The parents of the gunman in the Virginia Tech campus massacre have been put under the protection of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

An official at the South Korean Embassy in Washington said Friday that an FBI official told him that the parents and older sister of Cho Seung-hui are in the protective custody of authorities.

The South Korean Embassy asked for U.S. authorities’ permission to meet with Cho’s parents, but FBI officials said that currently Cho’s family does not wish for such a meeting.

The whereabouts of Cho’s parents were unknown shortly after he killed 32 students and himself in a shooting rampage on Monday, and rumors even spread that they had committed suicide.