Virginia Tech releases Cho’s mental health records

Read Cho’s Mental Health Records

Records in possession of the Cook Counseling Center since 2005 (PDF file, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Records in possession of Dr. Robert Miller and returned to Virginia Tech last month (PDF file, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

 

6:16 p.m.

By Scott Leamon
WSLS Reporter

  Seung Hui Cho’s family and his volunteer estate representative okayed the release of his long sought after mental health records.

  Maryland attorney John Thyden said he is volunteering his services to act as Cho’s “representative” in two civil lawsuits against Cho’s estate.

  The more than three dozen pages of Cho’s mental health records really don’t reveal anything we haven’t heard about the case before.

  A Carilion health system psychiatrist diagnosed Cho with a “mood disorder” during a court ordered stay at St. Albans hospital.

  The next day however the psychiatrist found Cho had improved, diagnosed him with no disorder, recommended outpatient therapy, and discharged Cho.

  Cho signed himself out of the hospital.

  While complaining to Tech counselors about being depressed, anxious, and possibly self-destructive, Cho told therapists time and time again he did not want to harm himself or anybody else.

  Cho told counselors a treat to kill himself in the fall of 2005 was a “joke.“

  Cho’s roommate told Tech police Cho said he wanted to kill himself because “everybody hated him.“

  The treat led to Cho’s contact with counselors at the Cook Counseling Center four times over a period of about the next two weeks, from the end of November to mid-December 2005.

  The records show, although counselors urged Cho to attend more outpatient therapy, he told them he didn’t want to re-schedule any appointments and left for Christmas break around December 15th.

  He did not talk or see a Tech counselor again.

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5:51 p.m.

By SUE LINDSEY
Associated Press Writer

    ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - Recently discovered mental health records released on Wednesday contain no obvious indications that the Virginia Tech gunman was a year and a half away from committing the worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history.
    The records contain previously unseen handwritten notes from the counselors who talked to Seung-Hui Cho in 2005, and in one report Cho denied having any suicidal or homicidal thoughts. On April 16, 2007, Cho killed 32 students and faculty members on the Blacksburg, Va., campus and took his own life.
    The counselors’ notes indicate they were concerned for the troubled student, but the records don’t contain any evidence that they saw serious warning signs to believe Cho would commit violence.
    The missing files were released almost five weeks after they were discovered at the home of the former director of the university’s counseling center.
    University officials have said Cho talked to two different therapists during 45-minute telephone triage sessions in the fall, then made one court-ordered 45-minute in-person visit that December.
    Cho denied the homicidal thoughts in the telephone sessions and in the in-person meeting with counselor Sherry Lynch Conrad on Dec. 14, 2005. Cho met with Conrad at Cook Counseling Center after being detained in a mental hospital overnight because he had expressed thoughts of suicide.
    “He denies suicidal and/or homicidal thoughts. Said the comment he made was a joke. Says he has no reason to harm self and would never do it,“ Conrad wrote.
    That was Cho’s last contact with the counseling center. The counselor wrote that she gave him emergency contact numbers and encouraged him to return the next semester in January, but he didn’t make an appointment.
    Edward J. McNelis, an attorney for Conrad and the counselors who spoke with Cho by phone, declined to disclose his clients’ whereabouts and said he had advised them not to comment because they are named in civil lawsuits filed by two of the victims’ families.
    The files first turned up July 16, when former Cook Counseling Center director Robert C. Miller found them in his home while preparing for one of those civil suits, which names him as a defendant.
    Miller said in a court filing that the Cho records were in a manila folder along with several others, and he packed it up with his personal documents in late February or early March 2006 when he transferred from the center to another position at the university.
    The files were released by Virginia Tech following the approval of Cho’s family. It was their decision whether to release them because of privacy laws.
    “My mother, father and I all agree that it is the correct thing to do to release the newly discovered medical records of my brother,“ Cho’s sister, Sun Cho, said in a letter authorizing the release.
    University spokesman Mark Owczarski said with the release of the records the school was seeking to provide the victims’ families “with as much information as is known about Cho’s interactions with the mental health system.“
    Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said in a statement he was pleased that the Cho family wanted the records released and that his administration remained committed to openness about events surrounding the mass shootings.
    “We will never fully comprehend what led Seung-Hui Cho to carry out his assault on his fellow students and instructors,“ Kaine said. “His actions were by nature inexplicable, and I don’t expect the questions surrounding the tragedy will ever really end.“

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2:23 p.m.

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - Recently discovered records show the Virginia Tech gunman denied homicidal thoughts to a school counselor nearly a year and half before the worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history.
    The missing files for Seung-Hui Cho were released Wednesday, nearly five weeks they were discovered at the home of the former director of the university’s counseling center.
    The files mostly contain forms from three counseling “triage” sessions released by Virginia Tech after his Cho’s family agreed to make them public. Cho’s family needed to give permission for the release because of privacy laws.
    Cho denied the homicidal thoughts in a session with counselor Sherry Lynch Conrad on Dec. 14, 2005. On April 16, 2007, Cho killed 32 students and faculty members on campus and took his own life
    Cho met with Conrad at Cook Counseling Center after being detained in a mental hospital overnight because he had expressed thoughts of suicide.
    “He denies suicidal and/or homicidal thoughts. Said the comment he made was a joke. Says he has no reason to harm self and would never do it,“ Conrad wrote.
    That was Cho’s last contact with the counseling center. The counselor wrote that she gave him emergency contact numbers and encouraged him to return the next semester in January, but he didn’t make an appointment.
    “My mother, father and I all agree that it is the correct thing to do to release the newly discovered medical records of my brother,“ Cho’s sister, Sun Cho, said in a letter authorizing the release.
    The files first turned up July 16, when former Cook Counseling Center director Robert C. Miller found them in his home while preparing for a civil suit filed against him, the university and others by two of the victims’ families.
    Miller said in a court filing that the file was in a manila folder along with several others, and he packed it up with his personal documents in late February or early March 2006 when he transferred from the center to another position at the university.

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2:05 p.m.

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - Recently discovered records show the Virginia Tech gunman denied homicidal thoughts to a school counselor a year and half before the worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history.
    The missing files for Seung-Hui Cho were released Wednesday, nearly five weeks they were discovered at the home of the former director of the university’s counseling center.
    The files were released by Virginia Tech after his family agreed to make them public. Cho’s family needed to give permission for the release because of privacy laws.
    Cho committed suicide after killing 32 students and faculty members in a dormitory and classroom building on the Blacksburg campus on April 16, 2007.

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1:25 p.m.

The volunteer representative who represents convicted April 16th shooter Seung-Hui-Cho’s interests, tells WSLS that Cho’s family has agreed to release the missing mental records.

Virginia Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski says in a news release, “We are pleased that the Seung Hui Cho estate executor and the Cho family have agreed to Virginia Tech’s request to make public counseling records from the Virginia Tech Cook Counseling Center.“

Full statement from Virginia Tech below:

We are pleased that the Seung Hui Cho estate executor and the Cho family have agreed to Virginia Tech’s request to make public counseling records from the Virginia Tech Cook Counseling Center.

The records now made public cover all of Cho’s interactions with the center during November and December 2005 (the only times he interacted with the center) including those records that were recently discovered among personal files of the former counseling center director, Robert Miller, and were provided by Virginia Tech to the Virginia State Police for use in the ongoing investigation. According to a statement released by Miller’s attorney, these records were removed inadvertently from the Cook Counseling Center when Miller was reassigned to a different department early in 2006.

The records returned by Miller consist of paper records of Cho’s two telephone interactions with professionals at the counseling center prior to his hospitalization at Carilion St. Albans Hospital and his appointment at the Cook Counseling Center following his release from the Carilion St. Albans hospital. The recovered records are consistent with information already contained in the Virginia Tech Review Panel Report, August 2007, and in the report by the Virginia Inspector General for Behavioral Health and Developmental Services provided to the review panel in June 2007.
The absence and belated discovery of these missing files have caused pain, further grief, and anxiety for families of the April 16 victims and survivors, as well as for the Cook Counseling Center professionals who interacted with Cho and created and maintained appropriate departmental records. With release of these records, Virginia Tech seeks to provide those deeply affected by the horrible events of April 2007 with as much information as is known about Cho’s interactions with the mental health system 15-16 months prior to the tragedy.

The records released include evaluations resulting from his temporary detention and hospitalization at Carilion St. Albans. These records indicate that the professional staff of Cook Counseling Center acted appropriately in their evaluation of Cho, documented the interactions, and offered to provide treatment to him while he was enrolled at Virginia Tech.

As the Governor’s Review Panel reported, Cho was evaluated by Cook Counseling Center professionals by phone on Wednesday, Nov. 30, and on Monday, Dec. 12, 2005, and in person after his release from Carilion St. Albans on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2005. In each evaluation, he was asked whether he had suicidal or homicidal ideation. In each instance, he explicitly denied any intent to hurt himself or others and there was no evidence to the contrary. At the time of his last appointment, Cho was completing his fall 2005 semester exams and was scheduled to spend the holiday break with his family. He was provided with emergency contact information. As we know, Cho never called or returned to the Cook Counseling Center, and more than a year elapsed between the time he was evaluated by Counseling Center professionals and the tragic events of April 2007.

The unavailability of pertinent counseling center records during more than two years of investigation and review has created needless uncertainty and understandable speculation that has compounded the suffering of the survivors, families, and the Virginia Tech community as a whole. While the recovery of the records removes that uncertainty and lays to rest unfounded speculation by confirming key facts already established by the Review Panel and Inspector General, Virginia Tech remains deeply dismayed by the prolonged unavailability of the records and looks forward to the completion of the Virginia State Police investigation into their unauthorized removal from the Cook Counseling Center.

Statement of Gov. Tim Kaine on release of Cho’s mental health records:

Governor Timothy M. Kaine released the following statement today regarding the release of records for Virginia Tech gunman Seung Hui Cho:

“The release of Seung Hui Cho’s records will raise a lot of different feelings for the families devastated by the tragic events of April 16, 2007—and for the broader Virginia Tech community. I deeply sympathize with the families and loved ones who have to relive the pain and loss of that terrible day.

“We will never fully comprehend what led Seung Hui Cho to carry out his assault on his fellow students and instructors. His actions were by nature inexplicable, and I don’t expect the questions surrounding the tragedy will ever really end. However, we remain committed to openness around the events at Virginia Tech and it is important that the public have legal access to these records. I am pleased the Cho family also wanted these records released to the public.

“To the Virginia Tech families—and the countless citizens across the country and around the globe who bore witness to that terrible day—I renew my condolences and offer my prayers for brighter days to come.”

(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT)