Virginia Tech Killer Sent Statement and Tape to Tv Network

The campus killer Cho Seung-hui posted a package containing a video, photographs and a long statement to NBC News in the two-hour gap between the first and second shootings, it emerged last night.

US television news showed some of the material, including a picture of Cho with his arms spread wide, a handgun in each. He was wearing a black baseball cap and black gloves - the same garments that witnesses said he was wearing during the shootings. His face was full of menace.

NBC handed the package to the FBI on arrival, and the university and police disclosed its existence at a press conference yesterday. Steve Flaherty, the head of Virginia state police, said: "This may be a very new, critical component of this investigation. We're in the process of attempting to analyse and evaluate its worth."

A law enforcement official said the package contained Cho's "rants against rich people and warns that he wants to get even". It included a statement that was several pages long.

NBC said the package contained a CD-rom on which Cho read a rambling statement setting out his views. It said a time stamp on the package indicated the material was mailed in the two-hour window between the shootings.

The package, which may explain the motivation behind the worst single mass killing in recent US history, comes after a similar note railing against rich kids was found in his room.

Thirty-three people, including Cho, were killed on Monday. A further eight were still in hospital last night. The police said identification of the victims had not been completed so authorities were unable to release the bodies.

Police and university officials also disclosed that Cho had been referred to a psychiatric institution for a short stay two years ago after fears he might be suicidal.

Earlier, the governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, announced an independent investigation into the slow response of the university and police.

Mr Kaine, who addressed a memorial service at the campus on Tuesday, warned against snap judgments. He said he had "nothing but loathing for those who take the tragedy and make it political".

The inquiry, led by Gerald Massengill, a former head of Virginia state police, will focus on the two-hour gap between the first shooting, which claimed two lives, and the second, and why neither the police nor university officials closed down the campus after the first incident.

It will also examine whether the university police and officials should have been monitoring Cho more closely over the past 18 months after alarm was raised about his behaviour.

Mr Massengill will look at whether there was sufficient sharing of information about Cho between the academic staff and officials and with the police, and whether privacy laws were too heavily weighted in Cho's favour. Few involved have called for the inquiry to look into the state's relaxed gun laws, in particular why Cho was allowed to buy handguns, given he had been in a psychiatric institution.

The review is being set up at the request of the university's president, Charles Steger, who has taken the brunt of the criticism so far.

The police removed two computers from Cho's room, a digital camera, notebooks, and a chain and combination lock. He chained the main doors at Norris hall, a teaching block used mainly by engineering students. The police said yesterday they had completed forensic work at the hall, where Cho shot 30 staff and students before shooting himself. It will remain closed for the remainder of the academic session. One of the many unanswered questions about Cho is why, after killing Emily Hilscher and Ryan Clark in their dormitory, he chose Norris hall for his shooting spree.

One reason police failed to close down the university was because they initially assumed the two dormitory killings were a domestic incident and began searching for Ms Hilscher's boyfriend, Karl Thornhill. They were questioning him when news came through of the shootings at Norris hall.

The New York Times reported yesterday that, according to a search warrant filed by the police, Ms Hilscher's roommate had told the police that Mr Thornhill, a student at nearby Radford University, had guns at his town house. The roommate told the police that she had recently been at a shooting range with Mr Thornhill, the affidavit said, leading the police to suspect wrongly he may have been the gunman.

But, as the police were questioning Mr Thornhill, the news came through of the shootings at Norris hall.

There was continuing nervousness on the campus yesterday. Police received a threat on the life of Mr Steger in the morning and then heard a report of a suspicious person in the building where his office is housed. Police wearing flak jackets and carrying rifles rushed to the building but it was a false alarm.

In a garden opposite the president's office, students, staff and family have been laying flowers and set up panels on which to write messages of remembrance.

Meanwhile the Korean Yonhap news agency said yesterday that Cho's parents, who live in Centreville, Virginia, had been taken to hospital suffering from shock rather than from a suicide attempt, as other Korean media had been reporting.