Va. gunman’s family is ‘helpless and lost’

The family of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-hui Cho spoke out for the first time Friday, saying in a prepared statement that they felt “hopeless, helpless and lost” and were left heartbroken by the “terrible, senseless tragedy” the deeply troubled young man inflicted on fellow students and teachers.

“I feel like I don’t know this person,” Cho’s older sister, Sun-kyung Cho, said in the statement issued through a North Carolina attorney. “We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.”

The family of immigrants from South Korea had not been heard from since Cho, 23, a senior majoring in English, shot 32 people to death Monday morning then turned his handgun on himself. Sun-kyung Cho and her parents, who have a home in Centreville, Va., are staying with friends and relatives, the FBI said Friday.

In the statement, Sun-kyung Cho said the family was “deeply sorry for the devastation my brother has caused.” She said she and her parents pray every day for the students and teachers who were murdered, and the statement listed the names of all 32 victims.

Sun-kyung Cho said the family was cooperating fully with police to “help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well.”

Through a third party, Sun-kyung Cho contacted Wade M. Smith -- a prominent defense lawyer in Raleigh, N.C. -- late Thursday, a source said. Sun-kyung Cho had seen Smith interviewed on television and thought he seemed trustworthy, the source said. Smith represents one of three former Duke University lacrosse players who were cleared this month after being charged last year with sexually assaulting a stripper.

Smith told the woman that she didn’t need a lawyer, but he agreed to act as an intermediary for the family. There is no fee or retainer, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Smith is not commenting.

Assistant FBI Director Joe Persichini told the Associated Press Friday that while officials are in contact with Cho’s family, they have not been placed in protective custody.

The family’s statement came as police filed a search warrant request for Cho’s cellphone records and e-mail accounts, saying they wanted to find out whether “he may have communicated with others concerning his plans to carry out attacks on students and faculty at Virginia Tech.”

Cho’s Hotmail account was used to buy one of the guns he used in the killings. Authorities are also interested in looking at Cho’s school e-mail account.

On Thursday, police sought search warrants for the cellphone and laptop belonging to Emily Jane Hilscher, a freshman who was one of the first two students killed by Cho in her dormitory Monday. They are trying to find out whether Cho, who had a history of stalking female students at the school, had tried to contact Hilscher.

Police have said consistently since Monday that they have not ruled out the possibility of an accomplice in the planning and execution of the attacks. After the first shootings at the dormitory, police focused on Hilscher’s boyfriend, Karl David Thornhill. They were questioning him off campus as Cho mailed videos and other items to NBC and made his way to Norris Hall, where he murdered 30 people.

Police said Wednesday that Thornhill was no longer a “person of interest,” but someone they believed could help provide information. He has not been charged or arrested.

In her statement, Sun-kyung Cho said she and her parents “are humbled by this darkness.... We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in.”

She added: “He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare.”

Of the victims, she said: “Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act.”

She said the family was praying for “those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced.”

Responding to the violence at Virginia Tech, President Bush said he has directed federal officials to conduct a national inquiry on how to prevent violence by mentally disturbed people.

Members of the departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services will travel across the country and meet with mental health professionals, educators and state and local leaders, and then will make recommendations, the White House said Friday.

The inquiry is the subject of Bush’s weekly radio address today. The White House took the unusual step of releasing the text a day early.

“We can never fully understand what would cause a student to take the lives of 32 innocent people,” Bush’s text says. “Our society continues to wrestle with the question of how to handle individuals whose mental health problems can make them a danger to themselves and others.”

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david.zucchino@latimes.com

Times staff writer Richard A. Serrano in Washington contributed to this report.