Cho Seung-Hui, a student from South Korea identified as the gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University, is seen in this police handout released April 17, 2007. [Reuters]

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre was a sullen loner who alarmed professors and classmates with his twisted, blood-drenched creative writing and left a rambling note in his dorm room raging against women and rich kids.

A chilling picture emerged Tuesday of Cho Seung-Hui - a 23-year-old senior majoring in English - a day after the bloodbath that left 33 people dead, including Cho, who killed himself as police closed in.

Special coverage: US School Shooting Related Video: 33 dead in US campus shooting Related forum: Va. Tech gunman was from S.Korea China strongly condemns Virginia shooting Gunman kills 32 in US campus shooting Bush: Shootings affect all studentsShooting story spreads quickly on TV

News reports said that he may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic.

Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of," former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site. He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."

Comments:  Submit yours  hies 2007-04-17 09:35 It seems that American schools are violence-haunted schools. No matter where the killer is from, it's in America that the blood shedding incident is happening. It is worth the attention of managing authorities of both schools and government,after all, body safety is the most essential right.  Kuan 2007-04-18 06:29 The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the killer was a Chinese from Shanghai. I do NOT know how this stupid newspaper got this information. Other stupid news reports said the killer was a Chinese American who was also studying at Virginia Tech, lived in the same dorm building as the killer, had a BIG hobby in guns, was an engineer major, had recently broken up with his girlfriend, and had a blog detailing all of this. This Chinese American SEEMED like the killer, but WAS NOT THE KILLER. This shows you how dumb the US media could be.

"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling."

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said Cho's writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university's counseling service.

"Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be," Rude said. "But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

She said she did not know when he was referred for counseling, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws. The counseling service refused to comment.

Cho - who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry cleaners - left a note in his dorm room that was found after the bloodbath.

A government official, who spoke of condition of anonymity because he had not been authorized to discuss details of the case, said the note had been described to him as "anti-woman, anti-rich kid."

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