The Va. Tech Gunman: Well Prepared

The man who murdered at least 30 people in the nation's worst shooting massacre was a 23-year-old English major named Cho Seung-Hui, the police chief at Virginia Tech said this morning. The chief, Wendell Flinchum, held out the possibility that a second shooter might have been involved, and he said authorities could not definitively say that Cho killed two people in a dorm earlier Monday morning in addition to the 30 slaughtered in Norris Hall. But Cho's fingerprints were apparently found on a gun used in both buildings. Cho fatally shot himself in the face before police could engage him, but officials were able to identify him from the fingerprints in his immigration documents, according to ABC News.

A citizen of South Korea, Cho moved to the U.S. when he was 8, according to the Chicago Tribune. A legal resident of the U.S., he mostly grew up outside Washington in Centreville, Va., where his family has a dry-cleaning business. Cho graduated from Westfield High in nearby Chantilly in 2003.

Cho had recently developed an interest in firearms. According to a Roanoke, Va., news site, a police affidavit says Cho possessed Walther P22 and Glock 9 mm handguns — both expensive, accurate guns favored by gun enthusiasts and cops. One federal source told TIME it appears that as many as "a couple of hundred" rounds were fired during the rampage. Cho's extraordinary killing effectiveness suggests someone who was trained, or who trained himself, in "execution-style" killing, according to the federal source.

Cho bought his first gun, the 9 mm, on March 13, a source told ABC. The Walther was purchased just last week. Virginia law prohibits buying more than one handgun in a 30-day period. It appears Cho waited the full month before buying the Walther, suggesting he didn't just snap. According to the Virginia State Police, as an alien with a green card, Cho would have been able to buy guns legally as long as he provided proof of his residence.

An affidavit state police filed to search Cho's dorm room (2121 Harper Hall) suggests Cho had been planning mayhem for some time. It says that a note containing a bomb threat was found near his body; the note is similar to two other anonymous bomb threats issued against engineering buildings at the school last week. Cho may have probed the campus emergency response with the previous notes.

The affidavit said he is believed to have possessed "multiple guns including but not limited to" the Walther and the Glock.

Investigators are still looking for Cho's motives, but Cho left a discursive note in his dorm room that offered some explanations, authorities told ABC. The only quote released so far is this cryptic line: "You caused me to do this."

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, told the Associated Press that "there was some concern about him." She said his creative writing was disturbing enough that Cho had been referred to the university counseling service, but she said she didn't know what the outcome was.

The scene at Virginia Tech after the slayings was somber and unexpectedly tranquil for the site of a recent mass murder. Gusts tore through the campus' streets Monday night, which were largely free of cars thanks to police blockades. Doors to university buildings were locked; handmade signs affixed to them were euphemistic: "Closed due to the incident."

Students at the London Underground, a nearby bar, walked heavily, many cradling Pabst Blue Ribbons and shots of liquor. Some wrapped arms around one another.

There was also a vigil Monday night near Norris. Freshman Ryan Godlewski, 18, visited the vigil twice. He was surprised more students didn't show up. "It was disappointing to see so few people here," he said of the dozen students gathered during his second trip. "I wanted to bang on people's doors and get them to come here. I wanted to be with people tonight." Godlewski said his parents want him to return immediately to New Hampshire even though the semester has three weeks left. He's thinking about transferring for his sophomore year. "After today, though, I feel like if something this horrible can happen in a place like [rural Viriginia], it can happen anywhere," he said.

Other students said the school was being treated unfairly by some in the media: "It's just tough to hear all this talk about our school," said freshman Stephen Ellis. "It's probably one of the safest places you could go. Blacksburg is a calm town. This is out of character for this area. One idiot had to go and ruin this all."

Sophomore Dustin Lynch echoed that sentiment: "The press and media have really been taking it hard to the security and police officers. Virginia Tech is a safe campus... You can't possibly prepare for a situation of this scale or something like this. You can't prepare for one crazy person, especially at a campus of this size."

President Bush and the First Lady attended a convocation on the Virginia Tech campus Tuesday afternoon.

with reporting by Elaine Shannon, Tracy Samantha Schmidt and Caitlin Sullivan/Blacksburg, Va.

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