Holmes appears with public defender Tamara Brady in court, July 23, 2012. (AP/Pool)
The brother of Jessica Ghawi—one of 12 people to die in last week's Aurora, Colo., theater shooting—was not present on Monday for suspected shooter James Holmes' first court appearance because he feared he might try to avenge his sister's death.
"I was afraid that I may try to get my hands on that man," Jordan Ghawi said in an interview with CNN outside the Arapahoe County District Court shortly after the hearing.
Holmes appeared dazed as a judge told him he would be held without bond on suspicion of first-degree murder. But Ghawi, who described Holmes as a "coward and a genius," did not buy it.
"I don't believe for a second he is sitting there with the wide eyes and pretending to be incoherent," Ghawi said. "He knows what he is doing."
Jessica Ghawi—a 24-year-old hockey blogger and aspiring sportscaster who was present during last month's shooting at a Toronto mall—was one of the first victims publicly identified in Friday's massacre. She will be cremated in Colorado, Jordan said, and flown on Wednesday to Texas, where a memorial service is planned for Saturday morning in San Antonio.
[COMPLETE COVERAGE: Colorado theater shooting]
"She wanted to be on the media," Jordan Ghawi said of his late sister. "She wanted to be doing these reports—and she is, just not in the way she would have liked it. So it is ... really hard."