Relatives of some of the Virginia Tech shooting victims are now seeking to hire their own investigator to sit on a gubernatorial commission investigating the massacre, The Washington Post reported today.

Family members of 13 of the 32 victims originally requested a representative on the Virginia Tech Review Panel, saying in a strongly worded letter that they felt “ostracized.” But in a contentious meeting on Monday night with W. Gerald Massengill, chairman of the commission, and Larry Roberts, chief counsel to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia, family members specifically asked to hire their own private investigator to sit on the panel to guarantee that its work is focused and objective, the Post reported.

Both Governor Kaine, a Democrat, and Mr. Massengill have opposed increasing the size of the eight-member panel, and the chairman has said he wants to ensure that it is viewed as “totally objective and not driven by emotions.” Still, both men said they wanted to work with the victims’ relatives, and the governor planned to meet with all family members in the next two weeks.

The panel, which has been stymied by privacy laws in its attempts to obtain the mental-health records of the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, is expected to wrap up its work by the beginning of the 2007-8 academic year. —Karin Fischer