Tag Archives: Movie theater

What a Drama! The Death of a Man with Down Syndrome …a Homicide!

trauerkerzeBy Simon McCormack Posted: 02/18/2013 12:57 pm EST  |  Updated: 02/19/2013 11:53 am EST

The death of a man with Down syndrome who was reportedly killed after lying face-down in police custody has been ruled a homicide.

WJLA reports that Robert Saylor, 26, of New Market, Md., was asphyxiated on Jan. 12, according to a medical examiner‘s ruling late last week.

A “law enforcement source familiar with the case” told the station that Saylor “went into distress when he was put face down on the ground.”

Police were reportedly called to a Frederick movie theater by employees who couldn’t get Saylor to leave. He had come to the theater with a health aide, paid admission for “Zero Dark Thirty,” but allegedly remained after it was over.

Dr. George Kirkham, a criminologist and former law enforcement officer, told the Frederick News Post that Saylor’s death may have been caused by positional asphyxia.

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Holmes Blames Therapist…

 
A drug-abusing inmate unleashed wild allegations about James Holmes, claiming that the suspected movie theater gunman said his therapist brainwashed him to commit murder.

Steven Unruh — speaking exclusively to the Denver Westword — said he had a four-hour conversation with Holmes in jail on July 20 after the graduate school dropout was brought in for allegedly killing 12 people and shooting 58 others.

Though locked in different cells, Unruh, 38, claims he heard Holmes slamming himself into the wall. By yelling across the hall, Unruh says he talked the 24-year-old out of committing suicide.

Officers with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office disputed that detainees can communicate the way Unruh described, Nevertheless, Unruh — who was locked up on theft and drug charges — says Holmes described the massacre to him.

“He felt like he was in a video game,” Unruh said, according to the news site. The former doctoral student allegedly told Unruh that his therapist “programmed” him to carry out an attack.

There’s been a steady flow of sensational tales about Holmes’ behavior in the slammer. Shortly after his arrest, an unnamed jailhouse employee claimed that Holmes frequently spat at the guards.

In another allegation, a worker said that Holmes acted like he had amnesia and didn’t know why he was locked up.

While there’s no stopping the jailhouse anecdotes and recollections from seeping into the media, official documents pertaining to Holmes’ life before his arrest have been withheld. The University of Colorado — where Holmes was a neuroscience doctoral student — denied a request to release campus police records involving him, according to station KUSA on Nov. 25.

A judge had earlier imposed a gag order on the case, limiting the amount of information available to the public.  Continue reading…

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