“Question Mark” was getting to be an aggravation.
The whole thing with the imaginary girlfriend, Jelly, the supermodel he’d say he was making out with in his locked room. The weird faceless picture he posted on Facebook that was supposed to be him.
The phone call where he said he was on vacation with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. His claim that he lived in room 666 of Cochrane Hall, which has only five floors.
The sunglasses. The buzz haircuts he gave himself in his room. The calls to his roommates in which he pretended he was somebody named “Question Mark.”
Andy Koch was fed up with his roommate, Seung-Hui Cho, he recalled Saturday in a telephone interview from Blacksburg, Va. “Who does this?” Koch said to himself.
In the four months before the Virginia Tech gunman was briefly committed to a psychiatric clinic in December 2005, his bizarre conduct unfolded in the usually innocent world of Facebook, laptops and dorm-door erase boards.
Koch, then a sophomore management major from Richmond, Va., said he and two friends roomed with Cho in fall 2005 in an eight-person suite.
Koch said Cho was dropped off at the start of school with little family fanfare. “Just a shy and quiet kid,” he said.
Cho first got his roommates’ attention at a frat party that September while they were standing around, drinking beers and talking.
Cho mentioned he had an imaginary girlfriend. “He said her name was Jelly and she called him Spanky, and that she was a supermodel and she traveled through space,” Koch said.
“I told my parents, and I told other friends, and they kind of laughed,” he said. Then one day Koch went to Cho’s room and Cho wouldn’t open the door, saying he was with Jelly. “We’re making out,” Cho said.
Koch said it seemed weird mainly in hindsight. His first real worry came the Sunday night campus police arrived to speak to Cho about bothering a female classmate.
Cho later told the roommates that he’d apparently frightened a girl when he went to her room to “look her in the eye.” He said he’d gone there to see if she was cool and instead saw “promiscuity” in her gaze. What she saw in his was enough for her to call police, Koch indicated.
Cho communicated with classmates, in part, via his Internet Facebook profile. But instead of the usual photo people post, Cho posted an illustration of a Zorro-like figure whose face was blank except for a large question mark. Thus was born the “Question Mark” persona, Koch said.
Tuesday morning, when Koch learned that Cho was the killer, he was stunned. “I was freaked for a couple minutes,” he said, “then I realized I needed to write everything down.”
The Internet activities of Cho provided more insight Saturday into how he may have plotted his rampage, including revelations that he bought two ammunition clips on eBay.
Cho bought two empty clips March 22, about three weeks before the attack in which he killed 32 people and himself. The clips were designed for one of the two types of handguns he used.
Cho, 23, also used the account to sell items ranging from Hokies football tickets to horror-theme books, some of which were assigned in one of his classes.
EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said the purchase of the clips from a Web vendor based in Idaho was legal and that the company has cooperated with authorities.
The eBay account demonstrates the prime role computer forensics and other digital information have played in the investigation. Authorities are examining the personal computers found in Cho’s dorm room and seeking his cellphone records.
One question they hope to answer is whether Cho had e-mail contact with Emily Hilscher, one of his first two victims. Investigators plan to search her Virginia Tech e-mail account.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
