Viginia Tech awarding degrees to shooting victims

BLACKSBURG, Va. — The disturbing manifest and videos of Cho Seung-Hui delivering a snarling tirade about rich "brats" and their "hedonistic needs" had some marginal value to police, but they didn't add much that investigators didn't already know, officials said Thursday.

The self-made video and photos of Cho pointing guns as if he were imitating a movie poster were mailed to NBC on the morning of the Virginia Tech massacre.

A Postal Service time stamp reads 9:01 a.m. — between the two attacks that left 33 people dead. University officials announced Thursday that Cho's victims would be awarded their degrees posthumously and that other students might have the option of ending their semester immediately.

In much of Cho's videotaped rants, the 23-year-old speaks in a harsh monotone, but it isn't clear to whom he is speaking.

NBC said the package contained a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement, 28 video clips and 43 photos.

It was given to State Police but contained little that they didn't already know, Col. Steve Flaherty said Thursday. Flaherty said he was disappointed that NBC decided to broadcast parts of it.

"I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it," he said.

On NBC's "Today" show Thursday, host Meredith Vieira said the decision to air the information "was not taken lightly." Some victims' relatives canceled their plans to speak with NBC because they were upset over the airing of the images, she said.

"I saw his picture on TV, and when I did I just got chills," said Kristy Venning, a junior from Franklin County, Va. "There's really no words. It shows he put so much thought into this and I think it's sick."

The package helped explain one mystery: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building.

Authorities on Thursday disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho had been accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment.

The disclosure added to the rapidly growing list of warning signs that appeared well before the student opened fire. Among other things, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and sullen, vacant-eyed demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling.