NICKEL MINES, Pa. - A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood 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, killing three people before committing suicide. Early Tuesday, two more children died of wounds, a hospital spokeswoman and state police said.
At least five other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.
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.
Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said. Two young students were killed, along with a female teacher’s aide who was slightly older than the students, state police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
“This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They’re solid citizens in the community. They’re good people. They don’t deserve ... no one deserves this,” Miller said.
The fourth victim, a 7-year-old girl, died about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday at Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey, hospital spokeswoman Amy Buehler Stranges said.
"Her parents were with her," Buehler Stranges said. "She was taken off life support and she passed away shortly after."
Shortly afterward, state police announced the death of a fifth child at a hospital in Delaware, Pennsylvania.
'Acting out in revenge'
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old truck driver 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” when he was a boy, Miller said.
IMAGE: CHARLES CARL ROBERTS
Pennsylvania State Police
This undated handout photo shows Charles Carl Roberts, the man who carried out the deadly Amish school shooting.
Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing 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.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., but Miller said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime. “I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head,” he said.
Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were “along the lines of suicide notes.” The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was “angry at life, he was angry at God,” Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.
Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.
Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts’ own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.
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