The University of Colorado is investigating whether mass shooting suspect James Holmes used his position as a graduate student to order materials in the potentially deadly booby traps that police said they found in his apartment. Holmes, 24, received deliveries over four months to his home and school, authorities said. University spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said today the school is looking into those packages received at the school.
Holmes had recently withdrawn from the competitive graduate program in neuroscience at the University of Colorado Denver, where he was one of six students at the school to get National Institutes of Health grant money. He recently took an intense three-part, oral exam that marks the end of the first year of the four-year program there, but university officials would not say if he passed, citing privacy concerns. The university said Holmes gave no reason for his withdrawal, a decision he made in June. But Holmes' choice of study isn't surprising, says a criminology professor: "It could be he was interested in that because he knows there's something different in him." (More James Holmes stories.)