The accused in the Aurora shooting rampage made a call to the university psychiatrist just minutes before the shooting, according to the defense.

In Thursday's pretrial hearing, the defense attorney Tamara Brady brought up the possibility of such call being made while questioning a University of Colorado, Denver psychiatrist Dr.Lynne Fenton. When Brady asked whether she knew that Holmes had tried to get in touch with her nine minutes before the shooting, Fenton replied in negative.

James Holmes, 24, accused of opening fire at the Denver premiere of new batman movie was a former neuroscience doctoral student at the university. He withdrew from the program after failing a crucial oral exam.

According to Holmes' attorney, Holmes placed the call to an after-hours number at the university's Anschutz medical campus, where Fenton could be reached, reports AP. But, he couldn't get through to her and the reason behind the call is not clear at the moment.

The details of the call came up while discussing the relationship between Fenton and Holmes, as it has been alleged that Holmes had sent a package to Fenton at his former university prior to the shooting which contained a notebook with detailed description of the shooting.

In the questioning, Fenton said she last met with Holmes June 11 and believed that their patient-therapist relationship ended there as he had withdrawn from the program previous day. Hence, by July 19, the day when prosecutors say he mailed the package, the relationship no longer existed.

But, the Defense brought up the call details on the day of the shooting to establish Fenton and Holmes had an ongoing patient-therapist relationship which if proved satisfactorily, prosecutors won't be able to examine the package.

Arapahoe County Judge William Sylvester ruled in favor of the defense that the relationship did exist, but the notebook issue will be revisited in a hearing scheduled Sept.20.

In the meantime, the University of Iowa released the application records of Holmes in response to the public records requests by several media outlets, which revealed that Holmes was rejected from its neuroscience program.

Holmes applied to the program at Iowa in late 2010 and was given an interview Jan. 28, 2011, university records showed, reports AP.

The reason behind the flat out rejection is not clear as the university officials refused to elaborate on the issue. But, the emails from the program director, Daniel Traniel show that he strongly advised his colleagues to reject him. Psychology professor Mark Blumberg who interviewed Holmes, vehemently agreed with Tranel and urged the admissions committee to reject Holmes.

The application also says that he applied to Texas A&M, Kansas University, the University of Michigan and the University of Alabama schools, but he did not mention Colorado, Denver where he would end up joining, reports USA Today.