Family of killer on campus says it's a living nightmare

Everyone who knew Seung-Hui Cho was disturbed by his refusal to talk.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
BLACKSBURG, Va. -- The family of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho told The Associated Press on Friday that they feel "hopeless, helpless and lost," and "never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
"He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare," said a statement issued by Cho's sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, on the family's behalf.
It was the Chos' first public comment since the 23-year-old student killed 32 people and committed suicide Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
Raleigh, N.C., lawyer Wade Smith provided the statement to the AP after the Cho family reached out to him. Smith said the family would not answer any questions and neither would he.
"Our family is so very sorry for my brother's unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us," said Sun-Kyung Cho, a 2004 Princeton University graduate who works as a contractor for a State Department office that oversees American aid for Iraq.
"We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced," she said. "Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act."
No protective custody
Authorities are in frequent contact with Cho's family but have not placed them in protective custody, said Assistant FBI Director Joe Persichini, who oversees the bureau's local Washington office. Authorities believe they remain in the Washington area but are staying with friends and relatives.
Persichini said the FBI and Fairfax County Police have assured Cho's parents that they will investigate any hate crimes directed at the family if and when they ever return to their Centreville home.
"We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person," Cho's sister said. "We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
What relatives and acquaintances remember most about Cho's childhood was his disturbing silence.
During his childhood in South Korea, relatives were so concerned about his failure to communicate that his grandfather feared that the 8-year-old might be mute, and his great-aunt worried that he might be mentally unstable.
When the Cho family moved soon after to the United States and began the hard-working struggle of an immigrant family in the suburbs of northern Virginia, the boy's mother hoped and prayed in church that the little boy would somehow be transformed into a normal child. But it was to be in vain.
"She was heartbroken," Cho's great-aunt, Kim Yang-soon, told The Guardian newspaper in an interview in South Korea. "After they moved to America, she hoped his silences would ease as he grew older. But, in fact, they got worse."
His school years
After arriving in the United States with his family in 1992, his isolation simply grew, aggravated by episodes of bullying. Chris Davids, a fellow final-year student at Virginia Tech who graduated from the same high school as Cho in Chantilly, Va., said that as a newly arrived immigrant, the boy seldom talked in class and avoided conversation with fellow pupils. He recalled how Cho refused to read aloud in English class and only reluctantly agreed when he was threatened with a failing grade, reading in a weird voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids told the Associated Press.
"As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, 'Go back to China,'" he continued.
That brooding silence continued through high school and into college, where roommates said he never communicated with them, keeping to himself and refusing to engage.
Thingsgot worse at Virginia Tech, where he was briefly held for a psychiatric evaluation in late 2005 after two female students complained that Cho was stalking them.