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In March, James Holmes told a Colorado classmate he would kill

What did the University of Colorado know, when? Aurora shooting suspect James Holmes told a classmate, four months before the attack, that he wanted to kill people, say prosecutors in new court filing. Prosecutors are trying to get access to university records.

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(AP Photo/Bill Robles, Pool)
This courtroom sketch shows suspect James Holmes, right, being escorted into court by a sheriff's deputy in Centennial, Colo., in August 2012. James Holmes has been charged in the shooting at the Aurora theater on July 20 that killed twelve people and injured more than 50.
  • By Staff Associated Press

| Denver

Newly filed court records allege that the man accused of opening fire on a Colorado movie theater in July told a classmate he wanted to kill people four months before the shooting.

Prosecutors made the contention in a motion released Friday. They are seeking access to James Holmes' records from the University of Colorado Denver's neuroscience graduate program.

Prosecutors wrote that Holmes left the program in June after also making unspecified threats to a professor that month and failing his year-end final.

IN PICTURES: Aftermath of the Aurora 'Dark Knight' shooting

Holmes' attorneys argue that prosecutors should have no access to his student records. The papers they filed in response to prosecutors do not address the allegations of threats.

Holmes is charged with killing 12 and wounding 58 during the July 20 attack on a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colorado.

Holmes' defense lawyer, Daniel King, has said Holmes is mentally ill, setting up a possible insanity defense.

But arguments at a hearing Thursday by Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Pearson revealed a possible motive: Holmes' anger that he was failing at school, "at the same time he's buying an enormous amount of ammunition, body armor and explosives."

A gag order has been issued in the case. Prosecutors argued that gaining access to the school records would establish a motive by showing what Holmes hoped to accomplish at Colorado University and the "dissatisfaction with what occurred in his life that led to this."

They also want to see records from campus police and a campus threat evaluation team similar to those established across the country after the 2007 Virginia Tech University shootings.

IN PICTURES: Aftermath of the Aurora 'Dark Knight' shooting

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

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