Virginia Tech killer a self-described 'question mark'

Story Highlights

• Roommates say gunman called himself "Question Mark" online and on phone
• Gunman wrote violent, disturbing scripts, former classmate says
• Gunman was 23-year-old senior English major

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BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- Cho Seung-Hui, the student behind Monday's massacre on the Virginia Tech campus, described himself as a "question mark" who had an imaginary girlfriend, his roommates say.

John and Andy, who did not want their last names used, told CNN's Gary Tuchman that Cho also stalked girls and left the lights on when he went to bed.

John and Andy shared a dorm room with Cho, a 23-year-old senior English major, on the Virginia Tech campus. The three first met each other in the fall. (Watch Cho's former roommates describe him and his imaginary girlfriend )

Andy said Cho used to call him on his cell phone, saying his name was Question Mark.

"I finally just got completely tired of it," Andy said. "And I'm like, Seung, the act's up. You know you need to stop this.

" 'This isn't Seung; this is Question Mark,' " Andy said Cho insisted in the reply. He said he later tracked Cho down in a study lounge making the call.

Cho's use of the Question Mark moniker wasn't just a gag on his roommates.

Students in one of Cho's classes called him "the question mark kid," classmate Julie Poole told The Associated Press, because Cho used just a question mark for his name on a class sign-in sheet.

The roommates said Cho also used the Question Mark screen name to contact girls on instant messaging. On at least two occasions, police came to their room to investigate a girl's complaint, they said.

After the last police response, Cho got upset, Andy said.

"And he told me that he might as well kill himself. And so I told the cops that. And they took him away to the counseling center for a night or two," Andy said.

John said he told friends -- especially girls -- not to come to his room for fear Cho would try to stalk them. He said he became more "watchdog" than roommate.

"I thought about several times trying to follow him, to see if maybe he was going to stalk some other girl in some other dorm, so we could get word to them," John said.

The roommates said Cho once told them he had an imaginary girlfriend he called "Jelly."

"And she called him Spanky," Andy said. "She was a supermodel, I think."

Other unusual behavior included Cho's bedtime habits, the roommates said.

"He would leave the [bedroom] door open and the lights on," John said. "And we had lofted beds, too, so the light was right next to his head."

The roommates said Cho spoke little. "Never more than a couple of words," Andy said.

Classmates gave a similar description.

Ian MacFarlane, who had a writing class with Cho, said he was extremely quiet, and efforts by other students to draw him out were rebuffed.

Cho wrote two draft scripts for the class that contain "really twisted, macabre violence," MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted Tuesday on AOL. (Watch how Cho's words could help police )

MacFarlane said in the blog that when the class read Cho's work, "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." (Read details of Cho's disturbing scripts)

An English professor said Wednesday that Cho's in-class behavior was "intimidating."

Nikki Giovanni, a nationally known poet, said Cho was "writing just weird things."

"It was terrible. It was not bad poetry, it was intimidating," Giovanni said.

She said when she told him to stop writing such poems, he argued back. "He said, 'You can't make me.' "

Cho grew up in the Washington suburb of Centreville, Virginia, and graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Virginia, in 2003.

Cho's parents worked at a dry cleaners, according to Jeff Ahn, president of the League of Korean-Americans Virginia Inc.

Ahn, who does not know the family personally but has talked to others who know them, described the parents as "very shaken" and "hurt" by what their son did.

Ahn described them as "hard-working" people whose long hours helped send their daughter to Princeton University and their son to Virginia Tech.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Cho was a legal permanent resident and had a green card. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Cho emigrated from South Korea when he was 8.

On Tuesday, the mail carrier who has been delivering mail to Cho's parents since they moved to the Sully Station II subdivision described his father, Cho Sung-tae, 61, and his mother, Cho Hyang-ai, 51, as "super nice." He said he never met their son.

"I only met them [parents] when they were home, and I had packages to deliver to them ... but every time I did see them, they were super nice," Rod Wells said.

"It's just breaking my heart," he added. "No parent deserves that."

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