A puzzling start to a deadly day
BLACKSBURG, VA. — It was still dark at 5:30 a.m., when Karan Grewal bumped into his roommate in the bathroom of their suite in Virginia Tech's Harper Hall. Grewal had been up all night studying, but he knew better than to grumble to Seung-hui Cho.
None of the guys in the suite talked to Cho. They'd tried, at first, but Cho never answered; he rarely responded even to a simple "Hi." His roommates figured he didn't speak much English.
On this blustery Monday, Cho was in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, getting ready for the day. Grewal, 21, washed up and went back to his bedroom to get some rest. He fell asleep about 7 a.m.
Twelve hours later, police would come knocking.
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The 911 call came in at 7:15 a.m: gunshots at a college dorm.
Campus police rushed to West Ambler Johnston Hall, a century-old stone building on the east side of the expansive campus. On the fourth floor, they found two bodies.
There was no weapon and no sign of the gunman. There was also little panic. Several of the nearly 900 students in the coed dorm said they slept through the gunfire. Some noticed police outside; a few heard ambulance sirens. But many went about their morning as usual, bundling up in warm clothes as they headed off to class in the swirling snow.
Heather Haugh, who had been off campus for the weekend, walked up to the dorm shortly before 7:30 a.m. She was planning to meet her roommate, Emily Hilscher, to walk to chemistry class with her. But police pulled her aside at the door.
That interview would shape the terrible day that followed.
Investigators told Haugh, 18, that her roommate had been shot. They began asking about Hilscher's romances. Haugh told them what she knew: Her roommate had spent the weekend on another college campus with her boyfriend, Karl Thornhill.
The police asked about guns; Haugh told them Thornhill had recently taken both girls to a shooting range for fun. She told police she believed he kept the weapons at his home in Blacksburg.
Though Haugh described her roommate as having "a perfect relationship with her boyfriend," investigators suspected the shooting was prompted by a lovers' quarrel. They relayed their theory to university administrators at an 8:25 a.m. meeting. By then, classes were already underway, and President Charles W. Steger saw no need to cancel them. "We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.
