James Holmes seemed well on his way to a career as a scientist. 
 
 His résumé after he graduated with honors in neuroscience from the University of California-Riverside in 2010 cites experience in the lab dissecting birds, studying their musculature and analyzing data and graphs to measure molecules. 
 
 A video from a science camp he attended after high school shows him making a presentation about temporal illusions, misfirings in brain cells that lead to misreading the passage of time — the feeling that time stands still. In the video, Holmes refers to "an illusion that allows you to change the past." 
 
 He was one of six students admitted to the University of Colorado's graduate program in neuroscience last year. He received a $26,000 federal stipend. 
 
 But neuroscientist David Eagleman says Holmes' credentials were no better than those of an average student. The mass killing suspect is no elite neuroscientist, says Eagleman, of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. 
 
 "He was just a second-year grad student," he says. "He didn't know anything." 
 
 Aurora, Colo., police say Holmes, 24, entered a midnight showing of the movie TheDark Knight Rises early Friday and opened fire with a rifle, shotgun and .40-caliber handgun, killing 12 people and injuring 58. They found his apartment booby-trapped with explosives and chemicals set to explode if someone entered. 
 
 Eagleman, a former researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., where Holmes attended the eight-week summer camp when he was 18, said the young man had a reputation as a "dolt." 
 
 Eagleman didn't know Holmes but says the teen parroted his advisers' words in his presentation on temporal illusions. A video of the speech was first reported by ABC News. 
 
 "He was just given the presentation to read," Eagleman says. "He wasn't any sort of superscientist when he was 18." 
 
 Stacie Spector, a Salk Institute spokeswoman, confirmed that Holmes attended a summer course at the institute but said that she could not comment further because of privacy concerns. She said the institute did not release the video. 
 
 John Jacobson, a former researcher at Salk whom Holmes listed as his mentor during the camp, told the Los Angeles Times that the teenager was a "mediocre" student who was stubborn and did not listen to direction. 
 
 "I saw a shy, pretty socially inept person," he told the newspaper. "I didn't see any behavior that would be indicative of violence then or in the future." 
 
 Jacobson told the newspaper Holmes "should not have gotten into the summer program. His grades were mediocre. I've heard him described as brilliant. This is extremely inaccurate." 
 
 He said Holmes' high school transcripts showed Bs and no advanced-placement classes. He was accepted to the camp because he had done computer programming, Jacobson said. He was never Holmes' mentor, he said, but Holmes worked in his lab to write a computer code for an experiment Jacobson was working on. He told the newspaper Holmes never finished it. 
 
 "What he gave me was a complete mess," Jacobson says. 
 
 Holmes' résumé suggests he was trained in dissection of birds and mice, performing chemistry tests and attaching small gene tags to cells to target them for treatment. 
 
 "Recipe-book stuff, literally, that every biology student should learn," Eagleman says. As for the grant, Eagleman says, "Holmes is being depicted as some sort of brilliant researcher who won a rare grant, but there are thousands of research students in this country with such grants. Everyone has one. There is nothing elite about it." 
 
 (Clarification: In our story published online Wednesday, Eagleman says he did not intend to suggest that all graduate students win research grants.) 
 
 Holmes had difficulty with a June 7 preliminary exam, given orally by three university faculty members. It is designed to evaluate students' knowledge at the end of the first year. Three days later, Holmes dropped out. ||||| AURORA — James Eagan Holmes — now the subject of global headlines — was never one to draw attention to himself. 
 
 In interviews with people who have known him throughout his life, Holmes was described as a quiet and intelligent person who wouldn't even acknowledge neighbors in his apartment hallway. 
 
 Holmes, 24, maintained that quiet demeanor even as police say he was plotting a horrific attack that killed 12 people and injured 58 others in an Aurora movie theater early Friday. 
 
 He bought four guns and 6,000 rounds of ammunition, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said. 
 
 He rigged his apartment with what authorities fear are deadly explosives and blared techno music from his stereo in what's believed to be an attempt to invite more devastation when the door was opened. 
 
 From what little is known about the suspect, it appears that he was a study in contrast — a smart and quiet man who authorities say harbored a deadly plan. 
 
 In high school the boy known as "Jimmy" quit the soccer team after his sophomore year and focused mostly on his studies. 
 
 He earned a degree in neuroscience with highest honors from the University of California Riverside in 2010 but didn't walk in his commencement ceremony. 
 
 Oates said Holmes, who did not resist when he was arrested outside the theater minutes after the shooting, acted alone. 
 
 Oates declined to discuss what motive, if any, Holmes gave police. 
 
 One hint could be in what New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters Friday, saying that Holmes had reportedly identified himself as Batman's arch-enemy "The Joker" to authorities. 
 
 "He had his hair painted red, he said he was 'The Joker,' obviously the 'enemy' of Batman," Kelly said at a news conference, addressing the increased security at New York City theaters. 
 
 Click on image to enlarge (The Denver Post) 
 
 Oates, who said he talked with Kelly early Friday, would not confirm that report. But residents of Holmes' apartment building said police who came to their doors immediately after the shooting asked if they had seen a man with his hair dyed red or pink. 
 
 Information compiled from multiple sources shows the planning for the attack was methodical, went back months and coincided with Holmes' withdrawal from a graduate program in neuroscience at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. 
 
 In May, he began buying guns and apparently stocking up on the body armor that police said he wore during the shooting: a ballistic helmet and vest, ballistic leggings, throat and groin protector, a gas mask and black tactical gloves. 
 
 Before he left for the movie theater he booby-trapped his apartment, attaching several trip wires to 1-liter plastic bottles containing an unknown substance in a manner so sophisticated Oates said it could take days to disarm. 
 
 It's so "vexing" that by nightfall Friday officers had still not risked entering the apartment, instead using cameras to probe. 
 
 "I personally have never seen anything like what the pictures show us in there," Oates said. 
 
 Holmes' parents, who live in San Diego, issued a statement saying the family is cooperating with authorities. His father flew to Denver Friday afternoon. His mother remained at the family home, neighbors said. 
 
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 "Our hearts go out to those who were involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved," they said. "We are still trying to process this information and we appreciate that people will respect our privacy." 
 
 Holmes grew up in San Diego, graduating from Westview High School in 2006. He then went on to the University of California Riverside, where Chancellor Timothy White said Holmes distinguished himself, graduating with highest honors. 
 
 "Academically, he was the top of the top," White said. 
 
 The Mai family has lived next door to the Holmes family for abut 15 years on a middle-class street in suburban San Diego. 
 
 Agents from the FBI and ATF investigate the scene behind the Century 16 theater in Aurora where 12 people were killed and dozens of others were injured during a premier of The Dark Knight Rises on Friday, July 20, 2012 in Aurora. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post) 
 
 Christine Mai, 17, said she never saw Jimmy Holmes act out violently or with a weapon, nor did she see him socializing with friends or bringing girlfriends home. 
 
 The Holmes family had Christmas parties in their front yard and often exchanged gifts with the Mais, she said. Last year, they shared hot apple cider in the front yard with other neighbors. 
 
 "He seemed like a nice guy," she said. "His mother used to tell us he was a good son." 
 
 After graduation from UCR, Holmes took a part-time job at a nearby McDonald's. 
 
 "I felt bad for him because he studied so hard," Mai said. "My brother said he looked kind of down; he seemed depressed." 
 
 Julie Adams said her son played soccer with Holmes at Westview High. Holmes played his freshman and sophomore years, she said. 
 
 While most of the other kids — her son Taylor included — played league soccer and continued the sport throughout high school, Holmes wasn't as involved, she said. 
 
 "I could tell you a lot about every single kid on that team except for him," Adams said. "He was more aloof." 
 
 She was shocked to discover helicopters circling her San Diego neighborhood because of Holmes' alleged rampage. 
 
 "Taylor remembers playing soccer with him. He said he was quiet, reserved and a respectful kid," Adams said. 
 
 According to her son's yearbook, Holmes also ran cross country as a freshman but did not continue the sport. 
 
 Holmes came to Colorado in May 2011 and started in CU's neuroscience program a month later. But by last month, he was in the process of withdrawing, university spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said Friday. 
 
 In an e-mail message to members of the campus community, Doug Abraham, chief of police for the university, said Holmes' access to campus buildings was terminated while his withdrawal was being processed. 
 
 He said officials do not believe Holmes has been on campus since then, but authorities evacuated several research buildings as a precautionary measure while they waited for bomb-sniffing dogs to search buildings Friday afternoon. 
 
 In an application Holmes submitted for a different apartment early last year, he described himself as a "quiet and easy-going" student. Other tenants in his building — which is reserved for students, faculty and staff of the medical campus — described him as a recluse. 
 
 Kaitlyn Fonzi, a 20-year-old biology student at University of Colorado Denver who lives in an apartment below Holmes' said she heard techno music blasting from Holmes apartment around midnight. 
 
 Another tenant said residents called 9-1-1 about the racket. 
 
 Fonzi went upstairs and knocked on the door. When no one answered, she put her hand on the knob and realized the door was unlocked. 
 
 Fonzi decided not to go inside the apartment. 
 
 At almost exactly 1 a.m., Fonzi said, the music stopped. 
 
 Denver Post writers Kieran Nicholson, Monte Whaley and Jordan Steffen and the Associated Press contributed. ||||| In the wake of Friday's massacre at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation say the gunman must have had a substantial amount of target practice before the shootings. 
 
 They based their assessment on what they call the gunman's “unusually high” hit rate during the attack in the theater. Twelve people were killed, and 58 were injured. 
 
 The gunman used -- perhaps most notably -- an AR-15 assault-style rifle with a magazine that could hold as many as 100 rounds. But when that weapon jammed, authorities said, he switched to a less powerful weapon. He also carried a 12-gauge shotgun and a Glock .40-caliber pistol, authorities say. 
 
 Police said they recovered a second Glock from the suspect's car. 
 
 Among other things, the law enforcement officials said, authorities are searching the suspect's apartment for evidence of a gun range receipt, a brochure, related information he accessed on his computer or phone calls he may have placed to a range. 
 
 The officials are being briefed on the local investigation, but did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the developing case. 
 
 Such evidence would go to the gunman's state of mind, the officials said, and provide more evidence of premeditation and that he deliberately planned the attack. For the government, investigators said, such evidence would tend to knock down any defense strategy that the suspect is insane. 
 
 Or the gunman could have simply gone out to the prairie east of Aurora and practiced alone, much like Tucson shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner did before the attack in Arizona last year. 
 
 PHOTOS: 'Dark Knight Rises' shooting 
 
 One local shooting range owner said the suspect in the Aurora case, James E. Holmes, applied for membership at his club in June. But when the owner, Glenn Rotkovich, called Holmes, he was unnerved by the answering machine message. 
 
 "It was this very bass, guttural, rambling, incoherent message that was bizarre, at best," Rotkovich told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. "Freakish, maybe." 
 
 Rotkovich ultimately told his staff not to follow through with Holmes without checking with him, but Holmes never showed up. The next time Rotkovich heard his name, it was on television. 
 
 Officials monitoring the local investigation in Colorado said the gunman displayed a high degree of marksmanship for an amateur. 
 
 They said he first fired the shotgun, which would have sprayed a large area of the theater with buckshot or pellets. Then he fired the semiautomatic AR-15 with the 100-round magazine. When that weapon jammed, he started shooting from the Glock pistol, they said. 
 
 Further, the gunman was shooting in a dark theater after midnight and aiming at moving targets, all amid a canopy of thick gas from canisters he'd set off. That environment, when combined with the kick from the shotgun and the Glock, would make firing with much precision all the harder. 
 
 To kill 12 people and wound 58 in that kind of chaos would be “unusually high for someone new to this,” one official said. 
 
 Officials also theorize that the suspect believed police were being drawn to an explosion at his apartment and that time was on his side. 
 
 When he burst out of the back of the theater, he probably had one of several plans in mind, they said. One, retrieve the second Glock from his white Hyundai and return to the theater, or drive off with the Glock and use it should he come under police fire, officials said. Or, as one official said, “turn the gun on himself.” 
 
 Instead, police were at the theater within two minutes and arrested the suspect before he reached his car. 
 
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 richard.serrano@latimes.com
– The latest in the attempt to better define Aurora shooter James Holmes: He apparently had a lot of target practice, isn't so smart, and may have a thing for prostitutes. From the most to least concrete: Based on Holmes' "unusually high" hit rate, police believe he had extensive target practice in advance of the shootings, reports the Los Angeles Times. To be able to kill or wound 70 moving targets in a dark theater cloaked in gas is no easy feat, and the kick from the shotgun (used to shower the theater with buckshot, or something like it) and Glock (which he switched to after his semiautomatic AR-15 jammed) only added to the difficulty level. Such a hit rate under those circumstances would be "unusually high for someone new to this," said one law enforcement official. So he was a skilled shooter—but was he brilliant? His neuroscience career path, his federal grant, that science camp video may indicate so, but the man Holmes listed as his camp mentor calls him a "mediocre" student; another neuroscientist says he was considered a "dolt," reports USA Today. He "should not have gotten into the summer program. I've heard him described as brilliant. This is extremely inaccurate." As for that $26,000 grant, "Everyone has one.There is nothing elite about it." (Business Insider speculates that the grant money could have paid for his weapons cache.) And then there's the latest from TMZ, which claims Holmes frequented prostitutes in the months before the attack. Click to hear from three women Holmes supposedly "reviewed" online.