldest victim was 51-year-old Gordon Cowden, whose teen children survived it, and its youngest was 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, who had just learned to swim. Alex Sullivan, no relation to Veronica Moser-Sullivan, was celebrating his 27th birthday and his first wedding anniversary on the night he was killed.

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The conference came as lawyers in the murder case against accused gunman James Holmes wrangled over what should be made public.

Holmes is accused of unleashing the July 20 shooting rampage at an Aurora movie theater. Police say the 24-year-old, wearing body armor and a gas mask and heavily armed, opened fire on an audience of the opening night of "The Dark Knight Rises," killing 12 and injuring 58.

Police apprehended Holmes, who had recently withdrawn as a neuroscience Ph.D student from the University of Colorado, outside the theater and said they later removed explosives from his booby-trapped apartment.

Thanks to a court-imposed gag order, little has been publicly said about the case — despite the intensity of prosecutors' legal battle with defense lawyers, who maintain Holmes is mentally ill, over access to his university and medical records.

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Prosecutors want access to Holmes' school records as well as to the contents of a package he sent to his psychiatrist, Dr. Lynne Fenton. News reports citing anonymous sources indicated that package contained a notebook with writings that reportedly described a violent attack.

Defense lawyers argue the contents of the package are privileged, as Holmes' confidential communication with his doctor, and say Holmes is mentally ill.

In the weeks following the shooting, details of Holmes' past have slowly trickled out but have left victims' families few clues as to a motive.

The New York Times reported Sunday that weeks before the massacre, Holmes had text messaged a classmate about a psychiatric condition common in patients with bipolar disorder and had warned her to stay away from him, saying, "I am bad news."

Prosecutors said in court filings that in May he had shown another classmate a semiautomatic pistol he had bought "for protection" and that in March he had told another that he wanted to kill people "when his life was over."

A hearing on the question of access to the contents of the package Holmes mailed to Dr. Fenton is scheduled for Thursday, and Fenton is expected to testify.

Sevil Omer of NBC News contributed to this report.

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DENVER, Colo. - A psychiatrist who treated the former graduate student accused of killing 12 people in a shooting rampage at a movie theater in Colorado warned her university about him more than a month before the massacre, a published report said on Wednesday.

Dr Lynne Fenton notified a so-called threat-assessment team at the University of Colorado, Denver, in early June that she was alarmed by the behavior of James Eagan Holmes, but no further action was taken, the Denver Post reported, citing an anonymous source. 

Holmes, 24, was charged on Monday with 24 counts of first-degree murder and 116 counts of attempted murder in the shooting at a midnight screening of the latest "Batman" movie in suburban Denver.

Ill. governor wants ban on assault weapons

Court papers filed by defense attorneys last week said Holmes, a former neuroscience student at the university's Anschutz Medical Campus, had been a patient of Fenton, who is medical director for student mental health services on campus.

A university spokeswoman, Jacque Montgomery, declined to comment on the Denver Post report, saying she was bound by a protective or "gag" order issued by the judge in the case and by student confidentiality laws.

"I believe, until it's been demonstrated otherwise, that our people did what they should have done," University Chancellor Don Elliman said in a statement.

Poll: Views on gun laws unchanged after Aurora massacre

Slideshow: Shooting at Batman screening in Aurora, Colo.

Ted S. Warren / AP

As many as 12 people were killed and 50 injured at a shooting at the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colo. early Friday during the showing of the latest Batman movie.

Launch slideshow

Police and prosecutors, who have also been reluctant to comment on the case since the judge issued his gag order, could not be reached by Reuters for comment on Wednesday evening.

The Denver Post reported that Fenton raised her concerns about Holmes with the university's Behavioral Evaluation and Threat Assessment team in early June. Denver's KMGH-TV, also citing unnamed sources, said school officials did not contact Aurora police before the shooting and that no action was taken because Holmes was in the process of dropping out of school.

KMGH added: 

Holmes lost his access to secure areas of the school June 12, according to the CU spokeswoman. ... Sources also say, after the shootings, Aurora police interviewed at least one person that Fenton contacted to discuss her concerns about Holmes.

In Aurora massacre, trial may not shed much light on motive

Montgomery described the threat assessment team as a resource consisting of representatives from various university offices that provides information to faculty, staff or students who are concerned about a member of the campus community.

The Denver Post added: 

Under a federal rule followed by psychiatrists, Fenton had a duty to take action if Holmes told her of a specific plan to harm others ... Holmes had sent a package with a notebook to Fenton before the attack, according to court papers made public last week.

Police have not offered a motive for the shooting rampage that stunned Aurora and evoked memories of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School less than 20 miles away. Experts say Holmes' mental state may be a key issue at trial.

The first-degree murder charges mean that Holmes, a California native, is eligible to face the death penalty, but prosecutors have not yet said if they will seek it. He is next due in court on September 27. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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CHICAGO -- Illinois Governor Pat Quinn on Tuesday proposed a state ban on assault weapons in the aftermath of the July 20 movie theater massacre in Colorado in which a former graduate student is charged with killing 12 people with guns including a semi-automatic rifle.

Quinn, a Democrat, called himself a "strong supporter" of the constitutional right to bear arms, but said in a letter to state legislators that the proliferation of military-style assault weapons undermines public safety.

"There is no place in the state of Illinois for weapons designed to rapidly fire at human targets at close range," said Quinn, who also proposed a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

States including California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York have similar bans in place, Quinn said. A nationwide ban on certain semiautomatic rifles expired in 2004.

Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP, file

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's proposal comes at a time when the homicide rate in Chicago has drawn national attention because of a 31 percent increase through July 20 compared with last year.

Poll: Views on gun laws unchanged after Aurora theater massacre

Illinois, the only state without a law permitting people to carry concealed weapons, has Democratic majorities in the legislature. But Quinn's assault weapons ban proposal likely would face obstacles from legislators outside of Chicago.

The earliest the issue likely would be considered by the legislature is November, according to Brooke Anderson, a spokeswoman for the governor's office.

Speaking to NBC station WEEK, Republican State Senator David Luechtefeld accused the governor of trying to take political advantage of the theater shootings. 

More news from NBC station WEEK

The man charged in the Colorado shootings, James Eagan Holmes, was armed with a Smith & Wesson M&P .223 semi-automatic rifle, similar to an AR-15 assault rifle, along with other firearms. He was charged on Monday with 24 counts of first-degree murder and 116 counts of attempted murder.

Prosecutors pursue two-track strategy against Colo. massacre suspect

The U.S. Congress is not expected to make any changes to national gun laws in the near future, political analysts say.

Slideshow: Shooting at Batman screening in Aurora, Colo.

Ted S. Warren / AP

As many as 12 people were killed and 50 injured at a shooting at the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colo. early Friday during the showing of the latest Batman movie.

Launch slideshow

Quinn's proposal was outlined in a message in which he sent back to the legislature with amendments a bill that would allow state residents to buy ammunition through the mail. Legislators can decide to accept or reject his changes.

His proposal comes at a time when the homicide rate in Chicago has drawn national attention because of a 31 percent increase through July 20 compared with last year.

NBC station WEEK contributed to this report.

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AURORA, Colo. - Colorado shooting suspect James Eagan Holmes was likely facing eviction from the Aurora apartment that authorities say he booby-trapped with explosives, neighbors said.

Holmes, a former University of Colorado graduate student, is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 58 others in a shooting rampage at a midnight movie premiere of "A Dark Knight Rises" on July 20, and wiring his apartment with enough explosives to have leveled the building if they had detonated.

Colorado prosecutors were due to file formal charges Monday against Holmes.

Neighbors and students in the North Aurora neighborhood where Holmes lived said his withdrawal from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus a month before the shooting would likely have triggered his eviction from the building, which is reserved for people affiliated with the school.

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Officials at the University of Colorado have said Holmes was enrolled in the school's Ph.D. neuroscience program, but he withdrew last month.

Nine days before the shooting, Holmes was seen on Paris Street, asking landlords and neighbors if anyone was aware of a vacant apartment in the area, several neighbors told Reuters.

Slideshow: Shooting at Batman screening in Aurora, Colo.

Ted S. Warren / AP

As many as 12 people were killed and 50 injured at a shooting at the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colo. early Friday during the showing of the latest Batman movie.

Launch slideshow

Holmes was arrested in the movie theater parking lot shortly after the shooting, and told officers his apartment contained explosives, police said.

Law enforcement officials told Reuters the third-floor Paris Street apartment was rigged with 30 homemade explosives, chemicals designed to accelerate a fire sparked by the bombs, and trip wires to trigger the blast as soon as a person attempted to enter the booby-trapped apartment.

Billboard compares Obama to Colo. shooting suspect

The building was evacuated. But the explosives were later safely dismantled and removed by authorities, and Holmes' neighbors returned to their homes.

'Eyes kept fluttering'
On July 11, at around 3:30 p.m, Holmes approached neighbor Carl Pedro Allen, 54, who was sitting in front of 1733 Paris Street -- about a block away from Holmes' apartment building. Holmes asked Allen, and others gathered there, if they knew of any vacant one-bedroom apartments.

"We let him know there were no vacancies, but we told him about where he might be able to find an open apartment," Allen said.

Holmes was wearing jeans and sneakers and described himself as a local student, Allen said. But Allen also said he noticed something strange about Holmes' eyes.

"His eyes were fluttering and blinking," Allen said. "It was really weird. I didn't know if he was high or what, but those eyes kept fluttering."

Two others who witnessed the incident, Ashley Jones, 25, and Rosando "JR" Causus, a maintenance man at 1733 Paris Street, independently confirmed Allen's story.

At Holmes' initial court appearance last week, observers said his eyes fluttered wildly and he blinked repeatedly. He is due back in court on Monday.

Joan Holley of Holley Realty, which manages the building at 1690 Paris Street where Holmes lived, could not be reached for comment. She had previously told Reuters that she would not comment on matters related to the building.

Kylina Washington, 14, said she and her friend Asia Quinn spoke with Holmes around the same time Allen said he did, behind a 7-Eleven where clerks recognized Holmes as a regular customer.

"He said he was moving," Washington said.

Colo. theater lacked security

Tori Everhart, 27, a resident in Holmes' building, said Holley Realty representatives told her the building was reserved for University of Colorado students, faculty and staff.

A second student resident, who was moving his belongings out of a second-floor apartment and into a U-Haul truck on Saturday afternoon and declined to give his name, confirmed the policy.

"Only residents and faculty can live here," he said. The student said withdrawal from the school would require a resident to leave within a month.

Report: Doctor treating Aurora suspect had medical reprimand

A third student exiting the complex, who also declined to allow her name to be used, confirmed the policy.

Friends in Southern California, where Holmes grew up, describe him as a smart, sometimes awkward youth fascinated by science. He came to Colorado's competitive neuroscience doctoral program in June 2011. A year later, he dropped out shortly after taking his year-end exam.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Rick Wilking / Reuters

Two women embrace as the leave the funeral for Gordon Cowden on Wednesday at Pathways Church in Denver.

About 150 mourners on Wednesday attended the first funeral service of a victim of last week's Aurora, Colo., theater shootings.

Gordon Cowden, 51, a father who was the oldest person killed, was memorialized at Pathways Church in Denver.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan and Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates were among the mourners who walked by a large portrait of Cowden at the entrance to the private service.

Cowden, a Texas native who lives in Aurora, had taken his two teenage children to the new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises," early Friday midnight showing. The businessman's children escaped unharmed.

Related: Funerals, memorials for Aurora shooting victims planned across nation

A separate memorial is planned at the Riverbend Centre in Austin, Texas.

Later this week, families of other victims planned to say their final goodbyes.

PhotoBlog: Memorial service for theater victim Gordon Cowden

Cowden was one of 12 killed and 58 injured when a gunman wearing body armor, a gas mask and toting three firearms, opened fire at the crowded screening. James Eagan Holmes, 24, was arrested behind the theater shortly after the massacre.

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Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com 

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Authorities recovered a package that apparently was mailed by James Eagan Holmes after the shooting suspect told investigators to look for the item on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News on Wednesday.

The source told NBC that the package contained writings about killing people, but could not go into more detail.

Holmes, a 24-year-old who was in the process of withdrawing from a graduate program in neuroscience at the university, has been arrested in connection with the killing of 12 and the injuring of 58 in a shooting spree at the midnight premier of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colo. on Friday.

Police recovered the package on Monday after getting a search warrant for the medical center mail room and then getting a second warrant to actually open the package, the law enforcement source said. (Prosecutors later said in court documents that there was only a single search warrant.)

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Police found the package as Holmes described it, including his name in the return address, and it's now being analyzed, the source said.

It was unclear how long the package had been in the mail room before its discovery. 

In response to reporters' queries about the package, the Anschutz Medical Campus issued a statement saying it could not comment on anything regarding the ongoing criminal investigation into the theater shooting, under order of Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester.

The statement did provide general information about how mail is handled on campus.

"The University centrally receives mail from the United States Postal Service. The University then delivers the mail to the address on the Anschutz Medical Campus the same day it is received," the statement said. "The University's mail service is not open on Saturday. Saturday mail is sorted and delivered Monday morning. The University does not log or track mail/packages unless it requires a signature from the United States Postal Service."

Holmes made his first court appearance before the court in Arapahoe on Monday, amid grieving for the victims.

Wearing a red prison jumpsuit, Holmes appeared with public defender Tamara Brady for the hearing. Holmes, who said nothing during the proceedings, had several days' beard growth and bright red dyed hair. He looked down or off into the distance, at times raising his eyebrows in a quizzical expression or frowning as if concentrating.

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A hearing of formal charges, expected to be multiple counts of first-degree murder, is set for next Monday. Then the state must decide whether to seek the death penalty.

Holmes had been stockpiling ammunition, weapons, body armor and explosives for months, said authorities who tracked his purchases. After his arrest, teams of experts worked for two days to disarm Holmes' apartment, which contained an elaborate web of explosive and incendiary devices set to be triggered by tripwires.

NBC News' Kate Snow and Kari Huus contributed to this report. 

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ANALYSIS

While relatives of the victims of last week’s movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo. – and the public at large – are understandably fixated on why the crime was committed, the criminal justice system to a large extent will ignore that question in determining guilt and punishment. 

It appears that the alleged shooter, 24-year-old James Eagan Holmes, acted alone, so there apparently is no conspiracy or anyone else directly to blame. Nor is there any indication that this was the act of a terrorist organization or individual attempting to advance a political agenda of some sort. The crime allegedly was committed by a single human being who explained himself to police as being a character from the Batman comics – the Joker.  

Theater massacre suspect appears in court

But in deciding whether a person should be punished – and how much – the law will inquire into a very limited set of questions. 

The first is guilt. With a multitude of witnesses inside the theater able to testify about the black body armor worn by the gunman and Holmes arrested just outside the theater moments afterward wearing an identical ensemble, defense attorneys appear to have little chance of persuading a jury that their client did not pull the triggers of the weapons – all of which he had legally purchased – used in the crime. And the fact that he apparently booby-trapped his apartment immediately before the slaughter, with the apparent intent of creating a diversion, only adds to the evidence against him. 

Wes Oliver is a professor at Widener University who teaches criminal law and procedure. This fall he will join the faculty of the Duquesne University School of Law as a professor and director of the school's criminal justice program.

If Holmes is convicted in connection with the crime, an insanity defense will almost certainly be contemplated. But the legal question raised by an insanity defense is relatively straightforward: Did the defendant understand the difference between right and wrong? 

Past aids Aurora response, but were warnings unheeded?

John Hinckley, Jr., escaped criminal punishment when he attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan to impress the actress Jodie Foster, but in the wake of his successful insanity defense, legislatures made it considerably more difficult for defendants to prevail on the grounds of mental incapacity. Under the law that existed at the time, defendants were not legally responsible even if they knew an action was wrong if they could show they were unable to resist the impulse to commit the act. After Hinckley's case, a number of states, including Colorado, amended their laws to permit a successful insanity defense only if the defendant did not know the difference between right and wrong. The upshot of this more stringent requirement is that defendants rarely prevail when they claim insanity.  

So, if Holmes’ attorneys pursue an insanity defense, the jury will be asked only one question: Did he know it was wrong to try to take the lives of scores of people?  If the answer to that question is ‘yes,’ then the question becomes: What degree of homicide did he commit. To determine this, the jurors must decide whether he intentionally and deliberately killed his victims – first-degree murder – or whether he merely knowingly or recklessly killed them – second-degree murder. The degree of planning involved in this case, however, leaves no doubt that the perpetrator intended the results. 

Photos: Shooting at Batman screening in Colo.

There will then be a final question about punishment. Colorado has the death penalty, though death sentences are quite rare in the state and there has only been one execution in 30 years. Nevertheless, there is the possibility of a death sentence in this case.  Under Colorado law a jury may return a death sentence if the defendant killed more than one human being in a single episode.  Almost certainly he did. 

In a capital case – and it seems likely this will be a capital case – the defense is permitted to present anything in mitigation. That means that the defense may attempt to explain why the defendant attempted to take the lives of scores of innocent persons, but it is certainly not required to do so. It can focus on any aspect of his life in an effort to save it. And the prosecution only has to demonstrate that the mass killing occurred to obtain a death sentence. Nothing requires either side to present evidence of what motivated this man before incarcerating him or even executing him. 

Read more legal analysis by Wes Oliver

We often think of natural disasters as tragedies that defy explanation. Tragedies caused by humans can most often be explained, though, and the criminal justice process often provides that explanation. Motives are often offered to demonstrate a defendant's intent to kill.  

In the case of James Holmes, it seems likely that circumstantial evidence alone will demonstrate his desire to take an extraordinary number of innocent lives, and that his motives will defy any traditional explanation, such as personal animosity or greed. But the law does not require prosecutors to show motive, merely the intent to kill.  And that may be all that anyone will be able to show for this senseless act.   

As a result, any trial is likely to leave victims, and their families, with nearly as many unanswered questions as they have now.   

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