Feature: Colorado theater shooter found guilty of murder

It took a jury fewer than 12 hours to find James Holmes guilty on all 165 charges against him on Thursday, including 24 counts of first degree murder, in the movie theater shooting in the western U.S. state of Colorado in 2012.

Homes faced two counts of first-degree murder for each of the 12 people he killed three years ago. The jury, comprising three man and nine woman, rejected the "not guilt by reason of insanity" plea Holmes was using as a way to avoid a death penalty and found him guilty on all 24 counts.

The jury also found Homles guilty of attempted murder on all of the 140 counts against him for the 70 people wounded in the shooting.

The packed courtroom saw tears flow from all sides -- virtually all 60 family members and victims, many of whom sobbed and held each other, as well as several jury members and members of the media -- many in relief, as the three-year odyssey to convict Holmes finally ended.

Tension was palpable in the heavily secured courtroom as Judge Carlos Samour, Jr. took one hour to read each of the "guilty" verdicts.

Holmes, wearing a blue shirt with white pin-stripes and beige khakis, stood listening without emotion or movement while the verdicts were read, his hands in his pockets.

The jurors rejected a powerful plea from defense lawyer Dan King that Holmes is mentally ill and did not know what he was doing the night he ambushed 420 people inside the Aurora movie theater.

Instead, the jury followed the reasoning of Arapahoe District Attorney George Brauchler, who said Holmes knew he was doing evil, carefully planned the massacre, and showed "extreme indifference" to the people he murdered.

"Extreme indifference" is a separate charge that Holmes received for each of the 12 murders and 70 attempted murders that gave him 164 charges.

Holmes was also found guilty of one count of possession or control of an explosive or incendiary device.

Now all stopping Holmes from a lethal injection is a sentencing hearing that will begin next week, which is expected to last less than a month. Holmes' attorneys are expected to present "mitigating factors."

Based on the expeditious way the jury dispatched Holmes' insanity plea, it is probable that Holmes will be sentenced to death.

"I want him to die," said Marlene Knobbe, a grandmother who turns 80 next week, adding that she was "thrilled by the decision." Her granddaughter, Micayla Medek, was killed in the shooting.

Holmes' parents, Robert and Arlene, who have not missed one day of the three-month trial, sat stunned in the front row of the courtroom, holding hands and looking straight ahead.

"There are a lot of people who want him dead," said Robert Sullivan, 60, to the media outside the court house.

Sullivan wore a button on his shirt with a picture of his 6-year-old granddaughter, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, who died from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

In a statement, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said that his hope is this step "brings some peace to them, and begins the healing process for all of Colorado."

"I would like to see the death penalty," said Otis Medley, father of wheel chair quadriplegic Caleb Medley, once an aspiring comedian who was crippled by Holmes.

When asked if he was happy with the decision, Caleb tried unsuccessfully to move in his wheelchair and then mumbled incoherent noises.

"That means 'yes,'" his father said.

By a stroke of coincidence, the jury's foreman, a young white man in his late 20s, was identified as a survivor in the Columbine shootings in 1999, which saw 13 people killed and 20 wounded at a nearby high school. Endi