Illinois student charged with threatening rampage

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A 22-year-old college student was held on Wednesday on charges that he threatened to shoot other students in a "murderous rampage" like the April massacre at Virginia Tech University, school officials said.

A loaded handgun was found last week in the campus apartment of Olutosin Oduwole, a student at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and he was arrested.

Oduwole was charged with making a terrorist threat and gun possession. He was being held on $1 million bail.

An undelivered note found in Oduwole's abandoned car threatened "a murderous rampage similar to the VT shooting ... THIS IS NOT A JOKE" unless he received $50,000 within seven days.

On April 16, Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and injured 25 others before killing himself.

Oduwole had purchased four more guns on the Internet but had not yet received them, school officials said.

A gun dealer alerted federal agents because Oduwole appeared impatient to get the weapons, according to a police affidavit.

Authorities found both a U.S. and a Nigerian passport in Oduwole's apartment but school records listed his home address as in Maplewood, New Jersey. He was taking summer classes, and had been placed on academic probation a year earlier.