Students and Teachers Fell to Cho's Gunfire


Robert Siegel and Michele Norris summarize the main news of the day from Virginia Tech, including
brief obituary notices from Monday's killings including Reema Samaha, 18, a freshman from Centreville, Va.; Caitlin Hammaren, 19, from upstate New York; and professors Kevin Granata and James Bishop.


From NPR news , this is All Things Considered, I'm Robert Siegel , and I'm Michele Norris.

In Blacksburg Virginia today more details are coming to light about yesterday's terrible shootings and the student who did the killing. Police say he was Seung-hui Cho, a 23-year-old English major at Virginia Tech, he was raised in northern Virginia near Washington D.C, and he was born in South Korea, fellow students say he was a loner, he often ate by himself in the cafeteria and sometimes didn't even respond to greeting.

This afternoon Virginia Tech held a convocation to memorialize 32 people who were gunned down yesterday morning. President Bush and the First Lady went to Blacksburg from Washington to attend the service with the members of the Virginia Tech community.

We are going to take a moment now to tell you what we know about some of the victims of yesterday's massacre. The shooting began in a dorm, and the 2 students who died there were Ryan Clark and Emily Hilscher. He was 22 years old, a moth's away from graduation with a triple major in Psychology, Biology and English, and a member of the Marching Virginian's pet band. She was a 19-year-old freshman, known as an animal lover in her hometown of Woodville Virginia. In fact, she was studying animal and poultry sciences. On MySpace she wrote that she's interested, in her words, "in pretty much everything except history".

30 people were gunned down in a classroom building, among them, students Matthew La Porte from Dumont, New Jersey, Henry Lee who was 20, and who grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, and Reema Samaha, an 18-year-old freshman from Centreville Virginia, she and the shooter attended the same high school but apparently did not know each other .

"I know she loved dance, she loved acting, she was, I know she was studying French, she was very good at French". Luann McNabb is a long time family friend in Centreville who knew Reema Samaha from the time she was born. "She won a talent show. She was doing a great ability, beautiful outfit, beautiful dance " McNabb says Samaha is survived by her parents, an older sister and an older brother who was a graduate of Virginia Tech.

Caitlin Hammaren, 19 years old, was an only child. She grew up in Westtown New York in Upstate New York. Martha Murray, is the superintendent of the Minisink Valley School district where Hammaren went to high school. "She was a wonderful music student, she played the violin and the all county chorus, but she could always be seen on the risers, singing in the concert. She was, not only a member of the mixed chorus, but she was the president of the mixed chorus, and then she belonged to a more selected group of singers, special singers called our chamber choir, so she was a quite talented musician". Caitlin Hammaren sang outdoor, says Martha Murray, and her friends called her Kati.

At least 4 professors and instructors were killed yesterday at Norris Hall. G.V. Loganathan, taught civil and environmental engineering. Liviu Librescu taught engineering and Math, Kevin Granata taught biomechanics. He did research about orthopedics before coming to Virginia Tech. He and his students were looking into muscle and reflex response and robotics. And Jamie Bishop, who taught German was a relatively new comer to Virginia Tech. A couple of years ago, he left the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to move to Blacksburg with his wife, Stephanie Hofer, she is on the faculty of the department of foreign languages at Virginia Tech.