A man who allegedly shot and killed two people in a California movie theater said that he recently stopped taking his schizophrenia medication after being diagnosed with the disorder about eight months ago, the Associated Press reported.
"I ran out and didn't get it refilled," 20-year-old Joseph Jimenez said.
In an interview Wednesday at the Riverside County jail in Banning, where Jimenez is being held, he said that voices in his head plagued him for eight months, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. The voices threatened to harm his loved ones and steal his possessions, including his car and television, he said.
"The voices said my friends and family were going to be killed," Jimenez said.
Jimenez will be arraigned on Thursday in Riverside's Superior Court on two counts of murder and two special-circumstance allegations, the Press-Enterprise reported. The charges make Jimenez eligible for the death penalty.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Jimenez did not explain how killing people would save his loved ones.
He also gave a blow-by-blow description of the shooting but offered his condolences to the families of the victims, saying: "I wish I didn't do it."
Rylee Goodrich, 18, and Anthony Barajas, 19, were shot in the head while watching a movie at a nearly empty Corona, California, theater July 26. They were found by an employee after the last showing of the night.
Goodrich died at the scene. Barajas was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was placed on life support but died last week.
Barajas, known online as itsanthonymichael, had nearly a million followers on TikTok and more on other platforms.
Police have said the suspect acted alone, and there's no indication he knew the victims or that Barajas' role as a TikTok influencer played a role in the crime.
Jimenez had gone to the theater with three friends, who told investigators they were alarmed and snuck out of the theater because they believed he had brought a gun into the cinema and was acting strangely, the Orange County Register reported in a story Monday. They didn't warn anyone.
That left only Jimenez and the two victims.
Jimenez said the voices were so overwhelming the night of the shooting that he couldn't concentrate on the movie, The Forever Purge, a violent thriller. But he added that the theme of the movie didn't influence his actions.
He brought a gun from his car into the theater and shot the teenagers.
Jimenez was arrested the following day.
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