In a quiet Amish community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 2006, a shooter entered the West Nickel Mines Amish one-room schoolhouse and killed five girls, injured five others, then killed himself.
The West Nickel Mines Amish School was set among cornfields that shared a street with houses, barns and silos in Bart Township, Lancaster Country, Pennsylvania.
The Lancaster Amish Community
Lancaster, Pennsylvania has one of the highest populations of Amish communities in the United States, after Ohio. Lancaster is the oldest Amish settlement in the country, where Amish arrived in 1730. Amish speak Pennsylvania Deutsch, but it's not 'Dutch' at all. The language is German with a dialect specific to the Amish.
Pennsylvania has more than 65,000 Amish living a mostly quiet, agrarian lifestyle. They shun any technology advances, like electricity and cars, and only use technology, like phones, in emergencies and quietly out of the spotlight, if they need to. Amish believe that their lifestyle is a protective border from the violence and luxuries of American society, but it's clear that, regardless of the quiet, laid-back life they live, violence can still creep into their communities and spill into their lives. After this school shooting, their idea of safety had been shattered.
The Shooting
Charles Roberts brought a 9-millimeter handgun to the school and asked the teacher if she had seen anything like it and if she could "help him find it."
The teacher ran outside of the schoolhouse and called the police a little after 10:30 am.
15 minutes after Roberts entered the school, police had arrived and found barricades with bolts and lumber against the door, which he had brought in his pickup truck.
Roberts, 32 at the time, was a dairy truck driver holding a grudge the last 20 years and planned to kill the girls that day. Roberts wasn’t interested in the 15 boys and the teachers in the schoolhouse, but only the 11 girls who he lined up facing the blackboard. He bound the girls’ legs together with wire and plastic ties.
“He wanted to find female victims,” said Col. Jeffrey B. Miller, commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police. “This was a target of opportunity.”
Around 11 am after a phone call with his wife and the state police, he began shooting the children lined up in front of the blackboard. The police immediately charged into the building when Roberts put the gun to his head.
All of the victims were 6 – 13 years old.
“I am dying to know what kind of insult from a girl 20 years ago could have led to this,” said Mary Miller, who lived on his street.
More About Charles Roberts
Roberts was married with three children. He lived near the West Nickel Mines Amish school but he wasn’t Amish. He was a devoted father, made time for his family, actively played with his children and did whatever was needed for them.
A couple months before the shooting, Roberts’s co-workers noticed his upbeat and outgoing personality changed to a hostile and sullen behavior, except for his last week at work, when his behavior went back to normal.
Roberts had no criminal or psychiatric illness history but notes found at his house signaled that he was troubled by a situation that happened over 20 years ago, one that was not disclosed by police.
His motives were discovered to not be religious-focused.
The only motive the police could gather after investigation was the loss of his infant daughter in 1997.
Roberts’s wife issued a written sympathy statement to the victims’ families. All of Roberts’s relatives were shocked by his violence and said there were no signs of his plan.
This shooting was the third fatal shooting that week in the United States. Amish communities have such a low crime rate that most people don’t lock their doors and have a very small or no police force and the communities looked at safety in a new way after the shooting.
“He was angry with life; he was angry at God. It appears he chose this school because it was close to his home, it had the female victims he was looking for, and it probably seemed easier to get into than some bigger school.” - Colonel Miller
The New Hope School that was built hundreds of yards replaces the West Nickels Mines School.
The murders still haunt the emergency responders that were there that day. You can read more about their stories here.