17/04/2007 8:40:21 PM
The man responsible for the deadliest shooting in U.S. history is being remembered Tuesday as a disturbed English major who unnerved classmates with his often violent, twisted writing.
"You caused me to do this," read a rambling note found in Cho Seung-Hui dorm room which he is believed to have written before he went on a bloody rampage that killed 32 people at a Virginia Tech campus on Monday.
The note also railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.
Cho, 23, was an undergraduate student in his senior year at Virginia Tech, a university with some 26,000 students nestled in Blacksburg, a tight-knit southwestern Virginia town.
The English department's director of creative writing, Linda Roy, who had Cho in one of her classes, described him as "troubled.''
English professor Carolyn Rude says Cho's writings were so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counselling service.
It's not clear whether he underwent any of the therapy recommended. But news reports said that Cho may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic.
"There was some concern about him," Rude told The Associated Press. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."
He was a South Korean living in the U.S. as a resident alien. He had been in the U.S. since 1992 and held a green card signifying his status as a legal permanent U.S. resident, federal officials said.
As such, he was legally eligible to buy a handgun. A receipt found in Cho's backpack showed he had bought a Glock 9mm pistol in March. It cost him US$571.
Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the pistol to Cho in March.
"It was a very unremarkable sale,'' said Markell, who didn't handle the sale personally. "He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. We won't sell a gun if we have any idea at all that a purchase is suspicious."
"To find out the gun came from my shop is just terrible,'' Markell added.
The serial number on the pistol had been scratched off, but federal agents traced it to the store using a receipt found in Cho's backpack.
Cho's home address is listed in Centreville, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. University officials say he lived in a dormitory on the Virginia Tech campus, but could shed no light on his personality.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," said Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker.
The Chicago Tribune also reported that Cho had recently shown troubling signs, including setting a fire in a dorm room and stalking some women.
A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One of those screenplays was posted on The Smoking Gun website.
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site. "The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of."
McFarlane said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."
It is believed that Cho is responsible for two separate shootings on the school's campus Monday. In the first shooting, a man and woman were killed at a co-ed residence at about 7:15 a.m. local time.
In the second, 30 people were killed at Norris Hall, an engineering building on the opposite end of the 1,050-hectare campus.
Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was "certainly reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both cases.'' He added there was no evidence to suggest a second shooter.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum says ballistics tests show that one of the guns found at the second shooting location was used in the first shooting.
"A nine-millimetre handgun and a 22-calibre handgun were recovered from Norris Hall," said Flinchum.
Witnesses who survived the Norris Hall shooting say the gunman had a serious but calm look on his face. Derek O'Dell, who was shot in the arm, says the shooter fired away in "eerily silence'' with "no specific target -- just taking out anybody he could.''
Erin Sheehan said the gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a boy scout-type outfit.''
The man responsible for the deadliest shooting in U.S. history is being remembered Tuesday as a disturbed English major who unnerved classmates with his often violent, twisted writing.
"You caused me to do this," read a rambling note found in Cho Seung-Hui dorm room which he is believed to have written before he went on a bloody rampage that killed 32 people at a Virginia Tech campus on Monday.
The note also railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.
Cho, 23, was an undergraduate student in his senior year at Virginia Tech, a university with some 26,000 students nestled in Blacksburg, a tight-knit southwestern Virginia town.
The English department's director of creative writing, Linda Roy, who had Cho in one of her classes, described him as "troubled.''
English professor Carolyn Rude says Cho's writings were so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counselling service.
It's not clear whether he underwent any of the therapy recommended. But news reports said that Cho may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic.
"There was some concern about him," Rude told The Associated Press. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."
He was a South Korean living in the U.S. as a resident alien. He had been in the U.S. since 1992 and held a green card signifying his status as a legal permanent U.S. resident, federal officials said.
As such, he was legally eligible to buy a handgun. A receipt found in Cho's backpack showed he had bought a Glock 9mm pistol in March. It cost him US$571.
Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the pistol to Cho in March.
"It was a very unremarkable sale,'' said Markell, who didn't handle the sale personally. "He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. We won't sell a gun if we have any idea at all that a purchase is suspicious."
"To find out the gun came from my shop is just terrible,'' Markell added.
The serial number on the pistol had been scratched off, but federal agents traced it to the store using a receipt found in Cho's backpack.
Cho's home address is listed in Centreville, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. University officials say he lived in a dormitory on the Virginia Tech campus, but could shed no light on his personality.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," said Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker.
The Chicago Tribune also reported that Cho had recently shown troubling signs, including setting a fire in a dorm room and stalking some women.
A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One of those screenplays was posted on The Smoking Gun website.
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site. "The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of."
McFarlane said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."
It is believed that Cho is responsible for two separate shootings on the school's campus Monday. In the first shooting, a man and woman were killed at a co-ed residence at about 7:15 a.m. local time.
In the second, 30 people were killed at Norris Hall, an engineering building on the opposite end of the 1,050-hectare campus.
Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was "certainly reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both cases.'' He added there was no evidence to suggest a second shooter.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum says ballistics tests show that one of the guns found at the second shooting location was used in the first shooting.
"A nine-millimetre handgun and a 22-calibre handgun were recovered from Norris Hall," said Flinchum.
Witnesses who survived the Norris Hall shooting say the gunman had a serious but calm look on his face. Derek O'Dell, who was shot in the arm, says the shooter fired away in "eerily silence'' with "no specific target -- just taking out anybody he could.''
Erin Sheehan said the gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a boy scout-type outfit.''
