April 24, 2007

Cho Tabloidism

We're going to see a lot of these Seung-hui Cho stories pop up over the next few weeks -- I never realized who I was with! -- but perhaps none quite as weird and lurid as this one. Virginia's WSLS television station gives a first-person account from a woman who went out on a "date" with Cho two weeks before he killed 32 at Virginia Tech ... as an escort (via Hot Air):

"I'm just so shaken by this, I don't know what to say." Chastity Frye says she spent an hour, all alone, with Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui last month.

Frye said "He was so quiet, I really couldn't get much from him, he was so distant, he really didn't talk a lot. It seemed like he wasn't all there."

Frye works for an escort service. She says, Cho hired her, and the two met at a Valley View motel.

She says "I danced for a little while and I thought we were done because he got up and went to the restroom and began washing. And I said, 'well, do you want me to go? I'm going to go ahead and go'. And he's like, 'I paid for the full hour, you've only been here for 15 minutes,' and then he came back in the room. And I started dancing and that's when he you know, touched me and tried to get on me and that's when I pushed him away."

I asked Frye if she was afraid at that point: "No, because he went away right away." She said she didn't see any guns, any ammunition, and nothing else that made her feel nervous.

Why did WSLS publish this account? Like so much of the information about the mass murderer, it tells us little about the murders or the murderer that we didn't already know. He was a social misfit, so much so that he couldn't even figure out how to handle an escort. The FBI confirmed the story through credit card receipts, the same way they tracked his weapons and ammunition purchases, which might tell us that he knew he wouldn't have to pay anyone back. That he planned the murders was obvious from his NBC package.

Be prepared for more close encounters of the Cho kind. We're going to hear from every fast-food clerk and every mall rat that crossed Cho's path. These stories will fill the void that the factual reporting of the case leaves as people realize that they've heard just about every relevant fact from a press corps determined to exhaust this story.

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Comments (9)

Posted by RBMN [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 1:25 AM

Before this is over, he'll be as alive as Elvis, and "living in rural Kansas."

Posted by BarCodeKing [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 1:25 AM

Lesson #1 to prospective parents: DON'T NAME YOUR DAUGHTER "CHASTITY"! With a name like that to live up to (or down to), she'll end up a sex worker, a nun or a lesbian (see Chastity Bono).

Posted by Immolate [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 6:24 AM

I don't mean to be a critic Cap, but giving this creep posthumous oxygen in the blogosphere only builds his "legend". I really hope that you and the other first-tier bloggers will do the right thing and let our memory of the degenerate fade into oblivion where it belongs. Remember that some of us use the internet as a news source to avoid the kind of tabloid sensationalism that the TV networks and cable news channels specialize in.

Posted by Geoff [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 8:31 AM

I'm struck by the spectacle of a lap dancer, a girl who's job is to scandalize and lead people into eternal damnation, sits there snapping her gum sayin' pffft, ain't that guy a weird sicko freak?

It's a matter of degree, honey.

Posted by Kent [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 9:28 AM

A couple of folks have already beat me to it, but: Chastity Frye? The first name is just too ironic for a sex worker.

At least the second name could be considered truth in advertising, when one considers eternal consequences.

And, yes, her name is completely tangential to the story. Perhaps that's a clear indication that we all are getting weary of the story.

Posted by Dan S [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 10:35 AM

It could be worse. Her name could have been Modesty.

Posted by Joy [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 12:01 PM

I was pretty flipped out when I seen this girl pop up on my TV yesterday. Some people say we are all seperated by six degrees. I live an hour from Blacksburg and Ive know Chastity for at least 12 years or so. I know her because she has a son with a good friend of mine that she abandoned at birth. I was SICK to think he may have seen his mother on TV admitting to being an 'escort'. This female who has been on Jerry Springer and Judge Judy is nothing more then a media groupie and giving her air time to talk about a 'sick weirdo' was more irony then Ive seen in years.

Posted by CJ [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 3:50 PM

>> couldn't even figure out how to handle an escort

Uh, I'm not sure I'd know how to handle an escort. ???

Captain, are you saying you have experience in this area? ???

Posted by stackja1945 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 24, 2007 8:16 PM

"He was a social misfit" So were most KGB and Gestapo thugs. And of course, Al Capone was a social misfit.