USA: Funerals for four shooting victims held in Amish community in Pennsylvania

Families in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, on Thursday (October 5) prepared to bury four young girls who were shot inside their small schoolhouse earlier this week. Mourners prayed at the girls' homes before a solemn procession of horse-drawn buggies, made the journey to the cemetery. State police protected the private service by closing roads to the public and media. Bystander Duane Hagelgans from the Emergency Management Agency said "If it was a perfect world, none of us would be here today, for lots of reasons, not only because this would never happen, but because we would all respect them," Those buried today will be sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7; Rose Ebersole, 7; and Marian Fisher, 13. Locals spoke of the need for compassion. "We can tell people about Christ and actually show you in our walk that we forgive, not just say it but in our walk of life," said Katie Weaver a member of the local Amish community. The funeral for the fifth girl, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, aged 12, is scheduled for Friday (October 6). The man who stormed an Amish school and killed the five girls on Monday (October 2), Charles Carl Roberts, a 32-year-old dairy truck driver, had confessed to his wife he molested two girls 20 years ago, and police said he may have planned to sexually abuse his 10 hostages. Roberts was also haunted by the death of his daughter who died 20 minutes after her premature birth nine years ago, police said on Tuesday (October 3) after examining suicide notes he left before Monday's rampage. He dropped his older children off at a school bus stop on Monday morning, then armed himself with three guns, 600 rounds of ammunition and an array of tools and headed for the Amish school. Roberts had planned for a long siege by preparing to barricade himself and his hostages inside the one-room Georgetown School in rural Lancaster County, 60 miles (100 km) west of Philadelphia. Police say he chose the Georgetown School because it was an easy target rather than out of any grudge against the Amish.

ITN Source | October 6, 2006

Tags:. .died. .himself. .guns. .truck. .target