Despite excellent tests results and a key recommendation, there was something about Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes that led the University of Iowa to keep him out at all costs.

The university firmly rejected Holmes' admission into a neuroscience graduate program last year, with a top faculty member writing, 'do NOT offer admission under any circumstances

The documents, provided to Reuters and the Denver Post by the university through an open records request, do not explain why Daniel Tranel, a professor of neurology and psychology and director of the neuroscience graduate program, opposed admitting Holmes, who reportedly had a 3.9 grade point average when he graduated from the University of California at Riverside in 2010.

But it did show that at least one other professor on the admissions committee concurred with his recommendation.

In July, just a few weeks before the July 20 theater rampage in Aurora, Holmes sent the girl another message. 

He wanted to know if she had heard of dysphoric mania. She hadn't. She asked if treatment was controlling it.

His startling answer: 'It was.'

She needed to stay away from him, 'because I'm bad news,' he warned her.