CENTENNIAL, Colo.—Prosecutors painted a scene of calculated, brutal bloodshed during opening statements Monday afternoon in the trial of James Holmes, the former graduate student charged with killing 12 people and injuring 70 in a shooting at a Denver-area movie theater in 2012.
During the emotional two-hour presentation, which had some jurors wiping tears, Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler said Mr. Holmes, frustrated about failures at graduate school and with women, carefully planned the rampage, stockpiling guns and ammunition for months.
The 27-year-old defendant executed his plan during a packed midnight screening of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises,” calmly moving through the theater and gunning down terrified moviegoers while nonchalantly listening to techno music through a pair of headphones, Mr. Brauchler told the jury.
“Through this door is horror,” said Mr. Brauchler as he showed jurors a photo of the trail of blood that led from the theater. “Through this door are bullets, blood, brains and bodies.”
As Mr. Brauchler spoke, Mr. Holmes shifted back and forth in his chair. Dressed in khakis and a button-down shirt, his neatly shorn beard was a far cry from his sometimes unkempt appearance at earlier hearings. He faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder and other charges, and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
The mass shooting in the Denver suburb of Aurora is one of the bloodiest in U.S. history. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and there will be considerable focus on Mr. Holmes’s mental state at the time of the tragedy.
Defense attorney Daniel King didn’t dispute that Mr. Holmes was responsible for the attack, but said in his opening remarks that his client was experiencing a schizophrenic episode and had long been gripped by delusions and intrusive thoughts. “When James Holmes stepped into that theater in July of 2012, he was insane,” Mr. King said. “His mind had been overcome by a disease of the brain that had plagued and pursued him for years.”
Friends and classmates of Mr. Holmes’s, who was studying neuroscience at the University of Colorado, Denver, have said his behavior had grown increasingly erratic. On Monday, prosecutors said Mr. Holmes had sought psychiatric help numerous times in the months before the attack.
Mr. King said that more than 20 doctors who evaluated Mr. Holmes since the shooting all had agreed that he suffered from a “serious psychotic mental illness.”
Mr. Brauchler said Monday that Mr. Holmes’s methodic planning of the attack and the fact that he was at times able to function at a high level in a rigorous graduate program were evidence that he was indeed sane at the time of the shooting.
If jurors convict Mr. Holmes, they will then have to decide if he should be executed or receive life in prison without parole.
The start of trial comes after numerous legal delays, mostly sought by the defense. It took several months to seat a panel after about 9,000 summonses were sent out.
All along, the somber shadow cast by the horror has hung over Aurora as Mr. Holmes’s fate remained uncertain.
Anxious for a resolution, dozens of victims and family members of those killed in the rampage crowded into the courtroom at the Arapahoe County Justice Center.
Mr. Holmes’s parents, Robert and Arlene, were also in attendance, leaning forward intently at times and occasionally glancing at their son.
The judge in the case, Carlos Samour Jr., has said the trial could last until Labor Day.
Write to Dan Frosch at dan.frosch@wsj.com
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