Amish quietly remember shooting

NICKEL MINES – Amish families sang hymns and prayed on Monday to mark the first anniversary of a massacre at a one-room schoolhouse that threw the rural, traditional-living community into chaos.

State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller was one of several dozen people attending the private gathering at the home of the Ebersol family, whose daughter, Naomi Rose, was one of five girls killed. “It certainly means a lot for us to spend some time with the families,” Miller said afterward.”There’s no other place we would have rather been this morning.”Though grateful for all the help and sympathy it has received, the Amish community was hoping to be left alone yesterday during the actual anniversary of the shootings.The New Hope Amish School, which replaced the one torn down after the attack, was closed on Monday and would remain shut yesterday.It was about 10h30 am a year ago when Charlie Roberts, a milk truck driver from a neighbouring village, showed up at the door of the Amish school.He carried firearms, tubes of sexual lubricant and the hardware he thought he might need to lock himself inside and immobilise his victims.In the next 40 minutes, the 32-year-old son of a police officer would shoot the girls and then kill himself with a shot to the forehead.In a brief cell phone conversation with his wife and in suicide notes he left behind, Roberts indicated he was angry with God for the death of his infant daughter in 1997 and riven by the guilt of having molested two girls 20 years earlier.He seems to have prepared for a lengthy siege, but that was foiled when teacher Emma Mae Zook ran out the door to call for help.When state troopers arrived, a panicked Roberts abruptly shot the girls.Roberts left behind a puzzling trail of evidence.He had no criminal history, had never been treated for mental illness and there seems to be nothing to support his claim of having molested his two relatives decades earlier.Amid the chaos and heartbreak, the Amish reached out to Roberts’ widow, Marie, the three children he left behind and his parents.About half the 75 mourners at Roberts’ graveside were Amish, including family members of victims, and the Amish later designated a portion of the millions in donations they have received to benefit Roberts’ children and widow.Four of the five wounded girls returned to class before the end of December, although the fifth and most seriously injured suffered a head wound that left her completely disabled.She is confined to a wheelchair and is fed by a tube.Nampa-AP”It certainly means a lot for us to spend some time with the families,” Miller said afterward.”There’s no other place we would have rather been this morning.”Though grateful for all the help and sympathy it has received, the Amish community was hoping to be left alone yesterday during the actual anniversary of the shootings.The New Hope Amish School, which replaced the one torn down after the attack, was closed on Monday and would remain shut yesterday.It was about 10h30 am a year ago when Charlie Roberts, a milk truck driver from a neighbouring village, showed up at the door of the Amish school.He carried firearms, tubes of sexual lubricant and the hardware he thought he might need to lock himself inside and immobilise his victims.In the next 40 minutes, the 32-year-old son of a police officer would shoot the girls and then kill himself with a shot to the forehead.In a brief cell phone conversation with his wife and in suicide notes he left behind, Roberts indicated he was angry with God for the death of his infant daughter in 1997 and riven by the guilt of having molested two girls 20 years earlier.He seems to have prepared for a lengthy siege, but that was foiled when teacher Emma Mae Zook ran out the door to call for help.When state troopers arrived, a panicked Roberts abruptly shot the girls.Roberts left behind a puzzling trail of evidence.He had no criminal history, had never been treated for mental illness and there seems to be nothing to support his claim of having molested his two relatives decades earlier.Amid the chaos and heartbreak, the Amish reached out to Roberts’ widow, Marie, the three children he left behind and his parents.About half the 75 mourners at Roberts’ graveside were Amish, including family members of victims, and the Amish later designated a portion of the millions in donations they have received to benefit Roberts’ children and widow.Four of the five wounded girls returned to class before the end of December, although the fifth and most seriously injured suffered a head wound that left her completely disabled.She is confined to a wheelchair and is fed by a tube.Nampa-AP