Cho's Mental Health Records found

July 22, 2009 1:28 PM

Over two years ago Seung Hui Cho killed 32 people on Virginia Tech's campus, spawning an intensive investigation. Police never found his mental health records from the campus Schiffert health clinic. Today investigations for lawsuits brought by two victim's families that didn't settle earlier, uncovered these "lost" records. In the home of Schiffert's former director.

Many students have never been fully satisfied with answers given by administrators, or their less-than-transparent actions since that day. They created The Prevail Archives, as a way to get more information public including this PR Firm contract.

posted by fontophilic (33 comments total)

Some people amaze me. If you're going to try to cover something up, then stealing the records and hiding them somewhere is teh stoopid.

Paper shredders are cheap and readily available.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:30 PM on July 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

Well that was pretty stupid.
posted by delmoi at 1:36 PM on July 22, 2009

Kaine said a criminal investigation is underway to determine how the employee was able to take the records and why the documents were not uncovered during state investigations following the shooting.

In other words: We need a patsy STAT!
posted by doctor_negative at 1:37 PM on July 22, 2009

Interesting/strange -- why did Dr. Robert Miller take these records (plus other students') to his home more than a year before the shooting -- at the time he left the college's Cook Counseling Center )where he was director) to work elsewhere?
posted by ericb at 1:38 PM on July 22, 2009

This will be a better story in a few days when there's more information. What's in the records? Were they the only records in the person's home (they were apparently taken there a year before the shootings, so "cover up" seems unlikely)? How were they found? Why did the former director not come forward with the records in the two years since the shooting (that bit sounds cover-up-y, to be sure)? There's not really much info there yet.
posted by not that girl at 1:38 PM on July 22, 2009

This sounds like a severe oversight, not a cover-up, to me. FTA:

According to a memo written by a university lawyer and obtained by The Washington Post, the former director, Robert Miller, had moved the records into his home more than a year before the April 16, 2007, massacre, during which Cho also took his own life.
posted by phatkitten at 1:38 PM on July 22, 2009

The College had searched the Cook Counseling Center, but couldn't locate Cho's records for two-years. Last Thursday the College was notified by Miller that he "found" the records at his home -- which he had illegally removed one year prior to the April 2007 massacre.
posted by ericb at 1:41 PM on July 22, 2009

It occurs to me that Miller could well have been covering up something else, like the presence of student clients in the VT counseling system whose issues were far beyond the scope of the campus' treatment resources. That one of those exceptional cases would go on to commit mass murder would have been unknowable at the time.

The investigators certainly have their work cut out for them, going through not only Cho's record, but the others found in Miller's home.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 1:47 PM on July 22, 2009

I can see why VT and the Cook Counseling Center may never have thought to check the homes of current or former employees. If removing the files was known to be illegal, they would assume that the employees obeyed the law. To me, the question that remains is why did the former employee take the records in the first place? (How is an easy one. He put them in his briefcase or a box and carried them out. Super easy.)
posted by onhazier at 1:48 PM on July 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

It was wrong to conceal those records, and the former director of the clinic should be dealt with according to the law, but I don't see how the content of those records can materially influence the settlement. It is a given that Cho was mentally ill, and it is unsurprising that he sought and received treatment at the campus clinic. The clinic and the University are legally and ethically bound to hold Cho's medical records confidential, and there are strong prohibitions against using these records as grounds for actions like removing him from the University. It is possible that proceedings for involuntary committal to an inpatient mental health facility could have been instigated based on the clinic's findings but the bar for committing someone these days is extremely high. In a nutshell, I do not think that the University could have prevented the shootings based on confidential mental health information contained in the missing records.

I think there may have been some way to prevent this young man from shooting a few dozen college students and professionals with a powerful handgun with a large-capacity magazine, but darned if I can figure it out.
posted by Mister_A at 1:50 PM on July 22, 2009 [10 favorites]

phatkitten: This sounds like a severe oversight, not a cover-up, to me.

No. The cover-up doesn't consist in his taking the files. The cover-up consists in his “forgetting” where the files were, very conveniently, through a full year of intense investigation during which he most certainly was asked about them repeatedly.
posted by koeselitz at 1:52 PM on July 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

To me, the question that remains is why did the former employee take the records in the first place?

It's not necessarily that mysterious. People take "work" home with themselves all the time. Then they forget they left the files at home. I'm just as shocked by the cover-up as anybody here, but the reasons it happened may be rather boring and banal.
posted by jonp72 at 2:02 PM on July 22, 2009

Go away.
posted by False Jesii Inc. at 2:17 PM on July 22, 2009

"... And it raises a whole new set of questions about accountability for Virginia Tech."

Ultimately, I think that it really doesn't do this. The person that was responsible for the killings was the one pulled the trigger before committing suicide that day.

I'm sure that there could be some interesting findings in a file that was at least a year old at the time of the shootings, but unless it says something like "Cho is a direct threat to everyone around him and he should be institutionalized now" I'm not convinced that the families are going to find the closure here that they want.
posted by quin at 2:18 PM on July 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

unless it says something like "Cho is a direct threat to everyone around him and he should be institutionalized now" I'm not convinced that the families are going to find the closure here that they want.

I would even go as far as saying that it would be harder on the families if such were the case. Let's say they DID say something along those lines. I imagine knowing that someone had recognized the danger and failed to do something about it would reopen wounds rather than provide closure.

But I guess the likelihood of findings along those lines isn't very high anyhow.
posted by I, Slobot at 2:27 PM on July 22, 2009

No. The cover-up doesn't consist in his taking the files. The cover-up consists in his “forgetting” where the files were, very conveniently, through a full year of intense investigation during which he most certainly was asked about them repeatedly.

That's a much better way of putting it. It's a different kind of cover-up than people would immediately assume, at least before they found out that these files were taken many months prior to the shootings.
posted by phatkitten at 2:28 PM on July 22, 2009

Burson-Marsteller writes contracts in Comic Sans.
posted by normy at 2:30 PM on July 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

It's actually a big-time ethical violation to bring home patient records because of the breach of confidentiality it entails.
posted by uberfunk at 2:39 PM on July 22, 2009

Seconding Normy: Comic Sans? Really? WTF.
posted by jdfan at 2:43 PM on July 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm not screaming conspiracy, and now realize that this would have been a better post after the contents of these records comes out. But I'm a VT alumni, and was a student on that day, and frankly, shit like this makes me see red.

</soapbox>
posted by fontophilic at 2:47 PM on July 22, 2009

It was probably someone trying to hide something, but it wasn't a Cho Coverup to begin with. Maybe just a "convenient" way to sequester the records of troubled students that the administration decided upon, on the sly, or it could be something limited to just one guy who wanted his favorite cases to go over late at night. That's a weird but plausible scenario.

Now, if the side effect was that some audit of records looking for anything from "Kids who need a little extra compassion and outreach" to Students Most Likely to Columbine Out missed Cho, then some additional responsibility would descend upon either him or the university for doing something idiotic, unethical, and most likely illegal that could have reasonably influenced outcomes.

With the removal of the records and the Reaganing "nope, don't have any," of this guy, it's going to be very difficult to ascertain just what went on while the noise of the reaction occurs. Most likely just your basic stupidity that would not have altered the trajectory of a single bullet. I understand that the parents are in pain, and horrified, but they're searching for answers where none may exist and looking for live, mustache-twiddling villains when you had just one very screwed-up kid who is already in the ground and therefore unavailable for pummeling.

Sometimes no obvious or satisfying answers exist to why awful things happen.
posted by adipocere at 2:52 PM on July 22, 2009

A much better article from the student newspaper CollegiateTimes.com
posted by fontophilic at 3:06 PM on July 22, 2009

...I don't see how the content of those records can materially influence the settlement.

Here's one way it might:

As a general rule, a person owes no duty to warn a third party concerning the potentially dangerous conduct of another. In many jurisdictions, however, case law has carved out exceptions to that rule, where a "special relationship" is involved. In Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, the landmark case on this subject, the California Supreme Court[1] held that a psychologist who had knowledge of a patient's intention to harm a specific individual had a duty to exercise reasonable care to warn the intended victim.

I have no idea whether Virginia has any such provision in force. if it did, and if Cho made threats against one of his later victims, the University's counselor may have been obliged to warn someone. Not doing so might make the UV more liable. Lots of maybes there, I know.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:13 PM on July 22, 2009

About confidentiality:

The problems are persistent. Confidentiality issues have continued to be reflected in ethics complaints, sometimes in a significant percentage of cases (APA Ethics Committee, 2001, 2002, 2003). In 2004, 15% of the cases opened by the APA Ethics Committee involved confidentiality, either as the primary factor or as one of multiple factors ( APA Ethics Committee, 2005 ). In the combined years 2000–2004, confidentiality still ranked fourth among APA ethics cases, exceeded only by dual relationships, custody cases, and insurance/fee issues (Pope & Vasquez, 2007). It is troubling that the following sentence, which opened the confidentiality chapter of a 1991 ethics text for clinicians, could be repeated 10 years later with incidence rates that reflected no improvement: “Ethics complaints, malpractice suits, and licensing disciplinary actions make clear the difficulties most of us encounter in addressing issues of confidentiality” (Pope & Vasquez, 1991, p. 139; Pope & Vasquez, 2001, p. 223). In the third and most recent edition, that sentence was replaced by a similarly troubling statement: “The area of confidentiality has been full of pitfalls for therapists” (Pope & Vasquez, 2007, p. 241).

posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:25 PM on July 22, 2009

The PR form invoices are interesting. 500k to spin a school shooting?

From wikipedia:

"Notable current employees of [Burston Marsteller] include Karen Hughes, former senior aide to US President George W. Bush, Mark Penn, political polling consultant and former chief strategist of the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and current CEO of Burson-Marsteller, and former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino."
posted by benzenedream at 3:31 PM on July 22, 2009

It occurs to me that Miller could well have been covering up something else, like the presence of student clients in the VT counseling system whose issues were far beyond the scope of the campus' treatment resources. That one of those exceptional cases would go on to commit mass murder would have been unknowable at the time.

I think it's vastly more likely that the counselors there have a caseload that's so high that they can't get their work done during work hours, so they take some home. And sometimes they misplace a file, or forget to bring it back to the office, or just a big fucking pile of paperwork accumulates because even if you're illegally taking the work home so you can do it, there's still more than you can do.

Since he's the director, in addition to whatever clients he might see also he might also have to sign off on or review the files from other counselors, that's exactly the kind of crap I'd expect to get taken home.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:37 PM on July 22, 2009

I think it's vastly more likely that the counselors there have a caseload that's so high that they can't get their work done during work hours, so they take some home.

Miller wasn't the treating counselor.

From the CollegiateTimes article (above):

"He pointed out that Cho's treating therapist was Sherry Lynch Conrad, not Miller.

'It appears to be not just out of the ordinary,' Hall said. 'It appears to be illegal. He shouldn't have had them. They belonged to the Cook Counseling Center. They had no business going home with Dr. Miller. He was not a treating therapist.'"

posted by ericb at 3:47 PM on July 22, 2009

No. The cover-up doesn't consist in his taking the files. The cover-up consists in his “forgetting” where the files were, very conveniently, through a full year of intense investigation during which he most certainly was asked about them repeatedly.

From the WP article:

"Kaine's special commission on the shootings did not interview Miller, W. Gerald Massengill, the panel's chairman and a retired state police superintendent, said Wednesday."

He likely knew of the commission's investigation, though.

Resisting making Massengill joke.
posted by dammitjim at 7:15 PM on July 22, 2009

Hey Fontofilic, Im right there with ya. My dad is a professor of biology at VT (a truly wonderful place, actually, and sadly unknown except for that little fucker's sexual-angst-turned-homicidal-rage) and was in the neighboring building when the shooting took place. I don't know what the hell was going on over there, but it does scream ineptitude at *some* level
posted by HalfJack at 8:24 PM on July 22, 2009

before they found out that these files were taken many months prior to the shootings.

Um, that is what Miller himself is claiming: Miller told the university that he thinks the records were removed when he left the center, more than a year prior to the shootings. He is listed as a defendant on the civil suit.

Certainly the least we should do is not treat his claim that he removed the files long before the shooting as a settled fact.
posted by mediareport at 9:37 PM on July 22, 2009

fwiw, my suspicion is Miller is full of shit on that point
posted by mediareport at 9:38 PM on July 22, 2009

This has to keep happening, doesn't it? In terms of shootings only: Columbine was already a fucking mess in terms of documents (the journals, anyone) Now Virginia Tech gets its own document concealment? Not to mention it's the exact same thing- people knew that Cho could snap and people knew that Klebold had a record, yet they try to cover themselves.

People never cease to amaze me.
posted by Askiba at 10:16 PM on July 22, 2009

Having worked in counseling for a while, I am seconding ROU_Xenophobe. Also not too difficult to lose a single file among many identical files. If Miller were also seeing private patients, then he was storing many years worth of client files.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 10:55 PM on July 22, 2009