Va. Tech Janitor Says Bomb Threat Note Found In Classroom Building Minutes Before Shooting

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) _ Minutes before Seung-Hui Cho's rampage inside Virginia Tech's Norris Hall, a note found on a second-floor stairwell door warned, ``Bomb will go off if you open the door,''

Saturday, May 5th 2007, 8:04 pm

By: News On 6

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) _ Minutes before Seung-Hui Cho's rampage inside Virginia Tech's Norris Hall, a note found on a second-floor stairwell door warned, ``Bomb will go off if you open the door,'' a school employee said Saturday.

Virginia State Police confirmed a threatening note was found in the room where janitor Pamela Tickle says she left it after the shooting, but they have not linked it to Cho.

Tickle, 26, said she was dusting the floors on the morning of April 16 when an Asian man wearing a maroon hat, a dark shirt and cargo pants hurried past her. She assumed he was late to turn in a paper, but a jangling noise coming from his pockets caught her attention.

Cho chained the three main entrances to Norris before killing 30 people and himself inside. He killed two other students earlier that morning in a dormitory across campus.

Soon after Tickle saw the man she thinks was Cho, an associate engineering professor handed the note to her, she said. The note had been penned in red ink on the back of a flier. The word ``bomb'' had been underlined, she said.

Tickle said she decided to call her supervisor. As she walked toward her supply closet to grab her cell phone, the sounds of gunfire erupted.

Tickle and two students took cover in a second floor lounge and locked the door while the sounds of shots kept coming.

``It was almost unreal,'' she said. ``It was like, 'Golly, he's still shooting?'''