Delay in plea by Holmes disturbs victims, families

CENTENNIAL, Colo. – A stunned silence settled over a courtroom Friday after the father of a woman killed in the Colorado theater shootings loudly cursed defendant James Holmes, prompting a sympathetic but firm warning from a judge.

Steve Hernandez, whose 32-year-old daughter Rebecca Wingo was among the dead, shouted, “Rot in hell, Holmes!” moments after Judge William Sylvester gave Holmes two months to enter a plea.

The outburst capped an emotional week of often gruesome testimony about the July 20 shootings and came as the nation debates gun control and struggles to find ways to stop mass shootings.