Loner Cho Seung-Hui

This undated black-and-white photo provided by the Fairfax County, Va. Public Schools shows Cho Seung-Hui, who police have identified as the gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre. (AP Photo/Fairfax County, Va. Public Schools)

By day's end on Monday, just about all we knew from officials about the Virginia Tech shooter was that it was a male. Witness accounts described him as Asian.

Today, we know his name. We can see his face.


This photo provided by the Department of Homeland Security shows Cho Seung-Hui , the gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead. (AP Photo/Department of Homeland Security)



In this undated photo released by the Virginia State Police, Cho Seung-Hui is shown. Seung-Hui, 23, of South Korea, is identified by police as the gunman suspected in the massacre that left 33 people dead at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., Monday, April 16, 2007, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history. (AP Photo/Virginia State Police)



This is a police handout image made available Tuesday, April 17, 2007 of Cho Seung-hui, 23. The fourth-year student from South Korea was behind the massacre of at least 30 people locked inside a Virginia Tech campus building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, the university said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Police Handout)

From the Associated Press:

The Virginia Tech student identified as the assailant in Monday's deadly gun rampage was a South Korean immigrant who had been in the United States since 1992 and who held a green card signifying his status as a legal permanent U.S. resident, federal officials said Tuesday.

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major, was listed with a home address in Centreville, Va, a suburb of Washington, D.C., not far from Dulles International Airport.

Immigration records maintained by the Department of South Korea on Jan. 18, 1984 and entered the United States through Detroit on Sept. 2, 1992. He had last renewed his green card on Oct. 27, 2003.

University officials said he lived in a dormitory on the Virginia Tech campus, but could shed no light on a motive for the shooting spree that left 33 dead. "He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," said Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker.

Cho was found with a backpack containing a receipt for a Glock 9mm pistol that he had bought in March. Ballistics tests by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms showed that one gun was used in Monday's two separate campus attacks that were two hours apart. Cho's fingerprints were found on the two handguns used in both shootings, said two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

As usual, Cho was described as a loner.

Do you recall any shooter in cases like this ever being described as an extrovert with tons of friends?

It troubles me that Cho's name will go down in American history, and the names of the victims will be a footnote.

That sort of notoriety is attractive to some.

It's sick. It's twisted. It's reality.