For years, Cho hid behind wall of silence

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Growing up, Seung-Hui Cho struggled to express himself even before he and his parents immigrated to the United States from South Korea, seemingly trapped behind an intense shyness and unwillingness to communicate that caused ridicule and isolation until his final days, according to former classmates and a relative.

Their comments add another dimension to the troubling life story of the 23-year-old mass killer, suggesting that Cho’s estrangement from society began well before his sullen and lonely years at Virginia Tech, where on Monday he committed the country’s worst shooting rampage.

‘‘There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him,’’ Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior who graduated with Cho from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003, told the Associated Press yesterday. ‘‘He didn’t speak English really well and they would really make fun of him.’’

Though Cho seems to have kept to himself for much of his life, his final videotaped words continued to generate controversy yesterday, as numerous media outlets pledged to refrain from airing excerpts from the chilling multimedia manifesto Cho mailed to NBC News in New York in between his murderous attacks.

‘‘You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today,’’ Cho says in one video excerpt. ‘‘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.’’

Doctors announced yesterday that three more people would be released from Montgomery Regional Hospital today, leaving five victims still hospitalized in stable condition. Doctors said none of the remaining patients had been paralyzed by Cho’s gunshots but some may require lengthy rehabilitative care.

‘‘Things appear to be headed in the right direction,’’ said Dr. Demian Yakel, Montgomery Regional orthopedic surgeon, adding that the remaining patients, who have been fully briefed on the killings, seemed to be in a good frame of mind.

‘‘I haven’t seen any anger. ..... They seem calm and collected,’’ he said. Some were surrounded by friends, Yakel said, making it seem ‘‘like they’re having a mini-party in the room.’’

At a press conference yesterday, campus officials said the 27 students slain will receive posthumous degrees, though Cho will not. Five faculty members were also killed.

University officials yesterday concluded their last official media briefing, saying there was little more information to deliver for now. Larry Hincker, the school’s spokesman, said the week had taken its toll on administrators. ‘‘I have to admit very freely that I am totally exhausted and spent,’’ said Hincker. ‘‘This has been the most trying ordeal.’’

Those who knew Cho said the young killer appears far more talkative in those final, snarling videotaped rants than he ever was alive.

Cho ‘‘didn’t talk much when he was young. He was very quiet, but he didn’t display any peculiarities to suggest he may have problems,’’ said an uncle, who would identify himself only by his last name, Kim, when speaking with The Associated Press from Seoul, where he lives. ‘‘We were concerned about him being too quiet and encouraged him to talk more.’’

Struggling economically in South Korea, Cho’s family moved to the United States in 1992 to seek a better life, said Kim. The family never visited their homeland, and Kim said he did not recognize his nephew when his picture appeared on television as the shooter in the deadliest massacre in US history.

It is unclear what path the family took when they reached America, but they eventually settled in Centreville, Va. Cho attended Chantilly High.

Davids told The Associated Press that one day in English class, students were taking turns reading aloud, but when it was Cho’s turn he just stared down in silence. When the teacher threatened him with a failing grade, Cho started to read in what Davids described as a strange, deep-pitched tone that sounded ‘‘like he had something in his mouth.’’

‘‘As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ‘Go back to China,’.’’ said Davids.

Another student who attended middle school, high school, and Virginia Tech with Cho, Regan Wilder, 21, said that on the few occasions her taciturn classmate spoke, it was in ‘‘a real low mutter, like a whisper.’’

She recalled an advanced-placement Spanish class in which students were assigned to tape themselves speaking. Classmates were eager to hear Cho’s tape because they were curious to hear his voice. The teacher told them only that Cho completed the assignment, Wilder said.

Wilder also recalled that Chantilly teachers had tried to draw him out in class, but Cho ‘‘would only shrug his shoulders, or he’d give like two-word responses, and I think it just got to the point where teachers just gave up.’’

That pattern seems to have intensified at Virginia Tech.

‘‘He was like a ghost. He was just quiet,’’ said Marilyn Duncan, who had an English class with Cho this year and heard him say only one word the entire semester, during roll call on the first day. ‘‘He said ‘Seung,’ and that’s it.’’

In the videotapes he left behind, however, Cho had much to say in a series of angry diatribes. And Virginia Tech students, school officials, and law enforcement officers debated NBC’s decision to air the angry, hate-filled messages Cho had recorded.

On Wednesday, NBC News announced it had received the package from Cho at the network’s New York headquarters on Tuesday. Postmarks on the envelope indicate Cho mailed the package in the two hours between the killing of two students in a Virginia Tech residence hall and the slaughter of 30 people in an academic building across campus.

The network later broadcast images of Cho scowling into the camera while posing with two of the pistols believed to be used in the massacre. It also aired menacing video clips of him vowing to avenge unknown slights with bloodshed. His package to the network included a densely-written manifesto spiked with profanity.

Critics said airing Cho’s bitter, frightening monologues gave him an unwarranted worldwide platform and could inspire copycats while providing little insight into the case. The Fox network’s news division banned use of the material; most other networks said they would continue limited use of still photos and sharply curtail broadcast of video excepts.

At a press conference yesterday, Virginia State Police Colonel Steve Flaherty scolded news organizations for using the material. He said that Cho’s videotapes and pictures served no journalistic purpose and re-traumatized the Virginia Tech community.

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

Like national media outlets, Boston area stations yesterday scaled back use of the Cho images and video. But on the first night, most Boston stations followed other media outlets and widely aired video excerpts and some photographs.

Jennifer Street, news director at WBZ-TV (Channel 4), said the station planned to show very short video clips on yesterday’s 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. broadcasts.

‘‘After tonight, we’re done with it,’’ Street said.

The Boston Globe’s website, Boston.com, also had excerpts of the video images available via a link yesterday. Mark Micheli, Boston.com's news editor, said he had no plans to change that. ‘‘Our users have complete control. They can click it or not,’’ he said.

But grieving Virginia Tech students were disturbed and angered by Cho’s words and images — and the network’s decision to air them. In addition to the nationwide broadcasts, Cho’s ranting address to society was widely circulated online.

‘‘The creepiest part was watching his [lack of] expression,’’ said Carissa Shoemaker, 20, a Virginia Tech sophomore studying hospitality and tourism management. ‘‘I don’t want to watch it again.’’

Suzanne C. Ryan and Marcella Bombardieri contributed to this story. Material from the Associated Press was also used.