Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Norris Hall on Virginia Tech's campus.

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The Virginia medical examiner's office in Roanoke has released Sueng-Hui Cho's body to his family, but that does not necessarily mean the killer's remains have left the facility where his autopsy occurred.

On Wednesday, Larry Hill, a regional spokesman for the Office of the State Medical Examiner, would not say whether Cho's body has left the Roanoke office or whether it is now with, or in transit to, Cho's family.

"There could be lunatics out there who might do something stupid," he said.

Cho, who was 23, killed himself April 16 after fatally shooting 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus. He shot himself in the temple, destroying his brain. Hill would neither detail the shot's precise location nor which handgun Cho used for his suicide.

Cho wielded both a .22-caliber and a 9 mm handgun, shooting more than 170 rounds in Norris Hall and firing two shots in the West Ambler Johnston dormitory, according to police.

Hill said all the bodies of Cho's 32 victims at Virginia Tech were released to families by April 19. Some were released sooner than others.

The term "released" should not be misinterpreted, he said. When a body is released, it means autopsy work has been completed and the body has been turned over to the family for burial.

It does not mean that all bodies have actually been retrieved by families or their designated funeral homes.

Hill cited another potential misconception: Fingerprints and dental records were used to identify victims of Cho's shootings, he said, but not because they were disfigured by bullet wounds. Fingerprints and dental records are used routinely to ensure that an identification is correct, he said.

Unlike TV police dramas, parents or family members were not escorted in to make a positive ID of students and faculty members killed by Cho, Hill said. In fact, family members could not view a body until its formal release, he said.

Some delays occurred because some of the victims were from other countries and it took longer to acquire their dental records, he said.

"That was frustrating for some families," he said.

Hill would not discuss the status of Cho's toxicology tests. He said neither the toxicology report nor autopsy results will be publicly released.

An earlier interview about the autopsies by an Associated Press reporter with Dr. William Massello, assistant chief medical examiner for Western Virginia, should not have occurred at that time, said Hill.

Hill would not comment about details revealed in a subsequent article. Asked whether its facts were accurate, he replied, "Yes."

Among those facts: Massello said that Cho's shots inflicted a total of more than 100 wounds on the 32 victims killed and that many victims were hit several times.

Massello also said there was nothing unusual about Cho's autopsy.

Although victims' autopsies did not detect injuries associated with a physical struggle with Cho, many bodies showed evidence of defensive wounds, said Massello.

Hill confirmed that those wounds would be consistent with a normal response to a shooter, such as trying to shield the face or body with raised hands.