Seung-Hui Cho

In a second play, Mr. Brownstone, written for another class assignment, Cho depicts three seventeen-year-olds (John, Jane and Joe), who sit in a casino while discussing their deep hatred for Mr. Brownstone, their 45-year-old mathematics teacher. The three characters claim—using the phrase "ass-rape"—that Mr. Brownstone mistreats them. John wins a multimillion-dollar jackpot from one of the slot machines, and Mr. Brownstone, amid volleys of profanity from the students, reports to casino officials that the three teens are underage and have illegally picked up the winning ticket. Mr. Brownstone tells the casino officials that it is he who has really won the jackpot and that the minors had stolen the ticket from him. "Mr. Brownstone" is also the name of a Guns N' Roses song about heroin, and one page of Cho's play consists of lyrics from the song.

In August 2009, Cho's family allowed Virginia Tech to release the records, along with those found in July 2009, to the public. Previously, they were only given to the panel.

In a 2008 article marking the anniversary of the massacre, the Washington Post did a follow-up on the family, reporting that they had gone into hiding for months following the massacre and, after eventually returning home, had "virtually cut themselves off from the world." Several windows in their home have been papered over and drawn blinds cover the rest. The only real outside contact they have maintained is with an FBI agent assigned to their care and their lawyer, refusing even to contact their own relatives in South Korea.

In the aftermath of the shootings, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine convened a panel consisting of various officials and experts to investigate and examine the response and handling of issues related to the shootings. The panel released its final report in August 2007, devoting more than 30 pages to detailing Cho's troubled history. In the report, the panel criticized the failure of the educators and mental health professionals who came into contact with Cho during his college years to notice his deteriorating condition and help him. The panel also criticized misinterpretations of privacy laws and gaps in Virginia's mental health system and gun laws. In addition, the panel faulted Virginia Tech administrators in particular for failing to take immediate action after the first shootings. Nevertheless, the report did acknowledge that Cho must still be held primarily responsible for not seeking assistance.

Certain members of Cho's family who had remained in South Korea had concerns about his behavior during his early childhood. Cho's relatives thought that he was selectively mute or mentally ill. According to Cho's uncle, Cho "didn't say much and did not mix with other children." Cho's maternal great-aunt described Cho as "cold" and a cause of family concern from as young as eight years old. According to his great-aunt, who met him twice, Cho was extremely shy and "just would not talk at all." He was otherwise considered "well-behaved," readily obeying verbal commands and cues. The great-aunt said she knew something was wrong after the family's departure for the United States because she heard frequent updates about Cho's older sister but little news about Cho. During an ABC News Nightline interview on August 30, 2007, Cho's grandfather reported his concerns about Cho's behavior during childhood. According to Cho's grandfather, Cho never made eye contact, never called him grandfather, and never moved to embrace him.

More than four months after the attack, The Wall Street Journal reported on August 20, 2007, that Cho had been diagnosed with selective mutism. The Virginia Tech Review Panel report, also released in August 2007, placed this diagnosis in the spring of Cho's eighth-grade year, and his parents sought treatment for him through medication and therapy. In high school, Cho was placed in special education under the "emotional disturbance" classification. He was excused from oral presentations and participation in class conversation and received 50 minutes a month of speech therapy. He continued receiving mental health therapy as well until his junior year, when Cho rejected further therapy.

Around 7:15 a.m. EDT (11:15 UTC) on April 16, 2007, Cho killed two students, Emily J. Hilscher and Ryan C. "Stack" Clark, on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston Hall, a high-rise co-educational dormitory. Investigators later determined that Cho's shoes matched a blood-stained print found in the hallway outside Hilscher's room. The shoes and bloody jeans were found in Cho's dormitory room where he had stashed them after the attack.

During February and March 2007, Cho began purchasing the weapons that he later used during the killings. On February 9, Cho purchased his first handgun, a .22 caliber Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol, from TGSCOM Inc., a federally licensed firearms dealer based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the operator of the website through which Cho ordered the gun. TGSCOM Inc. shipped the Walther P22 to JND Pawnbrokers in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Cho completed the legally required background check for the purchase transaction and took possession of the handgun. On March 13, Cho bought his second handgun, a 9mm Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, from Roanoke Firearms, a licensed gun dealer located in Roanoke, Virginia.

On March 22, 2007, Cho purchased two 10-round magazines for the Walther P22 pistol through eBay from Elk Ridge Shooting Supplies in Idaho. Based on a preliminary computer forensics examination of Cho's eBay purchase records, investigators suspected that Cho may have purchased an additional 10-round magazine on March 23, 2007, from another eBay seller who sold gun accessories.

The investigation panel had sought Cho's medical records for several weeks, but due to privacy laws, Virginia Tech was prohibited from releasing them without permission from Cho's family, even after his death. The panel had considered using subpoenas to obtain his records. On June 12, 2007, Cho's family released his medical records to the panel, although the panel said that the records were not enough. The panel obtained additional information by court order. Like the perpetrators of both the Columbine and Jokela school massacres, Cho was prescribed the antidepressant drug Prozac prior to his rampage, a substance suspected by Peter Breggin and David Healy of leading to suicidal behaviors. It is not known if Cho ever complied in filling or taking this prescription; or if he had taken and then discontinued the prescribed medication. The toxicology test from the official autopsy later showed that neither psychiatric nor any kind of illegal drugs were in his system during the time of the shooting.

Upon receiving the package on April 18, 2007, NBC contacted authorities and made the controversial decision to publicize Cho's communications by releasing a small fraction of what it received. After pictures and images from the videos were broadcast in numerous news reports, students and faculty from Virginia Tech, along with relatives of victims of the campus shooting, expressed concerns that glorifying Cho's rampage could lead to copycat killings. The airing of the manifesto and its video images and pictures was upsetting to many who were more closely affected by the shootings: Peter Read, the father of Mary Read, one of the students who was killed by Cho during the rampage, asked the media to stop airing Cho's manifesto.

During the April 24, 2007, edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC News President Steve Capus stated NBC decided to show 2 minutes of 25 minutes of video, 7 of 43 photographs, and 37 sentences of 23 pages of written material or 5 of the 23 PDF files that were last modified at 7:24 a.m., after the first shooting. He also stated that the content not shown included "over the top profanity" and "incredibly violent images". He expressed hope that the unreleased material would never be made public.

After some members of the Virginia Tech panel complained about the missing paper, Virginia Tech decided to release a copy of the paper to the panel during the latter part of the week of August 25, 2007. Although the Virginia Tech panel has since received the paper written by Cho for the fiction writing class, the precise contents of that paper have not been released to the public.

The Virginia Tech Review Panel report shed light on numerous efforts by Cho's family to secure help for him as early as adolescence. However, when Cho reached 18 and left for college, the family lost its legal authority over him, and their influence on him waned. Cho's mother, increasingly concerned about his inattention to classwork, his classroom absences and his asocial behavior, sought help for him during summer 2006 from various churches in Northern Virginia. According to Dong Cheol Lee, minister of One Mind Presbyterian Church of Washington (located in Woodbridge), Cho's mother sought help from the church for Cho's problems. Lee added that "[Cho's] problem needed to be solved by spiritual power ... that's why she came to our church – because we were helping several people like him." Members of Lee's church even told Cho's mother that he was afflicted by "demonic power" and needed "deliverance." Before the church could meet with the family, however, Cho returned to school to start his senior year at Virginia Tech.

During the investigation, the police found a note in Cho's room in which he criticized "rich kids", "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans". In the note, Cho continued by saying that "you caused me to do this." Early media reports also speculated that he was obsessed with fellow student Emily Hilscher and became enraged after she rejected his romantic overtures. Law enforcement investigators could not find evidence that Hilscher knew Cho. Cho and one of his victims, Ross Alameddine, attended the same English class during autumn 2006. Also in one video, he mentions "martyrs like Eric and Dylan", referring to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre.

In 2006, pursuant to a class assignment, Cho wrote a short one-act play entitled Richard McBeef. The play focuses on John, a thirteen-year-old boy whose father has died in a boating accident, and John's stepfather, ex-football player Richard McBeef (whom John constantly refers to as "Dick"). When Richard touches John's lap during an attempt at a 'father-to-son' talk, the boy abruptly claims that his stepfather is molesting him. John then accuses his stepfather of having murdered his biological father and repeatedly says that he will kill Richard. John, Richard and Sue (John's mother) are suddenly embroiled in a major argument. Richard then retreats to his car to escape the conflict, but John, despite claiming repeatedly that Richard is abusing him, joins his stepfather in the car and harasses him. The play ends with John trying to shove a banana-flavored cereal bar into his stepfather's throat; Richard, hitherto a passive character, reacts "out of sheer desecrated hurt and anger" by "swinging a deadly blow" at the boy.

Approximately one year before the incident at Virginia Tech, Cho also wrote a paper for an assignment in the "Intro to Short Fiction" class that he took during the spring 2006 semester. In that paper, Cho wrote about a mass school murder that was planned by the protagonist of the story but, according to the story, the protagonist did not follow through with the killings. During the proceedings of the Virginia Tech panel, the panel was unaware of the existence of the paper written by Cho for his fiction writing class.

Professor Nikki Giovanni taught Cho in a poetry class in the fall of 2005; she had him removed from her class because she found his behavior "menacing." She recalled that Cho had a "mean streak" and described his writing as "intimidating." Cho had intimidated female students by photographing their legs under their desks and by writing violent and obscene poetry. Giovanni offered that "[she] was willing to resign before [she] would continue with him." About six weeks after the semester began, Giovanni wrote a letter to then-department head Lucinda Roy, who removed Cho from the class. Roy alerted the student affairs office, the dean's office, and the campus police, but each office responded that there was nothing they could do if Cho made no overt threats against himself or others. After Giovanni was informed of the massacre, she remarked that "[I] knew when it happened that that's probably who it was," and "would have been shocked if it wasn't."

Andy Koch and John Eide, who once shared a room with Cho at Cochrane Hall during 2005 and 2006, stated that Cho demonstrated other repetitive behaviors, such as listening repeatedly to "Shine" by the alternative rock band Collective Soul. He wrote the lines from the song's lyrics "Teach me how to speak/Teach me how to share/Teach me where to go" on the wall of his dormitory room. Koch described two further unusual incidents, one in which Cho stood in the doorway of his room late at night taking photographs of him, and another in which Cho repeatedly placed harassing cell phone calls to Koch as "Cho's brother, 'Question Mark'," a name Cho also used when introducing himself to girls. Koch and Eide searched Cho's belongings and found a pocket knife, but they did not find any items that they deemed threatening. Koch also described a telephone call that he received from Cho during the Thanksgiving holiday break from school. During the call, Koch said that Cho claimed to be "vacationing with Vladimir Putin", and added, "Yeah, we're in North Carolina." Koch, in response, told him, "I'm pretty sure that's not possible, Seung." Koch and Eide, who had earlier tried to befriend him, gradually stopped talking to him and told their friends, especially female classmates, not to visit their room.

Koch and Eide claimed that Cho had been involved in at least three stalking incidents, two of which resulted in verbal warnings by the Virginia Tech campus police. The first such alleged stalking incident occurred on November 27, 2005. After the incident, according to Koch, Cho claimed to have sent an instant message online to the female student by AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and found out where she lived on the campus. Eide stated that Cho then visited her room to see if she was "cool", adding that Cho remarked that he only found "promiscuity in her eyes". Eide added that, when Cho visited the female student, Cho said, "Hi, I'm Question Mark" to her, "which really freaked her out." The female student called the campus police, complaining that Cho had sent her annoying messages and made an unannounced visit to her room. Two uniformed members of the campus police visited Cho's room at the dormitory later that evening and warned him not to contact the female student again. Cho made no further contact with the student.

The final alleged stalking incident came to light on December 13, 2005. In the preceding days, Cho had contacted a female friend of Koch via AIM and wrote on her door board a line from Act 2, Scene II of the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. In the passage, Romeo laments to Juliet "[b] a name, I know not how to tell who I am. My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I would tear the word."

On December 13, 2005, Cho was found "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization" by New River Valley Community Services Board. The physician who examined Cho noted that he had a flat affect and depressed mood, even though Cho "denied suicidal thoughts and did not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder." Cho, suspected of being "an imminent danger to himself or others," was detained temporarily at Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Center in Radford, Virginia, pending a commitment hearing before the Montgomery County, Virginia district court.

Virginia Special Justice Paul Barnett certified in an order that Cho "presented an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness," but instead recommended treatment for Cho as an outpatient. On December 14, 2005, Cho was released from the mental health facility after Judge Barnett ordered Cho to undergo mental health treatment on an outpatient basis, with a directive for the "court-ordered [outpatient] to follow all recommended treatments." Since Cho underwent only a minimal psychiatric assessment, the true diagnosis for Cho's mental health status remains unknown.

As a result, Cho escaped compliance with the court order for mandatory mental health treatment as an outpatient, even though Virginia law required community services boards to "recommend a specific course of treatment and programs" for mental health patients and "monitor the person's compliance." As for the court, Virginia law also mandated that, if a person fails to comply with a court order to seek mental health treatment as an outpatient, that person can be brought back before the court "and if found still in crisis, can be committed to a psychiatric institution for up to 180 days." Cho was never summoned to court to explain why he had not complied with the December 14, 2005, order for mandatory mental health treatment as an outpatient.

Cho attended two secondary schools in Fairfax County: Ormond Stone Middle School in Centreville and Westfield High School in Chantilly. By the eighth grade, he had been diagnosed with selective mutism, a social anxiety disorder that inhibited him from speaking in specific instances and/or to specific individuals. Throughout high school, he was bullied for his shyness and unusual speech patterns. According to Chris Davids, a high school classmate in Cho's English class at Westfield High School, Cho looked down and refused to speak when called upon. Davids added that, after one teacher threatened to give Cho a failing grade for not participating in class, he began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth." While several students recalled instances of Cho being bullied and mocked at Westfield, most left him alone and later said they were not aware of his anger. While in high school, the Columbine High school shooting would provide a great source of inspiration for Cho. Cho idolized Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. He was "compelled to replicate the Columbine boys, even outdo them." Cho graduated from Westfield High School in 2003.

According to CBS News, "Cho Seung-Hui's violent writing [and] loner status fit the Secret Service shooter profile," referring to a 2002 U.S. Secret Service study that was conducted after the Columbine massacre, with violent writing cited as one of the most typical behavioral attributes of school shooters. The U.S. Secret Service concluded the study by saying that "[t]he largest group of [school shooters] exhibited an interest in violence in their own writings, such as poems, essays or journal entries," while school shooters' interest in other violent media was generally low.

During the spring of Cho's eighth-grade year in 1999, the Columbine High School massacre made international news and Cho was transfixed by it. "I remember sitting in Spanish class with him, right next to him, and there being something written on his binder to the effect of, you know, ' 'F' you all, I hope you all burn in hell,' which I would assume meant us, the students," said Ben Baldwin, a classmate of Cho. Cho also wrote in a school assignment about wanting to "repeat Columbine". The school contacted Cho's sister, who reported the incident to their parents. Cho was sent to a psychiatrist.

Seung-Hui Cho (Korean: 조승희 , properly Cho Seung-Hui; January 18, 1984 – April 16, 2007) was a Korean American immigrant who perpetrated the Virginia Tech shooting, killing 32 people and wounding 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, making it the deadliest school shooting in American history. An additional six people were injured jumping from windows to escape. Cho was a senior-level undergraduate student at the university and committed suicide after police breached the doors of Norris Hall, where most of the shooting had taken place. His body is buried in Fairfax, Virginia.

Cho was born on January 18, 1984, in the city of Asan, in South Korea's South Chungcheong Province. Cho and his family lived in a basement apartment in the South Korean capital of Seoul for a couple of years before immigrating to the United States. Cho's father was self-employed as a bookstore owner, but made minimum wages from the venture. Seeking better education and opportunities for his children, Cho's father immigrated to the United States in September 1992 with his wife and three children. Cho was eight years old at the time. The family first lived in Detroit, then moved to the Washington metropolitan area after learning that it had one of the largest South Korean expatriate communities in the U.S., particularly in Northern Virginia. Cho's family settled in Centreville, an unincorporated community in western Fairfax County, Virginia about 25 miles (40 km) west of Washington, D.C. Cho's father and mother opened a dry-cleaning business in Centreville. After the family moved to Centreville, Cho and his family became permanent residents of the United States as South Korean nationals. His parents became members of a local Christian church, and Cho himself was raised as a member of the religion, although he "hated his parents' strong Christian faith." According to one report, Cho had left a note in his dormitory which contained a rant referencing Christianity and denigrating "rich kids". In a video that Cho mailed to the NBC headquarters in New York he stated, "Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and defenseless people."