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The 23-year-old South Korean gunman who committed the
deadliest school shooting in US history was a disturbed, isolated
man whose gory writings troubled his classmates and teachers.
Cho Seung Hui moved to the United
States when he was eight, and was in his final year of studying
English at Virginia Tech where in a fit of rage Monday he gunned
down at least 30 students before fatally shooting himself.
Authorities found few people on
campus who knew Cho well, since he was a loner who rarely spoke in
class and whose writings opened a window onto an unstable and
violent mind.
“When I first heard about the
multiple shootings . . . my first thought was about my friends, and
my second thought was ‘I bet it was Seung Cho,’” said Ian
McFarlane, a former classmate of Cho’s who posted two of his plays
online.
“He would sit by himself
whenever possible, and didn’t like talking to anyone. I don’t
think I’ve ever actually heard his voice before,” wrote
McFarlane on aol.com.
He was “what one would
typically think of as a ‘school shooter’—a loner, obsessed
with violence, and serious personal problems,” he said in an
article next to links to the two plays, “Richard McBeef” and
“Mr. Brownstone.”
In the end, his writings may
serve as his last testament and offer the only clues to his motive.
One of his plays describes a
13-year-old boy’s escalating fight with his stepfather. “I hate
him. Must kill Dick. Must kill Dick. Dick must die.” The boy
stuffs a cereal bar down his stepfather’s throat. Then, the elder
man “lifts his large arms and swings a deadly blow.”
The other play takes its name
from the Guns ‘N’ Roses song “Mr. Brownstone,” and tells of
a crew of 17-year-old who skip school to gamble at a casino and
fantasize about killing their professor.
The writings were shocking enough
that a professor had pulled him from class, CNN reported.
“There were several of us in
English who became concerned when we had him in class, for various
reasons. And so I contacted some people to try to get some help for
him because I was deeply concerned,” Lucinda Roy, one of Cho’s
professors, said.
Roy said she privately tutored
him for a time, and added that throughout her teaching career she
had never seen a student as troubled as Cho.
Stephanie Derry, who studied
playwriting with Cho, told the school newspaper, Collegiate Times,
that the gunman’s dramas were “really morbid and grotesque”
and that other students used to joke about Cho’s creepy work.
ABC news and the Chicago Tribune
reported Tuesday that Cho left a long, rambling note in his
dormitory room, railing against “rich kids,” “debauchery”
and “deceitful charlatans” on campus, the Chicago Tribune
reported.
“You caused me to do this,”
he wrote.
Cho also died with the words
“Ismail Ax” in red ink on the inside of one of his arms, the
Tribune reported, citing unidentified sources.
Police suspect Cho first killed
two people at a campus dormitory, then returned to his own dorm to
write the rambling invective, re-arm and then storm the classroom
building where he chained shut the doors and stalked from room to
room killing 30 people and himself.
Cho was among the 2,000
foreigners from more than 110 countries attending the 26,000-student
university in Blacksburg, Virginia. Cho’s family lived in
Centreville, Virginia, a suburb of Washington.
The Tribune said his family runs
a dry cleaning business while his sister graduated from the elite
Princeton University.
South Korea’s government
expressed “indescribable surprise and shock” after Cho was
identified.
Cho had shown recent signs of
violent, aberrant behavior, including setting a fire in a dorm room
and allegedly stalking some women, the Tribune said, citing an
unnamed investigative source.
 --AFP
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