From saturdays Globe and Mail:
Read the whole article here - it is quite lengthy:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... ernational
Young Mr. Cho's elders, most of them still in Korea, remember a slight child, with deep brown eyes and jet black hair, a wan silhouette who never developed any the of the rough-and-tumble traits typical of little boys. With Mr. Cho, there was no chattering, no persistent asking of questions, no real sound. "He was quiet from the beginning, compared to his sister, who was very smart," recalls his 81-year-old grandfather. His family wondered if perhaps Mr. Cho was unusually gentle, troubled by the Korean language, or born deaf. When forced, he talked. But he spoke so seldom at times, his relatives wondered if the boy had forgotten how. Even when they prodded him, it failed to shake him out of his emotional detachment.
"If I nudged him and tried to talk with him, he wouldn't answer," his grandmother remembered last week.
Mr. Cho's maternal grandfather, Kim Hyong-shik, was stumped by the child's coldness.
"He would never run to me like my other grandchildren," he said. "I thought he might be . . . dumb."
While Mr. Cho's relatives' disdain seemed to grow quickly -- ("He was never an adorable boy," a great-aunt spat) -- his mother doted, fretting over her child, making frequent pilgrimages to church to pray her son would change.
"Normally, mothers and sons talk. There was none of that for them," remembers great-aunt Kim Yang-soon.
The mother's anxious efforts would be repeated once the family reached the United States, as Hyang-im made the rounds of medical specialists, trying to find the key to unlock Mr. Cho from his isolation.
Although Mr. Cho's family members back in Korea had limited contact with his parents after they reached the U.S., some recall receiving news from Hyang-im of Mr. Cho's early medical examinations. While the relatives seem muddled on precisely what Mr. Cho's diagnosis was -- their accounts range from clinical depression and withdrawal to savant syndrome -- it's clear the boy was not given a clean bill of mental health.
For Mr. Cho's mother, that was a damning fact.
"She was heartbroken," said Hyang-im's aunt, Kim Yang-soon. "After they moved to America, she hoped his silences would ease as he grew older. But in fact they got worse."
At middle school, students remember Mr. Cho carrying on his antisocial behaviour. His difficulty with English only served to widen the gulf between him and other students, some of whom saw him as a target ripe for bullying.
"There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him," recalled Stephanie Roberts, a classmate of Mr. Cho's who heard about the assaults from friends, but never witnessed any.
"They would really make fun of him," she said. "I just remember he was a shy kid who didn't really want to talk to anybody."
From those who recall Mr. Cho's bespectacled face from the throngs of students on Westfield's campus, there's no sign that Mr. Cho was affected by any of the pomp. Chris Davids, a current Virginia Tech senior who graduated from high school with Mr. Cho, said that even as a teen, Mr. Cho would rebuff other students' attempts at making conversation. He tried hard to remain silent and, unless threatened with failure by teachers, refrained from speaking aloud. One of the few times Mr. Cho did read out in English class, Mr. Davids recalled, the teen sounded "like he had something in his mouth." His strangeness caused other students to laugh, taunting him: "Go back to China."
From those who recall Mr. Cho's bespectacled face from the throngs of students on Westfield's campus, there's no sign that Mr. Cho was affected by any of the pomp. Chris Davids, a current Virginia Tech senior who graduated from high school with Mr. Cho, said that even as a teen, Mr. Cho would rebuff other students' attempts at making conversation. He tried hard to remain silent and, unless threatened with failure by teachers, refrained from speaking aloud. One of the few times Mr. Cho did read out in English class, Mr. Davids recalled, the teen sounded "like he had something in his mouth." His strangeness caused other students to laugh, taunting him: "Go back to China."
Then, in October, 2005, in an English class, his straitlaced façade began to fray. His submissions for poet Nikki Giovanni's creative writing class were littered with expletives and sickening scenarios that shone a light into the dark corners of his mind. His recital of a particularly "intimidating" poem he penned scared 63 students away from the class, prompting Ms. Giovanni to confront him.
But Mr. Cho was indifferent, and seemed set on a path. In one seminar, he refused to identify himself by name, using a question mark as his moniker. In another, unable to control the temptation to take photographs of female students under the desk, he found himself in yet more trouble.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas break, in November, 2005, Mr. Cho did something completely uncharacteristic: He called a girl. Then he went to see her in person. His advances so unnerved the girl, another V-Tech student, she called police. No charges were laid against Mr. Cho, although the resulting chat he had with university police marked the beginning of a string of run-ins -- prompted by more messages Mr. Cho sent to another female student -- that coloured the following weeks.
By Dec. 13, Mr. Cho was out of sorts and voluntarily sought help from police and talked with a counsellor. A Montgomery County magistrate said there was probable cause to deem Mr. Cho "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization." Mr. Cho was committed to a nearby psychiatric hospital for evaluation. He was clearly suffering from a mental illness. However, he was deemed not to be a danger to anyone but himself. The next day he was released.
In his more recent writings, "nightmare" plays he submitted for class, Mr. Cho became increasingly deranged. He documented bloody fictional attacks with crude weaponry, and laced his scripts with profanities. In class, he was less responsive than ever, staring off into space, forgetting to remove his headphones, ignoring still more classmates who tried to get him to talk. The most interest he seemed to take in a class was one that examined contemporary horror films and literature -- students from the class recalled him actually taking notes.
Inexplicably, a few weeks ago, Mr. Cho stopped going to class. From information gleaned throughout the week from police and university officials, it has become clear that Mr. Cho devoted much of the last three weeks to preparations for his final act: buying guns, making a video of himself and penning a diatribe railing against rich kids and excess.
"I just wish he would have talked," said his mother's aunt, Kim Yang-soon. "There is an old saying in Korea that people who won't talk will end up killing themselves. That is what happens when the resentment builds up."
