c. 2006 Religion News Service

NICKEL MINES, Pa. _ While Marie Roberts prayed for her kids and other children at her weekly prayer meeting in this Lancaster County village, she had no idea her husband was preparing to destroy their community.

Gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, apparently planned to molest and murder the Amish girls he held captive Monday morning in their one-room school, according to authorities who released details of his shooting.

Investigators said that Roberts plotted his takeover of the school for nearly a week and that the items he brought _ including flexible plastic ties and lubricating jelly _ suggest he might have planned to sexually assault the girls before police closed in.

As police surrounded the school house, Roberts called his wife and told her he had been tormented by dreams of two relatives he claimed he molested long ago.

“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 Tuesday (Oct. 3). But Roberts “became disorganized when we arrived,” and shot himself in the head after shooting 10 school girls, five of them fatally.

At home after her husband’s call, Marie Roberts found rambling suicide notes, Miller said. They spoke of the secret her husband kept during their 10-year marriage. The revelations added more questions about the shooting rampage.

“The letter alludes to other reasons that he couldn’t talk about,” Miller told reporters inside a church less than 10 minutes from the murder scene.

Roberts wrote of being haunted by dreams about something he had done 20 years ago. In a phone conversation moments before he opened fire, he told his wife he had molested two relatives, who were 3 and 5 at the time.

Miller would not identify those family members. He also hasn’t confirmed the molestation claims with Roberts’ family.

Authorities said Roberts backed a borrowed truck filled with the items he brought up to the West Nickel Mines Amish School. He entered the school with a gun and talked with the students, at times incoherently.

With the gun in his hand and a stun gun on his hip, Roberts separated the girls and the boys. He allowed the boys to leave, along with a female student, their teacher and three other women. He lined the remaining girls in front of the chalkboard before binding their feet with plastic ties.

Roberts had pieces of lumber with 10 eye bolts inserted in them, which Miller theorized he planned to use to restrain the girls. The girls were never attached to the devices.

Authorities believe his plans were interrupted by the relatively quick response of police, summoned by the teacher from a nearby farm.

As the police were breaking into the barricaded schoolhouse, Miller said, Roberts shot all 10 girls, five of them fatally, before turning the gun on himself. Police found him face down with a gunshot wound to the head. A 9 mm handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun were next to him.

Five of the 10 girls who were shot, ages 6 to 13, remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds.

Miller identified those who died _ Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12; Marian Fisher, 13; and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lina Miller, 7.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Marie Roberts told police about the cryptic call from her husband minutes before the shootings.

“About 10:50 (a.m), Roberts called his wife but he wouldn’t say where he was. He said `The police are here’ and `I’m not coming home. I molested some minor family members 20 years ago,”’ Miller said.

Roberts wrote in one of his suicide notes that he had been dreaming about the incidents and thought he would act again, Miller said.

He also said he continued to be troubled by the death of the couple’s first daughter, Elise, who died about 20 minutes after she was born prematurely in 1997. She is buried not far from their home.

“He said he was angry with God for taking Elise,” Miller said. “He said it had changed his life forever.”

KRE/KL END CASSIDY

(Carrie Cassidy writes for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.)

Editors: To obtain photos of from the Amish school shooting, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.