Family 'could hold key to Virginia Tech inquiry'

The family of Seung-Hui Cho might be able to help authorities understand the troubled 23-year-old who killed 32 people at a university last week, Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine said.

Kaine said he has not spoken to Cho’s family, but he believes from a statement Cho’s sister released last week that the family may have insights that could help officials learn more about what led to the violence.

“I detected in that … statement the sister gave profound regret and sorrow for everyone’s loss, but I just detected a spirit in that – I just have a feeling – that if there’s some way … in helping us learn what happened and avoiding it in the future, I think they might want to,” Kaine said.

“That could be helpful to other families that are having trouble with youngsters.”

The massacre at Virginia Tech began when a man and woman were shot and killed in a dormitory.

More than two hours later, 30 more were slain in classrooms about half a mile from the dorm before Cho shot himself.

Meanwhile, authorities said Cho’s body was made available to his family to be buried or cremated.

Attempts to reach the family about the status of Cho’s body were unsuccessful yesterday.

The family went into hiding in the aftermath of the April 16 shootings.

But in the statement that spoke of the family’s torment, Sun-Kyung Cho wrote that her brother “has made the world weep” and that the family feels “hopeless, helpless and lost”.

“This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn’t know this person,” she wrote.

Kaine said the statement moved him and he sensed in it a desire by the family to help.

On Tuesday, Kaine met leaders of northern Virginia’s large Korean-American community, some of whom knew the Cho family, he said.

“Some were saying: ’We know this family and … you need to know of their efforts to seek mental health counselling for their son and how difficult it was.’ Well, we do need to know those efforts,” Kaine said.

Cho left South Korea with his family in 1992. His parents settled in northern Virginia and found work at a Washington-area dry cleaner.

An eight-member commission Kaine has appointed to review the massacre, the circumstances that led to it and the response afterward will make mental health issues a major focus of its work over the summer, he said.

Whether the Chos address the panel, however, will be the family’s decision, Kaine said.