Gunman's writings raised concerns

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- The gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre was a sullen loner who alarmed professors and classmates with his twisted, violence-drenched creative writing and left a rambling note in his dorm room raging against women and rich students.

A chilling picture emerged Tuesday of Cho Seung-Hui -- a 23-year-old senior majoring in English -- a day after the bloodbath that left 33 people dead, including Cho, who killed himself as police closed in.

News reports said he may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic.

Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of," former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said Cho's writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university's counseling service.

Cho -- who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry cleaners -- left a note in his dorm room that was found after the bloodbath.

A government official, who spoke of condition of anonymity because he had not been authorized to discuss details of the case, said the note had been described to him as "anti-woman, anti-rich kid."

Monday's rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart -- first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including Cho, died. Two handguns -- a 9 mm and a .22-caliber -- were found in the classroom building.

Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But State Police ballistics tests showed one gun was used in both.