Police: No Motive Yet in Tech Shootings

Balloons are released from the Drillfield in front of Burruss Hall on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., Monday, April 23, 2007 during ceremonies to honor those slain by a gunman last week. Thousands of Virginia Tech students and faculty filled the center of campus Monday to pay solemn tribute to the victims of last week's massacre _ listening quietly as a bell tolled for the dead on the day classes resumed at the grief-stricken school. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (Charles Dharapak - AP)

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- More than a week after Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people during an early morning rampage at Virginia Tech, investigators have yet to find a motive, despite examining his computers, e-mail and cell phone records.

In an interview Tuesday night with The Associated Press, State Police Superintendent Col. W. Steven Flaherty said authorities have found no evidence that could begin to explain the massacre that ended when Cho took his own life.

Authorities also have no link between the 23-year-old loner and his victims.

"We certainly don't have any one motive that we are pursuing at this particular time, or that we have been able to pull together and formulate," Flaherty said. "It's frustrating because it's so personal, because we see the families and see the communities suffering, and we see they want answers."

He added: "I don't mind telling you guys that I don't know. It's certainly more painful to sit down and tell that to these families."

Flaherty spoke to the AP after spending the day in meetings with investigators to prepare for a Wednesday afternoon news conference, where he planned to update reporters and the Virginia Tech community on what authorities have uncovered about Cho's rampage.

Flaherty, who is overseeing the investigative team looking at the shootings, said police also have been unable to answer one of the case's most vexing questions: Why the spree began at the West Ambler Johnston dorm, and why 18-year-old freshman Emily Hilscher was the first victim.

Police have searched Hilscher's e-mails and phone records looking for a link. While Flaherty would not discuss exactly what police found, he said neither Cho's nor Hilscher's records have revealed a connection.

"We can't make a link at this point," Flaherty said. "We haven't found anything to link Mr. Cho and Ms. Hilscher."

Hilscher's mother, Elizabeth Hilscher, said she had not been updated on the investigation Tuesday night and declined to comment.

Flaherty also said there was also no link to 22-year-old senior Ryan Clark, who was also killed at the dorm. Nor do investigators know why Cho, an English major, selected Norris Hall _ a building that is home primarily to engineering offices _ to culminate his attack. Cho killed 30 people there before taking his own life.

Frustrating their effort, Flaherty said, is the fact that Cho revealed himself to so few people. Even family members have said they rarely heard him speak.

"I guess the thing that is most startling to me, I say startling, surprising, is a young man who's 23 years old, that's been here for a while, that seemed to not know anybody," he said.

Also Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said he may be able to close a loophole that allowed Cho to buy guns. Federal law bars the sale of guns to people who have been judged mentally defective. But it is up to states to report their legal proceedings to the federal government for inclusion in the database used to do background checks on prospective gun buyers.

In Cho's case, a special justice ordered outpatient psychiatric counseling for him in 2005 after determining he was a danger to himself. But because Cho was never committed to a mental hospital, that order was never entered in the database.

Kaine, a Democrat, said in a radio interview that he may be able to tighten that reporting requirement by issuing an executive order. The chairman of a panel appointed by Kaine to review the massacre also said the reporting requirement must be tightened.

"It's pretty clear: He should not have been able to obtain a weapon," said retired Virginia State Police Superintendent W. Gerald Massengill.

The governor also met with Korean-American leaders to assure them that Virginians do not hold people of Korean descent responsible for the tragedy. Cho was a South Korean immigrant who came to the U.S. at about age 8 and was raised in suburban Washington.

"I can assure you that no one in Virginia _ no one in Virginia _ views the Korean community as culpable in this incident in the least degree," Kaine said. He also said Virginia "would be a weaker place, Virginia would be a lesser place, if it were not for the contributions of our Korean-American citizens."

The Virginia Korean leaders asked Kaine to boost mental-health funding for immigrants and their families.

Key Young Kim of the Korean Community Service Center of Greater Washington urged the governor to "help the citizens of this country not to mistake race as the cause of this incident."

Kaine said that state officials will watch for any reprisals against Korean Americans but that none have been reported.

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Associated Press Writer Bob Lewis in Richmond, Va. contributed to this report.