Sad...
- Bill
- SON OF A BITCHSON OF A BITCH
EXCLUSIVE: Grandad's anger at uni murderer
Graham Brough In South Korea 20/04/2007
THE grandfather of Cho Seung-Hui said yesterday: "Son of a bitch. It serves him right he died with his victims."
Kim Hyang-Sik, 82, said he had a doom-laden dream of Cho's parents the night of his murderous rampage - and woke to hear the news of the massacre and his grandson's death.
He watched Cho's sick video of himself holding a gun to his head.
His sister Kim Yang-Sun, 85, who also saw it, told the Mirror that afterwards her brother was so distraught he had "gone away for a few days to calm himself down and avoid more questions".
She too repeatedly referred to the killer as "son of a bitch" or "a***hole" and said his mother Kim Hyang-Yim had problems with him from infancy.
Yang-Sun revealed the eight-year-old was diagnosed as autistic soon after his family emigrated to the US.
She said: "He was very quiet and only followed his mother and father around and when others called his name he just answered yes or no but never showed any feelings or motions.
"We started to worry that he was autistic - that was the big concern of his mother. He was even a loner as a child.
"Soon after they got to America his mother was so worried about his inability to talk she took him to hospital and he was diagnosed as autistic."
Yang-Sun spoke at her tiny one roomed shack inside a vinyl farm shelter in the Gohyang area of South Korea's capital Seoul.
The family had stayed there the night before they emigrated in 1992. Yang-Sun said Cho's mother had been reluctant to marry her older husband.
She said: "She had five brothers and sisters and she was the second eldest child. She took care of them after she graduated from high school, which meant a lot of self-sacrifice.
"Hyang-Yim was a full-time house person on one of her parents' small farms outside Seoul. She stayed at home like that for years and was still single at home when she was 29.
"We became worried that she was spending too much time at home with her brothers and sisters and family and getting to old for a husband.
"So the family decided to force her into a blind date to find a husband. She met Cho Sung-Tae on that date. He was 10 years older at 39 and still single too. They decided to get married soon after that.
"She didn't want to but her family insisted because we thought she was getting past the right age and it would be good for her.
"Her husband was very serious and quiet and careful with money. He was not very sociable and not very friendly to his mother-in-law and father-in law.
"After they were married he went away twice to Saudi Arabia in the 80s to try to make some money in the construction boom. He came back with about £2,000, which was enough to buy a small house in Seoul. He also ran a second-hand bookstore. His mother was living in the States on a long term visit to stay with his sister. She asked him to bring his family to live there.
"His sold the house to pay for the emigration costs and rented instead but there were lots of delays and eventually the whole process to get the permissions and organise things took eight years.
"By that time the money from the house was nearly gone. They were barely making ends meet so they had nothing to lose and had this idea of the American dream where there was a lot of money to be made."
She went on: "The reaction of my brother was that Seung-Hui was a troublemaker and it served him right that he died because he caused his mother a lot of problems. He was more worried about his daughter.
"He spoke to a few reporters to express sympathy to victims' families on behalf of our family but now he has gone away. He is 82 and lives quietly on a small farm and all this is too much for him."
Other relatives admitted Cho's parents had always been aware of his problems but had neither the time nor money for specialist help.
His uncle Chan Kim, 56, said: "He wasn't like a normal kid. We were worried about him not talking.
"Both his parents knew he had mental problems but they were poor and they couldn't send him to a special hospital in the United States.
"His mother and sister were asking his friends to help instead.
"His parents worked and did not have time to look after his condition and didn't give him special treatment.
"They had no time or money to look after his special problem even though they knew he was autistic."
