Saturday, August 11, 2007
State police on Tech shooter's motive: 'We just don't know'
Among other new findings, police said that Cho's planning might have included a
trial run, but they still have no evidence of what prompted Cho's attack.
By Reed Williams and Laurence Hammack
Today's news conference
Related
Complete coverage: See more photos, video, audio galleries and stories related
to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech
New details
Planning
Cho's planning might have included a practice run. Two days before the April 16
rampage, a witness spotted a "suspicious-looking male" in a hooded sweatshirt inside
Norris Hall. Another witness about that time saw a set of doors that was chained shut.
Bloody shoeprint
Early on April 16, Cho left a bloody footprint in a hallway at West Ambler Johnston
dormitory, providing the most conclusive evidence to date that he started his killing spree
by fatally shooting students Emily Hilscher and Ryan Clark in Hilscher's dorm room.
Other evidence
Police found Ryan Clark's blood on Cho's jeans and shoes, which the gunman hid in his
dorm room before his attack on Norris Hall.
Four months into their investigation of the Virginia Tech shootings, authorities still have
no idea what motivated Seung-Hui Cho's transformation from campus recluse to mass
murderer.
Although much remains unknown, police held a news conference Friday to announce
several new details:
Cho's detailed planning might have included a practice run. Two days before the
April 16 rampage, a witness spotted a "suspicious-looking male" in a hooded sweat shirt
inside Norris Hall. Another witness about that time saw a set of doors chained shut -- in
much the same way three entrances were blocked the day Cho killed 30 people and then
himself inside.
Early on April 16, Cho left a bloody footprint in a hallway at West Ambler Johnston
dormitory, providing the most conclusive evidence to date that he started his killing
spree by fatally shooting students Emily Hilscher and Ryan Clark in Hilscher's dorm
room.
That evidence was bolstered further when police found Clark's blood on Cho's jeans
and shoes, which the gunman hid in his dorm room before launching his attack on Norris
Hall.
Yet the latest details gave no hint of Cho's motives.
"At this stage, we still have no evidence that answers the persistent questions: Why West
Ambler Johnston? Why room 4040? Why Emily Hilscher?" said Virginia Tech Police
Chief Wendell Flinchum.
"We just don't know."
Police are still looking for several missing links -- including Cho's computer hard drive
and his cellphone -- that might explain a motive.
With no end to the investigation in sight, authorities are unable to say for sure that the
hooded man seen in Norris was Cho conducting a practice session two days before the
shootings.
But the sighting was considered significant enough for police to include it among the few
new details released Friday at a news conference in Roanoke.
Other details reinforced what authorities have already said about Cho, a loner whose
bizarre behavior and dark writings for an English class raised concerns on a campus
where few people knew him by name before April 16.
Handwriting analysis confirmed that it was Cho who scrawled the words "Bomb will go
off if you open the door" on a note that was taped to a door in Norris. Faculty member
Janis Terpenny found the note and gave it to janitor Pamela Tickle just minutes before
the shooting started.
Terpenny and Tickle later said they believe Cho posted the warning to discourage people
from entering a hallway and interrupting him as he chained and padlocked the doors.
While handwriting analysis linked Cho to the bomb threat, it also excluded him from
making several bomb threats on campus earlier in the month, Flinchum said.
After the shooting at West Ambler Johnston, Cho returned to his room at Harper Hall
about 7:20 a.m., changed clothes and deleted his personal e-mail account, police said.
He also mailed a multimedia package to NBC News in New York, acknowledging his
role in the shootings. At the same time, he mailed a rambling letter to Tech's English
department.
Cho's writing was incoherent and offered no insight into the shootings, Flinchum said.
About 8 a.m. -- after the Ambler Johnston shootings but before the ones at Norris -- a
student reported seeing an Asian male walking near the Tech Duck Pond. Police searches
of the pond for Cho's hard drive turned up nothing.
Later that morning, Cho was seen peering into several classrooms at Norris.
Witnesses said he was wearing a black T-shirt, cargo pants and a Virginia Tech baseball
cap. On his left arm, he had written the words "Ax Ishmael" in red ink. Police still have
no clue what those words mean.
A short time later, Cho walked into the rooms one by one, methodically shooting students
and professors.
"Not saying a word, he went room to room and returned to some of the rooms, firing
again," state police Superintendent Steve Flaherty said.
The rampage lasted about nine minutes. As police closed in, Cho -- who by then had fired
more than 170 rounds and had 203 left -- shot himself in the head.
In addition to the 30 fatalities in Norris Hall, Cho wounded 23 people. Two more people
were injured as they jumped from windows, Flaherty said. The news conference marked
the first time police have given a detailed accounting of the wounded.
Few details emerged Friday about Cho's psychiatric problems and his brush with the
mental health system 16 months before the shootings. The 23-year-old English major was
held overnight in a mental hospital after his roommate reported that he might be suicidal,
but a special justice released him the next day on orders to receive outpatient treatment.
Questions remain about whether Cho received follow-up treatment after the December
2005 hearing.
Flaherty said Cho had "multiple contacts" with mental health facilities, but declined to go
into details.
A more complete account of how Cho might have slipped through the cracks of the
mental health system is expected when a panel appointed by Gov. Tim Kaine releases its
findings later this month.
Police said it could be months before they wrap up the investigation.
"We're investigating 32 homicides, a suicide and 23 attempted homicides," Flaherty said.
"That type of investigation, by its very nature, takes a long, long time. You simply can't
put a deadline or a limit on the time it takes to conduct the investigation."
http://www.roanoke.com/vtinvestigation/wb/127587