Cho bought gun clips on eBay last month

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The Virginia Tech killer went to the Internet less than a month before the massacre to get ammunition clips that fit one of the two handguns he used in the rampage, an eBay spokesman said yesterday. Seung-Hui Cho also used the account to sell items such as Hokies football tickets and horror-themed books, some of which were assigned in one of his classes.

The online auction site lists the purchase date of the empty clips as March 22, about three weeks before the attack in which Cho, 23, killed 32 people and himself.

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said that the purchase of the clips from a Web vendor based in Idaho was legal and that the company has cooperated with authorities.

A search warrant affidavit filed Friday stated that investigators wanted to search Cho's e-mail accounts, including the address Blazers5505@ hotmail.com, which Durzy confirmed was Cho's.

Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said investigators are "aware of the eBay activity that mirrors" the Hotmail account.

The eBay account demonstrates the prime role that computer forensics and other digital information have played in the investigation. Authorities are examining the personal computers found in Cho's dorm room and are seeking his cell phone records.

One question they hope to answer is whether Cho had any e-mail contact with Emily Hilscher, one of the first two victims. Investigators plan to search her Virginia Tech e-mail account.

Experts say that when the subject of an investigation is a loner like Cho, his computers and cell phone can be a rich source of information. Authorities say Cho had a history of sending menacing text messages and other communications - written and electronic.

In late March, Cho bought two 10-round magazines for a Walther P22, one of the weapons used in the massacre.

Cho sold tickets to Virginia Tech sporting events, including last year's Peach Bowl. He sold a Texas Instruments graphics calculator that contained several games, most of them with mild themes.

"The calculator was used for less than one semester then I dropped the class," Cho wrote on the site.

He also sold many books about violence, death and mayhem. Several of those books were used in his English classes, meaning that Cho could simply have been selling used books at the end of the semester.

His eBay rating was superb - 98.5 percent. That means he received one negative rating from people he dealt with on eBay, compared with 65 positive.

Meanwhile, in Georgia yesterday, about 100 members of the Virginia Tech marching band played in a memorial service for bandmate Ryan Clark, remembered as a gregarious young man who went to lengths to make fellow students feel included.

Clark, a 22-year-old from Martinez, Ga., was one of Cho's first victims.

Hundreds of mourners packed the gymnasium at Clark's former high school to hear rousing songs from his former bandmates and praise for the young man with a contagious laughter who engaged everyone.

In Virginia, more than 1,800 people packed St. Timothy's Catholic Church in Chantilly for a service for Reema Samaha, who was killed while sitting in a French class. Friends and family remembered the 18-year-old from Centreville, Va., as a dancer who loved movement and grace.

A memorial service was also held yesterday in Virginia for Emily Hilscher, who was killed in the same dorm as Clark. About 1,500 people filled the football field of Hilscher's alma mater, Rappahannock County High School in Washington, Va. The memorial was held outside on a warm spring day because Hilscher, 19, of Woodville, loved the outdoors.

Also yesterday, the family of a 2004 Catonsville High School graduate injured in the shootings said he is to be released from the hospital "shortly," according to a statement.

Justin Klein, a Virginia Tech junior, was shot three times - twice in his right leg and once in his left elbow, according to the statement. His medical condition "continues to improve," the family said in a statement.

Related topic galleries: Assault, Massacres, Interior Policy, Virginia Tech, Texas Instruments Incorporated, Electronics, Roman Catholic

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