CHRISTIANSBURG -- A Virginia Tech student was found in his car in the Target parking lot here Sunday morning, dead of a gunshot wound to the head, Christiansburg police and Tech officials confirmed Friday.

Christiansburg police Capt. Barry O'Rourke said no foul play is suspected, and a spokeswoman for the Roanoke medical examiner's office said the wound was consistent with a suicide.

Tech spokesman Larry Hincker confirmed the student was Daniel Sun Kim, a third-year math major from Reston who was an American citizen of Korean descent.

A Korean newspaper, however, reported in its Friday edition that members of Kim's family dispute that his death was a suicide. The Korea Times' report also posed the question of whether Kim's Korean background had something to do with his death.

Seung-Hui Cho, the Tech student who killed 32 students and faculty members before killing himself on April 16, was Korean.

Hincker provided extended details about Kim on Friday.

Hincker said the university received an e-mail tip last month from a person purporting to be Kim's friend who said he was concerned about Kim and that Kim had a gun. He said the case was referred to the university's care team, a group of officials that meets regularly to discuss troubled students. After identifying that the student lived off campus, the care team asked Blacksburg police to check on Kim at his residence.

Blacksburg police Capt. Bruce Bradbery said an officer went to Kim's home about 11:30 a.m. Nov. 5 to talk with him. Kim appeared to be OK and said he didn't know the person who had sent the e-mail, Bradbery said.

Tech's police department did a background check on Kim and discovered that there was no report of him owning a gun, Hincker said. That was the extent of the university's involvement with the situation, Hincker said. Kim was not referred to the university's newly formed threat assessment team -- organized after the April 16 shootings to deal with students who could pose a threat to themselves or others.

Because the death was a "private enough" incident that occurred six miles from campus, Hincker said the university decided not to release information about it at the time.

The Korea Times' published story reported that Kim's family suspects he was murdered. The story reported that Kim bought a gun in November.

Hincker, who said Tech wasn't contacted for that story, said the university has only heard about the family's suspicions through foreign news reports.

He added that Christiansburg police have had to deal with a language barrier in communicating with Kim's parents.

Kim's family couldn't be reached for comment Friday. A number listed for them was disconnected.

Hincker said it was difficult for officials to find students at Tech who knew Kim. He had not been called to the attention of university officials as someone troubled or bothered by any backlash because he was Korean, Hincker said.

He said the university's Asian international students have said that the opposite effect has occurred since the shootings, with people on campus going out of their way to be helpful to them.

"To me, that's a creation of this news story," he said of suspicions of backlash against Kim because of his heritage.

O'Rourke, discussing details of last weekend's incident, said someone walking through the Spradlin Farms shopping center parking lot spotted Kim in the car and walked over to check on him.

After seeing Kim, that person called police about 11:30 a.m.

A gun was in the car, O'Rourke said.

He stopped short of calling Kim's death a suicide, saying that although no foul play is suspected, police are still investigating. Kim died late Saturday or early Sunday, O'Rourke said.

Another Tech student died in November when he fell out of a seventh-floor dormitory window.

Campus police said their investigation suggested the fall was not accidental.

Tech's dean of students office, care team and counseling center have been dealing with significantly more cases of troubled students this year.

"They're just dealing with scads of these things," Hincker said.

Staff writer Donna Alvis-Banks contributed to this report.

greg.esposito@roanoke.com 381-1675 shawna.morrison@roanoke.com 381-1665