Five girls were murdered in a shooting at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa.
Charles Roberts IV, a 32-year-old milk truck driver from a nearby town, entered the one-room schoolhouse at 10:30 a.m. armed with weapons, ammunition, tools and other items including toilet paper that indicated he planned for a long standoff.
He ordered the boys and women to leave and made the 11 girls line up against the blackboard.
Roberts told his wife by cell phone that he was upset with God over the death of his baby daughter. He also told her he had molested two girls decades earlier and was having fantasies of doing it again. About 11 a.m., Roberts began shooting the girls before turning the gun on himself.
In the wake of the tragedy, the religious Amish community consoled Roberts’ wife and even attended his funeral. The Amish tore down the schoolhouse and eventually built a new one nearby.
