Sun-Kyung Cho '04, the sister of Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui, has released a statement on behalf of her family expressing her "devastation" at Monday's killings and her shock that someone she "grew up with and loved" could have taken the lives of 32 innocent people.
"We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family," Cho said in the statement. "My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
"He has made the world weep," she added. "We are living a nightmare."
The statement's release comes less than two days after The Daily Princetonian first reported that Cho would issue a statement on behalf of her family, and is the first time the gunman's relatives have spoken out regarding their emotions after Monday's shootings.
During a call to the Rev. David Kim, who heads the campus group Manna Christian Fellowship, Cho apologized for any backlash Koreans on campus may be experiencing due to her brother's actions and told him she would release a statement on behalf of her parents, who do not speak English.
Cho — who was a member of Manna during her time at Princeton, and who is currently taking a leave of absence from her job with a State Department contractor — added in the statement that she and her family have prayed "every day since April 16" for the people whose lives her brother took, listing the name of each individual who perished after Monday's shootings.
"We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief," she said. "And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced."
An economics major while at the University, Cho interned at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok during the summer after her junior year and wrote briefly for The Daily Princetonian. Kim described her as "one of the sweetest people" during a Wednesday forum organized by the Korean American Students Association to help students cope with Monday's events.
The 23-year-old Cho Seung Hui — who shot himself after taking the lives of 32 people Monday on the Virginia Tech campus — immigrated to the United States in 1992 from South Korea, along with Sun-Kyung and their parents. Monday's deaths at Virginia Tech were the worst shooting massacre in United States history.
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