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American Morning

Virginia Tech Liability?; A Place to Mourn

Aired April 19, 2007 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Inside the twisted mind of a killer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHO SEUNG-HUI, VIRGINIA TECH GUNMAN: You decided to spill my blood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Twenty-eight videos, 43 photos and a cold, cruel message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEUNG-HUI: You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Is the motive revealed? What set him on his murderous rampage?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now I'm thinking he was just one -- a bad guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Another shot to the heart for a reeling Virginia Tech campus on this AMERICAN MORNING.

And good morning to you. It's Thursday, April the 19th. I'm John Roberts, again reporting live from the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Good morning to you, Kiran.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good to see you, John, as well as everyone joining us today from New York. I'm Kiran Chetry.

And, boy, John, I mean we've been down there -- we were down there since Monday afternoon and now there were so many questions about what was going on and to see that tape, it really just makes you sick to see the tape and to know what this guy was saying and the anger and also the timeline of when he made many of these video manifestos. ROBERTS: You know, this was looking so much like the Columbine killings of 1999. And now we find out that this guy glorified Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. He made these videos. Remember that Harris and Klebold made videos, though they weren't in the form of a manifesto. This guy was calculating enough that after the first murder, which he still hasn't been officially tied to, but there's no other suspects in it, he went to the post office, mailed this off to NBC News. He had shot it for days ahead of the actual event, cut it, and pasted it and put it all together. It's clear, Kiran, that this guy had a plan. This was not a spur of the moment type of thing. This was a long time in coming.

CHETRY: And just a window into what may have been going through this clearly very sick mind had the wherewithal after the shooting he has been linked to so far to go mail this package of materials to a news organization and then continue on with more killings. It really is alarming and a lot of the students on campus say that just seeing it is just another shot to the heart after Monday's tragedy.

ROBERTS: As you can imagine, people down here are just reeling from this new information, this new bomb shell to drop. Coming up over the next couple of hours, we're going to be talking with students, we'll talk with an FBI profiler, psychologists, try to get inside the mind of this guy and figure out what sent him way, way, way over the edge.

Let's get right to Cho's chilling and disturbing words, though, and images. CNN's Gary Tuchman looked at the whole manifesto. He's got this report for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Cho Seung-Hui is dead, but he has now spoken as if from the grave.

CHO SEUNG-HUI, VIRGINIA TECH GUNMAN: When the time came, I did it. I had to.

TUCHMAN: It's now evident this bloodshed was elaborately planned. A package was sent by the gunman to NBC's headquarters in New York the day of the mayhem. What is being called the multi media manifesto includes 27 video files.

SEUNG-HUI: You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, 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.

TUCHMAN: The package is not addressed to anyone particular, but is full of venom and hatred from a man who believes the world has done him wrong.

SEUNG-HUI: Do you know what it feels like to be spit on your face? And have trash shoved down your throat? Do you know what it feels like to dig your own grave? Do you know what it feels like to have your throat slashed from ear to ear? Do you know what it feels like to be torched alive? Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and be impaled upon on a cross and left to bleed to death for your amusement?

You have never felt a single ounce of pain in your whole life. Did you want to inject as much misery in our lives as you can, just because you can? You've had everything you wanted.

Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats. Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac weren't enough.

All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything.

TUCHMAN: Cho included 43 still photos in the package. The first two show him as a normal looking college student. The rest are troubling and disturbing.

SEUNG-HUI: You sadistic snobs, happy to be nothing but a piece of dog (BLEEP). You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and tortured may conscience. You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die. Like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.

TUCHMAN: The package's postmark indeed indicates it was mailed the day of the killings. In fact, the 9:01 a.m. time that is written shows he mailed it between the two murder sprees at the dorm and at the classroom building.

SEUNG-HUI: Jesus loves crucifying me. He loves inducing cancer in my head, terrorizing my heart, and raping (ph) my soul all this time.

TUCHMAN: And in the package, a chilling note. He praises the "martyrs like Eric and Dylan." A reference to the Columbine High School killers. It's evident that this man, who has single-handedly ruined so many lives, considers himself a martyr, too.

SEUNG-HUI: I didn't have to do this. I could have left. I could have fled, but no. I will no longer run. It's not for me, it's for my children, for my brothers and sisters that you (BLEEP). I did it for them.

TUCHMAN: What he did was cause misery. And in this high-tech, multimedia age, he goes down as a calculated, cold blooded killer.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Blacksburg, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: Just an extraordinary diatribe of hatred and murderess rage coming from Cho Seung-Hui. We should point out too that tomorrow is the anniversary of the Columbine killings. Cho Seung-Hui used all of the digital tools of his multi media generation and then ironically used snail mail to send it all off.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick joins me now. She's been looking in to all of this. The timeline, how far it is from the door to the post office and back.

What did you find out, Deb?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the two-hour gap that happened between the first shooting and the second shooting, a couple of pieces have now been filled in. For example, according to the file, according to what NBC is analyzing, Cho actually went back to his dorm room from between the first killing and the second killing. Moments after that first killing, he actually updated the pdf file which he was then going to send off at the post office. It's about . . .

ROBERTS: So the last time stamp on the pdf saved was Monday morning?

FEYERICK: In fact, it was 7:24, moments after that first shooting. So the dorms are very near each other. He slipped out of the first dorm into his own and then walked probably about 12 to 15 minutes from his own dorm to that post office, mailed the package and then came back across campus. And again, that's about another 12 to 15 minute walk to Norris Hall.

So there was about a half an hour period where he was out and in full view of everyone, having just committed two murders, having just gotten away allegedly with two murders. He didn't claim credit for those specifically, but the gun has been linked to both. And then walked across campus and did 31 more.

ROBERTS: Now let me ask you this question. We saw photographs of him in a car. Is it possible that he drove to the post office, which would have given him far more time?

FEYERICK: We asked the police that. We asked the police that. We were wondering that about ourselves. They said that there was no car found, that there was no car involved. And the car would have had to have been located somewhere around the campus and the police tell us there was no car.

ROBERTS: You talked to a clerk at the post office?

FEYERICK: There was a clerk at the post office who was interviewed by police. We don't know -- it's interesting. There are two post offices very close to the campus. And the one that's just in front of us here, down on main street, there are no security cameras. It's a very old-fashioned post office. So small that you would definitely be noticed if you're mailing a package, especially at that hour. The other post office, there are security cameras. There are surveillance cameras. So where they'll ultimately be videos of him actually doing that, he certainly provided the world with enough for the time being.

ROBERTS: Yes, I was, you know, thinking, what more does a little piece of video of him mailing this off add to the story when you have all of this.

FEYERICK: Yes, exactly.

ROBERTS: Deb, thanks very much. You'll continue to look into this today and we'll be back with you.

FEYERICK: Yes.

ROBERTS: Thanks very much.

So, Kiran, there you go. That's the latest from here in Blacksburg. And just an incredibly chilling development with this guy, the cold, calculating nature of what he did is described by so many students who were there that morning as he was trying to force his way into the classroom, executing people at point-blank range. Now we find out this had been in the works for a long, long time.

CHETRY: So upsetting. And we're going to talk more about the lingering questions about whether or not this could be prevented in the future, any changes in terms of gun control and the like. So we'll have much more on that a little later.

And, John, quickly though, we're going to talk a little bit about another big story. And it was a two day delay because of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and that is the testimony today on Capitol Hill of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He's going to be facing down a Senate committee investigating the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

And the jury is still out in the court of public opinion, as well. A new CNN/Opinion Research poll finds that 38 percent of Americans believe Gonzales should resign, 37 percent say that he shouldn't. So it's pretty much split equally there. But 24 percent are not sure. So as to whether or not President Bush should fire Gonzales, a confidant from his Texas days as governor, 31 percent say yes, 36 percent say no. And, again, 33 percent unsure. CNN's justice correspondent, Kelli Arena, is live in Washington.

And the attorney general, Kelli, has been saying all along, he doesn't believe he did anything wrong. What about his testimony, though, today? What does he need to do to keep his job?

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, we've heard the statement make or break quite a bit lately. And I really believe that that's the case, Kiran. There are many senators who have said that they're reserving judgment, waiting to hear what the attorney general has to say about why there has been discrepancy between what he has said and what other justice officials have said. And if he's at all evasive, that could lead some lawmakers to pressure the White House to get rid of him.

Now here's what Senator Chuck Schumer had to say yesterday. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, (D) JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: We can't have another hearing where the witness says, I don't know 122 times, like Kyle Sampson did. Fuzzy recollections do not get us to the bottom of this. Evasive answers do not clear up the many contradictions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: What senators want to know is, what role did Gonzales play in all of this? What role did the White House play? And why those U.S. attorneys were ultimately fired. And so far there are still no clear answers to any of those questions. Hopefully we'll get them today.

CHETRY: And, also, any evidence that the attorney general acted improperly at all in this situation.

ARENA: Well, you know, that is really the most important issue here. And so far, there is no evidence that there was anything improper about those firings. Now there's been this suggestion that some U.S. attorneys were let go to influence prosecutions in some way. But again, Kiran, no proof of that. And that's why so far the president has stood behind Gonzales.

And, you know, we get make that -- get back to that make or break issue. If he handles himself well today, Gonzales may be able to hold on to some support on The Hill. But until now, this whole thing has been handled very, very badly and that is also something we expect Gonzales to admit today. See how it goes.

CHETRY: All right, Kelli Arena, thanks so much.

ARENA: You're welcome.

CHETRY: We're going to head back down now to Blacksburg, Virginia, and John Roberts.

Hey, John.

ROBERTS: Hey, Kiran, thanks very much.

And coming up from here on the campus of Virginia Tech, deciphering a killer's last words. What investigators will be looking and listening for.

And, plus, we'll pay tribute to the killer's victims, 32 innocent lives. Grief from all corners of the world.

You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning.

Things should be back to normal at the University of Minnesota today after an unplanned disaster drill. A bomb threat on a typed note forced the evacuation of eight buildings on the Minneapolis campus yesterday. No bombs were found. Threats and scares in several states after what happened at Virginia Tech have led schools to lock- down or clear out since those shootings Monday.

In Tijuana, Mexico, a standoff at a hospital is over. Three people, though, are dead. Five hundred workers and patients were evacuated after mass gunmen stormed the hospital Wednesday. Police say they were trying to free a prisoner. Two police officers and one of the attackers were killed when police moved in. The other gunmen were arrested.

Well, the FBI now looking through a massive amount of information sent by Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui. The photos, the videos and the writings are disturbing, to say the least, but they actually could prove to be very valuable for investigators. Joining me now on the phone from Chantilly, Virginia, is Peter Smerick. He's the president of The Academy Group, which is a behavioral sciences research center, as well as a former FBI profiler.

Thanks for joining us this morning, Peter.

PETER SMERICK, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Good morning.

CHETRY: Did you get a chance to look at some of that tape?

SMERICK: Yes.

CHETRY: What did you think?

SMERICK: Well, you know, when you look at the tape and -- well let's just -- let me put a caveat here. All of my opinions and observations are based upon looking at stuff we see in the news media, so I have no special insight into this case because the facts are being kept close to the vest by the investigators. But saying that, when you look at the tape and when you listen to the words that this individual is using, you don't have to be a profiler or a psychologist to realize that the individual probably is rather delusional.

Now what's interesting to me is that what we don't know at this particular point is whether or not these thoughts of extreme violence is a current type of situation or whether he's been harboring these thoughts for many, many years and then suddenly they involved in this murderous rampage that he went on.

CHETRY: Well, it looks like this is years in the making because we talked to students yesterday, some who went to high school with him as well, who describe the very same situations, someone who kept to himself, a loaner. There are people who went to school with him for four year and say they never heard his voice.

SMERICK: Yes. Well, you know, one of the dilemmas we have in a case like this, and I know lately on the media there's been a lot of people talking about all of these red flags waving and we should have known and we should have been able to decipher this. The one thing I've learned over many, many years and analyzing thousands of cases is this -- unless an individual either verbalizes threats . . .

CHETRY: Which he did.

SMERICK: Or physically -- well, what verbalized threats did he make?

CHETRY: Well, he -- people were terrified because of some of the things that were written in his plays, in his play writing class.

SMERICK: No, no, no. What -- no, no, no. You have to understand something. What he has written in his plays is one thing. But what I'm saying is that when you talk to all of his roommates, when you talk to all of the people that have known him, has he actually come out over time and talked about, I'm going to kill you? I mean, has he ever verbalized any of the thoughts that we see here in the tape?

CHETRY: Well, there was the stalking situation, as well. There were two girls that were scared enough about him following them around that they actually did go to police about it. And that is something that apparently was not pursued to its fullest extent.

SMERICK: OK. Well the irony of, you know, that comment is that today and tomorrow I'm teaching a two-day course to investigators regarding the crime of stalking. And I think one thing you have to understand about this crime is that when you look at a typical police agency, they prioritize their investigations. So homicides and rapes, sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, the volatile crimes have the highest priority. Then you move down into property crimes. And, quite frankly, stalking is very, very low on the totem pole of crimes that are investigated.

CHETRY: Right.

SMERICK: And even in the cases that you're talking about here, whereas I understand it he had sent some -- and I'm guessing they're sexually oriented e-mails to a number of women. Even if the police had thoroughly investigated that case, based upon what I'm reading in the paper, it would have been a misdemeanor.

CHETRY: I know, it's disturbing.

SMERICK: And unless there was some actual threat in those e- mails, the police could not have gone much further than what they did.

CHETRY: All right. At the end of the day, are restraining order is a piece of paper, unfortunately, as you say.

SMERICK: Well, and that's exactly right. A restraining order -- if you have an individual who's delusional, yes, I mean, he can violate a retraining order just as easily as you or I can.

CHETRY: All right. Well, Peter, thanks for your insight this morning. We're going to be talking about this much more throughout the day, as well. The warnings signs. And could more have been done? I know it's something that a lot of people are wording today.

John. ROBERTS: Yes. Well, you know, a lot of people are wondering, too, why he was still in school. We know now that Cho Seung-Hui had mental health treatment. A judge found him to be a danger to himself. Police say that he had stalked female students. Some professors were so upset about him being in their class that they said that they would rather be fired than to have to teach him.

Could Virginia Tech have done more to keep an eye on him or even kick him out of school? We'll tackle that issue coming up next.

You're watching AMERICAN MORNING from the campus of Virginia Tech.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: It's more clear than ever that Cho Seung-Hui was a known quantity to many people on the Virginia Tech campus. So what should have been done and should more have been done about it? CNN's Jim Acosta is here with more.

You've been talking to a lot of people, Jim. Is there a consensus of opinion here that a ball was dropped or that more should have been done or that maybe something could have been done to prevent all this?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, that is one of the big questions as to why Cho was allowed to return to class after he was deemed a danger by mental health officials. And a top administrator here at Virginia Tech says it was those same mental health officials who gave Cho the green light.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: There wasn't a Cho file that you could speak of?

EDWARD SPENCER, VIRGINIA TECH ADMINISTRATOR: Not one central file.

ACOSTA: Virginia Tech's highest ranking official tracking student behavior, Edward Spencer, rejects the notion that university authorities should have connected the dots and expelled Cho when they had the chance.

SPENCER: Honestly, I believe with what we knew at the time, we did the right thing.

SEUNG-HUI: I didn't have to do this. I could have left.

ACOSTA: Two years before the massacre and this chilling confession tape, Cho had repeated run-ins with campus police. Two female students accused Cho of harassment but didn't file charges. A professor warned of Cho's disturbing writings.

And one of Cho's roommates reported to police the Korean student was suicidal. After police asked Cho to seek counseling, state mental health authorities declared the student was "an imminent danger," but Spencer revealed to us why Cho was later cleared to go back to class.

SPENCER: The mental health agency involved does not release that person unless they feel that person is not or is no longer a danger to himself or others.

ACOSTA: And you think that's what happened here?

SPENCER: Absolutely. You have to trust the judgment of the mental health professionals who have made that decision.

ACOSTA: In the aftermath of the massacre, some law enforcement experts say now is the time to get more aggressive with troubled students.

DON CLARK, FBI SPECIAL AGENT (RET.): I firmly believe that we have to redefine law enforcement in the sense of our laws and Constitution so that we can handle modern day crimes, such as today. We're no longer living in the early 1900s. And we've got to face these types of issues.

SPENCER: It's tempting. But at the same time, we live in the United States and we enjoy a lot of freedoms. And one of the freedoms I guess we enjoy is to be different, to be weird, to be quiet. And do we want to do away with those rights? Probably not.

ACOSTA: Edward Spencer won't say why Tech's judicial affairs board, a council he overseas, didn't expel Cho, saying the gunman's school files will remain private for know, even though he's dead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And universities across the country are making changes to their security procedures, including text messaging systems and warning sirens that could alert students to when there's a violent crisis on campus. But just how to deal with troubled students, John, remains the big subject of debate.

ROBERTS: Yes, officials, as you pointed out at Virginia Tech, believe that they did the right thing in 2005, the way that it was handled. I wonder what they're thinking now that these tapes and photos have come out?

ACOSTA: And we've pressed them on this issue. We said, you have to be thinking in your mind. I mean, it would just be natural to say, should we have done more? Should we have expelled this kid when we saw all of these warning signs? And they say, no, when you deal with kids, you're dealing with kids who are growing, who are expressing themselves. And to be weird is a right as a student. But I think now one has to look at whether or not, when these warning signs pop up, what should the procedures be to deal with kids who are showing these signs of trouble?

ROBERTS: Pretty clear that if this guy was growing in any direction, he was growing into a time bomb, as illustrated by this new manifesto.

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

ROBERTS: Jim Acosta, thanks very much.

Kiran.

CHETRY: John, thanks.

And it's 26 past the hour right now. Ali Velshi is here "Minding Your Business."

You told us last week this is the week to watch record numbers for the Dow.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. And, of course, we haven't been watching because of everything else that's been going on. But the Dow hit another record yesterday. It closed at an all-time high. It traded above 12,800 for the first time.

The Nasdaq was down a few points. The S&P is often a better measure of the stock market than the Dow, because there are 500 stocks in it, as opposed to 30 Dow stocks. So that's the new records.

Now we have made up all the ground we lost on February 27th when the Dow dropped 400 and some odd points. A lot of this is on earnings. Yesterday we had one company report earnings. It was not a Dow component -- eBay. Listen to these numbers from eBay.

The profit from that company up 52 percent in the quarter. The number of registered users up 21 percent to 233 million worldwide. PayPal, which eBay owns, has 143 million customers. Skype, which is eBay's web-based phone service, now has 196 million customers. This company is on fire.

Now today we're going to get earnings from a bunch of companies. Altria, Merck, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and Nokia. However, Asian markets are way down.

In China, the growth in the quarter was 11 percent. That's sizzling. Inflation's at a two-year high. Folks are worried that the government in China is going to sort of do things to slow that economy down.

Shanghai is off 4.5 percent. Hong Kong was off more than 2 percent. European markets are all down right now. So indications are it will be a rough day on the exchanges here.

CHETRY: All right. We'll be watching it. We'll check in with you in the next hour.

VELSHI: OK.

CHETRY: Thanks a lot, Ali.

The top stories of the morning also coming up next, including all of those words and pictures from a killer who said next to nothing when he was alive. And also, with so many red flags that we're now learning about, are lawsuits in the future for Virginia Tech. We're going to talk about it.

You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Killer on camera. This morning, new details about Cho Seung-Hui's chilling video message, what it reveals about his murder spree at Virginia Tech, and when he might have made the tape.

Also, new insight into his forced trip to a psychiatric hospital. Did the law make it too easy for him to get back on campus?

I'm John Roberts from Blacksburg, Virginia, on the campus of Virginia Tech. We're still here live following this story as new developments happen almost every hour here -- Kiran.

CHETRY: Very true.

And I'm here in New York again today, John. Nice to see you.

Boy, that tape, you know -- and when it came out yesterday and when we got the news that we were able to see this killer in action, and hear the vicious, hateful rantings that have come out on this tape, it really was something that I think many people just did not expect. And they could hit a lot of people very hard.

ROBERTS: No. You know, and we were all -- we were all making the connections to Columbine, to say it's the eighth anniversary of the Columbine shootings coming up tomorrow, was this guy influenced by the Columbine killers? And we find out through this manifesto that he glorified them. He called Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold "martyrs".

You know, the one thing that we haven't seen yet though from this manifesto, which may or may not be contained inside it, is what was the triggering event? What set him off on that murderous rampage?

That's something we're going to try to interpret this morning by talking with psychologists. You talked with an FBI profiler earlier. There are other issues around, what was it that was written on his arm? What did that have to do with it?

There are so many pieces of the puzzle here, Kiran, that are slowly coming together.

CHETRY: When you look at the electronic and technical impact, I mean, he was able to use a camera any of us could buy at a store, download these on a home computer, and then send them to a news organization between apparently the killings. And so we were going to talk a lot more about that, plus the legal issues that could possibly be in play now for Virginia Tech, as well as other state and possibly local areas, as well. ROBERTS: And you'll remember back to the Columbine killings, it took a couple of years for all of that background information about Harris and Klebold to come out, and the parents of the Columbine victims fought so hard to wrestle that from the clutches of the police. Now we get this stuff two days after the killings. So you can imagine the impact that it's having here in Virginia Tech.

This morning, the parting shot from the Virginia Tech gunman is in the hands of the FBI, and seared into the minds of millions now via television. Cho Seung-Hui sent his venomous multimedia ramblings to NBC television in New York via overnight mail.

It took two days for them to arrive, though, because it was misaddressed. Apparently, the zip code was wrong as well. In it, dozens of photos, many with Cho posing with guns, an 1,800-word rambling statement of hatred and video clips in which Cho rails against the rich and portrays himself as the ultimate victim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHO SEUNG-HUI, VIRGINIA TECH GUNMAN: You had 100 billion chances and ways to have avoided today, 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: As Kiran pointed out, and it bears mentioning again, authorities say Cho mailed the package between the two shootings on Monday morning.

What does all of this tell us? Former FBI profiler Greg We spoke with Anderson cooper last night on 360.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGG MCCRARY, FMR. FBI PROFILER: Well, that the world is -- to him, is a very threatening place, that, as you see, he has a very elaborate blaming system. Everybody has done this to him. Everybody has created all these problems, whether they are real or perceived problems that he has.

So, this is his way of getting even. This is his way of acting out. And he's striving for the power that he knows that he doesn't have. And this is how he's -- how he's gone about doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: The time code on some of the video files indicates that they were recorded up to six days before the shootings. And get this, Kiran. The last saved timestamp on the PDF file that was this 1,800- word manifesto came right after the killings. It was about 7:25 Monday morning, right after the first killings.

So it would seem to indicate that this fellow initiated those killings, because the guns have been tied to those two deaths, as well, came back to his dorm, wrote a few more things, saved it, packaged it up and then sent it.

CHETRY: And so once again, the questions about that two-hour gap in notification and in letting the students know, boy, it just -- it breaks your heart to think about it right now. John, thanks so much.

And if there were red flags before, we now know that there's legal documentation of them and of Cho's mental instability. Sixteen months ago, a magistrate deemed Cho a danger to himself or others and ordered an out-patient psychiatric treatment. The campus police also say he had been accused of stalking two female students. Apparently, they had declined to press charges.

Teachers raised concerns, one of them even threatening to resign if he was going to stay in her classroom. And with all that on record, could Virginia Tech be exposed to potential lawsuits over what happened Monday?

Senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin joins us now to talk more about that.

What do you think?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: You know, I think it's going to be very tough to sue Virginia Tech. If you look at the way the law has been moving over the past several years, including a new change in the law just in Virginia this year, it's been towards giving students more privacy -- don't force students to disclose anything.

When they go to mental health facilities, they can't -- the mental health people can't tell the parents, can't tell the school. Everything has been geared more towards privacy.

CHETRY: Right.

TOOBIN: So, the idea is they are not -- that they are not violating their duty of care by failing to disclose what went on.

CHETRY: I know, but -- OK. And so -- but there's so many warnings signs. I mean, is -- let me ask you this -- is it the duty of the campus to protect the students attending?

TOOBIN: Yes.

CHETRY: And if so, does that override everything else? Because in this case, there were people that were terrified of him in classrooms, there were people who raised concerns about stalking, even, you know, investigated by police. There were -- apparently one teacher was offered protection if she was teaching him one on one.

I mean, how does that all play out legally in terms of who is responsible?

TOOBIN: Well, I mean, what you have to consider is what was reasonably foreseeable. That's what the university will say, is, look, we have troubled students. Our way of dealing with troubled students is to try to get them counseling, is to try to get them help. We did not have the knowledge that this could lead to a violent situation. Obviously, that's the issue where the -- where the rubber meets the road. What -- how -- what could they have reasonably foreseen?

They will say the combination of the vagueness of the threats, the fact that, you know, law enforcement never -- the one time he was apparently in a mental health facility, they let him out. They said he was no -- at one point he was a danger to himself and others, but then they let him out.

CHETRY: And there's a difference between maybe having some depression issues that I don't want everybody to know about or you don't want everybody know about, maybe having some anxiety about classes, verses being deemed a possible physical threat.

TOOBIN: Well, and, in fact, universities have been saying in recent years, we want to encourage students to get help. So, the last thing we want to do is say, you go get mental health help, we're going to throw you out of school. Because if that became known, as, of course, it would be known very quickly, no one would go get help. So, that's the thinking.

But obviously -- I mean, you know, you watch -- you know, just watching that tape today, what's so interesting to me is I covered the McVeigh case very heavily. And there the motive was so clear. I mean, it was a -- it was insane, but it was a political motive. Here, for all that he's talking about his anger, it's not clear sort of why he's doing this.

CHETRY: Or who it's directed towards.

TOOBIN: It does seem a mental -- just much more a mental health issue.

CHETRY: A quick question, because this was overshadowed by the tragedy in Virginia Tech, but a huge landmark ruling on the part of the Supreme Court as it relates to one particular abortion procedure. Tell us about that.

TOOBIN: Right. The Supreme Court yesterday ruled 5-4 an opinion by Justice Kennedy that a federal abortion law passed by Congress in 2003 which stopped one kind of abortion...

CHETRY: The partial birth.

TOOBIN: It's sometimes called partial birth, other people call it different things -- is constitutional. Upheld the law.

Big victory for President Bush, big victory for pro-life forces. The question is, what does it mean for the future? Well, the one thing it certainly means is states will have more freedom to limit, regulate abortions.

CHETRY: So, in your opinion, it goes beyond that one procedure? TOOBIN: Right. Those -- that procedure is used very, very little. It's a very unusual procedure used under very certain circumstances. But what it really is a green light to states to regulate more abortion.

And the bigger question is, does it mean the court is going to allow states to outlaw abortion? Is it going to overturn Roe v. Wade. I don't think yet, but it's going to be a big issue in the 2008 campaign, because one seat changing hands will certainly mean that Roe v. Wade is likely to be overturned.

CHETRY: Jeffrey Toobin, thanks for your insight today.

TOOBIN: OK.

CHETRY: We're going to head back out to Blacksburg and John.

ROBERTS: As you can imagine, Kiran, the amount of traffic that we've seen on the World Wide Web, on the Internet and all of the blogs because of people reacting to this manifesto form Cho Seung-Hui has just been astronomical.

Our Jacki Schechner has been tracking it all.

Jacki, what are you picking up?

JACKI SCHECHNER, CNN INTERNET REPORTER: Well, John, all of this stuff is online, the images, the videos, and people are taking time to analyze them to see what they can possibly garner from them.

For example, there's one photo in particular that's caught the attention originally of a blog from "The New York Times". It is an imagine of Cho wielding a hammer.

Now, what they have done is made a comparison of this image to a poster. This is the image of Cho with the hammer -- to a poster of a movie called "Old Boy".

What we know about this is it is a 2003 South Korean film. It is about a seemingly ordinary businessman who is mysteriously imprisoned. When he's let go, he goes on a rampage of bloody revenge seeking answers.

You can see here again, there is the image of Cho wielding the hammer, and there is an image of one of the posters we found online at a Web site called filmposters.it. You can see again very much similarity between the two. Some people wondering if, in fact, he had seen this South Korean film from 2003.

There is also plenty of commentary about the release of these images and the video manifesto online. Some discussion online of whether or not this was a good idea, simply because it could spur some copycat crimes. Maybe perhaps there is a disillusioned youth out there who sees this publicity as a positive thing.

A conversation about why he decided to mail these things to NBC via snail mail in the day and age of the Internet? Why not just send them online, post them to a site like YouTube? The conversation there leaning to the fact that perhaps he would get caught if he put something online instantaneously, that if he waited a little while and sent them via snail mail, it would give him time to do what he wanted to do -- John.

ROBERTS: All right. Jacki, thanks very much.

You've got to wonder if this was a copycat killing on a couple of levels here, that he was mimicking Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine killers, and also mimicking images from this movie "Old Boy," which won a very big award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.

Quentin Tarantino, who was on the adjudicating committee, actually wanted it to win the overall award, but that award that year, as you'll remember, went to "Fahrenheit 9/11".

We should tell you that we are on the Virginia Tech drill field now, just across the drill field from Burruss Hall where that activity was yesterday. And then right beside that is Norris Hall, where the killings took place.

On the opposite side of this field, there are a series of 16 boards that have been set up as a makeshift memorial, a place where people can come and express their thoughts about the killings. We'll take a look at that and what people are saying coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING, live from the campus of Virginia Tech.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: And welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING, the most news in the morning.

We have some new pictures in from New England and that April nor'easter. Floodwaters and winds knocked houses off of their foundation, uprooted trees, even buckled roads. And thousands of people are still without power, and more rain could fall today.

South to Georgia, a huge wildfire in a wildlife refuge near Savannah. Flames likely set off by a downed power line torching thousands of acres, wiping out 14 homes. More than 1,000 people whose homes may be in danger have cleared out.

It's 47 minutes past the hour, and we head down to Chad Myers in Atlanta for us, keeping a watch on all of this.

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROBERTS: Coming right up, I'm going to take you to the heart of the Virginia Tech campus, and a heavy heart it is today, a site where friends, family, even people who didn't know any of the 32 victims are coming together to remember. And a chance to grieve.

Stay with us on this AMERICAN MORNING. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Pictures ways to remember, ways to grieve here at Virginia Tech.

Many students who would ordinarily be sprinting towards the semester's end here in Blacksburg, or some even heading toward graduation, are instead back home with their families today. The ones who are still on campus, and the community at large here in Blacksburg, for that matter, are taking comfort in one another, and in a memorial born out of the heartbreak.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS (voice over): They have become the new center of gravity at Virginia Tech, 16 white poster boards that stand within sight of Norris Hall, where 30 people lost their lives. It is, in many ways, a living memorial. Mourners write, they read, they remember, they grieve.

"I'm glad I hugged you at our last practice," one girl writes to Reema Samaha, an urban planning student with a passion for dancing.

"You were the best sister a girl could ask for, and heaven is so lucky to have you. I love you." That message to Caitlin Hammaren, only 19 year years old, majoring in international studies and French.

TRACY ALTIZER, MOURNER: It's kind of hard to live in the community and be a part of the community and not be touched by this somehow.

ROBERTS: Tracy Altizer and her daughter Kaelie live just down the street from the family of Professor G.V. Loganathan. Loganathan, who taught civil and environmental engineering, died in Norris Hall on Monday.

Kaelie is friends with Loganathan's daughter, now coping with the loss of her dad.

KAELIE ALTIZER, MOURNER: On Monday when she found out, she was really sad. And her sister flew in from -- well, came in from UVA, and so she's missing her classes. And -- but their mom is taking it a lot harder than what -- than what Abi (ph) is taking.

ROBERTS: The messages, notes, photos and flowers are all a chance for mourners to express their emotions in a tangible and public way. The words are there for all to see. Just reading them moves many to tears.

It is far too early to think about healing here, but this coming together, this collective convulsion of grief is the first step on a difficult path to recovery.

CHRISTINE HARBER, VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT: "We will never forget. With evil comes good. You are all in a higher place."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: You know, Kiran, the idea to put those boards out there was just brilliant to give people a place to come, a place to express their grief, their respect, their condolences for what happened. And it was the students who came up with that idea.

CHETRY: I mean, do you ever recover from something like that is the question. I mean, for all of the people that were there, every time they look at that campus, is this what is going to come to mind? And it's just so sad to see that innocence shattered, as we experienced when we were there, as well, for these kids who had no real bigger concerns a week ago than three weeks until graduation.

ROBERTS: And no one is saying close down Norris Hall forever. It's closed for the rest of this semester. And no one is suggesting to tear it down. But it's always going to be the place where that thing happened.

CHETRY: Very true. All right.

Well, still to come, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is preparing for a hearing like none in his legal career. What's the verdict form Americans? We have more on our new poll in the next hour.

And a chilling look into the eyes and heart of a killer. But what questions has Cho Seung-Hui not answered? We're going to talk more about it.

You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ali Velshi, "Minding Your Business".

For those of you who tried to file your tax returns electronically this week using TurboTax, you may have had some problems. TurboTax's parent company, Intuit, reported to the IRS that at some points this week, almost 60 filings per second were taking place. It crashed the servers.

As a result, the IRS has said that anybody filing electronically with TurboTax has until midnight tonight, 11:59, actually, tonight in order to file your tax returns.

If you in the Northeast were affected by the storm and weren't able to file your tax returns, you now have until April 26th for your federal tax returns.

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