A calculator that retails for $99 is for sale at $3,700 on the crime memorabilia site Supernaught because it beloned to Seung Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007, says the Washington Post. The calculator and hundreds of items like it–the personal effects, paintings, letters, and even fingernails of killers, are being sold to collectors on at least a half-dozen “murderabiliia” sites.
Collectors say Cho's calculator is the first item with a connection to the him available for purchase in more than four years — since the first 48 hours after his mass murder. “It's an insidious and despicable industry,” said Andy Kahan, a Houston victims' rights advocate and law enforcement official who has led a campaign to prohibit the sale of murderabilia. Although eight states, including Texas and California, have laws that prohibit convicted killers from profiting from their crimes, efforts to push legislation through Congress have failed repeatedly.