Va. Tech Awarding Degrees to Victims

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The disturbing manifesto and videos of Cho Seung-Hui delivering a snarling tirade about rich "brats" and their "hedonistic needs" had only marginal value to police investigating his deadly attack on the Virginia Tech campus, officials said Thursday.

University officials also announced that Cho's 32 victims would be awarded degrees posthumously, and that other students terrorized by the shootings might be allowed to end the semester immediately without consequences.

Is News Media Providing a Bully Pulpit for a Killer?

Cho's self-made video and photos of himself pointing guns as if he were imitating a movie poster were mailed to NBC on Monday, the morning of the Virginia Tech massacre.

A Postal Service time stamp on the package reads 9:01 a.m. between the 7:15 a.m. shootings at a campus dormitory and the shooting that started around 9:45 a.m. in a classroom building where Cho eventually killed himself.

In much of Cho's videotaped rants, the 23-year-old speaks in a harsh monotone, but it isn't clear to whom he is speaking.

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," Cho says in one, with a snarl on his lips. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

In another, he appears more melancholy, saying: "This is it. This is where it all ends. What a life it was. Some life."

NBC said the package contained a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement, 28 video clips and 43 photos.

It was given to State Police but contained little that they didn't already know, Col. Steve Flaherty said Thursday. Flaherty said he was disappointed that NBC decided to broadcast parts of it.

"I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it," he said.

On NBC's "Today" show Thursday, host Meredith Vieira said the decision to air the information "was not taken lightly." Some victims' relatives canceled their plans to speak with NBC because they were upset over the airing of the images, she said.

"I saw his picture on TV, and when I did I just got chills," said Kristy Venning, a junior from Franklin County, Va. "There's really no words. It shows he put so much thought into this and I think it's sick."

The package helped explain one mystery: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building.

"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," says Cho, a South Korean immigrant whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything."