Virginia Tech

I will remain on the story for at least one more day. I was allowed to return home for the weekend, but must travel back to Blacksburg later this evening.

The Associated Press dispatched someone from my bureau because Charleston is closer to Richmond. We knew of only one death but multiple injuries when I headed out, just after noon. I was crushed when my radio picked up the initial press conference and word of 20+ fatalities. My despair only increased when they upped the death toll further, just as I crossed into Virginia.

I was the 2nd AP reporter to reach the scene, following our Roanoke-based correspondent. I was also the 2nd reporter overall to visit the nearby Montgomery Regional Hospital, where 17 of those shot and injured were taken.

Throughout Monday afternoon, I interviewed friends and, later, family members of those wounded by the shooter. Details were still sketchy, and I often had more information than the VT students I was interviewing. But to a person, they were all very patient with me.

Only one chose not to go on the record, a Korean student who smoked pensively outside the ER as he awaited word on a wounded friend, a fellow Korean.

I visited the hospital several more times over the course of the week, fielding updates as the wounded continued to recover and were discharged. I wrote this brief about one of these students, the quick-thinking senior and former Eagle Scout, Kevin Sterne.

I spent most nights that week staffing the briefing center set up at The Inn at Virginia Tech, an impressive new building that houses a hotel, conference facilities and the school's alumni center. Standing-room only during the day, I found myself sharing the room with only a couple of Australian reporters and a handful of Asian media during the early morning hours.

The number of Asian reporters, thought, would sometimes swell to between 25 and 30, however, during the overnight. I still can't get my head around the scale of the media coverage: more than 30 video cameras ringed the rear of the briefing center during those press conferences. I once walked around part of The Inn to count the satellite trucks, and stopped at 60. Reporters from Canada, France, Japan and the UK sat immediately around me in the room.

I spent part of each night walking the campus. VT is a very attractive place to go to school. It has grand, Gothic style stone buildings with engaging architectural features. It seems to have a nice lay out, and ample green space (it also has a solid radio station).

Monday night, I traced the route between Ambler Johnston and Norris halls. The walk took less than 10 minutes. At that point, we had no idea what Cho did for the 2+ hours between the shootings. Even with the mailed "multimedia manifesto," we may still not have the complete picture. But I wondered that night what else he had done that final morning.

Later on in the week, I walked around the exterior of Norris Hall. It's been cordoned off, of course, and the public is not allowed near that entrance that Cho apparently chained shut before he opened fire. It is the only entrance visible, though Norris is attached to another building.

As best I can tell, we still don't know why Cho targeted Norris Hall. Looking at it that night, I wondered whether he saw it as a killing zone he could control: by chaining the door and then starting on the opposite side of the hallway, perhaps he figured he had trapped everyone in all those classrooms.

I also spent that first night identifying those killed, with help from VT's web site and the school's sizable online community. The school's site also helped me pinpoint three of the Norris classrooms that Cho attacked, and that the office of one of the professors killed was one floor up.

My duties also took me to the drill field. Mourners lit candles, left flowers and wrote prayers and condolences at several spots on and around the field. The solemn, graceful war memorial nearby also hosts one of these shrines.

I interviewed students and others there late Wednesday night, but by then the canceled classes had shifted the media-to-student ratio to, well, unhealthy levels. As I prepare to return to Blacksburg, I understand that the VT student government has asked all media to leave the campus by Monday morning.