Three killed at the scene before shooter took his own life, police say
NICKEL MINES, Pa. - A milk-truck driver carrying two guns and some kind of grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls when police didn't retreat, killing three of them before committing suicide.
It was the nation’s third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County’s bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Seven other victims were taken to hospitals, most of them badly wounded.
The dead and wounded were shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
20-year-old grudgeThe gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of “acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago,” State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller said. Miller gave no details on what the grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and apparently had no particular grudge against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were “along the lines of suicide notes.” He also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for a long-ago offense, according to Miller.
It was the nation’s third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County’s bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Seven other victims were taken to hospitals, most of them badly wounded.
The dead and wounded were shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
20-year-old grudgeThe gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of “acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago,” State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller said. Miller gave no details on what the grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and apparently had no particular grudge against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were “along the lines of suicide notes.” He also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for a long-ago offense, according to Miller.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched — the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer’s hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields in an area postmarked Paradise, Pa. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields in an area postmarked Paradise, Pa. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
Dropped his kids off at schoolAccording to investigators, Roberts dropped his children off at the school bus stop, then pulled up at the Amish school in his truck and walked in around 10 a.m. with a shotgun, an automatic handgun and several pieces of lumber. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barred the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes, made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard, and tied their feet together with wire ties and flexible plastic ties, Miller said.
A teacher called police around 10:30 a.m. and reported that a gunman was holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn’t back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. When they got inside, they found his body.
The names and ages of the dead were not immediately released.
Three girls — 13, 8 and 6 — were in critical condition at the Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey. The rest of the wounded were taken to other hospitals in Pennsylvania and Delaware; their condition was not immediately disclosed.
No one answered the door at Roberts’ small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children’s toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
A teacher called police around 10:30 a.m. and reported that a gunman was holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn’t back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. When they got inside, they found his body.
The names and ages of the dead were not immediately released.
Three girls — 13, 8 and 6 — were in critical condition at the Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey. The rest of the wounded were taken to other hospitals in Pennsylvania and Delaware; their condition was not immediately disclosed.
No one answered the door at Roberts’ small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children’s toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
Other recent shootingsThe shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
“If this is some kind of a copycat, it’s horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement,” said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo. “On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff’s office, our hearts go out to that school and the community.”
William Pollack, an expert in school violence at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and a psychology professor at the Harvard Medical School, said the Pennsylvania attack probably wasn’t a copycat crime. Instead, Roberts probably had a grudge against women or girls that had been building for months or years, and he was spurred to act by the Colorado shootings.
“Seeing someone else enact it, certainly that would open up the gates,” Pollack said.
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
“If this is some kind of a copycat, it’s horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement,” said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo. “On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff’s office, our hearts go out to that school and the community.”
William Pollack, an expert in school violence at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and a psychology professor at the Harvard Medical School, said the Pennsylvania attack probably wasn’t a copycat crime. Instead, Roberts probably had a grudge against women or girls that had been building for months or years, and he was spurred to act by the Colorado shootings.
“Seeing someone else enact it, certainly that would open up the gates,” Pollack said.
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania’s insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter’s 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
“These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school,” he said. “The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can’t happen here.”
He said that belief is often stronger in rural, suburban and private schools.
“When you go to rural and private schools, the first obstacle you run into is the ‘It can’t happen here’ mentality,” he said. “People have the perception of we’re not like whatever big city they’re near.”
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter’s 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
“These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school,” he said. “The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can’t happen here.”
He said that belief is often stronger in rural, suburban and private schools.
“When you go to rural and private schools, the first obstacle you run into is the ‘It can’t happen here’ mentality,” he said. “People have the perception of we’re not like whatever big city they’re near.”
5 comments:
Millions of children, hundreds of thousands of schools, a handful of violent attacks, and the people spur on the hysteria.
It's horrible, these murders, but some will come out saying with conspiracies suggesting this is a CIA mind-control plot that's gone wrong.
Meanwhile, just began working with Ryan on this story: executing convicted serial killers/multiple murders, then using a new science to resurrect them (either bodily or at least mentally) for consecutive executions, one for each person they killed, and again on the anniversaries of those killings.
Violence Touches Peaceful Pa. Community
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
The Associated Press
Monday, October 2, 2006; 8:03 PM
-- They set themselves apart from nearly all modern things _ electricity, automobiles, movies, television and video games. Most of all, they abhor violence.
But in the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country, an outsider barged through the door of a one-room schoolhouse and shot to death three girls. And when he did, he brought violence to a place that considers it evil.
"I don't even know if I could begin to comprehend how this might affect those people," said Steve Scott, an Amish expert at Elizabethtown College, about 30 miles west of the tiny hamlet in southern Lancaster County where Monday's shootings occurred.
"The Amish believe that Christ taught we are not to return evil for evil," said Scott. Even when faced with something as heinous as losing a child to an execution-style shooting, "they are taught to turn the other cheek."
Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old truck driver who lived in the area, carried a shotgun and a handgun into a rural schoolhouse, state police said. Then he lined the girls against the blackboard, tied them together by their feet, and shot them in the head, said Jeffrey Miller, commissioner of the state police.
Three girls died in the classroom. Seven others, some severely wounded, were rushed to nearby hospitals.
"The Amish are solid members of this community," Miller said, then faltered. After a moment, he continued. "They didn't deserve this. No one deserves this."
Also known as Anabaptists, the Amish are a Christian denomination that separate themselves for a variety of religious reasons. They do not serve in the military, draw Social Security or accept other forms of government assistance. Old Order Amish, the most conservative and most prevalent in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, have attained a certain notoriety for their horse-drawn carriages with modern-day reflector triangles on the back, and handmade wares and foods they sell to tourists.
Life comes from the land _ mostly crop farming and dairy farming. In all things, piety and plainness are emphasized. Women wear long dresses of solid fabric, with aprons in white or black and cloth cap or bonnet. Men dress in dark pants, suspenders and vest, with a broad-rimmed hat. Along with English, they speak a German dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania German.
They began arriving in Lancaster County around 1730, and the community numbers about 55,000 in Pennsylvania today. Their separation is often attributed to the literal interpretation of New Testament chapters _ including II Corinthians and Romans. One of the most popular is II Corinthians 6:14: "Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"
The Amish are an offshoot of the Mennonites, who fled from Switzerland to Germany under persecution for refusing to join the military and for not believing in infant baptism. They split from the Mennonites in 1693, mostly because of the Amish practice of shunning.
To be shunned meant expulsion from the community for breaching religious guidelines. All communication and contact is cut off, even among families. Someone who joins the faith, but then denounces it and leaves, for example, would be shunned.
When members of the community die, they are buried in wooden coffins; women in all white and men in all black. Bodies are embalmed, but undertakers do not apply makeup. Funerals are held in the victim's home, and the dead are delivered to the cemetery in a horse-drawn carriage. A hymn is read, but there is no singing.
Like other religions, rules have softened over time, necessitated by commerce and need. There are Amish telephone booths, for instance, that can be used in emergencies. Some dairies sporadically use generator electricity to cool milk containers so it can be sold according to market regulations. Some hire taxis to take them to town.
But at their core, the Amish believe life is based on faith. And belief in the world to come, where there is no violence.
PARADISE, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller briefed reporters Monday on the shooting at an Amish school. Highlights from his briefing follow:
Miller: The call came in from a school teacher, stating a male entered a school and had taken hostages. Now this school is a small one-room schoolhouse, it's an Amish school, there were approximately 15 males between the ages of 6 and 13 attending school there, as well as somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 females also attending school between the ages of 6 and 13.
(State police were outside the school and trying to establish communication with the suspect when they got a call from the local 911 dispatcher.)
Miller: They had spoken to the actor, the suspect, who had told them that if the state police don't remove themselves from the premises in 10 seconds he's going to -- he's going to begin shooting people. (Full story)
That information gave us the cell phone that he was using. One of our negotiators at the scene ... immediately tried to make a call to the cell phone at the same time as the information was being relayed to our troopers on the perimeter. ... Within a few seconds of that information being put out to the perimeter, and the trooper who was the negotiator trying to call the suspect on the cell phone, they heard shots. Multiple shots in quick succession.
(The troopers stormed the school.)
Miller: Now, it's a one-room schoolhouse. All of the doors were blocked. He had taken with him 2 x 6's and 2 x 4's. He had blocked all the exits from the building. We couldn't get in through the doors.
We had to break the windows. The troopers broke the windows and were able to get in, found the suspect dead on the floor of the schoolhouse. He's still in there now. In addition, we found three -- we had three other students, female students between the ages of 6 and 13, that were shot and killed at the scene.
It appears that the suspect entered the school with the intention of taking hostages. Like I said, he came with 2 x 6's, 2 x 4's and these weapons.
When he initially went into the school, he apparently displayed a handgun. And he was -- he was having some discussion with the class. He was talking about what he had in his hand.
At that time he apparently told the kids to line up in front of the blackboard. At that -- at that moment, he began to -- he had ties with him like wire ties, as well as flex cuffs. He began to tie the females, the children's, feet together.
He then took the boys -- there was exactly 15 boys there between 6 and 13. He let them leave. He also allowed one female, adult female who was pregnant with a child, to leave. He also allowed three other adult females who had infant children with them to leave.
At the time he let them leave, the teacher was able to get out at that time. And that's why she was able to go and get a phone and dial 911 and alert us of the situation.
As we said, two -- one shotgun and one handgun were found next to the suspect by our troopers who responded into the school. We have, as I said, three students are confirmed dead. There were seven that we know of right now -- there were seven injured victims taken to the following hospitals: Lehigh General Hospital, Hershey Medical Center, Christian Hospital in Delaware, Redding Hospital, and Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.
We know that the individuals that were removed from the school suffered from gunshot wounds. It appears that when he began shooting the victims, these victims were shot execution style in the head.
(Miller identified the suspect as Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old truck driver who worked nights. He said Roberts took his children to the school bus stop Monday morning as usual. That was the last time his wife saw him.)
Miller: She had left the residence, she came back home and discovered that there were several notes there that were along the lines of suicide notes to each of the kids. So she read these notes and she tried to contact him right away and was unable to reach him.
At approximately 11:00, he called her. He did not tell her where he was, but he stated that he wasn't coming home and that he had left notes for her and the children to explain his actions. And he said that "the police are here, but I'm not coming home." He told her he loved her, and that was it. And shortly thereafter is when the shooting commenced.
(Miller said the letters Roberts left behind were rambling and didn't seem to make much sense.)
Miller: Apparently, he did make a statement to his wife on the phone that he was acting out in a way to achieve revenge for something that happened 20 years ago. And I think that the location, the school, was probably chosen because it provided a close opportunist -- you know, an opportunity to attack where he knew he had young kids. For some reason I believe just based on what we know now at this point -- I mean, we've got a lot of work to do, but from what we know at this point, it seems as though he wanted to -- to attack young female victims, and this is close to his residence. That's the only reason we can figure that he went to the school.
QUARRYVILLE, Pa. - When the deputy coroner reached the Amish schoolhouse, she found blood on every desk, every window broken and the body of a young girl slumped beneath the chalkboard. Ten children had been shot, five fatally, and the gunman was dead.
“It was horrible. I don’t know how else to explain it,” Amanda Shelley, deputy Lancaster County coroner, said Wednesday. “I hope to never see anything like that again in my life.”
The gunman, a 32-year-old milk truck driver and father of three, was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a button-down shirt, Shelley said. He had stationed weapons around the schoolhouse and “really appeared he had planned on staying there a few hours,” she said.
Authorities say Charles Carl Roberts IV had started buying supplies for a long siege six days before he stormed the tiny schoolhouse. He made a checklist of what to bring and wrote out four suicide notes, one talking about how he was “filled with so much hate” and “unimaginable emptiness.”
Monday morning, Roberts ran his milk route as usual and walked his own children to school, police said. Then he drove to the Amish school and walked inside.
‘He stood very close’
Teacher Emma Mae Zook, 20, said she immediately sensed something was off.
“He stood very close to me to talk and didn’t look in my face to talk,” she told the Intelligencer Journal of Lancaster in Wednesday’s edition. She thought he was saying something about a metal object in the road.
Roberts walked back to his truck, then reappeared at the door with a gun, she said.
He sent the adults and boys out and bound the 10 girls in a row at the chalkboard, police said. He had been inside for about an hour, at one point speaking briefly with his wife on a mobile phone, when authorities closed in and Roberts opened fire on the girls at close range, fatally wounding five of them and then killing himself.
“We’re quite certain, based on what we know, that he had no intention of coming out of there alive,” State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The letters Roberts left behind and that short conversation with his wife indicated Roberts had remembered molesting two relatives 20 years ago and had been tormented by dreams about molesting again.
Roberts had brought lubricating jelly to the schoolhouse and may have planned to sexually assault the Amish girls, Miller said. He said a piece of lumber found in the school had 10 large eyebolts spaced about 10 inches apart, suggesting that Roberts may have planned to truss up the girls.
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‘I haven’t been the same’
In the suicide notes, Roberts also said he was haunted by the death of his prematurely born daughter in 1997. The baby, Elise, died 20 minutes after being delivered, Miller said.
Elise’s death “changed my life forever,” Roberts wrote to his wife. “I haven’t been the same since it affected me in a way I never felt possible. I am filled with so much hate, hate toward myself hate towards God and unimaginable emptyness it seems like everytime we do something fun I think about how Elise wasn’t here to share it with us and I go right back to anger.”
The state police commissioner on Tuesday laid out the steps Roberts took in the days and hours leading up to his attack on the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Lancaster County, where the Amish live an 18th-century lifestyle with no automobiles and electricity.
“He certainly was very troubled, psychologically deep down, and was dealing with things that nobody else knew he was dealing with,” Miller said. But he said Roberts, who was not Amish, did not appear to have anything against the Amish people.
During the standoff, Roberts told his wife in a cell phone call that he molested two female relatives when they were 3 to 5 years old, Miller said. Also, in the note to his wife, Marie, he said he “had dreams about doing what he did 20 years ago again,” Miller said.
Police could not immediately confirm Roberts’ claim that he molested relatives, and family members knew nothing of molestation in his past. Police located the two relatives and were hoping to interview them.
At the time Roberts’ wife received the phone call, she was attending a meeting of a prayer group she led that prayed for the community’s schoolchildren.
Similarities to Colo. shooting
The crime bore some resemblance to an attack on a high school in Bailey, Colo., where a 53-year-old man took six girls hostage and sexually assaulted them before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself. That attack occurred Sept. 27, the day after Roberts began buying materials for his siege.
At least three prayer services were held Tuesday night, attended by more than 1,650 people, who observed moments of silence, sang hymns and listened to Bible readings.
“Set your troubled hearts to rest,” the Rev. Douglas Hileman said from the pulpit of Georgetown United Methodist Church, a short distance from the crime scene. “May we be able to forgive as God has already forgiven us.”
The victims were identified as Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12; Marian Fisher, 13; Mary Liz Miller, 8; and her sister Lena Miller, 7. Stoltzfus’ sister was among the wounded.
Three other girls were in critical condition and two were in serious condition. They ranged in age from 6 to 13.
Church members visited with the victims’ families Tuesday, preparing meals and doing household chores, while Amish elders planned funerals.
Sam Stoltzfus, 63, an Amish woodworker who lives a few miles away from the shooting scene, said the victims’ families will be sustained by their faith.
“We think it was God’s plan and we’re going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going,” he said. “A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors.”
NICKEL MINES, Pa. Oct 4, 2006 (AP)— Two relatives of the man who attacked an Amish school said they were not molested by him 20 years ago as he had claimed, investigators said Wednesday.
Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, revealed to his family in notes he left behind and in a cell phone call to his wife from inside the West Nickel Mines Amish School that he was tormented by memories of molesting his two young relatives 20 years ago. He also spoke of having dreams about doing it again.
Investigators spoke to the two women, who would have been 4 or 5 at the time, and they said there was no such abuse.
"Both of them have no recollection of being sexually assaulted by Roberts," state police Trooper Linette Quinn said. "They were absolutely sure they had no contact with Roberts."
Roberts stormed the school Monday and shot 10 girls before turning the gun on himself. Five of the girls died. Investigators said Roberts, who brought lubricating jelly and plastic restraints with him, may have been planning to sexually assault the Amish girls.
As they struggle with the slayings, the Amish in this Lancaster County village are turning the other cheek, urging forgiveness of the killer and quietly accepting what comes their way as God's will.
"They know their children are going to heaven. They know their children are innocent … and they know that they will join them in death," said Gertrude Huntington, a Michigan researcher and expert on children in Amish society.
"The hurt is very great," Huntington said. "But they don't balance the hurt with hate."
In the aftermath of Monday's violence, the Amish are looking inward, relying on themselves and their faith, just as they have for centuries. They hold themselves apart from the modern world, and have as little to do with civil authorities as possible.
Amish mourners have been going from home to home for two days to attend viewings for the five victims, all little girls laid out in white dresses made by their families. Such viewings occur almost immediately after the bodies arrive at the parents' homes.
Typically, they are so crowded, "if you start crying, you've got to figure out whose shoulder to cry on," said Rita Rhoads, a Mennonite midwife who delivered two of the five girls slain in the attack.
At some Amish viewings, upwards of 1,000 to 1,500 people might visit a family's home to pay respects, according to Jack Meyer, 60, a buggy operator in Bird in Hand. Such visits are important, given the lack of e-mail and phone communication, Meyer said.
The Amish have also been reaching out to the family of the gunman. Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman, said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.
"I hope they stay around here and they'll have a lot of friends and a lot of support," Daniel Esh, a 57-year-old Amish artist and woodworker whose three grandnephews were inside the school during the attack, said of the Robertses.
Huntington, the authority on the Amish, predicted they will be very supportive of the killer and his wife, "because judgment is in God's hands: `Judge not, that ye be not judged."
A deputy county coroner on Wednesday described a gruesome scene at the school, with blood on every desk, every window broken and the body of a girl slumped beneath the chalkboard, below a sign that read "Visitors Brighten People's Days." Roberts' body was face-down next to the teacher's desk.
"It was horrible. I don't know how else to explain it," said Amanda Shelley, a deputy coroner in Lancaster County.
Funerals for four of the victims Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Marian Fisher, 13; Mary Liz Miller, 8; and her sister Lena Miller, 7 are scheduled for Thursday at three homes. The funeral for the fifth girl, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, is Friday.
About 300 to 500 people are expected at each funeral, said Philip W. Furman, an undertaker. The church-led services typically last about two hours before mourners travel in horse-drawn buggies to a cemetery for a short graveside service.
In keeping with custom, the Amish use simple wooden caskets narrow at the head and feet and wider in the middle. An Amish girl is typically laid to rest in a white dress, a cape, and a white prayer-covering on her head, Furman said.
Five other girls remained hospitalized three in critical condition and two in serious condition. They ranged in age from 6 to 13.
Enos Miller, the grandfather of the two Miller sisters, was with both of the girls when they died. He was out walking near the schoolhouse before dawn Wednesday he said he couldn't sleep when he was asked by a reporter for WGAL-TV whether he had forgiven the gunman.
"In my heart, yes," he said, explaining it was "through God's help."
Memorial contributions can be sent to the Nickel Mine School Victims Fund, c/o Hometown Heritage Bank, P.O. Box 337, Strasburg, PA 17579
Associated Press writers Mark Scolforo, Adam Geller and Martha Raffaele contributed to this story.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.
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