Holmes (24) dropped out of PhD course last month

THE SUSPECT:THE MAN suspected of the US's worst shooting rampage since the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007 is understood to be a neuroscience graduate who dropped out of his PhD course last month.

As Colorado reeled from the killings yesterday, details began to emerge about James Holmes (24), who was in police custody after at least 12 people were shot dead and more than 30 others were injured at a movie screening in Denver.

Holmes, who has no criminal record, was originally from San Diego and had moved to Colorado in 2011 for a graduate course in neuroscience at the University of Colorado school of medicine. But last month, the university said, he had withdrawn from the course.

A university spokesman said: “He enrolled in June 2011 and was in the process of withdrawing from the school.” Under privacy rules, he could not comment on whether Holmes had been in any trouble at the university, or if his withdrawal from classes was voluntary.

In San Diego, where Holmes attended high school, reporters besieged his parents’ house.

Outside the property, Andra Brown of the San Diego police department said the family had contacted the police when members of the media turned up.

ABC News had earlier reported that a woman at the house, identifying herself as the alleged gunman’s mother, had spoken to reporters to confirm that they “had the right person”. At a press conference, Lieut Brown said: “The Holmes family is very upset by all of this. It is a tragic event and has taken everybody by surprise.” – (Guardian service)