DOCUMENT: College

Court Found Cho "Mentally Ill"

Outpatient treatment recommended after December 2005 psych evaluation

View Document

Court Found Cho "Mentally Ill"

APRIL 19--Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho was judged "mentally ill" and a possible "danger to self or others," according to a court order that led to a brief hospitalization in late 2005. An evaluation of Cho was performed in December 2005 after campus police took him to a psychiatric facility when a pair of female students complained that he was stalking and harassing them. According to District Court records, copies of which you'll find below, psychiatrist Roy Crouse found Cho's affect "flat" and his mood "depressed." But Cho, Crouse added, denied suicidal thoughts and did not "acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder. His insight and judgment are normal." As a result of Crouse's exam, Judge Paul Barnett concluded that Cho "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness," but that an involuntary hospitalization was deemed "unsuitable." Instead, Barnett recommended that outpatient treatment was warranted. It was during this period that Cho, an English major, was becoming a concern to professors as a result of his bizarre and violent writings, one of which, a one-act play called "Richard McBeef," can be found here. (6 pages)