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Gunman Said He Molested Girls Long AgoBy Mark Scolforo Oct
4, 2006
Charles Carl Roberts IV started buying supplies for a siege six days before storming the one-room Amish school. He made a checklist of what to bring. He wrote out four suicide notes. Carrying several guns, a change of clothes, rolls of clear tape and toilet paper, Roberts planned for a long stay and possibly sexual violence. He said he was "filled with so much hate" and "unimaginable emptiness." But his siege was shorter than he had expected. As authorities swarmed, Roberts opened fire on 10 tied-up little girls, fatally wounding five, and then killed himself. Roberts apparently remembered molesting two relatives 20 years ago and dreamed about molesting again. Police raised the possibility that Roberts, who brought lubricating jelly with him, may have been planning to sexually assault the Amish girls. "It's very possible that he intended to victimize these children in many ways prior to executing them and killing himself," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. Roberts, 32, left separate notes for his wife and each of his three children, who are all 6 years or younger, at their home in Bart, Miller said. In the 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," the milk truck driver 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. 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 Marie Roberts, 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. 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, attracting more than 1,650 people, who observed moments of silence, sang mournful 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." Using a checklist that was later found in his pickup truck, Roberts brought to the school three guns, a stun gun, two knives, a pile of wood for barricading the doors, and a bag with 600 rounds of ammunition, police said. He bought several other items less than an hour before entering the school. Roberts, who was not Amish and did not appear to have anything against the Amish, sent the boys and several adults away and bound the girls together in a line at the blackboard. One of the girls in the class was able to escape with the boys, Miller 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 and sexually assault them, Miller said. The girls left in the room were shot at close range shortly after police arrived, Miller said. "We're quite certain, based on what we know, that he had no intention of coming out of there alive," he said. 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." See also: Amish |
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