'Dark Knight' shooting suspect bought assault rifle same day he failed key exam

New York, July 26 (ANI): James Holmes, who allegedly killed 12 people during the screening of the latest Batman film - 'The Dark Knight Rises,'- bought a weapon on the same day he failed a key oral exam.

The Batman obsessed killer bought an AR-15 rifle to carry out the shooting rampage at a movie hall in Denver, on the same day he flunked in his neuroscience doctoral program at the University of Colorado.

According to an ABC News report, three days later, Holmes dropped out of the program.

By all accounts, Holmes had always been a high-performing student and he even received a coveted grant from the National Institutes of Health to pursue his doctorate, the New York Daily News reports.

Psychologists said his failures in school could be a factor in what led to the attack.

"All of those things could actually make dormant schizophrenia come out, and come out relatively quickly," the report quoted Marisa Randazzo, a psychologist who studies targeted violence, as saying. (ANI)