Reply #91: a post on DU linked to an article that said he'd been diagnosed as autistic at eight...

[progdonkey]

...and that his grandfather said, "The bastard deserved to die," and something to the effect that a family shouldn't have to deal with a child like that. After a quick Google search, though, I couldn't find the article in question, but an article at a Waco station's website said that his parents had been told he was autistic when he arrived in the US, but a BBC article instead said that there was no mention of his being autistic in his medical records.

I think the issue of his actually being autistic is more for the mental health experts, since the more pertinent issue is whether the family believed something was wrong with him. The hate that the grandfather expressed towards him--not just for the killings, but for his very existence--makes it pretty clear that he wasn't very welcome in his family. It sounds like the parents did their best, but were fighting an uphill battle against their cultural stigmas. The irony of this whole tragedy is that, if Cho had simply committed suicide in his room with one of those guns, everyone would've felt sorry for him and had pity for what must've been an awful upbringing.