The report of a state panel investigating the Virginia Tech shootings will show “a lot of instances” where information about the troubling behavior of gunman Seung-Hui Cho was not shared with key officials before the April 16 rampage, Gov. Tim Kaine said today.

Kaine’s handpicked panel will deliver its long-awaited report to the governor on Thursday in Richmond. The governor told reporters this afternoon that the report will be “thorough and fair” and will answer key questions about the deadliest campus shooting episode in U.S. history. The shootings left 33 students and professors dead, including Cho.

“I think a fair reading of this report by anyone will quickly conclude that it is extremely thorough and fair, that it was done with great seriousness and with a tremendous amount of information and that the recommendations are very searching,” said Kaine, who has reviewed a draft of the panel’s 300-page report.

Kaine said the report will point to instances where people familiar with Cho’s mental health problems and his bizarre writings did not share information with key campus or law enforcement officials. Cho was temporarily detained in a mental health facility following a December 2005 complaint about his behavior, but it is unclear whether he ever received court-ordered outpatient treatment following his release. One chapter of the report will examine privacy laws governing health and academic records and how they affect information sharing.

“I think there’s a lot of instances where information was out there, or that different people had information where it needed to be put together, and I think that is obviously going to be a significant feature of the report,” Kaine said.

Kaine said the panel’s report is not diminished by a Wednesday report in The Washington Post that Cho wrote a paper about a mass school shooting for an English class at Tech. The panel obtained the paper over the weekend, but its draft report already contained plenty of information about Cho’s writings, Kaine said.

“Even prior to receiving that particular writing, the panel members had enough knowledge of the character of those writings to have described them in the draft,” Kaine said. “So receiving this particular writing I don’t think would have changed any of the recommendations of the panel.”

Kaine said he believes the panel received all of the information it sought from Tech and other sources.

“I certainly do not know of any information that the panel has sought or that they believe relevant that has not been turned over,” he said.

Some families of shooting victims have raised concerns that the panel will avoid criticizing Tech administrators and police.  

Asked if the report will assign blame for the shootings, Kaine said, “That is not my issue. My issue is accountability in the service of recommendations for improvement. And in that sense, the report does exactly what I asked.”