Gov: Va. Tech gunman’s mental health records found

RICHMOND, Va. — Missing mental health records for Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho have been found more than two years after the massacre, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said Wednesday.

Cho killed 32 people on April 16, 2007, then committed suicide as police closed in. His mental health treatment has been a major issue in the investigation of the shootings. But his mental health records were missing from the university’s counseling center.

Kaine said the records would be released as soon as possible. Lawyers in a civil lawsuit found the records in the possession of a former worker at the counseling center.

The governor said taking confidential records from the counseling center was illegal and state police were investigating how the records disappeared.

He said officials first would ask the administrator of Cho’s estate to release the files. A second option was to subpoena the records.

He also said he was not happy that the criminal investigation of the shootings failed to uncover the files.

While a large part of the shooting investigation focused on how university officials and law enforcement responded following the first reports of shootings in a Virginia Tech dormitory, family members of the victims have also inquired about how the troubled Cho slipped through the cracks at university counseling.

In April, on the second anniversary of the shootings, families of two slain students sued the state, the school and its counseling center, several top university officials and a local mental health agency, claiming gross negligence in the chain of events that allowed Cho to commit his killing spree.

The lawsuits also claim a local health center where Cho had gone to say he felt suicidal did not adequately treat or monitor him. The status of the lawsuit was not immediately known.

Holly Sherman, whose daughter Leslie was among those killed, said in November that she was less concerned with continued analysis of how university officials responded to the massacre and more interested in learning about Cho’s mental treatment.

Mike White, whose daughter Nicole was killed, said in November he was concerned about why Cho’s mental records went missing.

Andrew Goddard, whose son Colin was shot four times but survived, said there was more work to be done on mental health services. Goddard was appointed last year to the state board of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services.