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AOL News has obtained two plays a classmate says were written by Cho Seung-Hui. Ian MacFarlane, the former classmate and current AOL employee, provided us with the plays. A note from Mr. MacFarlane and links to the works appear below.What happened yesterday:
When I first heard about the multiple shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday, my first thought was about my friends, and my second thought was "I bet it was Seung Cho."
Cho was in my playwriting class last fall, and nobody seemed to think much of him at first. He would sit by himself whenever possible, and didn't like talking to anyone. I don't think I've ever actually heard his voice before. He was just so quiet and kept to himself. Looking back, he fit the exact stereotype of what one would typically think of as a "school shooter" – a loner, obsessed with violence, and serious personal problems. Some of us in class tried to talk to him to be nice and get him out of his shell, but he refused talking to anyone. It was like he didn't want to be friends with anybody. One friend of mine tried to offer him some Halloween candy that she still had, but he slowly shook his head, refusing it. He just came to class every day and submitted his work on time, as I understand it.
A major part of the playwriting class was peer reviews. We would write one-act plays and submit them to an online repository called Blackboard for everyone in the class to read and comment about in class the next day. Typically, the students give their opinions about the plays and suggest ways to make it better, the professor gives his insights, then asks the author to comment about the play in class.
When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of. Before Cho got to class that day, we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter. I was even thinking of scenarios of what I would do in case he did come in with a gun, I was that freaked out about him. When the students gave reviews of his play in class, we were very careful with our words in case he decided to snap. Even the professor didn't pressure him to give closing comments.
After hearing about the mass shootings, I sent one of my friends a Facebook message asking him if he knew anything about Seung Cho and if he could have been involved. He replied: "dude that's EXACTLY what I was thinking! No, I haven't heard anything, but seriously, that was the first thing I thought when I heard he was Asian."
While I "knew" Cho, I always wished there was something I could do for him, but I couldn't think of anything. As far as notifying authorities, there isn't (to my knowledge) any system set up that lets people say "Hey! This guy has some issues! Maybe you should look into this guy!" If there were, I definitely would have tried to get the kid some help. I think that could have had a good chance of averting yesterday's tragedy more than anything.
While I was hesitant at first to release these plays (because I didn't know if there are laws against it), I had to put myself in the shoes of the average person researching this situation. I'd want to know everything I could about the killer to figure out what could drive a person to do something like this and hopefully prevent it in the future. Also, I hope this might help people start caring about others more no matter how weird they might seem, because if this was some kind of cry for attention, then he should have gotten it a long time ago.
As far as the victims go, as I was heading to bed last night, I heard that my good friend Stack (Ryan Clark) was one of the first confirmed dead. I didn't want to believe that I'd never get to talk to him again, and all I could think about was how much I could tell him how much his friendship meant to me. During my junior year, Ryan, another friend and I used to get breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Shultz Dining Hall, one of the cafeterias on campus, and it was always the highlight of my day. He could talk forever it seemed and always made us laugh. He was a good friend, not just to me, but to a lot of people, and I'll miss him a lot.
Click on the links below the read the plays. WARNING: the plays contain profanity and scenes with disturbing content.
- Read Play #1: 'Richard McBeef'
- Read Play #2: 'Mr. Brownstone'
Reader Comments ( Page 688 of 689)
10306. I think the plays stinks. Not worth to mention. The kid was just trying to be mancho, kool,... added a lot of violent and dramatic to get attention and better grade like most cocky straight guy. Just bull head! There's no anger to me. Sorry, but the plays are too bull for me to get a feel. These plays are so not worth for mention.
Thanh at 2:30PM on Jun 18th 2007
10307. This his guy was insane. That fact is painfully clear from his actions yesterday (and only reenforced by his 'so-called" plays -- Stacy is right that he wrote like a retarded 13 year old) Cannot believe that this is the work of a College Senior/English major! How did he get this far in school without someone seeing he was mental damaged? My prays go out to all the families whose lives have been destroyed bty this very sick young man.
C.Rod at 3:01PM on Jun 18th 2007
10308. I am absolutely numb.
I would like to ask that we stop giving the person who wrote on the how the paper was written a break. It was merely a comment. Let's just move on from berating her. It doesn't help, but we do know that mean words can hurt. Thanks.
sunny at 9:05AM on Jun 19th 2007
10309. I am not an English professor, a psychologist, or a criminologist, but I am going to share my thoughts and feelings. Seung Cho did not have full command of the English language, nor was he a gifted playwright. His writing gives us a disturbing view of his mind. He was an angry young man who felt victimized. I am guessing he was sodomized. He lived in a fantasy world where he could deliver justice. He lost his connection with humanity a long time ago, and found comfort in his solitude.
It is a tragedy. Many lives were permanently altered. We will all feel the grief, and need time to heal. I don't see the value in trying to blame anyone, or understand what went wrong. There will be more tragedy. There will be more inequity of justice. We need to heal collectively. We need to "Go home...and love our families."
Thomas Estergard at 11:17PM on Jun 21st 2007
10310. Isn't it crystal clear people? These plays, or scenes of mayhem and confusion are in fact a cry for help. Basically these rantings of a lonely, attention-starved, depraved and neglected by society, disturbed individual. In this case, however, hindsite on the surface may only appear to be 20/20. Oppertunists prey upon the emotions of their victims after they have been traumatised by specific events that have brought them to a low point. Can you see where I am going with this? It is in my humble oppinion that I believe that the author of these macabre scenes of dispair were brought to light by the same individual who brought them to lght. Ian MacFarlane, the former classmate and current AOL employee. Certainly, how did he obtain these wrtings and why? A decent person would just file them to the recycle bin. Unless they thought someday that the disgruntled student may someday snap and take it out on society.
Frdrick Cee at 3:33AM on Jun 23rd 2007
10311. its obvious that this kid was very up set about two people in his life based on the plays he has written one would be his step dad.. or father.. and the other being his professor which he calls Mr .brownstone which gave him a "d" for missing 2 homework's... he must have felt poor cause he wanted to win a jackpot of 5 million and was probably angry with all the rich kids in the school, he or his family might have been struggling to pay the bills and getting a "d" wouldn't have helped things much.. he is very angry at his father who he blames for being poor and holding lower class jobs, perhaps lack of education or because of laziness and poor education. he is angry that this man who is not his father and is trying to be.. he seems to blame this man for his real fathers death.. and throws darts at his face.. there is a lot of raw anger here.. he mentions about his teach who after 8 hours of being with this man is enough but the teacher.. who he refers to as Mr brownstone follows him around yelling at him and annoying him he must be feeling like at home he as to deal with a father he cant stand and at school with a teacher he hated.. the pressure would have mounted quickly.. very sad that no one didn't catch these warning signs right after he handed in both of these plays.. its very sad because in the columbine shootings they made a violent movie for a class project about pretending to walk around shooting people and no one took that as a warning sign.. theses pages were VT warnings signs and again no one saw it coming.. I send my sympathy to all the parents that were touched by this tragedy.. I feel strongly that the campus police could have done a better job including shutting the school down. There were two other shootings around the school in less then a month and 3 bomb scares and at that time the school was shut down, what went wrong this time.
God bless the students friends and family..
chris at 8:48PM on Jun 26th 2007
10312. I can't believe all these ridiculous comments here. Rather than bashing each other, maybe you guys should focus on the issue posted? Or at least on the tragedy that happened? And stop blaming each other, because no one wanted this to happen!
As for these plays, you can't tell from two works that one is a psycho. I have written works a hundred times more sick than this one, but I'm not about to grab a gun and shoot someone. The event couldn't have been foreseen based on his writings.
I do wonder how he got into college with this kind of work though...
Maria at 11:03AM on Jun 30th 2007
10313. By the time I saw this, the plays were removed. Anyone know where to read them? It is apparent by the comments and reactions that they should have been a pivot point of action by the authorities and teachers on campus.
Mark at 9:22AM on Jul 8th 2007
10314. Ian MacFarlane is just a fu#k!ng rat looking for publicity. Ohh..."I knew Cho Seung and knew he's school shooter material." What a bunch of bogus ex post facto bu!!sh^t! Get real, half of Hollywood's screen plays are more disturbing than Cho Seung's crap. Does MacFarlane think all those screen writers will go out shooting Beverly Hill's privileged?? Fu%king AOL MacFarlane trying to get famous amist this tragedy; I expected nothing less from an AOL employee. I hope you get your raise from AOL Ian MacBeef!
DHS at 9:35PM on Jul 10th 2007
10315. I love how quickly everyone jumps to the defense of those plays when "Stacy" comments on how they appeared to be written by a 9th grader.
I especially love this comment;
"You say this sounds like a ninth grader...I see her comments are coming from her heart. What would you have liked her to say...maybe use big words, better vocabulary? Have you ever lost a person close to you...obviously not. If you had, you would talk about it with feeling, if you cared that much about that person. I think it's sad to be you."
Oh. My. God. She must be a complete insensitive jackass who never lost anyone evar!!!
Get over it. That guy killed people, and you are obsessing over his shoddy plays, and a singular comment about them. But sorry, I guess any comments made to this must be made with FEELING :D :D :D
Alas... I troll this far, far, far too late for most of you to even read this.
Oh well.
His plays were garbage, and he was a completely psychotic murderous bastard.
Broken Xeno at 7:33AM on Jul 11th 2007
10316. i think the person is sick in his mind. sad
kevin yang at 4:31PM on Jul 14th 2007
10317. His writing skills doesn't matter, now. What matters is that nobody was able to read between the lines and really listen to what the child was trying to say about himself. Sometimes that can be hard for a troubled person to do. But others, like some of his classmates, noticed his behavior, and did not take it lightly. But what could they do?
Well, someone did try to reach out. That was good, even that much probably was enough to keep him from doing far worse than what he did yesterday.
In the mean time, why don't some of you get together and form your own support group that could meet let's say once or twice or month see how others are doing, help each other out, be concerned for, etc. For instance, one of you may be having serious problems with an abusive, jealous boyfriend and now he's threatening you. Your support group could help you find services, a safe house, gather a collection for emergency financial needs if necessary. Or a guy may be having problems with his folks. They just don't care for him anymore and have kicked him to the curb because they think he will amount to nothing. Your group could prove them wrong by helping him stay on track at school, keep his job or obtain one, keep him clean and out of trouble if necessary.
That way, the girl won't go crazy and kill this dude and everybody around him and this boy won't freak out and shoot up everybody in the household.
Think about it. I'd like to help with some ideas or suggestions.
This child was lost in a serious way. He was NOT going to let anyone inside his mind, but he DID intend for us to know what was going on with him in his own way. It was just to late to save him. One can only watch people like him closely so you can scram in case they have decided to strike...
Rita at 8:45PM on Jul 24th 2007
10318. While everyone is so concerned and outraged that a Mr. Cho, went on daily, unchallenged, while all the warning signs were clear, we must remember that there are thousands of others, identical to Mr. Cho, or worse, still alive today, roaming around in our midst and there is absolutely nothing the current system can do to stop them, in the future, G-d forbid.
It's perfectly human to not want to think of ourselves as being truly helpless and powerless against thousands of other such people with mental health issues, but this is the frighting truth.
Talking of making new Gun Control or other New Laws is a Joke since the types of people who do these types of things, never follow any Laws and never have any difficulty getting all the guns they want, Laws or No Laws.
We have plenty of Laws against Illegal Drugs but everyone who wants it can still get it on every street corner, Law or No Law.
The only thing which has saved us from the likes of Cho, until now and the only way it can be prevented in the future is only with G-d's Divine help.
It's all in G-d's hands and there is really nothing humanly possible to have been able to prevent the past or the future except via G-d's promise to the entire human race that he will send the Real and Righteous Messiah (called Moshiach, in Hebrew) to save the entire world from all evil and to transform this world to a place of true peace and happiness for all mankind.
The Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch and of all World Jewry says that each act of Goodness and Kindness helps speed up the complete and ultimate salvation and redemption of the entire world via Moshiach.
For further reading on the subject visit the following Chabad Lubavitch web sites.
http://www.jewishwomenunited.com
http://www.moshiach.com
http://www.igrot.com
Rabbi at 6:34PM on Aug 2nd 2007
10319. First thing my son said to me when we spoke of what happened yesterday is "I'm surprised it hasn't happened at my high school yet." The problem seems to stem from the fact that authorities are not allowed to do anything that is only alleged. Yes, we can offer counseling, but the person has to want to accept the help offered. We are not allowed to force them to get help, even if we feel endangered. That is how in has been in our community.
A at 4:08PM on Aug 4th 2007
10320. JESSICA - YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ENGLISH, ARE YOU STUPID? OR JUST IGNORANT? YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY A GHETTO PIECE OF GARBAGE. NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY AND ABOUT YOUR GHETTO SOAP OPERAS. I ALMOST PUKED WHEN I READ YOUR COMMENT, JUST TO LET EVERYONE KNOW. AGAIN, YOU ARE A GHETTO PIECE OF GARBAGE. I AM TRUELY SORRY THAT YOUR LIFE SUCKS....NUFF SAID
Shaggy at 11:19AM on Aug 11th 2007