[Alberta's Child]

Heartwood's scenario in Post #5 actually adds up. It looks like the original plan was to have the explosives detonate before his shooting spree (or concurrent with it).

[muawiyah]

The guy in Norway had his bomb set up to go off before he shot all those kids at the lake.

Could be the story lodged in his mind.

Then there's Eric Rudolph ~ he set up "TWO FERS" ~ A small bomb or incident first, just enough to attract cops. Then a bigger bomb to kill cops. He almost got a bunch of them at the abortion mill but they set their doughnut box up on the far side of a trash dumpster, so when it went off they were protected.

The apartment bomb could have teen stage two.

[Sioux-san]

Okay - I am more than a bit dense and sometimes it takes awhile, but I think I get it now. The Police chief was reacting to the first point that Holmes was trying to divert the police to his apt. before the massacre at the theater. That didn’t work, so Holmes just plain chickened out and didn’t want to die, so he gave up. That does make sense.