Seung-Hui Cho was a South Korean mass murderer responsible for the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007.
54 Facts About Seung-Hui Cho
2.
Seung-Hui Cho became a US permanent resident as a South Korean national.
3.
At the time of the shooting, Seung-Hui Cho had the legal status of resident alien.
4.
Seung-Hui Cho was born on January 18,1984, in the city of Asan, in South Korea's South Chungcheong Province.
5.
Seung-Hui Cho's father was self-employed as a bookstore owner, but made minimal profits from the venture.
6.
The family lived in Detroit, then moved to the Washington metropolitan area after learning that it had one of the largest South Korean expatriate communities in the US Seung-Hui Cho's family settled in Centreville, an unincorporated community in western Fairfax County, Virginia, west of Washington, DC Seung-Hui Cho's father and mother opened a dry-cleaning business.
7.
Seung-Hui Cho's relatives thought that he was selectively mute or mentally ill and have stated in interviews that he rarely spoke or showed affection.
8.
Seung-Hui Cho attended the Poplar Tree Elementary School in Chantilly, an unincorporated, small community in Fairfax County.
9.
Seung-Hui Cho attended two secondary schools in Fairfax County: Ormond Stone Middle School in Centreville and Westfield High School in Chantilly.
10.
Seung-Hui Cho was reportedly bullied for his shyness and unusual speech mannerisms throughout high school, and at least once for his ethnicity.
11.
Seung-Hui Cho was reportedly transfixed by the news and idolized Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
12.
Seung-Hui Cho wrote in a school assignment about wanting to "repeat Columbine".
13.
In high school, Seung-Hui Cho was placed in special education under the "emotional disturbance" classification.
14.
Seung-Hui Cho was excused from oral presentations and class conversation and received speech therapy.
15.
Seung-Hui Cho continued receiving mental health therapy as well until the end of his junior year.
16.
Seung-Hui Cho clearly had the capability of talking to people.
17.
At the time of the attacks, Seung-Hui Cho lived with five roommates in a three-bedroom suite in Harper Hall.
18.
In Giovanni's class, Seung-Hui Cho had intimidated female classmates by photographing their legs under their desks and by writing violent and obscene poetry.
19.
Seung-Hui Cho described him as "actually quite arrogant and could be quite obnoxious, and was deeply, it seemed, insecure" and that she told him numerous times to go to counseling.
20.
Seung-Hui Cho said that Cho resisted speaking in class and took cell phone pictures of her.
21.
Karan Grewal and Joseph Aust, who shared a dormitory suite with Seung-Hui Cho, reported that Seung-Hui Cho was reclusive and they mutually avoided interacting with him.
22.
Once, Seung-Hui Cho stood in the doorway of his room late at night taking photographs of Koch.
23.
On one instance, Seung-Hui Cho told his roommates he had frightened a girl when he went to her dorm to look her in the eyes; Seung-Hui Cho remarked he only found "promiscuity" in her eyes.
24.
Koch and Eide stated that Seung-Hui Cho had been involved in two incidents involving two different female students, which resulted in verbal warnings by the Virginia Tech campus police.
25.
Koch stated that Seung-Hui Cho used to call him on the phone using the alias Question Mark.
26.
The female student called the campus police, stating that Seung-Hui Cho had sent her annoying messages and made an unannounced visit to her room.
27.
On December 13,2005, Seung-Hui Cho was taken by police to the psychiatric hospital of New River Valley Community Services Board.
28.
However, Seung-Hui Cho did not receive the treatment which had been ordered, as due to Virginia's health system "[n]either the court, the university nor community services officials followed up on the judge's order".
29.
Virginia officials and other law experts have argued that, under United States federal law, Barnett's order meant that Seung-Hui Cho had been "adjudicated as a mental defective" and was thus ineligible to purchase firearms under federal law; and that the state of Virginia erred in not enforcing the requirements of the federal law.
30.
However, when Seung-Hui Cho reached 18 and left for college, the family lost its legal authority over him, and their influence on him waned.
31.
Investigators later determined that Seung-Hui Cho's shoes matched a blood-stained print found in the hallway outside Hilscher's room.
32.
The police identified Seung-Hui Cho by matching immigration records with the fingerprints on the guns that were used in the shootings.
33.
Seung-Hui Cho trained at a gun range up to 3 times before the shooting.
34.
TGSCOM Inc shipped the Walther P22 to JND Pawnbrokers in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Seung-Hui Cho completed the legally required background check for the purchase transaction and took possession of the handgun.
35.
Seung-Hui Cho was able to pass both background checks and successfully complete both handgun purchases after he presented to the gun dealers his US permanent residency card, his Virginia driver's permit to prove legal age and length of Virginia residence and a checkbook showing his Virginia address, in addition to waiting the required 30-day period between each gun purchase.
36.
Seung-Hui Cho was successful at completing both handgun purchases because he did not disclose on the background questionnaire that a Virginia court had ordered him to undergo outpatient treatment at a mental health facility.
37.
On March 22,2007, Seung-Hui Cho purchased two 10-round magazines for the Walther P22 pistol through eBay from Elk Ridge Shooting Supplies in Idaho.
38.
Seung-Hui Cho bought jacketed hollow-point bullets, which result in more tissue damage than full metal jacket bullets against unarmored targets by expanding upon entering soft tissue.
39.
Law enforcement investigators used ballistics tests to determine that Seung-Hui Cho fired the Glock 19 pistol during the attacks at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and at Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus.
40.
Police investigators found that Seung-Hui Cho fired more than 170 shots during the killing spree, evidenced by technicians finding at least 17 empty magazines at the scene.
41.
The escort stated that she and Seung-Hui Cho met at a motel in Roanoke.
42.
Seung-Hui Cho said she danced for Cho and decided to leave after 15 minutes, but Cho told her he had paid for a full hour.
43.
Seung-Hui Cho stated that she then started dancing again and that thereafter Cho touched her and tried "to get on" her, at which point she pushed him away and Cho respected her wishes.
44.
On June 12,2007, Seung-Hui Cho's family released his medical records to the panel, although the panel said that the records were not enough.
45.
Seung-Hui Cho had been prescribed paroxetine years before the shooting but had been taken off it after one year.
46.
The report confirmed that Seung-Hui Cho was able to purchase two guns in violation of federal law because of Virginia's inadequate background check requirements.
47.
One hypothesis is that "Ismail Ax" represents divine retribution in reference to the Islamic belief that Abraham, the father of Ishmael, broke some idols with his axe to abolish idol worship, or to the Islamic belief that God asked Abraham to sacrifice the innocent Ishmael; no one reported Seung-Hui Cho was Muslim, and he refers to himself in Christian terms and refers to Jesus being hung on a cross which is not part of Islamic beliefs.
48.
Police officials, who reviewed the video, pictures and manifesto, concluded that the contents of the media package had marginal value in helping them learn and understand why Seung-Hui Cho committed the killings.
49.
Pete Williams, an MSNBC justice correspondent, said that Seung-Hui Cho lacked logical governance, suggesting that Seung-Hui Cho was under severe emotional distress.
50.
Approximately one year before the incident at Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho wrote a paper for an assignment in an "Intro to Short Fiction" class.
51.
In that paper, Seung-Hui Cho wrote about a mass school murder that was planned by the protagonist of the story.
52.
Additionally, in March 2006 at Virginia Tech's 22nd Annual Research Symposium and Exposition, Seung-Hui Cho submitted a poem titled "Spear me down, Heaven" to the Advanced Undergraduate category.
53.
Edward Falco, a playwriting professor at Virginia Tech, has acknowledged that Seung-Hui Cho wrote both the released plays in his class.
54.
The surname "general" stemmed from the idea that Seung-Hui Cho killed numerous people while being only one, thus making him a genius tactician.