
Harper Hall at the Virginia Tech campus on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 in Blacksburg, Virginia. Harper Hall is where shooter Cho Seung-hui lived.
A reporter was able to enter and go up to the second floor wing where Cho lived. It's a nondescript place: students live two to a room in three-room suites, each of the suites attached to a smallish common area. The dorm is co-ed by room. The second floor was being patrolled by a security officer. "You have to leave here now," he said.
Related Articles When a School Learns to Mourn The Gun Lobby's Counterattack Where Cho Bought His Deadly Weapon Behind the Killings, a Troubled Mind South Korea's Collective Guilt Inside Cho Seung Hui's Dorm How to Make Campuses Safer The Virginia Tech Victims A Partial Biographical List of The Dead Fatal Shootings at Colleges and Schools Photo Essay Night Falls on Virginia Tech Scenes From the Shooting From CNN.com Killings at Va. Tech Local Coverage Virginia Tech's Website The latest information from the campus Roanoke.com/The Roanoke Times Regional News A List of Confirmed Dead (CollegiateTimes.com) From the TIME Archive Gunman Kills Three at Virgina School After the School Shootings Police Seeking Motive In Montreal College Shooting Bush Takes On School Shootings The Columbine Tapes The Columbine Papers: What Their Parents Knew Columbine Report: More Details Than Answers |
It is no accident that very few of the several dozen students entering or exiting Harper today knew Cho. According to two who were aware of him, he was quiet, serious and, in the words of one, "gloomy."
"He seemed like a down person," said Mike Lee, a freshman from Fairfax, Va. "Like, gloomy."
Another student, a 21-year-old from Woodbridge, Va., recalled having lunch with Cho two years ago when both were sophomores. The chief reason for the lunch was to see if Cho could be made to laugh.
"I didn't know him," said the student. "He was quiet." But a roommate who had known Cho in high school in Chantilly suggested during their sophomore year that they ought to try to bring Cho out of his funk. "We'd try to talk to him. but he'd barely respond. So one day my roommate challenged himself to get him to talk to us. We told him a joke." Cho did laugh that day, according to the student.
Harper houses more than 300 students, and today it was clear that even those who lived down the hall didn't know Cho. The white corridor walls inside are largely undecorated; there's a Jewish awareness week flyer, a poster about recent thefts in the dorm, announcements for various groups on orange or purple paper. The campus is now quiet and unpopulated. All across the south campus, it looked like moving day, with students packing up their rolling bags and departing with a parent or sibling for a week off.