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by Matt Apuzzo
Apr 17, 9:02 PM EDT
Associated Press Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The gunman in the Virginia Tech
massacre was a sullen loner who alarmed professors and classmates with
his twisted, violence-drenched creative writing and left a rambling note
raging against women and rich kids.
A chilling picture emerged Tuesday of Cho Seung-Hui -- a
23-year-old senior majoring in English -- a day after the bloodbath that
left 33 people dead, including Cho, who killed himself as police closed
in.
News reports said that he may have been taking medication
for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and
erratic.
Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the
bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to
exactly what set Cho off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern
U.S. history.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding
information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.
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 was about a fight
between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers
and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing
about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a
nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used
weapons I wouldn't have even thought of," former classmate Ian
MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web
site. He said he and other students "were talking to each other with
serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."
"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do
something, waiting to hear about something he did," said another
classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But when I got the call it was Cho who had
done this, I started crying, bawling."
Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's
English department, said Cho's writing was so disturbing that he had
been referred to the university's counseling service.
"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," Rude said. "But
we're all alert to not ignore things like this."
She said she did not know when he was referred for
counseling, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his
writings or his grades, citing privacy laws. The counseling service
refused to comment.
Cho -- who arrived in the United States as boy from South
Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his
parents worked at a dry cleaners -- left a note that was found after the
bloodbath.
A law enforcement official who read Cho's note described it
Tuesday as a typed, eight-page rant against rich kids and religion. The
official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized
to speak to the media.
"You caused me to do this," the official quoted the note as
saying.
Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that
there was a deed to be done, the official said. He also expressed
disappointment in his own religion, and made several references to
Christianity, the official said.
The official said the letter was either found in Cho's dorm
room or in his backpack. The backpack was found in the hallway of the
classroom building where the shootings happened, and contained several
rounds of ammunition, the official said.
Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State
Police, said authorities were going through a considerable number of
writings.
Citing unidentified sources, the Chicago Tribune reported
Cho had recently set a fire in a dorm room and had stalked some women.
Monday's rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two
hours apart -- first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then
inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including Cho, died. Two
handguns -- a 9 mm and a .22-caliber -- were found in the classroom
building.
The Washington Post quoted law enforcement sources as
saying Cho died with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on one of his
arms, but they were not sure what that meant.
According to court papers, police found a "bomb threat"
note -- directed at engineering school buildings -- near the victims in
the classroom building. In the past three weeks, Virginia Tech was hit
with two other bomb threats. Investigators have not connected those
earlier threats to Cho.
Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va.,
in 2003. His family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in
Centreville, Va.
At least one of those killed in the rampage, Reema Samaha,
graduated from Westfield High in 2006. But there was no immediate word
from authorities on whether Cho knew the young woman and singled her
out.
"He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul
Shash said. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing
basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him.
Classmates painted a similar picture. Some said that on the
first day of a British literature class last year, the 30 or so students
went around and introduced themselves. When it was Cho's turn, he didn't
speak.
On the sign-in sheet where everyone else had written their
names, Cho had written a question mark. "Is your name, `Question mark?'"
classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man
offered little response.
Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the
room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho
distinguished himself for being anonymous. "He didn't reach out to
anyone. He never talked," Poole said.
"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole
said.
One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained
a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green
card, meaning he was a legal, permanent resident. That meant he was
eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.
Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the
Glock and a box of practice ammo to Cho 36 days ago for $571.
"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," Markell said.
Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both
attacks. But State Police ballistics tests showed one gun was used in
both.
And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of
anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's
fingerprints were on both guns, whose serial numbers had been filed off.
Gov. Tim Kaine said he will appoint a panel at the
university's request to review authorities' handling of the disaster.
Parents and students bitterly complained that the university should have
locked down the campus immediately after the first burst of gunfire and
did not do enough to warn people.
Kaine warned against making snap judgments and said he had
"nothing but loathing" for those who take the tragedy and "make it their
political hobby horse to ride."
On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of people gathered in the
basketball arena for a memorial service for the victims, with an
overflow crowd of thousands watching on a jumbo TV screen in the
football stadium. President Bush and the first lady attended.
"As you draw closer to your families in the coming days, I
ask you to reach out to those who ache for sons and daughters who are
never coming home," Bush said.
Virginia Tech President Charles Steger received a 30-second
standing ovation, despite the criticism of the school administration.
With classes canceled for the rest of the week, many
students left town in a hurry, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and
backpacks down the sidewalks.
Jessie Ferguson, 19, a freshman from Arlington, headed for
her car with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I'm still kind of shaky," she said. "I had to pump myself
up just to kind of come out of the building. I was going to come out,
but it took a little bit of 'OK, it's going to be all right. There's
lots of cops around.'"
She added: "I just don't want to be on campus."
Stories of heroism and ingenuity emerged Tuesday.
Liviu Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer,
was killed after he was said to have protected his students' lives by
blocking the doorway of his classroom from the gunman. And one student,
an Eagle Scout, probably saved his own life by using an electrical cord
as a tourniquet around his bleeding thigh, a doctor reported.
On Tuesday night as darkness fell, thousands of Virginia
Tech students, faculty and area residents poured into the center of
campus to grieve together. They held thousands of candles aloft as
speakers urged them to find solace in one another.
"We will move on from this. But it will take the strength
of each other to do that," said Zenobia Hikes, vice president for
student affairs. "We want the world to know we are Virginia Tech, we
will recover, we will survive with your prayers."
---
Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Centreville,
Va.; Matt Barakat in Richmond, Va.; Lara Jakes Jordan and Beverley
Lumpkin in Washington; and Vicki Smith, Sue Lindsey, Adam Geller and
Justin Pope in Blacksburg contributed to this report.
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