QUARRYVILLE, Pa. – A gunman who invaded a tiny Amish school, killing five girls, may have had a plan more sinister than murder.
Investigators believe Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, spent nearly a week plotting his takeover of the one-room schoolhouse and may have been planning to sexually assault the girls.
Based on the items he brought – including flexible plastic ties, eyebolts and lubricating jelly – “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 Miller said Tuesday. But Roberts “became disorganized” when police arrived and shot himself in the head.
He confided to his wife during the siege that he molested two relatives 20 years ago when he was a boy and was tormented by dreams of doing it again, authorities said.
Holding up a copy of the gunman’s suicide note, Miller said Roberts apparently was haunted by the death of his prematurely born daughter in 1997. The baby, Elise, died 20 minutes after being delivered, Miller said.
Miller spoke a day after the shooting rampage shattered the sense of calm in Lancaster County’s bucolic Pennsylvania Dutch Country, where the Amish live in an 18th-century world with no automobiles and no electrical appliances.
The death toll rose to six Tuesday – including the gunman – when two girls died of their wounds.
During the standoff, Roberts told his wife in a cell phone call from the schoolhouse that he molested two female relatives when they were 3 to 5 years old, Miller said. Roberts would have been around 11 or 12 at the time. Also, in a suicide note left for his family, he said he “had dreams about doing what he did 20 years ago again,” Miller said.
Police could not confirm Roberts’ claim that he molested two relatives. Family members knew nothing of molestation in his past, Miller said. Police located the two relatives and were hoping to interview them.
Roberts had planned the attack for nearly a week, buying plastic ties from a hardware store on Sept. 26 and several other items less than an hour before entering the school, Miller said.
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. Last week’s attack occurred the day after Roberts began buying materials for his siege.
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 also had a change of clothing, indicating he had planned a long siege, police said.
He sent the boys and several adults away and bound the girls together in a line at the blackboard. Miller on Tuesday revealed that one of the girls was able to escape with the boys.
A 2-by-4 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. “It’s important to note that we had 10 victims at that time that were in the school,” he said.
The girls left in the room were shot at close range shortly after police arrived, Miller 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.
Roberts, from the nearby town of Bart, was not Amish and did not appear to have anything against the Amish, Miller said. He said Roberts was bent on killing girls and apparently figured he could succeed at the serene schoolhouse.
Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman, spoke at a community prayer service Tuesday evening, saying he was at the home of Roberts’ father when an Amish neighbor came to comfort the family.
“He stood there for an hour, and he held that man in his arms, and he said, ‘We will forgive you,’” Lefever said.
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