2 families say Cho records challenge Virginia Tech's claims

Read Cho’s mental health records

Records in possession of the Cook Counseling Center since 2005 (PDF file, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Records in possession of Dr. Robert Miller and returned to Virginia Tech last month (PDF file, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

 

"The records are remarkable for what they don't contain," the families' Reston-based lawyer, Robert T. Hall, said yesterday.

Tech released two sets of medical records Wednesday — one from the university's Cook Counseling Center, the other discovered last month in the home of the center's former director.

Cho shot and killed 32 students and professors on April 16, 2007, before killing himself.

About seven months before that, the counseling center advised Associate Dean Mary Ann Lewis that staff members could find no mental-health history on Cho, according to legal papers filed in Blacksburg by the families yesterday. Lewis asked the counseling center about Cho's history in September 2006, after a professor asked Lewis for help in dealing with the troubled student.

The legal papers formally ask Robert C. Miller, the former director of the counseling center, to admit:

That Tech's director of residence life, Gerald Kowalski, told Miller that a judge found Cho to be an imminent danger to himself or others on Dec. 14, 2005, and that Cho had kept knives in his dorm room and had a history of erratic behavior.

That a counselor spent only 30 minutes with Cho after the judge's finding, which included a court order that Cho get mental-health care. That order and her session with Cho were on Dec. 14, 2005.

That the counselor did not try to make any diagnosis of Cho or arrange for any follow-up care.

That counseling center staff rated Cho as "troubled" and needing follow-up within two weeks after he called the center on Nov. 30, 2005, to say he was depressed and having panic attacks.

That Miller was aware of an incident earlier in 2005 that led Tech professor Nikki Giovanni to demand he be removed from her class.

Hall said the families of Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde, two of Cho's victims, believe those were among the facts that Miller should have known. The families are claiming that Miller, along with several other university officials and the university itself, were negligent in monitoring and treating Cho.

Hall said the families are disputing an assertion by Tech that the counseling center acted appropriately and offered to provide treatment to him.

Miller's lawyer, Edward J. McNelis III, said he had not yet read the papers and couldn't comment.

"The recovered records speak for themselves. Virginia Tech is pleased that the records were found, made public, and that they indicate the professionals acted appropriately under the circumstances facing them more than a year before the tragedy," spokesman Mark Owczarski said.

The long-missing records show the counselor who met Cho, after the judge found he was mentally ill and ordered him to get treatment, drew an X through a key form's questions about whether he was depressed, suffering panic attacks, behaving dangerously or hearing voices. She noted: "Did not assess — student has had 2 previous triages in past 2 wks — last two days ago."

The records show the counselor was aware Cho had been hospitalized, but that he told her that a comment he made about suicide was a joke.

Although Cho had been ordered to get treatment, the forms show the counselor did not schedule a follow-up appointment "because he doesn't know [his] schedule."