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by Robert Windrem
NBC: Va. Tech killer's strange
‘manifesto’ -- Videos he sent to NBC are chilling, disturbing
By Robert Windrem, Investigative
producer, NBC News
Updated: 9:35 p.m. PT April 18, 2007
The package received by NBC did not
contain any explanation, any rationale why Cho Seung-Hui decided to send
his multimedia manifesto to us. It was simply addressed, “NBC, 30
Rockefeller St (not Plaza), New York, NY,” with the wrong zip code.
It was mailed from Blacksburg at
9:01 a.m. the day of the shooting, minutes before he went on his second
shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.
What the nondescript package did
contain was a printout of a .pdf file titled “axishmiel”, Cho’s
1,800-word manifesto broken up by the now famous photographs -- 43
total: 29 of them showing Cho with his weapons: the Glock 9mm automatic
and the .22 caliber handgun as well as a hunting knife. But two images
seemed incongruous: smiling portraits. The more appealing of the two was
the first image shown in the manifesto. It was almost as if he wanted to
show himself as non-threatening, as a good guy. Of the remaining 14, all
but one were of the weapons, the other a photo of a blue sky.
But what was as revealing about the
manifesto was the time and date the .pdf file was last modified: 7:24
a.m., April 16, minutes after he had shot and killed his first two
victims, and nearly two hours before he went on his second rampage.
Beyond the .pdf file were two other
files with time stamps hinting at just how long he had been thinking
about the attacks: two Microsoft Word files, and a six-minute .avi file.
The Word files were drafts of the two sections of the manifesto, which
he had written earlier, one being last modified on April 13 at 3:45 p.m.
and on April 15 at 8:22 a.m. The sole .avi file of him reading the
manifesto, titled “letter1” was recorded even earlier, at 9:40 a.m. on
April 10, a full six days before the massacre.
The remaining 27 video clips total
24 minutes, ranging in length from 16 seconds to six minutes, all of
them apparently recorded with a basic digital camera, a Kodak EasyShare
DX4530 Zoom, with a $399 manufacturer's suggested retail price. None was
time-coded, but some things can be determined. They were recorded in a
small car and against a cinder block wall in what could be Cho’s dorm
room. The files were not edited after they were saved from the camera,
according to an analysis of the header information of the Quick Time
movie files.
Their titles are varied and hard to
match with their content: “all of You”, “am al qaeda”, “anti terror”,
“as time appr”, “blood of inno”, “congrad”, “could b victim”. The
rambling comments are those of an angry young man who felt persecuted,
who felt that the world is against him, who felt he was a victim of
personal terrorism.
But five of them are called, “end”,
“end 1”, “end 2”, “end car”, and “end some life”. And each of those
appears to be among the last recorded, perhaps between the shootings.
He addresses no one by name in any
of them, although he does seemingly address Virginia Tech students in
two as “brats” and “snobs” with “Mercedes” and “trust funds.”
There were no specific references to
Virginia Tech, to any professors, any students, any dormitories or any
university buildings. He could have been talking or writing about any
school anywhere in the United States. It was that generic.
There also appears to be a change of
personality between the first clips and those marked as “end”. Cho is
angrier, his language cruder and his speech more rambling. In many of
the others, he mumbles and is apologetic about what he is about to do.
And in at least two, he talks about what he has done “today”. He is
dressed differently as well. In the earlier videos, he is dressed in a
black T-shirt, sometimes wearing a hood. In the later ones, he is seen
wearing his ammunition-laden vest, with a baseball cap, as if dressed
for hunting.
It is all disturbing, all chilling,
all incredibly sad. Nowhere is remorse, just fatalism and a tortured
admission that he had postponed the attacks several times. I wish I had
never seen any of it.
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive© 2007 MSNBC
Interactive
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