"this miracle," said his mother, Arlene Holmes. It was the first time she'd talked publicly at any length about her son, known to the world as the Aurora movie theater shooter.

His was not a childhood of hardship and neglect. It was a childhood to envy.

"He was planned for and wanted and hoped for and waited for," his mother said. "We wanted a child and had one. It was what we prayed for."

He came into the world inheriting a bundle of family traits. Like his mathematician father, he was quiet, analytical and an academic overachiever. As he grew older, he also shared another trait -- social awkwardness. He inherited his stoicism from his mother, who built a family culture that celebrated hard work and community service and frowned onweakness.

But there was another family trait lurking in the background, and it showed its face as they boy grew into a man. Close relatives, including his father's twin sister, had been institutionalized.

"Mental illness can strike like cancer, without regard to your background, without regard to your status in life, without regard to how intelligent you are," defense attorney Tamara Brady told the jury. "And when James Holmes was born, he had this psychotic mental illness in his blood. It was in his DNA."

He was the first grandchild. And so the jury saw videos with the grandmothers -- sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, getting his first haircut. Standing on tiptoes by the kitchen counter, rolling out dough for gingerbread men. Hugging his baby sister and tentatively