Continuing Coverage by:

A Stone for Cho

April 26, 2007

By Holly Prestidge

BLACKSBURG — Moral responsibility, Katelynn Johnson said, was what led her to add a Hokie stone for Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho to the 32 others in the Drillfield memorial.

Johnson, a senior sociology/psychology major, identified herself in a letter to the editor in the Collegiate Times yesterday as the person who laid the stone at the memorial at 4 a.m. last Thursday.

She did so in the dark to avoid attention, she said.

"My family did not raise me to do what is popular," the letter said. "They raised me to do what is morally right. We did not lose only 32 students and faculty members that day; we lost 33 lives."

Yesterday, as of late afternoon, 33 stones were at the memorial in front of Burruss Hall.

Cho's stone had first appeared fourth from the left end of the horseshoe-shaped memorial. Yesterday, Cho's stone, with memorial items left around it, was the first on the left end. Unlike the other stones, Cho's did not include a marker with his name.

In an interview with The Times-Dispatch yesterday, Johnson said a rumor had spread across campus that the stone had been stolen, but that to her knowledge the stone hasn't moved. It was just under other victims' memorial items.

Johnson said she finds it hard to believe Cho's stone would have been taken and then returned.

During the weekend, Cho's name was included in many church services and memorials on campus.

One student group that didn't include him is Hokies United, which organized Monday's memorial observance in which 32 white balloons were released as a bell sounded 32 times.

Calls and e-mails yesterday to members of Hokies United went unanswered.

In her letter, Johnson said that only her mother and the friend who helped her transport the stone knew what she was doing, and that she fears "backlash from my fellow students and perhaps even faculty and staff members who do not agree with my actions or perhaps my reasoning. Most people walking on this campus today are outraged and have a deep-felt hate for Cho.

"I lost friends and acquaintances like a lot of other people; I have mourned this event and continue to deal with the intense disbelief and pain we all are. I am not removed from this incident, I am not heartless and it's not that I don't care about the horrific thing that has happened. But I refuse to do what is popular and agree with everyone around me that only 32 people died on Monday. Thirty-three died."

Johnson talked yesterday about the reaction to her letter.

"I've been really surprised actually," she said. "Some of them . . . all they said is 'Thank you.' Most of them made me cry. They had wanted to do something and they couldn't. They didn't have the courage to do it themselves. But I'm very touched that there were a lot of other people that felt the same way."

She said she had one negative response, in which someone asked her to remove the stone, but "it was still very respectful," she said. "It speaks very highly of our community."

She said in her letter and in person yesterday that she intends to continue adding a stone if the one there now is removed.

"There's one in waiting if that's necessary," Johnson said.

Contact staff writer Holly Prestidge at hprestidge@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6945.