Virginia's governor has named an independent panel to investigate the Virginia Tech massacre, as the grieving town held the first funeral for one of the dead.
Governor Tim Kaine's announcement came as Virginia Tech university officials faced questions over whether the killer, a student with a history of mental problems and stalking women, should have been allowed to remain in school.
Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a Virginia Tech senior, went on the rampage on Monday, mowing down 32 teachers and students with two recently bought handguns, police said. It later emerged he had been identified as mentally ill.
In a video diatribe sent to a US television network, a clearly unbalanced Cho brandished the murder weapons, painted himself as a long-suffering martyr and compared himself to Jesus Christ.
The panel will include former high-ranking police and security officials and a psychiatrist, along with state education officials.
It will investigate the two-and-half-hour gap between the first shooting, in which two people were killed, and Cho's second rampage. It will also delve into the police and emergency medical responses.
The panel will be headed by Gerald Massengill, a former Virginia police chief, and will include Tom Ridge, a former head of the US Department of Homeland Security, plus a veteran Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official.
Grieving families, meanwhile, began claiming the victims' bodies at the state medical examiner's office in nearby Roanoke while the first funeral took place.
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