Cho Seung-Hui, 23, has been identified as the gunman who massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech university. He was a student from South Korea and a troubled loner whose behaviour had sometimes alarmed those around him.
Cho, who immigrated to the United States 15 years ago and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., killed himself after opening fire in classrooms where he apparently chained doors to prevent escape before cutting down 30 victims one by one.
He used two handguns, which police on Tuesday confirmed he had purchased legally at a Virginia gun shop, and stopped only to reload.
Neighbours, roommates, and teachers described Cho as quiet and withdrawn, but one former classmate said he was not surprised when he found out the shooter's identity.
In two plays that were said to be written by Cho in the university, one characters talks of paedophilia and how to attack each other with chainsaws, and another character talks about how disgruntled students discuss their desire to kill a teacher they compare to a "parasite."
The dead were found in at least four classrooms as well as a stairwell. Cho was found sprawled among them, having taken his own life.
The campus, where there are more than 25,000 full-time students, reeled with shock and grief as crowd of several thousand filled most of the field in the neighbouring football arena for the memorial service on a sunny spring day.
As students and teachers grieved at a tearful memorial service led by President George W. Bush, police said Cho Seung-Hui, 23, acted alone on Monday April 16th in carrying out the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
I wonder what turned this 23 year old man to a monster with no feelings. Buying a gun and aiming at his own schoolmates, not to injure, but to kill them, after locking the doors with chains to ensure that no student got out. What could they have done to him? What demon possessed him to carry out such a dastardly act? Is it his upbringing? Could it be his family orientation? Who are his parents? How did they let their child grow up with so much hatred inside him? Or could it be the society he grew up in? Who do you blame for something like this apart from the killer? What motivated him? And why the heck is it so easy to buy a gun in the US? There are so many questions going through my head right now. I can never understand a thing like this. What could turn a once-cute little happy boy with hope for a better future to resent that future and want to end ASAP. Not just his own future, but the future of 32 other youths. He should have died alone...God I wish he had died alone. The 32 others had done nothing wrong. They were just at the wrong place at the right time. In yoruba, they say 'akoba adaba, oloun ma jari'.
To think of the number of families that will be in mourning right now. It's heartbreaking. May God take care of the souls of those we lost, amen.
