I was going to give you all a break and move on to something else… but jeezzz, there is so much fodder for blogging in this examination of the Virginia Tech killer. One reader just asked if it was likely we would learn more about his life in high school or earlier. Well, it just so happens I watched some coverage last night that can answer that very question…


Two girls that attended his high school were interviewed, as well as a boy that attended high school with him and also attended Virginia Tech, and another male high school classmate. Also his suitemates at Virginia Tech were interviewed.


One girl passed Cho in the high school hall at the same time every day. He never made eye contact. He never smiled or engaged in any way. In fact, she said he worked so hard at being invisible that he became invisible. And that comment jabbed me, because I am acutely aware of how much trouble I have making eye contact with Amy. I have no problem making eye contact with anyone else, but after spending more than a decade trying to formulate a relationship with someone who fought it with as much effort as I tried to build it, I finally caved in… I finally quit trying. And to protect myself from the constant pain of no relationship, I quit really looking at her. She lied to me constantly and never really looked back at me… so I gave up. And it really, really bothers me that I find it so easy and so, shall I say, natural, any more to not look at her. SO… I completely understand how Cho became invisible to this high school girl.


The other girl was in a writing class. They wrote plays and Cho's first one was very disturbing... describing death and killings. Cho was aloof and didn't take criticism so the class asked no questions. The second one was even worse. Although it was required for the play's author to explain his writing, Cho refused and never said anything more than what he had written in the play.

The second male classmate described him as "nonexpressive, no life in his face, no soul, no charisma" and stated he never saw him with a friend or talking to anyone.


On Hannity & Colmes last night, a mental health professional who had spoken to high school peers of Cho's felt there was enough evidence to say that other mental health professionals should have been empowered to intervene.... someone should have been able to figure this out.


And this continued into college. The boy who never heard Cho speak one word in high school happened to see him on campus in college… at Virginia Tech. Same thing—head down, no eye contact, no speech. His roommates said he never talked.

A professor of Cho's at VT said he was "mean, trying to bully me, trying to bully the class...One of the most profoundly depressed and lonely people" she had ever met.


In 2005 a Virginia court order called Cho an "imminent danger to others".


I could be way off base here, but I am guessing we will be hard pressed to learn much about Cho’s family. I never heard much about and never saw photos of the families of the Columbine killers… and they were Caucasian. Asian families are even more private. The actions of the child are certain to be perceived to bring shame on the family even more than would occur in America. Women are more subservient to men, so I anticipate it will be a very closed system.


But, in answer to the reader’s question… yes, this pathology went back at least as far as high school.

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