The mother of James Holmes - the 24-year-old former medical student suspected of shooting dead at least 14 people during a midnight screening of 'The Dark Knight Rises' - says authorities have got their man.

ABC News contacted the woman at her home in San Diego - some 1,000 miles from the massacre in Denver - and asked whether James was the likely culprit. She replied, "You have the right person.I need to call the police... I need to fly out to Colorado". Holmes was apprehended by police outside the theater, after he had stormed into a midnight screening of Christopher Nolan's Batman movie and opened fire with a rifle. Local news reports showed aerial video of police cautiously searching Holmes' apartment, some 5 miles from the theater, with speculation that the property was booby-trapped. Holmes was a student at the University of Colorado Denver medical Campus, but dropped out in June, according to a school official. A police spokesman provided a statement on behalf of Holmes' family, saying their, "hearts go out to those who [were] involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved".

Christ Jones, an eyewitness of the shooting told Abc's Denver affiliate KMGH, "We were maybe 20 or 30 minutes into the movie and all you hear, first you smell smoke, everybody thought it was fireworks or something like that, and then you just see people dropping and the gunshots are constant". The Paris premiere of the movie - scheduled for Friday evening (July 20, 2012) - has now been cancelled.