Killer sent photographs and video to broadcaster between shootings

The man who shot dead 32 people at Virginia Tech took time out after committing the first two murders to post pictures and video to a national television network, police revealed yesterday.

Korean-Born English student Cho Seung-Hui sent a CD-Rom containing video footage of himself reading out an 1,800-word profanity-laced tirade about "getting even" and 29 digital photographs of himself brandishing weapons, 11 of which show him pointing a gun at the camera.

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NBC Nightly News last night broadcasted excerpts of the video, in which Cho said: "You had a hundred billion chances and ways to avoid today. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

The package helped answer one of the many mysteries surrounding Cho and his motives ­ why there was a two-hour time lag between the first two killings and the rest of them, which took place in a teaching building housing the engineering department.

It surfaced on a day when numerous warning signs that Cho was psychologically troubled and prone to unusual and alarming behaviour were revealed. Campus police disclosed that he had been investigated for the sexual harassment of two students 17 months ago and was admitted to hospital after he was diagnosed with suicidal depression.

One of his teachers threatened to quit her job if he did not get out of her class. The chair of the English department sat down with him and expressed concern to her superiors. The students who reported him complained he had taken inappropriate photographs of them with his phone.

University officials said that nothing about his behaviour hinted at the kind of criminal enterprise he carried out. The women who complained to the police never filed charges, and one them described his actions as " annoying" rather than threatening.

The police have confirmed he left behind a typed eight-page note in which he railed against "rich kids" and what he saw as double standards on campus. "You caused me to do this," he wrote at one point. This appeared to be same text as read out in the video.

The New York Times also reported that prescription drugs used to treat psychological disorders were found among his effects. Almost every perpetrator of a mass shooting in the United States in recent years had either been on prescription drugs or had stopped taking them shortly before erupting in violence.

Cho's behaviour first became an issue in November 2005, when his angry, profanity-laced creative writing alarmed a number of English faculty members. Lucinda Roy, then the faculty chair, sent samples of his writing to the campus police and counselling services. Professor Roy also encouraged Cho to seek help. "But I couldn't force him to do it," she said. She felt that he might be suicidal. And she described talking to him as "like talking to a hole ... he was not really there".

Nikki Giovanni, a noted poet who teaches at Virginia Tech, said she became alarmed because Cho's behaviour and writing were causing other students to drop out of her class. "I was willing to resign before I was going to continue with him," she told CNN. She told him to stop writing what he was writing. "He said, 'You can't make me'," she said. "He was writing just weird things. I saw the plays, but he was writing poetry, it was intimidating."

After the complaints by the two female students, Cho spoke voluntarily to the police and was escorted to the Carilion Saint Albans Behavioural Health Centre, a mental health institution.

None of that, of course, provides a motive for the shootings. The two women who complained to the campus police were not among the victims. Neither were any immediately obvious classmates or professors. There is still no explanation, either, of why the shootings began in a residential hall and continued, two hours later, in the teaching building. After the first attacks, campus police suspected the boyfriend of the first victim, Emily Hilscher. The boyfriend, Karl Thornhill, was questioned and remains of interest to the investigation, police said. For the moment, though, they continue to presume that Cho acted alone.

Cho's words

* "You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option..."

* "I didn't have to do it. I could have left. I could have fled. But now I am no longer running. If not for me, for my children and my brothers and sisters that you [expletive]. I did it for them..."

* "When the time came, I did it, I had to ... You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today ... you just want to crucify me ... But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

* "Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats ... Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfil your hedonistic needs. You had everything."