The killer was a “quiet” student
Blacksburg. Who was Seung-hui Cho ? After killing 32 people at Virginia Tech on April 16, the 23-year old student from Centerville (Virginia) shot himself, badly disfiguring his face. 48 hours after the shooting, investigators are still piecing together the portrait of a mysterious murderer. At Virginia Tech, Seung-hui, an English major, was one of 26 000 students. Carolyn Rude, the head of the English department at Virginia Tech, remembers him as “quiet” and “troubled”. His writings had prompted his professor to pull him out of a creative writing class. One such writing was posted on April 17 on The Smoking Gun website. One one-act play named “Richard McBeef” tells the story of a 13-year old boy who is violently accusing his stepfather of molesting him. “I must kill Dick”, the boy says. The play ends with the stepfather killing the boy. In 2005, two girls had complained that Seung-hui Cho had been harassing them. In both cases, police officers spoke with the student, eventually asking him to meet with a counselor, which he did voluntarily. Mr Cho was then taken to a mental heath center under a temporary detention order. The two girls never pressed charges and it was the last time police had contact with Mr. Cho in that case. Official records show that the 23-year old student got a speeding ticket on April 7 and was scheduled to appear in court on May 23. While investigators are trying to understand what triggered the worst mass shooting in US history, students and faculty members describe Mr Cho as a deeply troubled soul, who kept to himself. The student was born in South Korea in 1984 and arrived in the US with his parents in 1992. The son of immigrants who run a dry cleaning business, he was a legal resident who renewed his green card in 2003. He was an English major, who had excelled in high school. “Teach me how to speak / Teach me how to share / Teach me where to go / Tell me will love be there (love be there )” In his non-descriptive room in the Harpers Hall dorm, Mr. Chi had hung the words of “Shine”, a song by Collective Soul. The police also found rants about rich kids. According to his professor, he often kept his sunglasses in class and had apparently no friends or girlfriend. The murderer, who watched TV wrestling shows, had planned his massacre for weeks. He bought one of the two guns he used – a Glock 9 mm – from Roanoke Firearms, a gun shop in Roanoke, 40 miles away from Blacksburg. The police found the receipt on his body as he lay dead at the scene of the shooting. Jean-Cosme Delaloye A similar version of this story was published on April 19 in 24heures and Tribune de Genève in Switzerland CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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