Don’t blame autism for Cho’s behavior

KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY / WSLS NewsChannel 10
Published: April 21, 2007

Classmates described Seung-Hui Cho as painfully quiet, and a relative overseas said he was diagnosed with autism after arriving in the United States.

But experts say autism does not cause the kind of violent behavior that Cho unleashed at Virginia Tech, killing 32 students and professors, and then himself.

John Bonvillian, a University of Virginia psychologist who studies autism, said Cho might indeed have had Asperger's disorder, a milder variant within the same medical spectrum as autism.

Asperger's symptoms can include the inability to connect socially and extremely awkward behavior - the kind that might attract taunts and ridicule.

But the gunman also might have had paranoid schizophrenia, which can trigger violence.

"Listening to his sorts of rants, you would think more of paranoid schizophrenia," he said. "It's a very rare combination, but it's in the realm of possibility that he had both" paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger's, Bonvillian said yesterday.

Bonvillian and other experts cautioned that it's tough, if not impossible, for them to reach conclusions based only on media reports and the widely seen video segments Cho made.

"He's going to be difficult to figure out because he's no longer with us," said Mary Muscari, author of "Not My Kid: 21 Steps to Raising a Non-Violent Child" and director of forensic health and nursing at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.

Muscari agreed Cho could have had Asperger's. "It is kind of a geeky, odd kid who doesn't fit in. He's a target for bullies," she said in generally describing someone with the developmental disorder.

"He had some peculiar behavior," she said of Cho. "Telling people to call him Question Mark, always wearing the sunglasses. I don't think he was making a statement. He was trying to block people out."

Robert Ressler, the retired FBI profiler who is credited with coining the term "serial killer," said he thinks Cho had an inadequate-personality disorder with psychopathic overtones.

"Oftentimes there are sexual underpinnings to inadequacy," he said, noting authorities say Cho stalked two Virginia Tech students in 2005, leading to two encounters with police. High school classmates say they never saw him interact with girls.

Ressler added that Cho seemed "so mission-oriented. That would go against schizophrenia and more toward psychopathy."

Muscari said Cho's apparent level of organization, as evidenced by the multimedia manifesto he mailed to NBC between Monday's shootings, could be evidence of psychopathy.

Cho's great-aunt said the family constantly worried about Cho.

"From the beginning, he wouldn't answer me," Kim Yang-soon, Cho's great aunt, told Associated Press Television News from South Korea. He "didn't talk. Normally sons and mothers talk. There was none of that for them. He was very cold."

"When they went to the United States, they told them it was autism," said Kim, 85.

The family arrived in the United States in 1992, when Cho was about 8.

Cho's uncle gave a similar account but said there were no early indications that the boy had serious problems. Cho "didn't talk much when he was young. He was very quiet, but he didn't display any peculiarities to suggest he may have problems," said the uncle, who asked to be identified only by his last name, Kim.

In a statement for the family, Cho's sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, said yesterday: "My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in."

Bonvillian said autism is typically diagnosed when children are 2 or 3, an age at which Cho was still in Korea. "Someone would have had to miss it pretty badly not to see it then," he said. Schizophrenia is generally diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 25, he added.

James Kauffman, a retired University of Virginia education behaviorist, dismissed any possible link between Cho's violence and autism.

"I don't see any connection to autism at all, even if he was diagnosed," Kauffman said. "It doesn't wash."

Clint Van Zandt, another retired FBI profiler, said he could not call to mind any serial killer who was autistic. "None," he said.

Contact staff writer Kiran Krishnamurthy at or (540) 371-4792.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.