Virginia Tech gunman's blood-drenched writings unnerved students, teachers

BLACKSBURG, Va. (CP) - The killer in the bloodiest-ever gun massacre in the United States has been revealed to a Virginia Tech campus in mourning as an erratic 23-year-old English major, an eerily quiet loner who unnerved classmates with his violent, twisted writing. Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korean who moved to the United States with his family 14 years ago, left behind a rambling rant before a terrifying rampage that some students said they could see coming - but officials can't yet explain.

Police related chilling details about the undergraduate Tuesday as thousands of weeping students and family members of victims gathered to grieve at a ceremony attended by President George W. Bush before a candlelight vigil late in the day.

"You caused me to do this," wrote Cho, railing against religion and rich kids at the university of some 26,000 students in Blacksburg, a tight-knit southwestern Virginia town dominated by Virginia Tech.

Increasingly troubled in the days before he snapped and killed 32 people, including a Canadian professor, Cho committed suicide before SWAT teams could nab him.

Authorities say they're poring over documents from his dorm room to develop a better picture of the man who was once referred to counselling by school officials and wrote nightmarish plays that included chainsaws and other weapons.

Cho bought a Glock 19 handgun and a box of bullets five weeks ago in a nearby Roanoke, Va., shop, setting off renewed debate about the ease of buying weapons in the United States.

The undergraduate student, who also had a 22-calibre pistol, left a swath of blood and personal belongings of students scattered through the second floor of Norris Hall, following the shooting of two others at a residence on campus earlier Monday.

Police said it's "certainly reasonable" to assume Cho killed them too, adding they have no evidence there was an accomplice.

The victims include former Nova Scotia resident Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a foreign language professor who taught at Virginia Tech with her husband, a horticulture teacher.

Many on campus are still angry that police and university officials, who said they thought the original violence was an isolated domestic-related matter, took more than two hours to inform the campus by e-mail

© The Canadian Press, 2007