Blacksburg, Va. – In Cho Seung-Hui’s twisted and tortured mind, the Columbine killers were martyrs on a par with Jesus Christ. And the world had forced him to join their ranks.
Friendless by choice, he accepted Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as his brothers, and dreamed that his violent acts would bear “children.” “You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today,” the 23-year-old Cho growled in a harsh monotone on a self-made video mailed to NBC News after he began his deadly assault on the Virginia Tech campus. “But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.” In a package addressed by his murderous alter ego, Ismail Ax, Cho left his final message to the world: A series of videos, pictures and writings filled with violent, expletive-filled language at a world he felt was slowly killing him. It didn’t explain why he did it.
It did show his anger.
“You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience,” he said in a video manifesto, which was accompanied by photos showing him aiming the two handguns he used to snuff out the lives of 32 students and teachers, and then himself.
“You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.” The package, which was opened at NBC’s headquarters in New York two days after the deadliest one-man shooting spree in modern U.S.
history, bore a Postal Service stamp showing that it had been mailed at a Virginia post office at 9:01 a.m. Monday, about an hour and 45 minutes after Cho first opened fire.
That would explain one of the biggest mysteries about the massacre: Where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second fusillade, at a classroom building.
“Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats,” he says, apparently reading from a manifesto. “Your golden necklaces weren’t enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn’t enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough. Those weren’t enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything.” Some of the pictures show him smiling; others show him frowning and snarling. Some depict him brandishing two weapons at a time, one in each hand. He wears a khaki-colored military-style vest, fingerless gloves, a black T-shirt, a backpack and a backwards, black baseball cap. Another photo shows him swinging a hammer two-fisted. Another shows an angry-looking Cho holding a gun to his temple.
NBC said the package contained a 23-page written statement, 28 video clips and 43 photos. The package was sent by overnight delivery, and arrived at NBC Tuesday afternoon, NBC News President Steve Capus said. It was opened at NBC today, and had the wrong ZIP code, the newtork said.
An alert postal employee brought the package to NBC’s attention after noticing the Blacksburg return address and a name similar to the words reportedly found scrawled in red ink on Cho’s arm after the bloodbath, “Ismail Ax,” NBC said.
“I didn’t have to do it. I could have left. I could have fled,” he says. “But now I am no longer running. If not for me, for my children and my brothers and sisters that you (expletive). I did it for them.” He also refers to “martyrs like Eric and Dylan” – a reference to the teenage killers in the Columbine High massacre.
Capus said that the network notified the FBI today around noon. The FBI asked NBC to hold off reporting on it so that the bureau could look at it first, and NBC complied, finally breaking the story just before a police announcement of the package at 4:30 p.m., he said.
Capus said it was clear Cho videotaped himself, because he could be seen leaning in to shut off the camera.
State Police Spokeswoman Corinne Geller cautioned that, while the package was mailed between the two shootings, police have not inspected the footage and have yet to establish exactly when the tape was made.
A law enforcement official said Cho’s letter also refers in the same sentence to President Bush and John Mark Karr, who falsely confessed last year to having killed child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media.
The video came to light on the same day that more troubling signs about Cho’s past began to emerge. Earlier today, authorities disclosed that in November and December 2005, two women complained to campus police that they had received calls and computer messages from Cho. But the women considered the messages “annoying,” not threatening, and neither pressed charges, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.
Neither woman was among the victims in the massacre, police said.
After the second complaint about his behavior, the university obtained a temporary detention order and took Cho away because an acquaintance reported he might be suicidal, authorities said.
Police did not identify the acquaintance.
On Dec. 13, 2005, a magistrate ordered Cho to undergo an evaluation at Carilion St. Albans, a private psychiatric hospital.
The magistrate signed the order after an initial evaluation found probable cause that Cho was a danger to himself or others as a result of mental illness.
The next day, according to court records, doctors at Carilion conducted further examination and a special justice, Paul M.
Barnett, approved outpatient treatment.
A medical examination conducted Dec. 14 reported that that Cho’s “affect is flat. … He denies suicidal ideations. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder. His insight and judgment are normal.” The court papers indicate that Barnett checked a box that said Cho “presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness.” Barnett did not check the box that would indicate a danger to others.
It is unclear how long Cho stayed at Carilion, though court papers indicate he was free to leave as of Dec. 14. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said Cho had been continually enrolled at Tech and never took a leave of absence.
A spokesman for Carilion St. Albans would not comment.
Though the incidents with the women did not result in criminal charges, police referred Cho to the university’s disciplinary system, Flinchum said. But Ed Spencer, assistant vice president of student affairs, would not comment on any disciplinary proceedings, saying federal law protects students’ medical privacy even after death.
One of the first Virginia Tech officials to recognize Cho’s problems was award-winning poet Nikki Giovanni, who kicked him out of her introduction to creative writing class in late 2005.
Students in Giovanni’s class had told their professor that Cho was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with his cell phone. Female students refused to come to class. She said she considered him “mean” and “a bully.” Lucinda Roy, professor of English at Virginia Tech, said that she, too, relayed her concerns to campus police and various other college units after Cho displayed antisocial behavior in her class and handed in disturbing writing assignments.
But she said authorities “hit a wall” in terms of what they could do “with a student on campus unless he’d made a very overt threat to himself or others.” Cho resisted her repeated suggestion that he undergo counseling, Roy said.
Some students refused to second-guess the university.
“Who would’ve woken up in the morning and said, ‘Maybe this student who’s just troubled is really going to do something this horrific?”‘ said Elizabeth Hart, a communications major and a spokeswoman for the student government.
