Did the Batman Killer have an accomplice? (Updated 6 times: At last, we have a POLITICAL statement from James Holmes!)

Things are heating up. Cops have interviewed a second "person of interest" in the case who...

either called or sent a text “threatening violence” if suspect James Holmes “was not released from jail.”

Police have interviewed but not charged this person, who has a Masters in biomedical science. My question: How can someone with a Masters be dumb enough to send a threat like that from a traceable phone?

The second person of interest also had a roommate, and that both parties left home hours before the massacre. Which means we may have a third participant.

More soon...

Update 1: At least one source has identified the second person of interest as Yeom Pyo Lee. That's not been confirmed. However, the Facebook page reproduced here matches the blurred-out FB page previously released by a local TV station.

Update 2: On another front: ABC has come out with a video Holmes made when he was 18. This is fascinating...

In the video, he is standing among his peers at a science camp held at Miramar College in San Diego talking about "temporal illusions."

"Over the course of the summer I've been working with a temporal illusion. It's an illusion that allows you to change the past," Holmes said in the video.

He appears slightly nervous speaking to the group but also extremely intelligent. 

I can't help but be reminded of the most famous passage in the most famous of all Joker stories, Alan Moore's The Killing Joke. These panels, in turn, inspired the "conflicting recollections" riff in the first Dark Knight movie.

Update 3: A gun nut site is claiming that Lee has expressed "anti-gun" sentiments on his Facebook page. I've not seen this claim confirmed. At any rate, the freaks are theorizing that the massacre was all a plot to institute the mythical Great Gun Round-Up.

Update 4: A friend got on Lee's Facebook page and found no hint of "anti-gun" sentiments. In fact, it's a bare-bones page that expresses no opinions about...anything. So once again, it seems that the rightwingers are making things up.

It also occurs to me that someone who sends an insane message of that sort is not necessarily an accomplice.

About that message: The first report I read indicated that Lee used a cell phone. A comment on a discussion thread averred that he used VOIP, which would be a more intelligent choice, since tracking a VOIP call is much more difficult. So I'd like to know more about how the cops found him.

Update 5: An odd thought just occurred to me. How do we know that Lee sent the VOIP message? Even if the message can be traced to Lee's computer -- a point which has yet to be established -- we cannot be sure that Lee was the author. As we have discussed in a previous post, it is very possible for someone to use a trojan to take over another system and use it to make a call or send a text. As far as we know right now, Lee could be someone Holmes considers an enemy.

Of course, if Holmes managed to set up something like that in advance -- well, I believe such a scenario would pretty much define the term "crazy prepared."


Update 6: At last -- we know the politic stance of James Holmes! Turns out he also created a profile at Match.com.

-- Favorite movies: "Too many good movies to have a favorite, maybe Dumb and Dumber, Hachiko, Star Wars, etc."
-- Favorite book: Where's Waldo?
-- "You should message me if you're interested, obviously. Or lookin' for sexy times. Very nice!"
-- Political views: Middle of the road
-- Faith: Agnostic
-- "I spend a lot of time thinking about the future. Mind = blown"

Middle of the road? MIDDLE OF THE ROAD? That's it? The right doesn't get a chance to beat up the left, and the left doesn't get a chance to beat up the right? Yeesh. Zap Brannigan was right all along: You just can't trust those neutrals.

He was graduated Phi Beta Kappa and his favorite book is Where's Waldo? And one of his favorite films is Dumb and Dumber?

The equation mind = blown seems sound; I won't ask for further proof. Now that he has no future, I wonder what he will spend his time thinking about?

We have a report on Jimmy's first day in jail:

Holmes, held under suicide watch in solitary confinement, remained in his murderous “Joker” persona after arriving at the Arapahoe Detention Center, a jailhouse worker told the Daily News.

“Let’s just say he hasn’t shown any remorse,” the employee said. “He thinks he’s acting in a movie.”

The man accused in the midnight theater massacre was still acting bizarrely a day after his rampage at a screening of “The Dark Night Rises” — the last film in the Batman trilogy.

“He was spitting at the door and spitting at the guards,” one released inmate told The News outside the jail. “He’s spitting at everything. Dude was acting crazy.”

Do you think the Joker would describe his politics as "middle of the road"?

God, that irks me. So disappointing. If he had been a Chomsky aficionado or a follower of Michelle Malkin, at least we would all have something to write about. A political blogger can do something with that sort of news. But...middle of the freakin' road?