Cho Seung-Hui was a ticking time bomb | Edward E. Plowman
The signs were there: He was a troubled 23-year-old everyone described as a loner. He was depressed. He relished violent video games. He took pictures of himself in combat gear. He was a social oddball and wrote strange emails to females. He almost always wore sunglasses, even in class. He ate alone in the dining hall. He would turn away when others greeted him. His formal writings came across as morbid, with violent imagery, deeply troubling his English teacher. He thought the world was out to persecute and harm him, and that angered him, but some day he would exact revenge and make things right. And there were other signs of bipolar disorder, or manic depressive illness, as it's also called.
Cho Seung-Hui was a ticking time bomb at Virginia Tech that could explode any minute.
Modern mayhem
A timeline of U.S. multiple shootings
Aug. 1, 1966: From the 27-story tower at the University of Texas in Austin, Charles Whitman, 25, shoots and kills 14 people (including a baby in utero) and wounds 31 others before police kill him. The night before, Whitman had also murdered his wife and mother.
July 18, 1984: James Huberty, 41, opens fire at a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif., killing 21 people and wounding 19 others before a sniper kills him.
Aug. 20, 1986: Postman Patrick Sherrill kills 14 employees and wounds six others at the Edmond, Okla., post office before committing suicide.
Oct. 16, 1991: George Hennard, 35, crashes his truck into Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, and opens fire, killing 23 people and wounding 20 before killing himself.
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