Virginia Tech Shooter's Files Found

By Rachel Stockton (rachels@foodconsumer.org)

In the aftermath of any school shooting, there is an intense effort among officials and police investigators to find out what "went wrong" in the psyche of the shooter. In an effort to prevent another tragedy from occurring, records are checked to ascertain whether or not warning signs were ignored.

After the Virginia Tech massacre in mid-April of 2007, investigators scrambled to locate the records of Seung Hui Cho, but to no avail. The records seemingly "disappeared" among the chaos.

That is, until now. Virginia's Governor Kaine announced at a press conference that Cho's records have been found in the home of the former director of the University's counseling center. Although the contents of the files have not been revealed, Kaine is pressing for their release to the public as soon as possible.

Robert C. Miller left the University one year prior to the shootout. For reasons that investigators hope to discover, Miller took the files with him, which would presumably be against protocol. Lawyers representing two families who lost their children uncovered the whereabouts of the file. The suit, filed against the state, the University, several University VIPs, and a local mental health agency, alleges that professionals who treated Cho acted with gross negligence.

While the details of the records are not fully known, investigators do know that in December of 2005, Cho began acting strangely. He was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons during this time, and was subsequently ordered to complete outpatient therapy.

Investigators will likely delve into the reasons why the files weren't found sooner, and why Miller was allowed to remove them from the premises in the first place.

Officials also hope to be able to ascertain whether or not those who saw Cho in 2005 applied due diligence in their efforts to treat him, or if there was no follow up, allowing Cho to disappear into student body miscellany until his madness drove him act on his violent fantasies.